bore even answering anything that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound from that voice to which he paid such exclusive, though merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited in Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might be uttered: nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it, latently or mystically, some information.’ Presently, Johnson, discovering the intruder at his elbow, ‘turned angrily round upon him, and, clapping his hand rather loudly upon his knee, said, in a tone of displeasure: “What do you do there, Sir? Go to the table, Sir!”’
Mrs. Thrale comments with some asperity on the reverential habits of the biographer. ‘A trick,’ she says, ‘which I have, however, seen played on common occasions, of sitting stealthily down at the other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society, and a conversation assembly-room would become tremendous as a court of justice.’
Boswell did not exaggerate the value, for his record, of what Johnson said to others. What was said to himself, while he had his note-book in hand, was not likely to have much of the ease of social conversation. It is plain that Johnson was often amused, and often irritated, by the habits of his scribe. He disliked, above all,
