Boswell, in the preface to the second edition of the 'Life,' tells us that the book had been received with favour, that he had obtained a great deal of spontaneous praise, and that Sir Joshua Reynolds lived to give the strongest testimony to its fidelity. These are expressions which he could not use, had they been untrue, in that place; for they would invite a damaging attack from the reviewers. But a book which upset the popular conception of a figure like Johnson, or even one which merely overdrew the 'shades' in his character, would hardly have been received like that. And Boswell in fact was never attacked in print for these faults, which, considering what a number of enemies he had, and the disputes in which he was engaged after the publication of the 'Life,' is almost conclusive evidence that his accounts of Johnson's 'awfulness' corresponded with the observations of other people. Courtenay was a good judge when he wrote the following lines about the 'Tour to the Hebrides': "With Reynolds' pencil, vivid, bold, and true, So fervent Boswell gives him to our view: In every trait we see his mind expand; The master rises by the pupil's hand. We love the writer, praise his happy vein, Grac'd with the _naïveté_ of the sage Montaigne. Hence not alone are brighter parts display'd, But e'en the specks of character pourtray'd: We see the Rambler with fastidious smile...."[15] [Footnote 1: _Autobiography, Letters, &c., of Mrs. Piozzi_, ii, 403.] [Footnote 2: Nichols' _Illustrations_, vii, 313.] [Footnote 3: Henley, in _Views and Reviews_, speaks of Boswell as an artist.] [Footnote 4: Fitzgerald and Birkbeck Hill both say something of this.] [Footnote 5: I use this term not in a particular technical sense (as applied to a school of French painters) but in a general sense, of all art that neglects details for the sake of general effect.] [Footnote 6: The italics are mine.] [Footnote 7: _Life of Johnson_, ii. 262, n. 2.] [Footnote 8: _Miss Burney's Diary_, iv, 478.] [Footnote 9: _Ib._, i, 100.] [Footnote 10: _Life of Johnson_, iii, 80-1.] [Footnote 11: _Life of Johnson_, iv, 340 _et seq._] [Footnote 12: _Miss Burney's Diary_, i, 211.] [Footnote 13: _Ib._, i, 231.] [Footnote 14: _Ib._, i, 102.] [Footnote 15: _Life of Johnson_, ii, 268.] CHAPTER XIII