Who of us can have failed to note how warmly the Antipodes have marked the recent 300th birthday anniversary of Doctor Samuel Johnson (1709–84)? Among our literary journals and newspaper “sections”, few omitted a Johnsonian tribute by one or another of their usual suspects; some were granted generous space, and none that I read lacked understanding towards their great subject. (I was told that television offered a documentary on his life, but I did not see it. By pure chance, this very moment as I write, ABC Radio National has started a talk about Johnson and the Stoics.) Here in…