Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/50

46 narrative are those where he permits himself to be an artist. Boswell was a great artist in portraiture; he desired the world to see the character of his friend as he himself saw it; nor was it without intent that he dedicated his work to Sir Joshua Reynolds, as to one who had ‘perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition.’ The choice of details for emphasis is a choice dictated by pleasure, and those traits in Johnson which had given high delight to Boswell are brought into strong relief in his work. All powerful portraits tend to caricature. On the other hand, all exact and truthful histories tend to pay so minute a reverence to fact that they will rather record what seems insignificant than run the risk of losing what may, after all, prove to be essential. Both these tendencies are seen in Boswell’s work. Sometimes he will paint in broad tones; at other times he will give importance to the smallest trifles by the eagerness of his reverence. What the historian might excusably have omitted is not too small for the worshipper. The attitude of Boswell is well described by Miss Burney, in a famous passage. They met, rival satellites, at the table of the Thrales. Boswell had come on a morning visit, and a collation was ordered, where all the guests were assembled. When Boswell was preparing to take the seat next to Johnson, which he regarded as his own by right, he was told, to his surprise and disgust, that that seat was reserved for Miss Burney. He reluctantly got another chair, and placed it at the back of Johnson’s shoulder, so that he might hear what was said. ‘Of everyone else,’ says Miss Burney, ‘when in that presence, he was unobservant, if not contemptuous. In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly