he modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell's
immortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain from
discussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may be
made in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcome
must, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, to
say the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always mangle
some people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they may
display, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of the
great charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is an
intruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic,
retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Upon
those, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original,
the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There
remains only that narrow margin of readers whose appetites, languid but
not extinct, can be titillated by the promise that they shall not have
the trouble of making their own selection. Let us wish them good
digestions, and, in spite of modern changes of fashion, more robust
taste for the future. I would still hope that to many readers Boswell
has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave
them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all
companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe
most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his
acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell. A man, indeed, may
be a good Christian, and an excellent father of a family, without loving
Johnson or Boswell, for a sense of humour is not one of the primary
virtues. But Boswell's is one of the very few books which, after many
years of familiarity, will still provoke a hearty laugh even in the
solitude of a study; and the laughter is of that kind which does one
good.

I do not wish, however, to pronounce one more eulogy upon an old friend,
but to say a few words on a question which he sometimes suggests.
Macaulay's well-known but provoking essay is more than usually lavish in
overstrained paradoxes. He has explicitly declared that Boswell wrote
one of the most charming of books because he was one of the greatest of
fools. And his remarks suggest, if they do not implicitly assert, that
Johnson wrote some of the most unreadable of books, although, if not
because, he possessed one of th