of the age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible
pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate
knowledge of stage effect. Among the most constant attendants
were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound
together by friendship, but of widely different characters and
habits; Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek
literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity
of his life; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his
knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his
sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not easy.
Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. Burke might
indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others were under the
necessity of submitting. But Burke, though not generally a very
patient listener, was content to take the second part when
Johnson was present; and the club itself, consisting of so many
eminent men, is to this day popularly designated as Johnson's
Club.

Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has
owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with
little respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty
obtained a seat among them. This was James Boswell, a young
Scotch lawyer, heir to an honourable name and a fair estate.
That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious,
garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him. That
he could not reason, that he had no wit, no humour, no eloquence,
is apparent from his writings. And yet his writings are read
beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are
likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as a
living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a slave and an