An Executor Most Eloquent

Born 300 years ago this month, Samuel Johnson played the words of the English language like a master organist improvising on Bach.

At the death of is his friend Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and Member of Parliament, Johnson became one of Thrale's executors. Johnson's particular concern, his biographers tell us, was the running of the brewery and its sale for the best possible price.

Centuries later, Johnson's sales pitch, recorded by Boswell, lives on in books of quotations:

“We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, beyond the dreams of avarice.”