was to me a memorable year, for in it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I am now writing; an acquaintance that I shall ever esteem as one of the most fortunate circumstances in my life." If the most liberal gratification of consummate vanity, and the attainment of a fool's immortality, are objects to be desired, then, beyond a doubt, Boswell might account that acquaintance a fortunate circumstance. The records of human folly have presented but few such marked cases of systematic adulation, and of that species of sycophancy which has been not inaptly termed toadyism, as was exhibited by Boswell toward Johnson while he lived, and which has been perpetuated in his biography of him; a work which at once immortalizes the life-scenes of its subject and the follies of its author.

James Boswell was the eldest son of a Scotch judge of the sessions and Whig Laird, Alexander Boswell, of Auchinleck. He was educated at Glasgow, and afterward pursued his studies at Edinburgh. Though strongly inclined to the military profession, at the earnest solicitation of his father he devoted himself to the law. When scarcely more than twenty years old he visited London, inflamed with the most romantic desire to see the wits of the metropolis, and not less solicitous that they should see him. At a still earlier period

up in his fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration." Boswell was largely endowed with the faculty of admiration, and a strong susceptibility to the impression of a sense of objective personal greatness, by virtue of which he was a genuine heroworshiper-a character that becomes intensified by its own exercise. Never was this form of devotion more sincere than in this case, and seldom has it been so abundantly rewarded.

This young and enthusiastic North Briton ranged the metropolis at his first visit with great ardor, and was not a little flattered by the attentions he received. He became acquainted with Derrick, the poet, who promised to introduce him to Johnson, but failed to fulfill his promise. He dined with Davies, the bookseller, having Dodsley and Goldsmith for associate guests; to whom, after too free a use of wine, he boasted that he had heard Foote in conversation, and seen Garrick on the stage, and Hogarth in his studio. A short time afterward he was encored by the galleries of Drury-Lane Theater, after having contributed to the entertainment of the evening by a well-executed imitation of the lowing of a cow. But the great object of his admiration was still inaccessible to him. He had, however, seen many who had seen him and spoke familiarly of him, of whom he inquired earnestly and minutely concerning him; but

he was at last, after three months of delirious joy and wonder, compelled to return to the northern capital without having seen the object of his highest and most profound veneration-the great Samuel Johnson.

Thomas Davies, the man who now extended a patronizing hand to Boswell, and subsequently acted so conspicuous a part in gratifying his highest ambition by bringing him to an acquaintance with Johnson, was a person very generally

THOMAS DAVIES.

known among the literary circles of his times, as he was at different periods of his life an actor, a bookseller, and an author. He was educated at Edinburgh, and at first took to the stage, in which he was associated with his wife, whose beauty has become historical; but his success was not flattering. In his manners he was stiff and pompous, and in his enunciation swelling and inaudible. Having been satirized by Churchill in his "Rosciad," who complimented his wife's beauty at the expense of the dramatic powers of both him and herself, and caricatured his enunciation with cruel felicity of comparison, he quit the stage and set up as bookseller in Russell-street, but was still very ambitions to be recognized as a man of letters. Here he was accustomed to gather around him in his shop, or in the little back parlor, at his tea-table, with his pretty wife, the wits and would-be-wits of the metropolis; and being himself a Scotchman, his house became the resort of many an ambitious son of the "north country," who had come to seek fame and bread in London. Here Johnson was ac

customed to while away his evenings, chatting at ease with Davies and his wife, or awaiting such casual society as, like himself, might there seek to aviod the tedium of idleness.

As would be presumed, the unsuccessful player was quite as unsuccessful as a bookseller, and a few years later a complete bankruptcy ended this chapter of the varied history of the adventurous Scot; but he had strong friends, and, between Johnson and Garrick, he was not permitted to fall. He afterward turned author, and, strange enough, was successful in achieving by his pen the reputation that he had sought in vain from the stage, and the competence that he failed to obtain from trade. His Life of Garrick was his most successful work, and so well was it executed, that the public have received it as a satisfactory account of the character and career of the great English Roscius. In his account of Mrs. Davies, we find an instance of that short-sighted simplicity which distinguishes Boswell's disquisitions. He was a warm defender of the stage, and especially of the reputation of players, and would occasionally almost quarrel with his own infallible Johnson for his habitual depreciation of the whole histrionic profession; yet in his remarks on his heroine he says, that "though she was on the stage for some time, yet she maintained

DAVIES'S HOUSE.

bearing for the rest of the evening. The two guests were left alone with each other for some time, when, from necessity, Johnson directed his discourse to the young stranger, who, he informs us, "ventured to make an observation now and then, which was received very civilly;" and so Boswell was willing to believe of Johnson -which, indeed, few would have done "that though there was in his manners, there was no ill-nature in his disposition." As the now gratified lion-hunter was leaving, Davies followed him to the door, and consoled him for the severe treatment he had received, by assuring him of what he might have least suspected, though he most earnestly desired it: "I can see he likes you very well."

