Excerpt from Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson
No man has ever held the same place as Johnson. Dryden was gazed at with distant veneration by Pope; Pope's hand was touched with reverence by Reynolds. Each of these poets was in his own time the acknowledged head of the world of letters. But Johnson was more than this. He was the unrivalled talker, the master of the art of life, the oracle whom all men could consult, the dread of the fool and the affected, the founder of a great school of truthfulness and accuracy, the profound teacher of morality. Death laid his hand on him in vain; for though Johnson was gone the land became more and more Johnsonised. Great though his fame was in his life-time, it is greater still in his death. It is his singular fortune among authors that his reputation is founded not on his own writings but on those of his disciples and friends. As Edmund Burke justly maintained, 'Boswell's Life is a greater monument to Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' His written wisdom was indeed great, but it is in his spoken wisdom that he lives. A few of his writings still hold their ground and are likely to hold them, for it is not easy to believe that the day will ever come when the world will be wholly indifferent to London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, or will suffer the Lives of the Poets to sink into neglect.
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. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson (Classic Reprint) (Samuel Johnson)