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vivors of that society, not only approved and encouraged my design, but was, as the reader will see, good enough to contribute to its execution. It were to be wished, that he himself could have been induced to undertake the work - too humble indeed for his powers, but which he was, of all men then living, perhaps, the fittest to execute.

Mr. Alexander Chalmers, the ingenious and learned editor of the last London edition, gave me, with great candour and liberality, all the assistance in his power-regretting and wondering, like Lord Stowell and Sir James Mackintosh, that so much should be forgotten of what at no remote period every body must have known.

To Mr. D'Israeli's love and knowledge of literary history, and to his friendly assistance, I was very much indebted; as well as to Mr. (now Sir Henry) Ellis of the British Museum, for his readiness on this and other occasions to afford me every information in his power.

The Marquis Wellesley took an encouraging interest in the work, and improved it by some valuable observations; and the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Spencer, Lord Bexley, and Lord St. Helens, the son of Dr. Johnson's early friend Mr. Fitzherbert, were so obliging as to answer some inquiries with which I found it necessary to trouble them.'

In the present edition I have had some valuable assistance from Mr. Peter Cunningham (son of Allan Cunningham the Poet), as well as from my friend Mr. Lockhart, author of the Life of Sir Walter Scott'-a work second only, if indeed it be second, to that of Boswell, in all its higher qualities.

How I may have arranged all these materials, and availed myself of so much assistance, it is not for me to decide. Situated as I was when I began and until I had nearly completed the edition of 1835, I could not have ventured to undertake a more serious task; and I fear that even this desultory and gossiping kind of employment must have suffered from the weightier occupations in which I was then engaged, as well as from my own deficiencies.

If unfortunately any one should think that I have failed in my attempt to improve the original work, I still have the consolation of thinking that there is no great harm done. For, as I have retrenched nothing from the best editions of the LIFE and the TOUR, the worst that can happen is that what I have added to the collection may, if the reader so pleases, be rejected as surplusage.

Of the value of the notes with which my friends favoured me, I can have no doubt;

Of all these eminent persons mentioned in the text, Lords Lansdowne and Bexley, Sir Henry Ellis, and Messrs. Markland and D'Israeli, only survive - but I preserve, with a tender pleasure and a very excusable pride, this record of n gratitude to so many illustrious friends and assistants. Of all that are mentioned in the work itself as having been aquainted with Johnson, two only-acquaintances also of Lady Keith (Miss Thrale) and Miss Langton, only

survive.

of my own, I will only say, that I have endeavoured to make them at once concise and explanatory. I hope I have cleared up some obscurities, supplied some deficiencies, and, in many cases, saved the reader the trouble of referring to dictionaries and magazines for notices of the various persons and facts which are incidentally mentioned. 3

In some cases I candidly confess, and in many more I fear that I have shown, my own ignorance; but I can say, that when I have so failed, it has not been for want of diligent inquiry after the desired information. I have not considered it any part of my duty to defend or to controvert the statements or opinions recorded in the text; but in a few instances, in which either a matter of fact has been evidently misstated, or an important principle has been heedlessly invaded or too lightly treated, I have ventured a few words towards correcting the error.

The desultory nature of the work itself, the repetitions in some instances and the contradictions in others, are perplexing to those who may seek for Dr. Johnson's final opinion on any given subject. This difficulty I could not hope, and have, therefore, not attempted to remove; it is inevitable in the transcript of table-talk so various, so loose, and so extensive; but I have endeavoured to alleviate it by occasional references to the different places where the same subject is discussed, and by a copious, and I trust, satisfactory index.

I have added translations of most if not all the classical quotations in the work-generally from the most approved translators—sometimes, when they did not appear to hit the point in question, I have ventured a version of

my own.

With respect to the spirit towards Dr. JOHNSON himself by which I was actuated, I beg leave to say that I feel and have always felt for him a great, but, I hope, not a blind admiration. For his writings, and especially for his Vanity of Human Wishes, the Prefaces to the Dictionary and Shakespeare, and the Lives of the Poets, that admiration has little or no alloy. In his personal conduct and conversation there may be occasionally something to regret and (though rarely) something to disapprove, but less, perhaps, than there would be in those of any other man, whose words, actions, and even thoughts should be exposed to public observation so nakedly as, by a strange concurrence of circumstances, Dr. Johnson's have been.

