16 March 2023

A journey through Lent 2023
with Samuel Johnson (23)

‘There mark what Ills the Scholar’s Life assail, / Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron, and the Jail’ … the former prison cells in the Guildhall in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are halfway through Lent today. During Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on words by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer and writer who compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary.

This morning [16 March 2023], I am continuing to read his poem, ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes,’ which both Walter Scott and TS Eliot considered to be Johnson’s greatest poem.

Johnson wrote ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ in 1749 while he was completing A Dictionary of the English Language, and it was the first published work to include his name on the title page.

In this poem, Johnson draws on his own experiences when, in Lines 151-160, he describes the life of the scholar and the difficulties facing the writer who depends on the generosity of a wealthy patron:

Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,
Nor claim the triumph of a letter’d heart;
Should no Disease thy torpid veins invade,
Nor Melancholy’s phantoms haunt thy Shade;
Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free,
Nor think the doom of Man revrs’d for thee:
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from Letters, to be wise;
There mark what ills the Scholar’s life assail,
Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron and the Jayl.


In the original version of the poem, lines 159-160 read:

There mark what ill the Scholar’s life assail,
Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret and the Jayl.


Johnson retains the word ‘garret’ in the first published edition of the poem. However, after the failure of Lord Chesterfield to provide financial support for his Dictionary in 1755, Johnson included a mordant definition of ‘patron’ in his Dictionary:

Patron: Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.’

At the same time, he revised line 160 in this poem to reflect his disillusionment with Chesterfield, so that these two lines would read:

There mark what Ills the Scholar’s Life assail,
Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron, and the Jail.


TS Eliot quoted these and other lines from ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ in 1930 in an Introductory Essay, and said: ‘The precision of such verse gives, I think, an immense satisfaction to the reader; he has said what he wanted to say, with that urbanity which contemporary verse would do well to study; and the satisfaction I get from such lines is what I call the minimal quality of poetry.’

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

William Comerford Watson,
artist and illustrator of
science and children’s books

William Comerford Watson (1885-1975), a commercial artist and designer, is known for his book illustrations

Patrick Comerford

William Comerford Watson (1885-1975) was a commercial artist and designer who is best known for his book illustrations. He illustrated five science books written by Julian Huxley and EN da Costa Andrade and in the mid-1930s, and illustrated girls’ school stories and boys’ adventure stories, including three adventure stories by Percy F Westerman in the 1930s.

Comerford Watson’s versatility as an artist came to the fore in the 1950s, when he illustrated a number of children’s books and collaborated with the BBC Children’s Hour presenter Derek McCulloch, alias ‘Uncle Mac’, on a Ladybird book, In the Train with Uncle Mac, first published in 1955 and frequently reprinted.

He also contributed to Cassell’s Magazine of Fiction, The New Magazine and Britannia and Eve in the 1920s.

Comerford Watson’s illustrations for Westerman’s flying stories may well have been enhanced by his experiences during World War I as a balloon officer in the Royal Flying Corps.

William Comerford Watson was born in Longtown, Cumberland, on 14 May 1885, and was baptised at Arthuret, Cumberland, on 31 May 1885. He was the eldest son of James Watson (1854-1911), a house painter, from Carlisle, and his wife Mary Jane Barrett (1866-1916). Her family had been living in north-west England for generations, but little is known about his father’s family. The Comerford name was also given to a younger brother, James Comerford Watson (1898–1902), who died in childhood. But, so far, I have been unable to discover why either brother received the name Comerford, which William Comerford Watson used as his personal name throughout his career as an artist and illustrator.

The Watson family had moved to the coastal village of Silloth by 1891, and they were living in Carlisle by 1901. By then, William apprenticed as a lithographic artist apprentice, learning his craft as an artist and illustrator.

He had moved to Manchester by 1906, and there he was an apprentice designer member of the Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers, Engravers and Process Workers. He had moved to London by 1911, when he was a boarder at 19 Fawcett Street, Kensington, and working as a lithographic.

During World War I, he served in the Royal Flying Corps, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and acting as a Balloon Officer. He was Mentioned in Despatches in March 1919, before he was demobilised.

After the war, he worked in product and graphic design, lived in Chelsea, Earl’s Court and Kensington, and acquired a studio at New Court, Carey Street, Holborn, where he worked for at least 10 years from 1929 to 1939. He was a founder member of the Society of Industrial Artists in 1930.

By then, Comerford Watson had done some illustrative work, contributing illustrations to Cassell’s Magazine of Fiction, The New Magazine and Britannia and Eve in the 1920s.

His book illustration work began in 1931 with Blackie & Son, and he went on to illustrate some girls’ school stories and boys’ adventure stories, including three by Percy F Westerman. More in tune with his main line of work were his illustrations for five science books, written by ENC Andrade and Julian Huxley, published between 1932 and 1935.

Comerford Watson and Emily Louise Mason (1872-1953) were married at Kensington Register Office in 1938. She was born in Chelsea on 14 October 1872. They were living at Flat 16, 294 Old Brompton Road, Kensington in 1939, when Watson was an ‘Artist – advertising and consultant.’ He may also have had a studio at 16 Redcliffe, Richmond Road, Kensington.

Watson’s versatile work as an artist continued into the 1950s, when he illustrated books for younger children in different styles. As WC Watson, he collaborated with the BBC ‘Children’s Hour’ presenter Derek McCulloch, alias ‘Uncle Mac’, on a Ladybird book, In the Train with Uncle Mac, first published in 1955 and frequently reprinted.

Emily and Comerford Watson were living at 20 Castlenau Mansions, Barnes, Surrey, when she died on 4 January 1953.

The last book with his illustrations was published four years later. He died at 4 Old Roar Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, on 24 October 1975, at the age of 90.

Comerford Watson’s illustrations for Westerman’s flying stories may have been enhanced by his experiences as an officer in the Royal Flying Corps

Books illustrated by Comerford Watson:

Cherries in Search of a Captain, Catherine Mary Christian (Blackie & Son, 1931)
Catriona Carries On, Doris Alice Pocock (Blackie & Son, 1931)
Rosemary at St Anne’s, Joy Francis (Blackie & Son, 1932)
King for a Month, Percy F Westerman (Blackie & Son, 1933)
The Corsair of the Skies, Arthur Guy Vercoe (Blackie & Son, 1934)
Sleuths of the Air, Percy F Westerman (Blackie & Son, 1935)
Tireless Wings, Percy F Westerman (Blackie & Son, 1936)
Odds Against, A Harcourt Burrage (Evans Brothers, 1937)
The Red Thumb Mark, R Austin Freeman (University of London Press, 1952)
The Purple Muffin Book, Ann Hogarth (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953, with other artists)
In the Train with Uncle Mac, Derek McCulloch (Wills & Hepworth, Ladybird Books 1955)
The Palace of the Ants, Courtney Douglas Farmer (Schofield & Sims, 1957)

Science books by Julian Huxley and Edward da Costa Andrade, published by Basil Blackwell:

An Introduction to Science (1932)
An Introduction to Science, Book 2: Science and Life (1933)
An Introduction to Science, Book 3: Forces at Work (1934)
Simple Science (1934)
More Simple Science: Earth and Man, 1935

Sources and Further reading:

Robert Kirkpatrick, The Men Who Drew for Boys (and Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children’s Books 1844-1970 (London: Robert J. Kirkpatrick, 2019, 547 pp).

‘Comerford Watson,’ by Robert J Kirkpatrick (24 March 2018), https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2018/03/comerford-watson.html

William Comerford Watson illustrated girls’ school stories and boys’ adventure stories