pension jingle in his pocket.—Letter to Unwin, September 21st, 1779.
Dr. Johnson's very appearance is more familiar to us through portraits and descriptions than that of any other person of past generations. His massive figure still haunts Fleet Street, and he has "stamped his memory upon the remote Hebrides." His personal habits, his tricks of speech, his outlook upon life, all have become part of our national consciousness, and have encouraged both men in the past and men now living to support life with a manlier fortitude and an enlarged hope. The courage and beneficence of his own life, confirmed by the reports of all who knew him best, have justly become a treasured possession of the English race, of whose good points and of whose foibles he was an epitome. His intellect was not unworthy of his other qualities, the strength and weakness of which it reflected with fidelity. His conversation was even more remarkable than his writings, admirable though the best of these were, and has conferred upon him a species of fame which no Englishman shares with him in any considerable degree. The exceptional traits which were combined in his personality have met in the person of Boswell with a delineator unrivalled in patience, dexterity, and dramatic insight. The result has been a portrait of a man of letters more lifelike than that which any other age or nation has bequeathed to us.—Bookman Illustrated History of English Literature.
