Letter to Chesterfield

Some claim that the letter caused a minor furore in the contemporary literary world when Johnson made it public and it has been the subject of critical comment ever since; it has been described as literature's "declaration of independence".

A degree of genteel mutual antipathy thereafter existed between the two men, Chesterfield regarding Johnson as a "respectable Hottentot, who throws his meat anywhere but down his throat" and as "uncouth in manners".

[5] He complained that the English language was lacking structure and argued: However, Johnson did not appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield did not complete his job as the work's patron.

[8] After receiving it, he displayed it on a table for visitors to read, and, according to Robert Dodsley, said "This man has great powers" and then he "pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were expressed.

In 1853, Thomas Carlyle, in an early biographical essay on Johnson proclaimed its significance:[10] Listen, once again, to that far-famed Blast of Doom, proclaiming into the ear of Lord Chesterfield, and, through him, of the listening world, that patronage should be no more!In the twentieth century, Alvin Kernan[11] wrote that the Letter to Chesterfield ...still stands as the Magna Carta of the modern author, the public announcement that the days of courtly letters were at last ended, that the author was the true source of his work and that he and it were no longer dependent on patron or the social system he represented.However, to think that the letter was written out of anger or a response to neglect would be wrong.