Thus he apologizes for informing the reader that Johnson, when journeying, "carried in his hand a large English oak-stick:" adding, "I remember Dr.
Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes instead of buckles." Boswell lets us know how Johnson looked, what dress he wore, what was his talk, what were his prejudices.

He painted him with all his scars, and a wonderful portrait it is--perhaps the most complete picture of a great man ever limned in words.
But for the accident of the Scotch advocate's intimacy with Johnson, and his devoted admiration of him, the latter would not probably have stood nearly so high in literature as he now does.

It is in the pages of Boswell that Johnson really lives; and but for Boswell, he might have remained little more than a name.

Others there are who have bequeathed great works to posterity, but of whose lives next to nothing is known.
What would we not give to have a Boswell's account of Shakspeare?
We positively know more of the personal history of Socrates, of Horace, of Cicero, of Augustine, than we do of that of Shakspeare.

We do not know what was his religion, what were his politics, what were his experiences, what were his relations to his contemporaries.