Having no domestic ties or duties, the latter

2 In half a dozen instances an indelicate expression has been omitted; and, in one or two places (always, however, stated in the notes), the insertion of new matter has occasioned the omission or alteration of a few words in the text.

3 As some proof of diligence, I may be allowed to state that the Variorum notes to the edition by Chalmers were little over 1000, while the number of my additional notes is nearly 2500.

portion of his life was, as Mrs. Piozzi observes, nothing but conversation, and that conversation was watched and recorded from night to night and from hour to hour with zealous attention and unceasing diligence. No man, the most staid or the most guarded, is always the same in health, in spirits, in opinions. Human life is a series of inconsistencies; and when Johnson's early misfortunes, his protracted poverty, his strong passions, his violent prejudices, and, above all, his bodily and I may say mental infirmities, are considered, it is only wonderful that a portrait so laboriously minute and so painfully faithful does not exhibit more of blemish, incongruity, and error.

The life of Dr. Johnson is indeed a most curious chapter in the history of man; for certainly there is no instance of the life of any other human being having been exhibited in so much detail, or with so much fidelity. There are, perhaps, not many men who have practised so much self-examination as to know themselves as well as every reader knows Dr. Johnson.

We must recollect that it is not his table-talk or his literary conversations only that have been published: all his most private and most trifling correspondence-all his most common as well as his most confidential intercoursesall his most secret communion with his own conscience and even the solemn and contrite

exercises of his piety, have been divulged and exhibited to the "garish eye" of the world without reserve I had almost said, without delicacy. Young, with gloomy candour, has said

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"Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight, a naked human heart." What a man must Johnson have been, whose heart, having been laid more bare than that of any other mortal ever was, has passed so little blemished through so terrible an ordeal!

But while we contemplate with such interest this admirable and perfect portrait, let us not forget the painter. Mr. Burke told Sir James Mackintosh that he thought Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings, and on another occasion said, that he thought Johnson appeared greater in Boswell's volumes than even in his own.

It was a strange and fortunate concurrence, that one so prone to talk and who talked so well, should be brought into such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able to record. Dr. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers, but Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He united lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding, the excellencies of others. Though proud of his own name and lineage, and ambitious of the countenance of the great, he was yet so

cordial an admirer of merit, wherever found, that much public ridicule, and something like contempt, were excited by the modest assurance with which he pressed his acquaintance on all the notorieties of his time, and by the ostentatious (but in the main, laudable) assiduity with which he attended the exile Paoli and the low-born Johnson! These were amiable, and, for us, fortunate inconsistencies. His contemporaries indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, inquisitive, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive-his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objects— when he meddled, he did so, generally, from good-natured motives-his giddiness was only an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and reverence due to literature, morals, and religion: and posterity gratefully acknowledges the taste, temper, and talents with which he selected, enjoyed, and described that polished and intellectual society which still lives in his work, and without his work had perished!

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi: sed omnes illacrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longâ

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."

Such imperfect though interesting sketches as Ben Jonson's visit to Drummond, Selden's Table Talk, Swift's Journal, and Spence's Anecdotes, only tantalise our curiosity and excite our regret that there was no Boswell to preserve the conversation and illustrate the life and times of Addison, of Swift himself, of Milton, and, above all, of Shakespeare! We can hardly refrain from indulging ourselves with the imagination of works so instructive and delightful; but that were idle; except as it may tend to increase our obligation to the faithful and fortunate biographer of Dr. John

son.

Mr. Boswell's birth and education familiarised him with the highest of his acquaintance, and his good-nature and conviviality with the lowest. He describes society of all classes with the happiest discrimination. Even his foibles assisted his curiosity; he was sometimes laughed at, but always well received; he excited no envy, he imposed no restraint. It was wel known that he made notes of every conversa. tion, yet no timidity was seriously alarmed, no delicacy demurred; and we are perhaps in debted to the lighter parts of his character fo the patient indulgence with which every bod submitted to sit for their pictures.

