Great, loving essay on Samuel Johnson by Henry Oliver, thank you for the link.
Oliver is right, there isn't one special book that defines Johnson, each of his works somehow feels a little unremarkable in isolation. It's Johnson's tone, the reflective posture, that make him.
And Oliver callling Johnson the JS Bach of English prose is ingenious. Jup, Johnson is the Bach of English prose.
He is fabulously quotable, sometimes really reactionary, sometimes brilliantly on point. Or just nasty-but-funny. He attacked women preaching because a woman, a Quaker, challenged him on the Bible and didn't bow down to his genius.
On the other hand he was scathing about slavery and once called for a toast 'to the next slave revolt!' and gave us 'noone cries louder about liberty than the drivers of [enslaved people].'
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