ok of its kind which our nation possesses. It is quite impossible to
over-state its worth. You lift it, and immediately the intervening years
disappear, and you are in the presence of the Doctor. You are made free
of the last century, as you are free of the present. You double your
existence. The book is a letter of introduction to a whole knot of
departed English worthies. In virtue of Boswell's labours, we know
Johnson--the central man of his time--better than Burke did, or
Reynolds,--far better even than Boswell did. We know how he expressed
himself, in what grooves his thoughts ran, how he ate, drank, and slept.
Boswell's unconscious art is wonderful, and so is the result attained.
This book has arrested, as never book did before, time and decay. Bozzy
is really a wizard: he makes the sun stand still. Till his work is done,
the future stands respectfully aloof. Out of ever-shifting time he has
made fixed and permanent certain years, and in these Johnson talks and
argues, while Burke listens, and Reynolds takes snuff, and Goldsmith,
with hollowed hand, whispers a sly remark to his neighbour. There have
they sat, these ghosts, for seventy years now, looked at and listened to
by the passing generations; and there they still sit, the one voice going
on! Smile at Boswell as we may, he was a spiritual phenomenon quite as
rare as Johnson. More than most he deserves our gratitude. Let us hope
that when next Heaven sends England a man like Johnson, a companion and
listener like Boswell will be provided. The Literary Club sits forever.
What if the Mermaid were in like eternal session, with Shakspeare's
laughter ringing through the fire and hail of wit!

By the strangest freak of chance or liking, the next book on my shelf
contains the poems of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer. This
volume, adorned by a hideous portrait of the author, I can well remember
picking up at a bookstall for a few pence many years ago. It seems
curious to me that this man is not in these days better known. A more
singular man has seldom existed,--seldom a more genuine. His first
business speculation failed, but when about forty he commenced again, and
this time fortune made amends for her former ill-treatment. His
warehouse was a small, dingy place, filled with bars of iron, with a bust
of Shakspeare looking down on the whole. His country-house contained
busts; of Achilles, Ajax, and Napoleon. Here is a poet who earned a
comp