NPPF Commentary Line 172, P. 154-156 Part 3

[Vincent A. Maeder]

Back to Mr. Kinbote's little black book which contains "a footnote from
Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson . . ."  Although I would be harried to
find a suitable footnote from this opus, I have supplied a website that
seems to have the complete work:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/  But it is interesting that
Mr. Kinbote brings up this reference.  Perhaps he saw our Mr. Shade as
his Mr. Boswell to his own works.  Also, here Mr. Kinbote has actually
played the Boswell part by transcribing Mr. Shade's conversations.
Well, here's some encyclopedic snippets of these two gents.  

James Boswell, 1740-1795, was a Scottish lawyer, diarist, and writer
renowned as the biographer of Samuel Johnson.  He inspired a noun:
Boswell, n. assiduous and devoted admirer, student, and recorder of
another's words and deeds.  Some encyclopedia around here states that
Mr. Boswell was the son of a judge.  He reluctantly studied law and
practiced throughout his life.  His true interest was in a literary
career and in associating with the great individuals of the time.  He
met Samuel Johnson in 1763 and, having himself achieved fame with his
Account of Corsica (1768), produced Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides
with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785).  His great work, The Life of Samuel
Johnson, LL.D. appeared in 1791.  Boswell recorded Johnson's
conversation so minutely that Johnson is better remembered today for his
sayings than for his own literary works.  The curious combination of
Boswell's own character (he was vainglorious and dissolute) and his
genius at biography has led later critics to call him the greatest of
all biographers.  Masses of Boswell manuscript, discovered in the 20th
cent. near Dublin, have enhanced his reputation.

As for Mr. Johnson, the encyclopedia states that Samuel Johnson,
1709-84, was an English author.  The leading literary scholar and critic
of his day, he helped to define the great period of English literature
known as the Augustan Age.  He is as celebrated for his brilliant
conversation as for his writing.  He began writing for London magazines
around 1737, on literary and political subjects.  The anonymously
published poem London (1738) won the praise of Pope, and his reputation
was further enhanced by his poetic satire The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) and his moral essays in The Rambler (1750-52).  Johnson's place
was permanently assured by his great Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), the first comprehensive English lexicon.  Rasselas, a moral
romance, appeared in 1759, and the Idler essays between 1758 and 1760.
In 1763, Johnson met James Boswell, and his life thereafter is
documented in Boswell's great biography (1791).  With Joshua Reynolds he
founded (1764) "The Club"; this elite gathering, with such members as
Goldsmith, Burke, and Garrick, was dominated by Johnson, whose wit and
aphorisms are still remembered.  In 1765, he published his edition of
Shakespeare, the model for later editions.  His last works include an
account (1775) of a trip with Boswell to the Hebrides and the perceptive
10-volume Lives of the Poets (1779-81).  He was England's first complete
man of letters, and his influence was incalculable.