Thank you to Carolyn Kunin for recommending the paper on Pale Fire and The Life of Johnson. I am taking a class on 18th Century English Literature this semester, and I've been looking for ways to bring Pale Fire into my syllabus.

I don't suggest that this clarifies the epigraph, but it's appealing to note that a few paragraphs before the Hodge passage, Boswell remarks:

"He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his study, 'Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost any body.'"

He then segues into his recollection of Hodge: "I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat...I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge."

In this passage there seem to be some distant preverberations of the theme of rival affections that runs through Pale Fire.

Best,

Jacob Wilkenfeld