_Life of
Johnson_,' he says, 'is assuredly a great, a very great, book. Homer is
not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more
decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the
first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers . . . Eclipse
is first, and the rest nowhere.' That is hearty and exact enough. But,
as I have hinted, Macaulay, furious with Croker's carelessness, is almost
tolerant of Croker's impudence. For Croker as a scholar and an historian
he is merely pitiless; to Croker ruining the _Life_ by the insertion of
the _Tour_--a feat which would scarce be surpassed by the interpolation
of the Falstaff scenes of the _Merry Wives_ in one or other of the parts
of _Henry IV._--he is lenient enough, and lenient on grounds which are
not artistic but purely moral. Did he recognise to the full the fact of
Boswell's pre-eminence as an artist? Was he really conscious that the
_Life_ is an admirable work of art as well as the most readable and
companionable of books? As, not content with committing himself thus
far, he goes on to prove that Boswell was great because he was little,
that he wrote a great book because he was an ass, and that if he had not
been an ass his book would probably have been at least a small one,
incredulity on these points becomes respectable.

Himself.

Boswell knew better. A true Scotsman and a true artist, he could play
the fool on occasion, and he could profit by his folly. In his
dedication to the first and greatest President the Royal Academy has had
he anticipates a good many of Macaulay's objections to his character and
deportment, and proves conclusively that if he chose to seem ridiculous
he did so not unwittingly but with a complete apprehension of the effect
he designed and the means he adopted. In the _Tour_, says he, from his
'eagerness to display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnson's
wit,' he 'freely showed to the world its dexterity, even when I was
myself the object of it.' He was under the impression that he would be
'liberally understood,' as 'knowing very well what I was about.' But, he
adds, 'it seems I judged too well of the world'; and he points his moral
with a story of 'the great Dr. Clarke,' who, 'unbending himself with a
few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner,' saw Beau Nash in
the distance, and was instantly sobered. 'My boys,' quoth he, 'let us be
grave--here comes a