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"But," Boswell went on, "I notice a change in him; an almost feverish impatience. I fear he doubts me after all these years!" "And when he knows?" The man by the fire shrank deeper in his chair. "When he knows?" he repeated. "Why, then he will have an opportunity to understand my life-long devotion, my gratitude, my love! That is all."
Boswell was perfectly aware what he was doing, nor did he awake to find himself famous for a method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered.
Who can tell what we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of which Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher were members? Or to that of which Addison and Steele formed the centre, and which gave us the Spectator? Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among all admirers, met together?
I found his Journey the common topick of conversation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield's formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Levees, his Lordship addressed me, 'We have all been reading your travels, Mr. Boswell. I answered, 'I was but the humble attendant of Dr.
The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but questionable society.
Johnson repeated this line to me thus: 'And Labour steals an hour to die. But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem is printed in the Ann.
"Yes, sir," replied the promising disciple, "but not equal to Fleet Street." "You are right, sir," said the sage; and Boswell illustrates his dictum by the authority of a "very fashionable baronet," and, moreover, a baronet from Rydal, who declared that the fragrance of a May evening in the country might be very well, but that he preferred the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse.
Johnson was most unfortunate in his biographer. In picturing the great writer, Boswell writes more entertainingly than Johnson ever did, and thereby overtops his subject. And when in reply to the intimation that Boswell was going to write his life, Johnson answered, "If I really thought he was, I would take his," he spoke a jest in earnest.
Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his table? Boswell: I beg your pardon, sir, for wishing to prevent you from meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may have some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him. Johnson: Well, sir, and what then? What care I for his patriotic friends? Poh!
I have called him dogmatic, but that does not at all express the absolute certainty with which he delivers judgment. At present, however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to myself to be his Boswell, and to introduce him or, at least, his views to other people.
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