Excerpt from Little Journeys to the Homes of English Authors I could say was, God help him! (l Not but that Mrs. Lease is a most excellent and amiable lady; but the idea of a man, made in the image of his Maker, being reduced to the social state of a drone bee, is most depressing. Among that worthy class of people referred to some what ironically as the reading public, Boswell is read, but Johnson never. And so sternly true is the fact, that many critics, set on a hair-trigger, aver that were it not for Boswell no one would now know that a writer by the name of Johnson ever lived. Yet the fact is, Boswell ruined the literary reputation of John son by intimating that Johnson wrote Johnsonese; but that is a mistake. Johnson never wrote Johnsonese. The piling up of reasons, the cumulation of argument - setting off epi gram against epigram - that' mark Johnson's literary style are its distinguishing features. He is profound, but always lucid. And lucidity is just what modern Johnsonese lacks. The word was coined by a man who had neither the patience to read Johnson nor the abil ity to comprehend him. Only sophomores, and private secretaries who write speeches for able Congressmen, write Johnsonese. 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.