It may be truly said that many years before Dr. Johnson’s death, he had obtained the universal respect of his fellow-countrymen. And this esteem continued for at least a generation after he had passed away, for had not the genius of his great biographer ‘Johnsonized the land’? However, later on there came a time, and one that lasted long, when his fame suffered an eclipse, and that almost total. Romanticism and a new Liberalism were now sovereign; Byron and Scott, Wordsworth and Shelley, these were men’s gods; there was no place for the sturdy common-sense of Johnson. But to-day this movement has more or less run its course, and by an inevitable reaction Dr. Johnson has come into his own again. There is a general revival of interest in him, his circle, and his period, and that not only in England, but very markedly in America also. Societies are founded to study his works and his opinions. New editions of Johnson and Boswell, with careful and meticulous commentaries and annotations, issue from the press. Every detail is scanned, every morsel of interest is brought to light. Collections of letters and sayings are published. Essays are written, meetings are held, speeches are delivered, literary repositories are ransacked, manuscripts are unearthed and collated, and transatlantic millionaires bear down upon our auction-rooms and at incredible cost secure rich Johnsonian prizes.