298 Appendix 1
However, Hume’s posthumous infl uence is extensive. His work is
considered the culmination of British empiricism; Kant notes that it
was Hume who awoke him from his “dogmatic slumber”; and Charles
Darwin considered Hume to be a major infl uence on his work. Hume’s
infl uence exceeds disciplinary divides to include philosophy, history,
economics (Adam Smith was Hume’s student), and cognitive science.
Wollstonecraft makes reference to his History of England (1754 –
1762) in Vindication of the Rights of Men and in the Rights of Woman
she cites a long passage from “A Dialogue” in Essays and Treatises on
Several Subjects (1777). Wollstonecraft is very critical of thinkers who
might make reason subject to the passions as Hume does. She explicitly
attacks his view that women should be doted on and treated with gal-
lantry because they are naturally inferior to men.
Inkle, Thomas. Fictional character well known in the eighteenth century.
The popularity of the story of Inkle and Yarico (apparently fi rst pub-
lished in A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes by Rich-
ard Ligon in 1657) indicated a rising tide of opposition to the slave
trade. In a version of the story written by Richard Steele (1672–1729)
in the Spectator, Inkle is portrayed as an especially cold-hearted trick-
ster who sells the Indian woman who aided him, Yarico, into slavery.
When she announces that she is carrying his child, he reacts by selling
her at a higher price.
Johnson, Joseph (1738 –1809). Radical publisher and bookseller. He not
only published Wollstonecraft and encouraged her work, but was also
one of her greatest friends. She called him “Little Johnson” as opposed
to the moniker of the better-known Samuel Johnson, Dr. Johnson.
The authors that he published include William Wordsworth, William
Cowper, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and Erasmus Darwin. He also gath-
ered intellectuals and artists such as William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Wil-
liam Godwin, Joseph Priestley, and Thomas Paine for dinners in his
apartment above his print shop. From 1788 to 1799 he published the
Analytical Review.
Johnson, Samuel (1709 –1784). Known as Dr. Johnson, he was a promi-
nent London intellectual, poet, and lexicographer. His famous wit is
documented by several biographers including James Boswell’s biogra-
phy Life of Johnson (1791). His major contributions include his Dic-
tionary of the English Language (1755), Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
(1759), an edition of Shakespeare (1765), and The Lives of the English
Poets (1777). He was the founder of the Literary Club, which included
his friends Sir Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke. He established