otebook; and how entertaining to read them again in later years!
Dr. Johnson himself advised Bozzy to keep a journal, though he little
suspected to what use it would be put. The cynical will say that he did
so in order that Bozzy would have less time to pester him, but we
believe his advice was sincere. It must have been, for the Doctor kept
one himself, of which more in a moment.

"He recommended to me," Boswell says, "to keep a journal of my life,
full and unreserved. He said it would be a very good exercise and would
yield me great satisfaction when the particulars were faded from my
remembrance. He counselled me to keep it private, and said I might
surely have a friend who would burn it in case of my death."

Happily it was not burned. The Great Doctor never seemed so near to me
as the other day when I saw a little notebook, bound in soft brown
leather and interleaved with blotting paper, in which Bozzy's busy pen
had jotted down memoranda of his talks with his friend, while they were
still echoing in his mind. From this notebook (which must have been one
of many) the paragraphs were transferred practically unaltered into the
Life. This superb treasure, now owned by Mr. Adam of Buffalo, almost
makes one hear the Doctor's voice; and one imagines Boswell sitting up
at night with his candle, methodically recording the remarks of the day.
The first entry was dated September 22, 1777, so Bozzy must have carried
it in his pocket when Dr. Johnson and he were visiting Dr. Taylor in
Ashbourne. It was during this junket that Dr. Johnson tried to pole the
large dead cat over Dr. Taylor's dam, an incident that Boswell recorded
as part of his "Flemish picture of my friend." It was then also that
Mrs. Killingley, mistress of Ashbourne's leading inn, The Green Man,
begged Boswell "to name the house to his extensive acquaintance."
Certainly Bozzy's acquaintance was to be far more extensive than good
Mrs. Killingley ever dreamed. It was he who "named the house" to me, and
for this reason The Green Man profited in fourpence worth of cider, 134
years later.

There is another day we have vowed to commemorate, by drinking great
flaggonage of tea, and that is the 18th of September, Dr. Johnson's
birthday. The Great Cham needs no champion; his speech and person have
become part of our common heritage. Yet the extraordinary scenario in
which Boswell filmed him for us has attained that curious estate of
great literature the characteristic