Johnson's last work was a series of short lives of some of the
English poets from the seventeenth century onwards. It is
generally looked upon as his best. And although some of the
poets of whom he wrote are almost forgotten, and although we may
think that he was wrong in his criticisms of many of the others,
this is the book of Johnson's which is still most read. For it
must be owned that the great Sam is not much read now, although
he is such an important figure in the history of our literature.
It is as a person that we remember him, not as a writer. He
stamped his personality, as it is called, upon his age. Boswell
caught that personality and preserved it for us, so that, for
generation after generation, Johnson lives as no other character
in English literature lives. Boswell gave a new meaning to the
word biographer, that is the writer of a life, and now when a
great man has had no one to write his life well, we say "He lacks
a Boswell."
Boswell after a time joined the famous club at which Johnson and
his friends met together and talked.
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