Boswell's Life of Johnson.—In 1763 James Boswell (1740-1795), a Scotchman, met Johnson and devoted much time to copying the words that fell from the great Doctor's lips and to noting his individual traits. We must go to Boswell's Life of Johnson, the greatest of all biographies, to read of Johnson as he lived and talked; in short, to learn those facts which render him far more famous than his written works.
[Illustration: JAMES BOSWELL.]
Leslie Stephen saw: "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 Champion of the Classical School.—Johnson was a powerful adherent of classicism, and he did much to defer the coming of romanticism. His poetry is formal, and it shows the classical fondness for satire and aversion to sentiment. The first two lines of his greatest poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes—
"Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,"
show the classical couplet, which he employs, and they afford an example of poetry produced by a sonorous combination of words. "Observation," "view," and "survey" are nearly synonymous terms. Such conscious effort centered on word building subtracts something from poetic feeling.
His critical opinions of literature manifest his preference for classical themes and formal modes of treatment. He says of Shakespeare: "It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express … the equality of words to things is very often neglected."
Although there is much sensible, stimulating criticism in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, yet he shows positive repugnance to the pastoral references—the flocks and shepherds, the oaten flute, the woods and desert caves—of Milton's Lycidas. "Its form," says Johnson, "is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting."
General Characteristics.—While he is best known in literary history as the great converser whose full length portrait is drawn by Boswell, Johnson left the marks of his influence on much of the prose written within nearly a hundred years after his death. On the whole, this influence has, for the following reasons, been bad.
[Illustration: CHESHIRE CHEESE INN, FLEET STREET, LONDON.]