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Inmates of Bolt Court. Tom Davies. Counsel at the Bar
of the House of Commons. Thomas à Kempis. Uses of a
Diary. Strict Adherence to Truth. Ghosts. John Wes-
ley. Alcibiades' Dog. Emigration. Parliamentary Elo-
quence. Place Hunters. Irish Language. Thicknesse's
Travels." Honesty. Temptation. Dr. Kennedy's Tra-
gedy. Shooting a Highwayman. Mr. Dunning.

"Il

tentment. Laxity of Narration. Mrs. Montagu. Harris

of Salisbury. Definition. Wine-drinking. Pleasure.

Goldsmith. Charles the Fifth. Best English Sermons.

"Seeing Scotland." Absenteeism. Delany's "Observa-

tions on Swift "

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CHAPTER LXXVI. 1783.

Population of London. Natural Affection. Self-defence.
Duelling. Corpulency. Government of India. Reviewers.
Horace. Sickness. Liberty of Teaching. "Alias."
Virgil. Cant. Hospitality. Miss Burney. Barry's Pic-
tures. Baxter's Works. Devotion. Johnson attacked
with a Stroke of the Palsy. Recovery. Visit to Langton
at Rochester
728

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PREFACE TO MR. CROKER'S EDITION.1

It were superfluous to expatiate on the merits, at least as a source of amusement, of Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON. Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the propriety of the original publication—however naturally private confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended, the voices of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general applause. And no wonder-the work combines within itself the four most entertaining classes of writing biography, memoirs, familiar letters, and that assemblage of literary anecdotes which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination Ana.

It was originally received with an eagerness and relished with a zest which undoubtedly were sharpened by the curiosity which the unexpected publication of the words and deeds of so many persons still living could not but excite. But this motive has gradually become weaker, and may now be said to be extinct; yet we do not find that the popularity of the work, though somewhat changed in quality, is really diminished; and as the interval which separates us from the actual time and scene increases, so appear to increase the interest and delight which we feel at being introduced, as it were, into that distinguished society of which Dr. Johnson formed the centre, and of which his biographer is the historian.

But though every year thus adds to the interest and instruction which this work affords, something is, on the other hand, deducted from the amusement which it gives, by the gradual obscurity that time throws over the persons and incidents of private life: many circumstances known to all the world when Mr. Boswell wrote are already obscure to the best informed, and wholly forgotten by the rest of mankind.2

For instance, when he relates (p. 69.) that a "great personage" called the English Divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen

A few slight alterations have been made in the original preface, to suit it to the present edition. - 1847.

Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of an intended edition of the Spectator, with notes. He observed that all works which describe manners require notes in sixty or seventy years or less," post, p. 219. And Dean Swift wrote to Pope on the subject of the Dunciad, "I could wish the notes to be very large in what relates to the persons concerned; for 1 have long observed, that twenty miles from London nobody understands hints, initial letters, or town facts or passages, and in a few years not even those who live in London." - Lett. 16, July, 1728.

" Mr. Boswell confesses that he has sometimes been inenced by the subsequent conduct of persons in exhibiting or suppressing Dr. Johnson's unfavourable opinion of them. -See the cases of Lord Monboddo, p 200., and of Mr. Sherkian, p. 204.; and it is to be feared he has some

turies "Giants," we conclude that George III. was the great personage; but all my inquiries (and some of His Majesty's illustrious family have condescended to permit these inquiries to extend even to them) have failed to ascertain to what person or on what occasion that happy expression was used.

Again: When Mr. Boswell's capricious delicacy induced him to suppress names and to substitute such descriptions as "an eminent friend," "a young gentleman," "a distinguished orator," these were well understood by the society of the day; but it is become necessary to apprise the reader of our times, that Mr. Burke, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Fox were respectively meant. Nor is it always easy to appropriate Mr. Boswell's circumlocutory designations. It will be seen in the course of this work, that several of them have become so obscure that even the surviving members of the Johnsonian Society were unable to recollect who were meant, and it was on one of these occasions that Sir James Mackintosh told me that "my work had, at least, not come too

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times done so without confessing, perhaps without being conscious, of the prejudice. On the other hand, he is some. times more amiably guilty of extenuation, as in the instances of Doctors Robertson and Beattie, pp. 182. 191. 244. and 258. It is not easy to explain why Mr. Boswell was unfavourably disposed towards old Sheridan and Goldsmith, though the bias is obvious; but wholly unaccountable are the frequent ridicule and censure which he delighted to provoke and to record against the amiable Bennet Langton. This is, I think, more apparent latterly: though he still generally designates him by some kindly epithet.

Those who knew Mr. Boswell intimately have informed me (as indeed he himself involuntarily does) that his vanity was very sensitive, and there can be no doubt that personal pique tinged many passages of his book, which, whenever I could trace it, I have not failed to notice.

and car, have already lived their day, and are hardly to be heard of except in this work. Yet. this work must be read with imperfect pleasure, without some knowledge of the history of those more than half-forgotten per

sons.

