Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-23

effort to make good impression" or
their superior officers, their friends, their
neighbors!
Let us resume the interesting and
profitable Boswell who did pretty good
job of new biography" in his own day
| and generation:
He united most logical head with
most fertile imagination. which gave
him an extraordinary advantage in
arguing; for he could reason close or
wide, as he saw best for the moment
He was conscious of his SUI
periority. He loved praise when it was
brought to him, but was too proud to
seek for 1t. He was somewhat SuScepti-
BILE of fiattery."
No chance here of mixing up johnson
with Oliver Goldsmith, who. as literary
history tells us, was SO adverse to hear
ing himself or his work praised that
such flattery actually gave him a physi-
cal pain.
To return to Boswell, who paraded
his old man with all the enthusiasm OF
man with fine bulldog on leash:
He had constitutional melancholy
the clouds of which darkened the
brightness of his fancy, and gave a
CdoU W Ills WHOLE course OF
thinking; yet, though grave and awful
in his department. when he thought II
necessary or proper he frequently in
dulged himself in pleasantly and spor-
tive Sallies. He was prone to supersti-
ton, but not to credulity. Though his
imagination might incline him to be-
lief Of the marvellous, and the mysteri-
Gus, his vigorous reason examined the
evidence with jealousy.
'He had loud voice, and slow de-
liberate utterance, which no doubt gave
some additional weight to the sterling
metal of his conversation. Lord Penn
broke once said TO me at Wilton, with a
happy pleasantly and some truth, that
DR.. Johnson's sayings would not appear
so extraordinary were it not for his bow
WOW way but 1 admit the truth of this
only on some occasions"
Every one knows some one or other
addicted to this same sort of "bowbow
way" of uttering his opinions: no doubt
there was great deal of truth, and
still is, in Lord Pembrokes pleasantly:
the reader Is scarcely any less pleased
with this Characterization than he is
with the fact that Boswell saw fit to in
clude it; his subject so pleased him
that he saw no reason to gloss over any
thing.
"Iis person was large, robust, I may
say approaching to the gigantick, and
grown unwieldy from corpulency"
Let us pause long enough to note
that fat is no new" issue, either; men
and women were too fat centuries ago
even as today.
Now we come to one of those dis
tinguished sentences which somehow
ring down the centuries like pleasant
silver bells, sounding the justification
of writing:
His countenance was naturally of the
cast of an ancient statue"
If Boswell had labored for chapters
to give his readers an idea of johnson
he would only have done less than he
did in IL words.
We love the full suit of plain brown
color" his large bushy greyish wig"
and his great overcoat, with pockets
which might have almost held the
two volumes of his folio dictionary
We love his large English oak stick
which he carried for, truly, everything
relative to so great man Is worth
observing"
We Of today may not think DR..
Johnson SO great after all. but Bos-
well did, and that is why johnson so
lives for us, because he seemed great to
James Boswell What we must not
forget is that this, too, is great biography,