When Johnson undertook the Lives he was almost seventy years of age; he had long been familiar with his subject, and he wrote from a full mind, rapidly and confidently. He spent little time on research. When Boswell tried to introduce him to Lord Marchmont, who had a store of anecdotes concerning Pope, he at first refused the trouble of hearing them. ‘I suppose, Sir,’ said Mrs. Thrale, with something of the severity of a governess, ‘Mr. Boswell thought, that as you are to write Pope’s Life, you would wish to know about him.’ Johnson accepted the reproof, though he might very well have replied that he knew more than was necessary for his purpose. An even better instance of his indifference may be found in his criticism of Congreve. Congreve’s dramatic works are not bulky, and were doubtless to be found in any well-appointed drawing-room. But Johnson would not rise from his desk. ‘Of Congreve’s plays,’ he says, ‘I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have passed; but what remains upon my memory is, that his characters are commonly fictitious and artificial, with very little of nature and not much of life.’ Then follows an admirable critical summary of Congreve’s peculiar merits in comedy.
This magnanimous carelessness with regard to detail helped rather than hindered the breadth and justice of Johnson’s scheme. There are many modern biographies and histories, full of carefully authenticated fact, which afflict the reader with a weight of indigestion. The author has no right to his facts, no ownership in them. They have flitted through his mind on a calm five minutes’ passage from the notebook to the immortality of the printed page. But no man can hope to make much