Facts, too, fade from memory as well as names; and fashions and follies are still more transient. But, in a book mainly composed of familiar conversation, how large a portion must bear on the facts, the follies, and the fashions of the time!

To clear up these obscurities to supply these deficiencies to retrieve obsolete and to collect scattered circumstances and so to restore to the work as much as possible of its original clearness and freshness, were the main objects of the present Editor. I am but too well aware how unequal I am to the task, and how imperfectly I have accomplished it. But as the time was rapidly passing away in which any aid could be expected from the contemporaries of Johnson, or even of Boswell, I determined to undertake the work-believing that, however ill I might perform it, I should still do it better than, twenty years later, it could be done by any diligence of research or any felicity of conjecture.

But there were also deficiencies to be supplied. Notwithstanding the diligence and minuteness with which Mr. Boswell detailed what he saw of Dr. Johnson's life, his book left large chasms. It must be recollected that they never resided in the same neighbourhood, and that the detailed account of Johnson's domestic life and conversation is limited to the opportunities afforded by Mr. Boswell's occasional visits to London-by the Scottish Tour-and by one meeting at Dr. Taylor's in Derbyshire. Of above twenty years, therefore, that their acquaintance lasted, periods equivalent in the whole to about three-quarters of a year only fell under the personal notice of Boswell and thus has been left many a long hiatus valde deflendus, and now, alas, quite irrepa

rable!

1

Mr. Boswell endeavoured, indeed, to fill up these chasms as well as he could with letters, memoranda, notes, and anecdotes collected from every quarter; but the appearance of his work was so long delayed, that Sir John Hawkins, Mrs. Piozzi, Dr. Strahan, Mr. Tyers, Mr. Nichols, and many others, had anticipated

1 It appears from the LIFE, that Mr. Boswell visited England a dozen times during his acquaintance with Dr. Johnson, and that the number of days on which they met were about 180, to which is to be added the time of the Tour, when they were together from the 18th August to the 22d November, 1773; in the whole about 276 days. The number of pages in the separate editions of the two works is 2528, of which, 1320 are occupied by the history of these 276 days; so that a little less than an hundredth part of Dr. Johnson's life occupies above one half of Mr. Boswell's works. Every one must regret that his personal intercourse with his great friend was not more frequent or more continued; but 1 could do but little towards rectifying this disproportion, except by the insertion of the correspondence with Mrs. Thrale.

On the use of this Latinism, I venture to repeat

much of what he would have been glad to tell. Some squabbles about copyright had warned him that he must not avail himself of their publications 3; and he was on such bad terms with his rival biographers that he could not expect any assistance or countenance from them. He nevertheless went as far as he thought the law would allow in making frequent quotations from the preceding publications; but as to all the rest, which he did not venture to appropriate to his own use, — the grapes were sour—and he took every opportunity of representing the anecdotes of his rivals as extremely inaccurate and generally undeserving of credit.

It is certain that none of them have attained—indeed they do not pretend to that extreme verbal accuracy with which Mr. Boswell had, by great zeal and diligence, learned to record conversations; nor in the details of facts are they so precise as Mr. Boswell, with good reason, claims to be. After all, however, Mr. Boswell himself is not exempt from those errors

--

quas aut incuria fudit,

Aut humana parum cavit natura;

and an attentive examination and collation of the authorities (and particularly of Mr. Boswell's own) produced the final conviction that the minor biographers are entitled not merely to more credit than Mr. Boswell allows them, but to as much as any person writing from recollection, and not from notes made at the moment, can be.

But much the largest, and, for the purpose of filling up the intervals of his private history, the most valuable part of Dr. Johnson's correspondence was out of Boswell's reach, namely, that which he for twenty years maintained with Mrs. Thrale, and which she published in 1788, in two volumes octavo. For the copyright of these, Mr. Boswell says, in a tone of admiring envy, "she received five hundred pounds.' The publication, however, was not very successful-it never reached a second edition, and is now almost forgotten. But through these letters are scattered almost the only information we have relative to Johnson during the long intervals between Mr. Boswell's visits; and from them he has occasionally but cautiously (having the fear of tire

a pleasant anecdote told by Bishop Elrington. The late Lord Avonmore, giving evidence relative to certain certificates of degrees in the University of Dublin, called them (as they are commonly called, "Testimoniums." As the clerk was writing down the word, one of the counsel said, "Should it not be rather testimonia?" "Yes," replied Lord Avonmore, "if you think it better English!” This pleasantry contains a just grammatical criticism; but memoranda has of late been so generally used as an English plural that I have ventured to retain it.

3 It is a curious proof of these jealousies, that Mr. Boswell entered at Stationers' Hall as distinct publications. Dr. Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield, and the account of his Conversation with George III., which occupy a few pages of the LIFE.

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