Note 488 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 11)
Reading edition
The distinguishing merit of Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson is precisely what Cowper here states. In perusing it we become intimately acquainted with his manner, habits of life, and sentiments on every subject. We are introduced to the great wits of the age, and see a lively portraiture of the literary characters of those times. However minute and even frivolous some of the remarks may be, yet Boswell's Life will never fail to awaken interest, and no library can be considered to be complete without it.
"Homer," says a popular critic, "is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets—Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists—Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers."
"A book," observes Mr. Croker, "to which the world refers as a manual of amusement, a repository of wit, wisdom, and morals, and a lively and faithful history of the manners and literature of England, during a period hardly second in brilliancy, and superior in importance even to the Augustan age of Anne."