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But in the case of Boswell and Johnson, it is Boswell's magnificent scorn of reticence which has done the trick, like the spurt of acid, of which Browning speaks in one of his best similes. The final stroke of genius which has established the Life of Johnson so securely in the hearts of English readers, lies in the fact that Boswell has given us something to compassionate.
"We can discuss the matter again," said I, resolved to put off the question for as long a time as I could, for I candidly confess that I had no wish to make myself responsible for the welfare of such Stygian ladies as might avail themselves of the opportunity to go off on one of Boswell's tours.
No one save an expert indexer would have the courage to commit himself to the exact number of Boswell's references to the Mitre. He had a natural fondness for the tavern as the scene of his first meal with Johnson, and with Johnson himself, as his biographer has explained, the place was a first favourite for many years.
Though the Life of Young is by Croft, yet the critical remarks are by Johnson. Ib. p.460. Johnson refers to Chambers's Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which was ridiculed in the Heroic Epistle. See post, under May 8, 1781, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 13. Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the Night Thoughts. While he was writing the Life of Johnson Mrs.
The doctor who was thrifty over this tour had not thought it necessary to bring his own black servant; but Boswell's man, Joseph Ritter, a Bohemian, a fine stately fellow over six feet, who had been over much of Europe, was invaluable to them in their journey.
Johnson often appears great in the books he wrote, and often too in the books which others have written about him: but it seems certain that unlike most authors he was far greater in bodily presence than he can be in his own or any one else's books. Even Boswell's magic pen cannot quite equal the living voice.
That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books. But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete.
This even passes in absurdity Boswell's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty of the two Misses Horneck. The Panton Street puppets were destined to be a source of further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little autocrat of the stage.
The case acquired notice from the interest taken in it by Dr Johnson, and the frequent mention of it in Boswell's well-known work. After my good and excellent mistress, Mrs Dacre, departed this life for a better, it seemed as if nothing ever prospered in the family, whom I had the honour of serving in the capacity of confidential housekeeper.
Beside disliking Paoli and Johnson, Lord Auchinleck cared nothing for some of Boswell's strict feudal notions, had the bad taste to give his son a step-mother, and to be as unlike him as possible in the matter of good spirits.
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