as I never
experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his
immense army and considered that not one of that great multitude would
be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider
that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid
to go home and think: but that the thoughts of each individual there
would be distressing when alone." What he thought was true of all men
was certainly true of himself. He hated and dreaded to be alone. It
was the pain of solitude quite as much as the pleasure of society that
drove him abroad, and induced him to make a business of keeping alive
old friendships and procuring new, till he had formed as large and as
interesting a circle of acquaintances as any English man of letters has
ever had.

That fact is an important element in his fame. A great talker cannot
exert his talent in solitude; he cannot properly exert it except in a
society of intelligent men who can understand, appreciate, and in some
degree contend with him. Johnson would not have been the wonderful
talker he was if he had lived like Richardson among gaping women and
stupid {232} toadies. He did the very opposite. He lived among men
several of whom possessed powers of mind quite as great as his own,
however different, while their achievements seem to posterity decidedly
greater than his. Our impression of his overwhelming distinction as a
talker is not derived only from our own judgment as we read Boswell's
record of it. It is derived almost as much from the fact that men so
great as those he lived with acknowledged it with one accord. The
primacy of Johnson was among them all an unquestioned article of faith.
Hawkins, who knew him for so many years, says of him that "as Alexander
and Caesar were born for conquest, so was Johnson for the office of a
symposiarch, to preside in all conversations"; and he adds, "I never
yet saw the man who would venture to contest his right." But the
greatest tribute came from the greatest of his friends. When Langton,
walking home one evening with Burke after both had dined in Johnson's
company, regretted that Johnson had seized upon all the topics started
by Burke, so that Burke himself had said little upon them, the reply of
Burke is well known, "Oh, no; it is enough for me to have rung the bell
to him." Such words from such a man are final and unanswerable. And
they are confirmed by every other member of his {233}