Passage : James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson
To this may be added the sentiments of the very man whose life I am about to
exhibit . . .
But biography has often been allotted to writers, who seem very little acquainted
with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance. Th ey rarely
aff ord any other account than might be collected from public papers, but imagine
themselves writing a life, when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments;
and have so little regard to the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that
more knowledge may be gained of a man’s real character, by a short conversation
with one of his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his
pedigree, and ended with his funeral. . . .
I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness on
some occasions of my detail of Johnson’s conversation, and how happily it is
adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule, by men of superfi cial understanding
and ludicrous fancy; but I remain fi rm and confi dent in my opinion, that minute
particulars are frequently characteristick, and always amusing, when they relate to
a distinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that any thing, however
slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to express, with any
degree of point, should perish. For this almost superstitious reverence, I have found
very old and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in
whose tenth sermon there is the following passage:
Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish Commentator, who lived about fi ve hundred
years ago, explains that passage in the fi rst Psalm, His leaf also shall not
wither, from Rabbis yet older than himself, thus: Th at even the idle talk, so he
expresses it, of a good man ought to be regarded; the most superfl uous things he
saith are always of some value. And other ancient authours have the same phrase,
nearly in the same sense.
Of one thing I am certain, that considering how highly the small portion which
we have of the table-talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated writers is valued,
and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not more, I am justified in preserving
rather too many of Johnson’s sayings, than too few; especially as from the diversity
of dispositions it cannot be known with certainty beforehand, whether what may
seem trifl ing to some and perhaps to the collector himself, may not be most agreeable
to many; and the greater number that an authour can please in any degree, the
more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind.
To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time
and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with
opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CÆSAR, of whom
Bacon observes, that “in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we see that he
esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and
pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm
or an oracle.”
Th e second paragraph begins its argument with the use of...
