FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   >>  
Johnson's amazing freedom and power. Such an assertion cannot be proved, of course; but it would be difficult to exaggerate the weight of the evidence pointing in that direction. We have seen the kind of society in which he lived. In that society, rich in so many kinds of distinction, he was always accorded, as his right, a kind of informal but quite undisputed precedence. And it seems to have been the same among strangers as soon as he had opened his mouth. Whenever and wherever tongues were moving his primacy was immediate and unquestioned. The actual ears that could hear him were necessarily few; no man's acquaintances can be more than an insignificant fraction of the public. But in his case they were sufficiently numerous, distinguished and enthusiastic to send the fame of his talk all over the country. Is he the only man whose "Bon Mots," as they were called, have been published in his lifetime? "A mighty impudent thing," as he said of it, but also an irrefragable proof of his celebrity. And on the whole his popularity, then and since, has equalled his fame. Much is said of his rudeness and violence, but the fact remains {251} that in all his life it does not appear to have cost him a single friend except the elder Sheridan. Those who knew him best bear the strongest testimony to the fundamental goodness of his heart. Reynolds said that he was always the first to seek a reconciliation, Goldsmith declared that he had nothing of the bear but his skin, and Boswell records many instances of his placability after a quarrel. The love his friends felt for him is written large all over Boswell's pages. And of that feeling the public outside came more and more to share as much as strangers could. Even in his lifetime he began to receive that popular canonization which has been developing ever since. Perhaps the most curious of all the proofs of this is the fact mentioned by Boswell in a note, "that there were copper pieces struck at Birmingham with his head impressed on them, which pass current as halfpence there, and in the neighbouring parts of the country." Has that ever happened to any other English writer? Well may Boswell cite it in evidence of Johnson's extraordinary popularity. It is that and it is more. There is in it not merely a tribute of affection to the living and speaking man, there is also an anticipation of the most remarkable thing about his subsequent fame. That has had all along, as w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   >>  



Top keywords:
Boswell
 

country

 

strangers

 

lifetime

 

public

 
Johnson
 
society
 

evidence

 
popularity
 

strongest


testimony

 

goodness

 
fundamental
 

feeling

 
reconciliation
 

placability

 
declared
 
instances
 

quarrel

 

written


Goldsmith

 

records

 

friends

 

Reynolds

 

extraordinary

 

writer

 

English

 

happened

 

subsequent

 

remarkable


anticipation

 
tribute
 

affection

 

living

 

speaking

 
neighbouring
 

proofs

 
curious
 

mentioned

 
Perhaps

developing
 

receive

 
popular
 
canonization
 

copper

 

impressed

 
current
 

halfpence

 
pieces
 

struck