And there were sufficient reasons why Johnson should "like him very well." Though almost totally unlike in mind and character, Johnson and Boswell were constitutionally adapted to become associates and friends. The former was distinguished by a ruling love of conversation, which was accompanied by a dogmatical and often even discourteous manner, which, in the estimation of many, was only inadequately compensated for by its richness of thought and playfulness of humor. His general manners were rude and uncourtly, which disqualified him to some extent for polite society, and led him to accept the more willingly of the companionship of one whose tastes were far from being either delicate or scrupulously exact. In his intercourse, without seeming to design it, or even to be aware of it, he was exacting and violent; so that whoever became his companion, did so by humoring his fancies and yielding for the time to his exactions. This kind of conversational superiority he seemed to assume as a matter of course, and without the least suspicion that it indicated either arrogance in himself, or undue cringing in those who conceded it. That man was his best companion who would most freely indulge him in these peculiarities; who would receive his thrusts patiently, and contend with him only so far as was needful to awaken him to the conflict, and make his victories at once more certain and more manifest.

The character of the other we find ready drawn to our hand, with terrible but truthful severity:*

Forster's Life of Goldsmith.

"A wine-bibbing blabber,-a meddling, conceited, inquisitive, loquacious lion-hunter,—yet concealing qualities of reverential insight, quick observation, and marvelous memory, strangely assorted with meaner habits and parasitical self-complacent absurdities."

Such were the strangely-assorted qualities by which Boswell was fitted to become the most intimate of Johnson's associates, and to act the part of court-fool to "the great Cham of literature."

Davies was not mistaken in supposing that Johnson had been favorably impressed by his new acquaintance; and he soon after, assured by his friend of the safety of the adventure, visited "the giant in his pen," after having been enlivened by the wit [and wine] of Thornton, Wilkes, Churchill, and Lloyd. There he witnessed the same strange scene of confusion and discomfort that has been so often described by others. The little, old, unpowdered wig, the rusty brown coat, the black worsted stockings wrinkled about his legs, the loose shirtneck and knee-buckles, are all enumerated with painful particularity. Mutual compliments pass between the new friends, and the sage at once launches out into a rapid, straggling conversation made up of criticisms, philosophy, and ethics; all which is carefully treasured up and faithfully noted by the young neophyte, who still lingers to listen, and is still pressed to remain, till at last he is dismissed "with a hearty shake of the hand." The visit was repeated some three weeks later, when it was met with a complaint at so long a delay.

The Mitre tavern, in Fleet-street, was Johnson's most frequented resort. Here he met his casual associates, and often made very late evenings. Boswell soon learned his haunt, and would there await his coming with weariless assiduity. With such occasional interviews their acquaintance grew apace, and the devotee manifestly gained a place in the interest of his divinity. Straggling about town at one o'clock in the morning, they meet, and, with a hight of absurdity that exceeded even Johnson's extravagance in such matters, Boswell invited him to the Mitre to a midnight supper, which was declined as too unseasonable; but with the assurance that at another time the invitation would be gladly accepted. Of course the opportunity was not long unimproved. The next evening they are at the Mitre. "We had a good supper," says Boswell," and port

wine, of which he then sometimes drank a bottle." Whether the wine or the company and conversation of Johnson most affected the now too happy enthusiast is left to each one to judge; but it would seem that all combined produced an intense and delirious exaltation of mind in the young Scot:

"The orthodox, High-Church sound of the Mitre," he continues, with an almost frantic grandiloquence," the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind, beyond what I had ever before experienced."

The conversation was, on the one hand, in true Johnsonian style-learned, discriminating, didactic, and dogmatical; and inquisitive, appreciative, and obsequious on the other :

"Finding him in a placid humor," continues the narrator," and wishing to avail myself of the opportunity which I fortunately had of consulting a sage, to hear whose wisdom, I conceived, in the ardor of youthful imagination, that men, filled with a noble enthusiasm for intellectual improvement, would gladly have resorted from distant lands, I opened my mind to him ingenuously, and gave him a little sketch of my life, to which he was pleased to listen with great attention."

With arts like these, if arts they may be called, which spring up unstudied, and speak out the workings of the heart, did

the youthful, nameless egotist insinuate himself into the interests, and at length even into the affections, of the great moralist and master of the mind. As the evening advanced his heart grew warm, and at length the towering eagle stooped to regard, with an ebullition of favor, the chattering magpie with whom he was so strangely associated. Something in the narrative of the boyish career of the disciple here touched a chord in the already-attuned spirit of the great convivialist, when, with characteristic impetuosity, he extended his arm over the table and exclaimed, "Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you." The conquest was complete,-the lion-hunter had not only discovered the lair of his game, and bearded him in his den, but also, by a wonderful fascination, had so tamed the terrible monarch, that he might with impunity lay his hand upon his mane, and, without other danger than that of too violent caresses, become his companion.

The conversation continued :

"We talked of belief in ghosts. 'Sir,' said Johnson, I make a distinction between what a man may experience by the mere strength of his imagination, and what imagination cannot possibly produce. Thus, suppose I should think that I saw a form, and heard a cry: "Johnson, you are a very wicked fellow; and unless you repent, you will certainly be punished;" my own unworthiness is so deeply impressed upon my mind, that I might imagine I thus saw and heard;