inner circle, and
indeed by almost every person who knew him and has left any opinion on
the subject. Not the least significant tribute is that of
those--including men no less great than Gibbon and Fox--who had not the
courage to ring that dangerous bell which so often was brought down
upon the head of the ringer. The "wonder and astonishment" he inspired
were universal; and among those who really knew him they were commonly
mingled with love. But whether there were love or not there was
generally some degree of awe, even of actual fear, as apparently in the
case of Gibbon. The unquestioned ascendency he possessed and exercised
over men and women not accustomed to be over-awed is plainly written
all over Boswell's story. The most celebrated of the scenes that prove
or exhibit it is no doubt that of the signing of the "Round Robin" at
Sir Joshua Reynolds's house in 1776, when a company which included,
besides Reynolds himself, Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Colman, J. Warton,
and Barnard, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, were anxious to protest to
Johnson against his proposed Latin Epitaph on Goldsmith; but not one
dared to approach him about it or even to be the first to sign a letter
to be sent to him. So a sailors' Round Robin, drawn up by Burke, was
adopted, and all the {234} signatures ran round it in equal daring.
But the same thing appears perhaps even more curiously in a remark of
Boswell's about a dinner at the house of Allan Ramsay. The company
included Reynolds, Robertson the historian, Lord Binning and Boswell;
and, Johnson being late in coming, they took to discussing him and his
character. Soon, of course, he made his appearance; and then, says
Boswell, "no sooner did he, of whom we had been thus talking so easily,
arrive, than we were all as quiet as a school upon the entrance of the
head-master." The best parallel perhaps to Johnson's position in his
social world is that of the elder Pitt in Parliament. In each case the
awe which was felt was much more than a mere vulgar fear of punishment;
there was that in it, no doubt; but there was also a much rarer and
finer thing; what we can only describe vaguely as a consciousness of
the presence of greatness.

It is worth while to look a little more closely at the composition of
this society in which Johnson reigned as unquestioned king. The most
remarkable thing of all about it is that its inner and most intimate
circle included four men of genius. Johnson h