a great social upheaval, and beginning to be sentimental and denounce luxury and believe in the state of nature or the rights of man. Johnson was rich in such experience, and his best sayings are summaries of the reflections which it suggested. His reading and his criticism had all the same purpose. He loved biography and such history as deals with individual character. He could not bear to talk about the 'Punic War,' as he told Mrs. Piozzi—formal accounts of campaigns and conquests; but he loved the history which showed 'how our ancestors lived.' He was even modern in his approval of early attempts to give accounts of 'common manners' rather than political events. He always estimates books, from Shakespeare to Richardson, by the 'knowledge of the human heart' which he considers them to contain. He loves London as a botanist might love a fertile country, on account of the abundance of the material for his favourite study. He sent Boswell and Windham to 'explore Wapping' on account of the variety of 'modes of life' to be found there. Boswell is generally ridiculed for his willingness to visit even such people as the famous Mrs. Rudd, who was probably guilty of forgery and something very like
