ke the second part when Johnson
was present; and the club itself, consisting of so many eminent men, is
to this day popularly designated as Johnson's Club.

Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed
the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with little
respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat
among them. This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to an
honourable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore,
weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were
acquainted with him. That he could not reason, that he had no wit,
no humour, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. And yet his
writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross,
and are likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as
a living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a slave and an
idolater. His mind resembles those creepers which the botanists call
parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round the stems and
imbibing the juices of stronger plants. He must have fastened himself on
somebody. He might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have become the
fiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights Society. He might have fastened
himself on Whitfield, and have become the loudest field preacher among
the Calvinistic Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself on
Johnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For Johnson had early been
prejudiced against Boswell's country. To a man of Johnson's strong
understanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of
Boswell must have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnson
hated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechising him on
all kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as
"What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?"
Johnson was a water drinker; and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed
little better than a habitual sot. It was impossible that there should
be perfect harmony between two such companions. Indeed, the great man
was sometimes provoked into fits of passion in which he said things
which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every
quarrel, however, was soon made up. During twenty years the disciple
continued to worship the master: the master continued to scold the
disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily
resided at a