Carlyle, who regarded him with as much contempt as Macaulay, nevertheless recognised this: "The fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain noteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch laird ... approaching in such awestruck fashion the great dusty irascible pedagogue in his mean garret ... It is a genuine reverence for Excellence."   

Fair enough, but there was excellence in Boswell too. Johnson was a formidable intellectual and a great writer, but he is little read and would, one suspects, be of interest only to dons and students of English literature, were it not for Boswell. He created Johnson as one of the great dramatic figures in our literature; he made him as alive as Falstaff or a character in Dickens. The biography is tender, loving, perceptive and also very funny. No other biographer has matched this achievement. Modern biographers have learned much more about Johnson's early life than Boswell ever knew, and have filled in the gaps that he left; they have offered a different perspective on his history and achievement. Yet it is thanks to Boswell that Johnson lives. 

How extraordinary that some still echo Macaulay's dismissive judgment and regard a great writer as a great fool. They recognise his book as great, but underrate the skill with which it is compiled; the art which conceals art. The author of the greatest biography in the language should instead be recognised as what he was: a great writer himself.