dity of
love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with
a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans,
"I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under
her muffler."[5]

[5] It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close
resemblance to a passage in the _Rambler_ (No. 20). The resemblance
may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism.

We had something more to say. But our article is already too long; and
we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from
the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed
his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced
us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the club-room is before
us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons
for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the
canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin
form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of
Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in
his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar
to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the
gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease,
the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the
scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and paired to the
quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see
the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why,
sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, Sir!" and the "You don't
see your way through the question, sir!"

What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be
regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion. To
receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius
have in general received from posterity! To be more intimately known to
posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of
fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most
durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably expected to
be immortal, is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner
and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought,
would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the Engli