Mr. Boswell took, indeed, extraordinary an most laudable pains to attain accuracy. No only did he commit to paper at night the con versation of the day, but even in gener: society he would occasionally take a note any thing remarkable that occurred; and 1 afterwards spared no trouble in arranging an

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supplying the inevitable deficiencies of these hasty memoranda.1

Nor were his talents inconsiderable. He had looked a good deal into books, and more into the world. The narrative portion of his works is written with good sense, in an easy and perspicuous style, and without (which seems odd enough) any palpable imitation of Johnson. But in recording conversations he is unrivalled: that he was eminently accurate in substance, we have the evidence of all his contemporaries; but he is also in a high degree characteristic dramatic. The incidental observations with which he explains or enlivens the dialogue, are terse, appropriate, and picturesque we not merely hear his company, we see them!

Yet his father was, we are told, by no means satisfied with the life he led, nor his eldest son with the kind of reputation he attained; neither liked to hear of his connexion even with Paoli or Johnson; and both would have been better pleased if he had contented himself with a domestic life of sober respectability.

Mr. Wordsworth obligingly furnished me with the following copy of a note in a blank page of his copy of Boswell's work, dictated and signed in Mr. Wordsworth's presence by the late Sir George Beaumont, whose own accuracy was exemplary, and who lived very much in the society of Johnson's latter days.

"Rydal Mount, 12th Sept. 1826. "Sir Joshua Reynolds told me at his table, immediately after the publication of this book, that every word of it might be depended upon as if given on oath. Boswell was in the habit of bringing the proof sheets to his house previously to their being struck off, and if any of the company happened to have been present at the conversation recorded, he requested him or them to correct any error, and, not satisfied with this, he would run over all London for the sake of verifying any single word which might be disputed.

"G. H. BEAUMONT."

Although it cannot escape notice, that Sir Joshua is here reported to have drawn a somewhat wider inference than the premises warranted, the general testimony is satisfactory, and it is to a considerable extent corroborated by every kind of evidence external and internal.

* See p. 397. n. This feeling is less surprising in old Lord Auchinleck than in Sir Alexander, who was himself a man of the world, clever, literary, and social.

3 The following letter (in the Reynolds Papers) from Mr. Boswell to Sir Joshua, on the subject of this portrait, ought not to be lost.

"London, 7th June, 1785. "MY DEAR SIR, - The debts which I contracted in my father's lifetime will not be cleared off by me for some years. I therefore think it unconscientious to indulge myself in any expensive article of elegant luxury. But in the mean time,

The public, however, the dispenser of fame, has judged differently, and considers the biographer of Johnson as the most eminent branch of the family pedigree. With less activity, less indiscretion, less curiosity, less enthusiasm, he might, perhaps, have been what the old lord would, no doubt, have thought more respectable; and have been pictured on the walls of Auchinleck (the very name of which we never should have heard) by some stiff, provincial painter in a lawyer's wig or a squire's hunting cap; but his portrait, by Reynolds, would not have been ten times engraved; his name could never have become- -as it is likely to be as far spread and as lasting as the English language; and "the world had wanted" a work to which it refers as a manual of amusement, a repository of wit, wisdom, and morals, and a lively and faithful history of the manners and literature of England, during a period hardly second in brilliancy, and superior in importance, even to the Augustan age of Anne.

1st May, 1831.

-

J. W. C.

you may die, or I may die; and I should regret very much that there should not be at Auchinleck my portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom I have the felicity of living in social intercourse.

"I have a proposal to make to you. I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February. Will you now do my picture, and the price shall be paid out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate in five years hence, by myself or my representatives.

"If you are pleased to approve of this proposal, your signifying your concurrence underneath, upon two duplicates, one of which shall be kept by each of us, will be a sufficient voucher of the obligation. Lever am, with very sincere regard, my dear sir, your faithful and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL.

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An engraving from Sir Joshua's portrait is prefixed to the present volume. I was favoured by Mrs. Denham with a pencil sketch of Mr. Boswell in later life, by Sir Thomas Lawrence: which, although bordering on caricature, is so evidently characteristic, and (as I am assured) so identically like, that I think it worth reproducing. I have also added, on the next page, a whole length (first published in the duodecimo edition) of Boswell during the period when he "flourished" (as Mr. Chalmers slily phrases it) with Johnson. Both these sketches will, I think, be acceptable, as giving a lively idea, not merely of his person, but also, (and particularly the first,) of his mind and manner :- busy selfimportance and dogmatical good-nature were seldom better expressed.

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THE

LIFE

OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

COMPREHENDING

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES,

AND NUMEROUS WORKS,

IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER;

A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE

AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS;

AND

VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION,

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.

THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN IN GREAT BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED.

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