Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

Basic Search

Advanced Search

Record 22239

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., if he had read the Spanish translation of Sallust, said to be written by a Prince of Spain, with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour of a treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language. Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought the Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he might more probably find on a coast, so immediately opposite to Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. "I am very sorry you was not gratified in your expectations". CAMBRIDGE. "The language would have been of little use, as there is no history existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us." JOHNSON. "No, Sir. They have not been [italics] partial [end italics], they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian".'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Until: 13 Dec 1783
Country: n/a
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Richard Owen Cambridge
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 14 Feb 1717
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: poet
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: n/a
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Sallust
Title: n/a
Genre: Classics, History
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: translation into Spanish
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 22239  
Source - Print  
  Author: James Boswell
  Editor: R.W. Chapman
  Title: Life of Johnson
  Place of Publication: Oxford
  Date of Publication: 1980
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 1215-16
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R.W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 1215-16, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=22239, accessed: 18 April 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791.

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)