But the supreme end of education, we are told, is expert discernment in all things—­the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.  This is the supreme end of the talk of Socrates, and it is the supreme end of the talk of Johnson.  ‘My dear friend,’ said he, ‘clear your mind of cant; . . . don’t think foolishly.’  The effect of long companionship with Boswell’s Johnson is just this.  As Sir Joshua said, ‘it brushes away the rubbish’; it clears the mind of cant; it instills the habit of singling out the essential thing; it imparts discernment.  Thus, through his friendship with Boswell, Johnson will realize his wish, still to be teaching as the years increase.

THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.  But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition.  Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death.

As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view; as he was well apprised of this circumstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my inquiries, by communicating to me the incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting, and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him, from every quarter where I could discover that they were to be found, and have been favoured with the most liberal communications by his friends; I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such a work as this, with more advantages; independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing.