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