The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dr. Johnson and His Circle, by John Bailey

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Title: Dr. Johnson and His Circle

Author: John Bailey

Release Date: December 28, 2007 [eBook #24066]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

Page numbers are enclosed between curly brackets to assis the
reader in using the index.

DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE

by

JOHN BAILEY

Author of "Poets and Poetry," "The Claims of French Poetry," etc.

Thornton Butterworth Limited
15 Bedford Street, London, W.C.2

First Published . . . . February 1913
Second Impression . . . September 1919
Third Impression . . . . August 1927
Fourth Impression . . . January 1931

All Rights Reserved

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CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I JOHNSON AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION . . . . . . . . 7
II THE GENIUS OF BOSWELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
III THE LIVES OF BOSWELL AND JOHNSON . . . . . . . . . 70
IV JOHNSON'S CHARACTER AND CHARACTERISTICS . . . . . 109
V JOHNSON'S WORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
VI THE FRIENDS OF JOHNSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

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DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE

CHAPTER I

JOHNSON AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION

The name of Samuel Johnson is, of course, not the greatest in English
prose, but even to-day, when he has been dead more than a century and a
quarter, it is still the most familiar. We live in an age of
newspapers. Where all can read, the newspaper press, taken as a whole,
will be a fairly accurate reflection of what is in the mind of a
people. Nothing will be mentioned frequently in newspapers which is
not of some interest to a large number of readers; and whatever is
frequently mentioned there cannot fail to become widely known. Tried
by this test, Johnson's name must be admitted to be very widely known
and of almost universal intere