eager to extend to the established writer. Chesterfield need not be
blamed if he was reluctant to welcome a queer ungainly creature whose
manners were appalling, and of whose genius no one save himself was
assured. But he was to be blamed, and he deserved the stern punishment
he received in Johnson's stinging letter of repudiation, for
attempting, when Johnson was distinguished and beyond his power to
help, to win the great honor of a dedication by a proffer of friendship
that came too late. Johnson needed no Chesterfield now. London had
learned to reverence him, had learned to love him. His friends were
the best Englishmen alive; the club which Johnson established bore on
its roll the most illustrious names in the country; at the home of the
Thrales Johnson tasted and appreciated all that was best in the home
life of the time. He had a devoted friend in the person of a fussy,
fantastic, opinionated, conceited little Scotch gentleman, Mr. James
Boswell of Auchinleck, who clung to his side, treasured his utterances,
cherished his sayings, and made himself immortal in immortalizing his
hero. It is good to remember that when George the Third came to the
throne a man like Johnson was alive. It is not so good to remember how
seldom he found himself {45} face to face with the King, whom he might
have aided with his wisdom, his counsel, and his friendship.

[Sidenote: 1763--Johnson's influence on literature]

Johnson's presence adorned and honored four-and-twenty years of a reign
that was to last for sixty years. He was the friend or the enemy of
every man worthy to arouse any strong emotion of love or scorn in a
strong spirit. He had the admiration of all whose admiration was worth
the having. The central figure of the literary London of his lifetime,
he exercised something of the same social and intellectual influence
over all Londoners that Socrates exercised over all Athenians. The
affection he inspired survived him, and widens with the generations.
In the hundred years and more that have passed since Johnson's death,
his memory has grown greener. The symbol of his life and of its lesson
is to be found in what Hawthorne beautifully calls the sad and lovely
legend of the man Johnson's public penance in the rain, amid the
jeering crowd, to expiate the offence of the child against its father.
Johnson was the very human apostle of a divine righteousness.

{46}

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE "NORTH BRITON"

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