But it is not on account of his private character, or of a certain. domestic celebrity which he enjoyel daring his life, that he is to be distinguished in a work of this kind. We commemorate him as an au thor, and particularly as a writer of Biography. Here he is almost an inventor ; be has, at least, carried this species of composition to a degree of accuracy and detail. formerly unatioupted. Other writers, as the Abbe de Sade, in his Memoirs of Petrards, and Mason, in his Life sf .Gray, had conducted the course of their narratives partly by means of original ' letters. But Mr Boswell has, more than any pre • ceding Biographer, made use of all the varied means by which such a history admits of being dramatized. He paints the whole man, presents the • incidents of his life in their actual order of succession, and •pre serves him as it were entire ; fulfilling in the history of the moral, what Bacon has assigned to Philosophy as'her genuine work in that of the natural, world, faithfully to return its -accents and reflect its image, neither to add any thing of her own, but iterate only and repeat.
The plai•tif keeping a Miscellaneous Journal hod been recommended to him by Dr Johnson, ou their • first acquaintance ; and he appears very early to have followed it, so far as writing down what was re markable in the conversation of those whom he ad mired. From bis frequent allusions to the discourses of Selden, commonly called his Table Talk, as pre served by Lilward, it is probable that he had the ex ample of that work in his view ; and by long use he - acquired a great facility in this process. Of his first containing an account of Corsica, the Journal of his residence with General Paoli is by far the most interesting part. It is a sketch remarkable Tor • life and natural colouring ; and -is one of those productions which, though enhanced by their occa sion, do not depend on this circumstance alone for the attraction which they possess. In his Journal of Tour to the Hebrides, he pushed to a still greater extent, and even beyond its just limits, his favourite style of writing. Carried away by his natural en thusiasm, and delighting " to pour out all himself, like old Montaigne," he indulged in a more ample and unqualified disclosure, both of his own senti ments and of the opinions of others, than is consist ent with a salutary prudence, or necessary for the purposes of instruction. Of ;his he himself became sensible, on cooler reflection, and not only acknow ledged it with candour, but in his subsequent and More laboured compositions, profited• by the general opinion, and imposed a greater restraint upon his pen.
For the task of writing Johnson's life he 'was in many respects peculiarly qualified. He had lived in habits of intimacy with the Sage for a period of twenty years, had early conceived the plan of such a work, and received from Johnson himself, to whom his .intention was known, many particulars of his early life and personal history. As the writer was thus furnished for his -undertaking, so there has sel dom been a more. fertile or interesting subject for the Biographer. Johnson was not a mere scholar, " deep versed in books, and shallow in himself," nor was he one of those unprofitable misers who hoard without expending. He was a general and a minute observer, and, while he possessed in a de gree seldom equalled " the strenuous use of profita ble thought," his talent for communicating knowledge was more remarkable even than the large capacity of his mind, or the accumulation of his learning.
According to Baker's character of King James, in that passage which Mr Boswell happily prefixed to his Journal, " he was of an admirable pregnancy of wit, and that pregnancy much improved by continual study from his childhood, by which he had gotten such a promptness in expressing his mind, that his extemporal speeches were little inferior to his pre meditated writings. Many, no doubt, had read as much, and perhaps more than he, but scarce ever any concocted his reading into judgment, as he did." Johnson's conversation, accordingly, is the matter and substance of the book ; and, as the Philosopher did not, in the midst of his studies, forget to culti vate his friends, nor gave up the advantages and comfort of society, there was in his discourse a range and diversity of subject not often found in combination with classical knowledge and habits of profound thinking. Nor does this work exhibit a series merely of witty and sententious sayings it is interspersed alike with miscellaneous narrative and criticism ; and, which constitutes its principal fea ture, it contains a mass of opinions on subjects of a more common nature, where the powers of reason ing and illustration are applied to familiar topics, and the ordinary occurrences of life. Valuable as a deposit of literary anecdote, it is still more so as a collection of ethical discourses, to which its popular farm gives a singular currency and effect ; so that there arc few -books extant where the religious and social duties, as well as • the love of science, in its largest acceptation, are impressed more-agreeably, or with greater force, upon the mind.