When we ask what it is that has made Boswell’s book a great
classic, we are bound to concede to Boswell himself the credit
of having inaugurated a new style of biography, conceived with
the true originality, and carried out with conspicuous success.
Toady, sycophant, braggart, eavesdropper--all these and more
Boswell may have been, but he had one great gift, the faculty
of recognizing greatness, and of suppressing himself in the
presence of greatness.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of
English Prose.”
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