wise
and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. I have never
liked Johnson half so well. Nobody's contempt for Boswell ought to be
capable of increase, but I have never seen him in my mind's eye half so
plainly. The introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. I should point
to that, if I didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a
remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable
and fanciful power of communicating it to another. All about Reynolds is
charming; and the first account of the Literary Club and of Beauclerc as
excellent a piece of description as ever I read in my life. But to read
the book is to be in the time. It lives again in as fresh and lively a
manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very
best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their
graves on purpose.

And as to Goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out
in his own writings, and the manful and dignified assertion of him
without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a
noble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal
affection for you, I think (and really believe) I should feel proud, as
one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best
of my remembrance--when little more than a child. I was a little afraid
in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences,
that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but I
very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire
the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and
admiration of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and
strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still.

I don't quite agree with you in two small respects. First, I question
very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to
have had his Boswell, inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at
most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have
set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished
people about them for ever restless and distrustful. I can imagine a
succession of Boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in
society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship.
Secondly, I cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, I think, or
greatly enlarged by Hunt) of italic