estimate the character of Johnson, as he may be seen in his works and in the records of his life. The material for such an estimate is plentiful, and is so easily accessible, that any man, with a little trouble, may have it all on a couple of shelves. Boswell’s Life of Johnson, moreover, is generally admitted to be the best biography ever written. There is no room, it may be held, and no need, for any more talk about Johnson.
The argument might be good if it were proposed to leave the original authorities in sole possession, and to gain a knowledge of Johnson by reading his works and the works of his biographers. But this plan has not been much followed. For every reader of Johnson’s works, there have been perhaps fifty readers of Boswell’s Life, and a hundred of Macaulay’s Essays. The cheapest estimate and the most garish portrait of Johnson have captured the popular imagination. The consequence is that he is commonly looked at somewhat quizzically, as an eccentric, or a ‘character.’ Small physical peculiarities, such as may be observed in most men, have swollen, and half filled the picture. These peculiarities are what rivet the attention of children, who, if a man has a wart, cannot see the man for the wart. The peculiarities of Johnson, it is true, are conspicuous; his portrait has been powerfully drawn, and they stand in bold relief; but other men have no fewer, as any man may learn who will consult, not the faded records of other lives, but his knowledge of himself. We can know Johnson better perhaps than any other of our great men; it seems a strange piece of irony that we should make of our unrivalled opportunities a bar to intimacy. His sayings are rightly praised for their humour and quaintness, yet, oftener than the sayings of
