18 SEPTEMBER 1909, Page 3

Though we yield to none in our admiration of Boswell

and of what we may term the anecdotal side of Johnson, and though we admit that Johnson the man was greater than Johnson the author, we do not hesitate to say that if Boswell had never existed, and Johnson were only known through his books, he would still be known as a master intellect. No one can read through the preface to the Dictionary, or the letter to Lord Chesterfield, or the final letter to Mrs. Three, without recognising that he is in contact not only with a mighty mind, but with a man who had the gift to give " the extreme characteristic impression of the thing written about."