hnson's heels?" "He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith, "he is only a
bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
sticking." Johnson was fifty-four at this time and Boswell twenty-three.
After June 1763 they met on something like 270 subsequent days. These
meetings formed the memorable part of Boswell's life, and they are told
inimitably in his famous biography of his friend.

The friendship, consecrated by the most delightful of biographies, and
one of the most gorgeous feasts in the whole banquet of letters, was not
so ill-assorted as has been inconsiderately maintained. Boswell's
freshness at the table of conversation gave a new zest to every maxim
that Johnson enunciated, while Boswell developed a perfect genius for
interpreting the kind of worldly philosophy at which Johnson was so
unapproachable. Both men welcomed an excuse for avoiding the task-work
of life. Johnson's favourite indulgence was to talk; Boswell's great
idea of success to elicit memorable conversation. Boswell is almost
equally admirable as a reporter and as an interviewer, as a collector
and as a researcher. He prepared meetings for Johnson, he prepared
topics for him, he drew him out on questions of the day, he secured a
copy of his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, he obtained an almost
verbatim report of Johnson's interview with the king, he frequented the
tea-table of Miss Williams, he attended the testy old scholar on lengthy
peregrinations in the Highlands and in the midlands. "Sir," said Johnson
to his follower, "you appear to have only two subjects, yourself and me,
and I am sick of both." Yet thorough as the scheme was from the outset,
and admirable as was the devotedness of the biographer, Boswell was far
too volatile a man to confine himself to any one ambition in life that
was not consistent with a large amount of present fame and notoriety. He
would have liked to Boswellize the popular idol Wilkes, or Chatham, or
Voltaire, or even the great Frederick himself. As it was, during his
continental tour he managed in the autumn of 1765 to get on terms with
Pasquale di Paoli, the leader of the Corsican insurgents in their unwise
struggle against Genoa. After a few weeks in Corsica he returned to
London in February 1766, and was received by Johnson with the utmost
cordiality. In accordance with the family compact referred to, he was
now admitted advocate at Edinburgh, and signalized his return to the law
by an enthu