Dr. Johnson was hailed the colossus of Literature by a generation who
measured him against men of no common mould--against Hume, Robertson,
Gibbon, Warburton, the Wartons, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Gray,
Goldsmith, and Burke. Any one of these may have surpassed the great
lexicographer in some branch of learning or domain of genius; but as
a man of letters, in the highest sense of the term, he towered
pre-eminent, and his superiority to each of them (except Burke) in
general acquirements, intellectual power, and force of expression,
was hardly contested by his contemporaries. To be associated with his
name has become a title of distinction in itself; and some members of
his circle enjoy, and have fairly earned, a peculiar advantage in
this respect. In their capacity of satellites revolving round the sun
of their idolatry, they attracted and reflected his light and heat.
As humble companions of their _Magnolia grandiflora_, they did more
than live with it[1]; they gathered and preserved the choicest of its
flowers. Thanks to them, his reputation is kept alive more by what
has been saved of his conversation than by his books; and his
colloquial exploits necessarily revive the memory of the friends (or
victims) who elicited and recorded them.

[Footnote 1: "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu près
d'elle."--_Constant_.]

If the two most conspicuous among these have hitherto gained
notoriety rather than what is commonly understood by fame, a
discriminating posterity is already beginning to make reparation for
the wrong. Boswell's "Letters to Temple," edited by Mr. Francis, with
"Boswelliana," printed for the Philobiblion Society by Mr. Milnes,