and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to
confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be
unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a
patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to
any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I
should conclude it, should less be possible, with less; for I
have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once
boasted myself with so much exultation, my Lord.

Your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
--_Sam Johnson_

[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON]


The critics, I believe, have made a distinction between large men and
great men.

Samuel Johnson was both. He was massive in intellect, colossal in culture,
prodigious in memory, weighed nigh three hundred pounds, and had
prejudices to match. He was possessed of a giant's strength, and
occasionally used it like a giant--for instance, when he felled an
offending bookseller with a folio.

Johnson was most unfortunate in his biographer. In picturing the great
writer, Boswell writes more entertainingly than Johnson ever did, and
thereby overtops his subject. And when in reply to the intimation that
Boswell was going to write his life, Johnson answered, "If I really