Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is so replete with the sayings and thoughts of the intellectual giant, whom it was so much his object to elevate, even above his natural Patagonian stature, that it may be regarded as a sort of autobiography, dictated by the sage in his moments of _abandon_ to his devout worshipper. It is hardly going too far to say that it is the most popular book in the English language. Johnson's reputation now mainly rests on that biography. No one now reads the _Rambler_ or the _Idler_--few the _Lives of the Poets_, interesting as they are, and admirable as are the criticisms on our greatest authors which they contain. But Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is in everybody's hands; you will hear the pithy sayings, the admirable reflections, the sagacious remarks it contains, from one end of the world to the other. The secret of this astonishing success is to be found in the caustic tone, sententious brevity, and sterling good sense of Johnson, and the inimitable accuracy, faithful memory, and almost infantine simplicity of his biographer. From the unbounded admiration with which he was inspired for the sage, and the faithful memory with which he was gifted, he was enabled to commit to paper, almost as they were delivered, those admirable sayings which have ever since been the delight and admiration of the world. We almost live with the members of the Literary Club; we hear their divers sentiments, and can almost conceive their tones of voice. We see the gigantic form of the sage towering above his intellectual compeers. Burke said that Johnson was greater in conversation than writing, and greater in Boswell than either; and it is easy to conceive that this must have been the case. The _Life_ contains all the admirable sayings, _verbatim_ as they were delivered, and without the asperity of tone and manner which formed so great a blot in the original deliverer. Johnson's sayings were of a kind which were susceptible of being accurately transferred, and with full effect, to paper, because they were almost all reflections on morals, men, or manners, which are of universal application, and come home to the senses of mankind in every age. In this respect they were much more likely to produce an impression in biography than the conversation of Sir Walter Scott, which, however charming to those who heard it, consisted chiefly of anecdotes and stories, great part of the charm of which consisted in the mode of telling and expression of the countenance, which, of course, could not be transferred to paper.