Background
There is little known about the relationship that Johnson and Tyers shared, except that Johnson claimed that "Tyers always tells him something he did not know before" and was familiarly mentioned by Johnson to Johnson's friends. However, Johnson, in The Idler, described Tyers, called Tom Restless, as "a circumstance" and says:
"When Tom Restless rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be reasoners, as to hear their discourses and endeavours to remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head, is so near to nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till, hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to say a little himself; and as every great genius relaxes himself among his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so wisely."
On 13 December 1784, Samuel Johnson died. In response to his death, the Gentleman's Magazine ran A Biographical Sketch of Dr Samuel Johnson for their December issue. The work was written in the short time between the death and the printing. Although it was the first biographical work on Johnson, the first full length biography would be published by Murphy in 1787.
Read more about this topic: A Biographical Sketch Of Dr Samuel Johnson
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