cheerfulness and good nature. Mr. Burke said of him 1 , that he had no merit in possessing that agreeable faculty, and that a man might as well assume to himself merit in possessing an excellent constitution z . Mr. Boswell professed the Scotch and the English law ; but had never taken very great pains on the subject. His father, Lord Auchinleck, told him one day, that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in these professions, than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Bos- well owned he had found to be true 2 . Society was his idol ; to that he sacrificed every thing: his eye glistened, and his countenance brightened up, when he saw the human face divine 3 ; and that person must have been very fastidious indeed, who did not return him the same compliment when he came into a room. Of his Life of Johnson, who can say too much, or praise it too highly ? What is Plutarch's biography to his ? so minute, so appropriate, so dramatic 4 .
A gentleman of Lichfield meeting the Doctor returning from a walk, inquired how far he had been? The Doctor replied, he had gone round Mr. Levet's field 5 (the place where the
1 Johnson wrote to Boswell on ignorance of English law, and of ' the
July 3, 1778: ' If general approba- delusion of Westminster Hall, of
tion will add anything to your enjoy- brilliant reputation and splendid
ment, I can tell you that I have fortune,' which, he continues, 'still
heard you mentioned as a man whom weighs upon my imagination,' see id.
everybody likes' Life, iii. 362. An- iii. 179 n.
other time he described him as c the 3 Paradise Lost, Bk. iii. 1. 44. best travelling companion in the * ' Boswell is the first of bio- world.' Ib. iii. 294. He wrote of graphers. He has no second. He him to Mrs. Thrale : ' I shall cele- has distanced all his competitors so brate his good- humour and per- decidedly that it is not worth while to petual cheerfulness.' Letters, \. 291. place them. Eclipse is first, and the It was for him that he invented the rest nowhere.' Macaulay's Essays, word clubable. * Boswell (said he) ed. 1843, i. 374. is a very clubable man.' Life, iv. * Of all the men distinguished in 254 n. this or any other age Dr. Johnson
3 To his friend Temple he wrote : has left upon posterity the strongest
' I have a kind of impotency of study.' and most vivid impression, so far as
Letters of Boswell, p. 181. Never- person, manners, disposition and
theless, in the University which he conversation are concerned.' Scott's
and Johnson imagined he was 'to Works, ed. 1834,111.260.
teach Civil and Scotch law.' Life, 5 For John Levett of Lichfield see
v. 108. For his confession of his Life, i. 160 ; Letters, i. 14.
scholars
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