JOHNSON, JOHN MORDAUNT (1776?–1815), diplomatist, was a native of Dublin. He is said to have matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, but left each university without taking any degree. His father dying in the spring of 1798, Johnson left Cambridge, and was gazetted an ensign in the 51st regiment of foot on 20 Sept. 1798. In January 1779 he purchased a lieutenancy in the same regiment, but, becoming disgusted with the monotony of barrack life, sold out in the autumn of the following year. He then went on the continent, where he became acquainted with the Duke of Brunswick, and ‘made himself perfect master of almost all the modern languages’ (Memoir, p. iii). In the spring of 1803 he returned to England, and subsequently went to Dublin, where he remained until the autumn of 1804. Going once more abroad, he spent three years ‘chiefly in Germany, cultivating the valuable connections which he had formed on his first excursion to the continent, and acquiring information on all subjects of continental policy’ (ib.) In the hope of obtaining an official appointment, he returned again to England, and became involved in financial embarrassments. Subsequently Spencer Perceval's attention was drawn to his abilities by the manuscript of ‘A Memoir on the Political State of Europe,’ which Johnson had written with a view to publication. After an interview with the prime minister Johnson obtained employment in the foreign office, and was constantly employed in confidential missions to the continent. After the peace of Paris of 1814 he was appointed British chargé d'affaires at Brussels, and upon the union of the Netherlands with Holland was promoted to the post of British consul at Genoa. He died at Florence, whither he had removed for the benefit of his health, on 10 Sept. 1815, aged 39, and was buried in the cemetery attached to the British factory, near Leghorn, on the following day. Johnson was unmarried. He was a man of agreeable manners, an excellent linguist, and remarkable for the extent and accuracy of his political information. He is said to have been ‘in close and friendly correspondence with the principal ministers and generals and leading public characters of almost all the states of Europe’ (ib. p. ix). A few extracts from some of his letters to his friends are appended to the memoir prefixed to ‘Bibliothecæ Johnsonianæ Pars Prima,’ 1817 (pp. xii–xxiii), and four of his letters on foreign politics are given in ‘The Correspondence and Despatches of Viscount Castlereagh,’ 1853 (3rd ser. i. 340–1, 350–1, 362–4, 503–4). He appears to have assumed the additional name of Mordaunt after leaving the army, as he is described as John Johnson in the ‘Army List.’ The first part of his library was sold by Evans of Pall Mall in June 1817.
[Bibliothecæ Johnsonianæ Pars Prima, 1817, containing a prefatory Memoir of Johnson; Gent. Mag. 1815 pt. ii. pp. 377, 1817 pt. i. pp. 521–6; Army Lists, 1780, 1799.]
JOHNSON, JOHN NOBLE, M.D. (1787–1823), biographer of Linacre, son of John Johnson, physician, of Aylesbury, entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 23 May 1803, aged 16 (Foster, Alumni Oxonienses). He graduated B.A. 1807, M.A. 1810, M.B. 1811, and M.D. 1814. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1815, and was Gulstonian lecturer at the college in 1816. In 1818 he was elected physician to the Westminster Hospital, but resigned his office in 1822, and died on 6 Oct. 1823 at the Albany, London. Before his death he had completed an admirable ‘Life of Thomas Linacre [q. v.]’, founder of the College of Physicians, with memoirs of his cotemporaries. It was published in 1835; edited by Robert Graves, barrister-at-law.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 136; Gent. Mag. 1835, new ser. iii. 633.]
JOHNSON, JOSEPH (1738–1809), bookseller and publisher, was the younger of two sons of a baptist farmer living at Everton, near Liverpool, where young Johnson was born on 15 Nov. 1738. He came to London in 1752, and some time afterwards was apprenticed to George Keith, bookseller, of Gracechurch Street. About 1760 he took a shop in Fish Street Hill, and was subsequently in partnership, first with a Mr. Davenport, and then with John Payne. Johnson and Payne had a house in Paternoster Row, which, with their stock, was burnt in 1770. Friends set Johnson up in a shop in St. Paul's Churchyard, where he remained, without a partner, until his death. In 1772 he issued the poems of Anna Letitia Aikin (Mrs. Barbauld), and about the same time began to publish for Dr. Priestley. He brought out many important works in medicine and surgery, and was the earliest publisher of Cowper and Erasmus Darwin. He also published for Horne Tooke, Dr. Aikin, Enfield, Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Miss Edgeworth. In May 1788 he produced the first number of the ‘Analytical Review,’ which came to an end in 1799. He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment and fined 50l. in 1797 for selling a pamphlet by Gilbert Wakefield.
