But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active.The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel.His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order.He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes.As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote.Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely balanced period of the Rambler.But in his talk there was no pompous triads, and little more than a fair proportion of words in "osity" and "ation".All was simplicity, ease, and vigour.He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally ended.
Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally.
To discuss questions of taste, of learning, casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure.He loved, as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out.He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sate at the same table with him in an eating-house.But his conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to send him back every ball that he threw.Some of these, in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in the commonwealth of letters.The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the pastry-cook.Nor shall we think this strange when we consider what great and various talents and acquirements met in the little fraternity.Goldsmith was the representative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy.There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the age.Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of stage effect.Among the most constant attendants were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely different characters and habits; Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit.To predominate over such a society was not easy.
Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated.Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others were under the necessity of submitting.But Burke, though not generally a very patient listener, was content to take the second part when Johnson was present; and the club itself, consisting of so many eminent men, is to this day popularly designated as Johnson's Club.
Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with little respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat among them.This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to an honourable name and a fair estate.
That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him.That he could not reason, that he had no wit, no humour, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings.And yet his writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language.Nature had made him a slave and an idolater.His mind resembles those creepers which the botanists call parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round the stems and imbibing the juices of stronger plants.He must have fastened himself on somebody.He might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have become the fiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights Society.He might have fastened himself on Whitfield, and have become the loudest field preacher among the Calvinistic Methodists.In a happy hour he fastened himself on Johnson.The pair might seem ill matched.For Johnson had early been prejudiced against Boswell's country.To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly.Johnson hated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechising him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as "What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?" Johnson was a water drinker;and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed little better than a habitual sot.It was impossible that there should be perfect harmony between two such companions.Indeed, the great man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented.
Every quarrel, however, was soon made up.During twenty years the disciple continued to worship the master: the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him.The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each other.Boswell practised in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and could pay only occasional visits to London.