There was only one other person in the life of Samuel Johnson who stood a chance of writing a biography as entertaining as Boswell's. Francis Barber was overqualified by modern standards, and too loyal for the job in any era, but for more than thirty years he was Johnson's (black) manservant. There in the small hours - peeling oranges, brewing tea, mending stockings, lifting papers - Barber was considered to be all the disciples other than Judas, though one now wonders, naturally, what the servant could have offered the great moralist in the way of a horrific posthumous disservice.

LRB 24 July 2003 | PDF Download