own:

There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my
appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of
politicians at Will's [Coffeehouse] and listening with great attention to
the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes
I smoke a pipe at Child's, and, whilst I seem attentive to nothing but _The
Postman_, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on
Sunday nights at St. James's, and sometimes join the little committee of
politics in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face
is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the
theaters both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a
merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years; and sometimes pass
for a Jew in the assembly of stock jobbers at Jonathan's.... Thus I live in
the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species,...
which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.

The large place which these two little magazines hold in our literature
seems most disproportionate to their short span of days. In the short space
of four years in which Addison and Steele worked together the light essay
was established as one of the most important forms of modern literature,
and the literary magazine won its place as the expression of the social
life of a nation.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784)

The reader of Boswell's _Johnson_, after listening to endless grumblings
and watching the clumsy actions of the hero, often finds himself wondering
why he should end his reading with a profound respect for this "old bear"
who is the object of Boswell's groveling attention. Here is a man who was
certainly not the greatest writer of his age, perhaps not even a great
writer at all, but who was nevertheless the dictator of English letters,
and who still looms across the centuries of a magnificent literature as its
most striking and original figure. Here, moreover, is a huge, fat, awkward
man, of vulgar manners and appearance, who monopolizes conversation, argues
violently, abuses everybody, clubs down opposition,--"Madam" (speaking to
his cultivated hostess at table), "talk no more nonsense"; "Sir" (turning
to a distinguished guest), "I perceive you are a vile Whig." While talking
he makes curious animal sounds, "sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes
clucking like a hen"; and when he has concluded a violent dispute a