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 doctor's claws nor make his tiger a cat to please anybody." He was so faithful to the biographic law of candour that the frequent snubs which the doctor administered to the writer himself find a due place in the record.

Boswell's presentation of himself in the biography offers a third piece of valuable instruction to the biographer. It was not in Boswell's nature to efface himself Yet it cannot be said of him, as of some other biographers, that he brings himself on the stage at the expense of his subject. There are biographies which fail helplessly because the writer is always thinking as much, or perhaps more, of himself than of his theme. He is seeking to share in the honours of publicity. Boswell does not efface himself, but he envelops himself in the spirit of his theme; he stands in its shadow and never in its light.

Lastly Boswell was an industrious collector of information. It may be objected that for the fifty-four years of Johnson's life, which preceded Boswell's introduction to him,