Gibbon called Johnson 'Reynolds' oracle.' In one of his Discourses Sir
Joshua, mindful no doubt of his own experience, recommends that young
artists seek the companionship of such a man merely as a tonic to their
art. Boswell often testifies to the stimulating effect of Johnson's
presence. Once he speaks of 'an animating blaze of eloquence, which
roused every intellectual power in me to the highest pitch'; and again
of the 'full glow' of Johnson's conversation, in which he felt himself
'elevated as if brought into another state of being.' He says that all
members of Johnson's 'school' 'are distinguished for a love of truth and
accuracy which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they
had not been acquainted with Johnson.' He quotes Johnson at length and
repeatedly as the author of his own large conception of biography. He
was Goldsmith's 'great master,' Garrick feared his criticism, and
one cannot but recognize the power of Johnson's personality in the
increasing intelligence and consistency of Garrick's interpretations,
in the growing vigor and firmness of Goldsmith's stroke, in the charm,
finality, and exuberant life of Sir Joshua's portraits; and above all in
the skill, truth, brilliance, and lifelike spontaneity of Boswell's art.
It is in such works as these that we shall find the real Johnson, and
through them that he will exert the force of his personality upon us.


Biography is the literature of realized personality, of life as it
has been lived, of actual achievements or shortcomings, of success or
failure; it is not imaginary and embellished, not what might be or might
have been, not reduced to prescribed or artificial forms, but it is the
unvarnished story of that which was delightful, disappointing, possible,
or impossible, in a life spent in this world.

In this sense it is peculiarly the literature of truth and authenticity.