of drawing new readers to Boswell, and eventually of finding for them
in the complete work what many have already found--days and years of
growing enlightenment and happy companionship, and an innocent refuge
from the cares and perturbations of life.

Princeton, June 28, 1917.



INTRODUCTION


Phillips Brooks once told the boys at Exeter that in reading biography
three men meet one another in close intimacy--the subject of the
biography, the author, and the reader. Of the three the most interesting
is, of course, the man about whom the book is written. The most
privileged is the reader, who is thus allowed to live familiarly with an
eminent man. Least regarded of the three is the author. It is his part
to introduce the others, and to develop between them an acquaintance,
perhaps a friendship, while he, though ever busy and solicitous,
withdraws into the background.

Some think that Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, did not sufficiently
realize his duty of self-effacement. He is too much in evidence,
too bustling, too anxious that his own opinion, though comparatively
unimportant, should get a hearing. In general, Boswell's faults are
easily noticed, and have been too much talked about. He was morbid,
restless, self-conscious, vain, insinuating; and, poor fellow, he died a
drunkard. But the essential Boswell, the skilful and devoted artist, is
almost unrecognized. As the creator of the Life of Johnson he is almost