Augustan dogs

[Niall Martin]

Adams S. Rounce writes,

>I agree that the comment's ambiguous; the more I think about it, the
>more it seems to be a general anti-English remark. (growled with feeling
>by Lord Auchinleck); the unlikely alternative is that he's remembering
>and comparing the blind preacher to what he's heard of the LED. The only
>thing supporting the latter meaning is that Boswell is reminded of his
>father's comment by Johnson's woman preacher/dog's hind legs remark, so
>perhaps the two remarks do refer to quixotic canine phenomena. 
>

Adam, yes, on reflection I think you're probably right in reading it as a
general remark without any specific reference. The only reasons I have for
thinking that the LED may refer to some real historical figure (two-legged
rather than four) are,

a) the use of the definite rather than indefinite article -- `a learned
English dog' would seem more natural. But allowing for the vagaries of
Jimmy's memory and lack of context for the original remark, it's not much to
go on.

b) the construction seems to echo the language of caricature in that period
-- it seems to belong under a print by Gilray or Hone or Hogarth. (Thinking
of cartoons of William Cobbett titled the Hampshire Hog here).

c) the fact that Pynchon identifies the LED as a Norfolk terrier, and that
`the learned x' seems to have been used as a common epithet for self-taught
artisans (pace `The learned Blacksmith/ Painter/ Tailor') suggested that
Pynchon might be pointing towards Thomas Paine, but he couldn't (?) have
been the object of Boswell snr's remark and I can't see anything else in
Pynchon's LED to reinforce an identification with the Thetford staymaker.

However, given our man's history of embedding allusions to the hidden
history of radicalism in his texts (pace C.E. Nicholson and R.W Stevenson's
article _"Words You Never Wanted to Hear": Fiction, History and Narratology
in The Crying of Lot 49'_, 1984) I still suspect there's more to this mutt
than meets the eye.

Doggedly yours,

Niall