ure of Johnson, _his_ prototype,
wrought in pottery, seated in chair, in an attitude of wisdom, his
arms extended and bent, and evidently expatiating. Looking at it, he
delivered an acute bit of criticism worthy of the Doctor himself.

"The interest," he said, "of this figure is not in the modelling,
which is good, but because it represents Johnson as he was, in the eye
of the crowd of his day; who looked on him, not as the writer, but as
the grand _argufier_ and layer-down of the law, the 'settler' of any
knotty point whatever; with them the Doctor could decide anything. See
how his arm is half raised, his fingers outspread, as if about to give
his decision. You should show this to Carlyle, who will be delighted
with it."

He often recurred to this and to the delight the Sage would have had.
I forget whether I followed his advice. On the same occasion he
noticed a figure of Washington. "Ah! there he stands," he said, "with
his favourite air of state and dignity, and sense of what was due to
his position. You will always notice that in the portraits there was a
little assumption of the aristocrat." Forster's criticism was always
of this kind--instructive and acute.

Forster was the envied possessor of nearly every one of Boz's MSS.--a
treasure at the time not thought very much of, even by Dickens
himself, but since his death become of extraordinary value. I should
say that each was worth some two or three thousand pounds at the
least. How amazing has been this appreciation of what dealers call
"the Dickens stuff" during these years! It is almost incredible. I
mind the day when a Dickens' book, a Dickens' letter, was taken
tranquilly. A relation of my own, an old bachelor, had, as we thought,
an eccentric _penchant_ for early editions of Boz; and once, on the
great man coming to the provincial city where he lived, waited on him
to show him what he called his "Old Gold"; to wit, the earlier
editions of Pickwick and Nickleby. We all smiled, and I remember Boz
speaking to me good-naturedly of this enthusiasm. Not one of the party
then--it was in 1865--dreamed that this old bachelor was far wiser
than his generation. The original Pickwick, that is bound from the
numbers, is indeed a nugget of old gold. I remember once asking Wills,
his sub-editor, could I be allowed to have the original MSS. of some
of Boz's short stories? He said, "To be sure, that nothing was more
easy than to ask him, for the printer sent each back to