Horace Walpole was a virtuoso in Gothic art, and in his castle
at Strawberry Hill he made a collection of ancient armor, illuminated
manuscripts, and bric-a-brac of all kinds. Gray had been Walpole's
traveling companion in France and Italy, and the two had quarreled and
separated, but were afterward reconciled. From Walpole's private
printing-press at Strawberry Hill Gray's two "sister odes," the _Bard_,
and the _Progress of Poesy_, were first issued in 1757. Both Gray and
Walpole were good correspondents, and their printed letters are among
the most delightful literature of the kind.
The central figure among the English men of letters of that generation
was Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), whose memory has been preserved less by
his own writings than by James Boswell's famous _Life of Johnson_,
published in 1791. Boswell was a Scotch laird and advocate, who first
met Johnson in London, when the latter was fifty-four years old. Boswell
was not a very wise or witty person, but he reverenced the worth and
intellect which shone through his subject's uncouth exterior. He
followed him about, note-book in hand, bore all his snubbings patiently,
and made the best biography ever written. It is related that the doctor
once said that if he thought Boswell meant to write his life, he should
prevent it by taking Boswell's.
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