Book Description

Excerpt from Johnsoniana Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson Even as Johnson, huge, ungainly, and infirm, has been immortalized and glorified by the brush of Reynolds, so his wisdom and his wit, his roughness and his tenderness, have been depicted for us by Boswell. With these masterpieces of bodily and mental portraiture before us, we may often say, "No more! the picture is perfect, the biography complete, we care for no inferior touch!" But there are other moods in which we feel that different aspects of both body and mind might have been shown. We have his portrait in repose, thoughtful, almost sublime, but we sometimes feel, "Would that an artist eye had seen him at Uttoxeter doing penance in passionate repentance!" Would that some one had noted the tender pathos of the farewell look on his dying servant, Catherine Chambers; or the glee with which, when almost penniless himself, he hid pennies in the hands of sleeping children in the London streets, lest they should awake breakfastless!" So with regard to his life and character. We sometimes fancy that another hand might give a different, not a better or a fuller representation than Boswell's. To afford satisfaction to this feeling, and gratify the desire to know all that can be known about so great a man, the different articles in this volume are brought together. In former Johnsoniana, this has been done in the form of anecdotes and sayings. Extracts from various writers were cut up into short pieces, supplied with more or less appropriate headings, and called Anecdotes or Sayings of Johnson. We have preferred where we could to give each author's article whole and intact. Where this was not possible or desirable, and extracts must be resorted to, each passage is complete in itself, and no liberties have been taken with the original text, to which full reference is given. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.