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op of St. Asaph: poets like Collins and Young: historians and divines like Robertson and Hugh Blair: philosophers and men of science like Adam Smith and Sir Joseph Banks: with a certain number of intelligent peers like Lord Orrery the friend of Swift, Lord Marchmont the friend of Pope, and Lord Elibank whom Smollett praised for his "universal intelligence" and who said, when he was already seventy, that he would go five hundred miles to enjoy a day in Johnson's company; besides public men like Lord Charlemont the Irish statesman and traveller who once went to visit Montesquieu, and Lord Macartney who had gone as ambassador to Russia and was soon to go in the same position to Pekin. It is unnecessary to extend the list. All these men knew Johnson to a greater or less extent, and added to the interest of his life, as they add to the interest of Boswell's record of it. Many or most of them are known to have recognized the greatness of Johnson. {249} The words of some have been quoted and others might easily be added. Johnson often appears great in the books he wrote, and often too in the books which others have written about him: but it seems certain that unlike most authors he was far greater in bodily presence than he can be in his own or any one else's books. Even Boswell's magic pen cannot quite equal the living voice. To the overpowering impression made by that voice upon those who heard it, sometimes of almost bodily fear, oftener of a delight that could not have enough, always of amazed astonishment, the testimonies are not only innumerable, but so strongly worded and so evidently sincere as to suggest the conclusion that the fortunate listeners are attempting to relate an experience unique in the world's history. Even those who had suffered from his rudeness like Wraxall, the author of the well-known _Memoirs_, give the impression of being unable to find words strong enough to describe the power of his presence, so that they use expressions like the "compass of his gigantic faculties" and "the sublime attainments of his mind" in speaking of the gap felt by the company when he left a room. The latter expression at any rate hardly seems to us exactly to fit Johnson; but no doubt Wraxall uses the word "sublime" because he wants {250} to imply that there was something in Johnson's talk utterly out of the reach of ordinary men of ability. In fact it does seem probable that no recorded man has ever talked with
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