...in helping us to live day by day. As he observed to Lord Monboddo when calling upon him in Scotland, 'I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use' (Tour, 79). Admirers ofjohnson esteem their man in similar terms, and not just with his biographical...

...the "philosophic" spirit. 18 Everyday Life: Creech, Ramsay, Strutt Samuel Johnson's preference for biography "as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use" leads to another dimension of the history of manners—the history of everyday life. It would not be...

...the Study of History', in Essays Moral, Political and Literary, vol. ii, p. 389. According to Lord Monboddo, 'The history of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value on any other history': reported by James Boswell, in RW Chapman (ed.), Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of...

...makes clear the conflict between the knowledge value and imaginative purchase of 'manners' history: Monboddo: 'The history of manners is the most valuable....degrees of humanity, and other particulars.' Johnson. 'Yes; but then you must take all the facts to get this, and it is but little you get.' Monboddo. And...

...conversation shews how well he was acquainted with the Moeonian bard; and he has shewn it still tory of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value on any other history. 1 JOHNSON. 'Nor I; and therefore I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what...

...disinterestedness and devotion to humankind that Johnson reveals throughout. The biographer who esteemed his art as giving us "what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use," was not likely to miss any suitable opportunity to enforce example by precept, to extract from deed...