off. Johnson had no further opportunity of correction, and this is the first edition in which any serious attention has been paid to the text.

Those who are curious in these matters will readily discover, by inspection of my notes, that the proofs of the first edition were not very diligently corrected. The most serious mistakes, except the two false dates,1 are corrected in the Errata. But a substantial number remain. It is clear that the printer confused these with those, and singulars with plurals; and in not a few places more serious corruption may be suspected. I have occasionally offered a correction of my own.3

II. The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Boswell's assiduity in writing his daily Journal is attested in many places. He might be supposed to have taken to heart the solemn warnings which were suggested to Johnson by his own backslidings and by the irreconcilable contrariety' which he had detected in the writings of Wheeler and Spon.4 Whether he had at that time any thought of publication does

1 See notes on pp. 25 and 43. These corruptions, thirteenth for thirtieth and twentieth for second, are as clearly due to misreading of the manuscript (whether words or figures) as are treason for weapon and manner for mariner, which are corrected in the Errata.

2. Infra p. 150.

3 See especially the notes on pp. 6 (decent), 22 (surrounded), 24 (the punctua tion), 40 (danger, etc.), 49 (free from bad), 58 (are now performed), 59 (art), 62 (storm), 108 (that may now be obtruded).

When I first studied the text, in Macedonia, I had before me a copy of the first impression which lacked the leaf of errata, and I was unaware of its existence. I soon saw that the text was suspicious, and set myself to detect errors. I trust I shall not be convicted of vanity-as one of my authors might have said-if I declare, in the interest of the critical art, that I not only made no false shots in correcting the errors noted in the Errata, but succeeded in detecting them all, except hair for skin (p. 44), which is not a printer's error. The fact is not wholly unimportant; for it is seldom that a modern editor can have such an opportunity of testing his own performance.

P. 133.

not appear. When Johnson said, in Skye, ' it might be printed, were the subject fit for printing ',1 no comment is recorded.

We know that Boswell did, in 1775, project a Supplement to Johnson's book. He wrote to Temple on 4 April: Mr. Johnson has allowed me to write out a supplement to his Journey, but I wish I may be able to settle to it.' On 10 May he wrote more doubtfully: "I have not written out another line of my Remarks on the Hebrides. I found it impossible to do it in London. Besides Dr. Johnson does not seem very desirous that I should publish any supplement. Between ourselves, he is not apt to encourage one to share reputation with himself.' These confidences are sometimes interpreted as indicating a desire to publish the Journal in Johnson's lifetime. The first editor of the Letters to Temple said that Boswell' was very anxious to publish his journal', and that Johnson 'repressed the publication of the Tour to the Hebrides'. But this is perhaps too hasty an inference. Boswell seems to be thinking of something to be composed, not merely copied out; and neither Supplement' nor remarks on the Hebrides' seems very appropriate as a description of the Journal as a whole.2

The relation of the published Tour to the very Journal which Dr. Johnson read' is defined in the note on p. 208. Boswell elsewhere 3 makes a point of the exact fidelity' of his book; and it is full of expressions which are appropriate to 1773 rather than to 1785.4 There are, however, in the text

1 P. 311.

2 See however the advertisement of the Journal printed in Boswell's Letter to the People of Scotland (1785), where it is thus described:

'This Journal, which was read and liked by Dr. Johnson, will faithfully and minutely exhibit what he said was the pleasantest part of his life; and, while it gives the remarks which Mr. Boswell himself was able to make, during a very curious journey, it will convey a specimen of that conversation, in which Wisdom and Wit are equally conspicuous.'

3 See the references in the index, p. 493.

4 E. g. p. 368

I survive him '.

Goldsmith feels himself so important now'; p. 370 'if

as well as in the notes, many passages which were obviously added later;1 and the changes made in the second edition show that Boswell allowed himself a certain latitude.

The Tour to the Hebrides was first published in 1785. The Dedication is dated 20 Sept. 1785. The Advertisement to the second edition is dated 20 Dec. 1785. The Advertisement to the third edition is dated 15 Aug. 1786. This was the last edition published in Boswell's lifetime.

The principal changes made in the second edition,2 besides the correction of some printer's errors, are the removal of a few errors of fact, and a large number of slight verbal changes in the interest of grammar and elegance; the addition of the Contents, two Appendixes, and a number of notes explanatory or controversial; and (pp. 254-5) the substitution of a softened account of the stay with Sir Alexander Macdonald for the too frank disclosures of the original narrative. See the Appendix, p. 482.

The changes made in the third edition (see the Advertisement) were much slighter. They were chiefly in the notes. The map was added.

Malone's interest in the book appears from the Dedication, and is otherwise well known.3 One of the notes supplied by an anonymous friend is attributed to him in the Life; 4 and

1 It is none the less possible that the actual Journal, and not a copy of it, was given to the printer. Boswell's habit was to leave blank pages for additions; see p. 402. One of the notebooks which were the raw material of the Life survives in Mr. R. B. Adam's collection; it contains numerous additions, and additions to additions, the places of which are indicated by a rather elaborate system of notes and fingerposts.

It is

2 Boswell wrote, on 20 Dec. 1785, to Joseph Cooper Walker: 'A second edition of my Journal will appear in a day or two. considerably improved by a correction of many typographical errours and other inaccuracies, by a table of contents, several additional notes, and an appendix.' (Letters ed. Tinker, p. 330.)

3 For the story of his introduction to Boswell see Hill v. 1. It seems to be apocryphal; see Prof. Tinker's edition of Boswell's Letters, p. 350 n. 4 25 April 1778 (Hill iii. 323); see infra p. 180, and my note.

Birkbeck Hill identified him as the author of the observations furnished by one of the best criticks of our age',1 who was also the author of the anonymous translations of classical quotations. But it has not been suspected 3 that Malone was in effect the editor of the book, as revised in its second issue. Mr. R. B. Adam of Buffalo has added to the many kindnesses which he has shown me, by lending me Malone's copy of the first edition-not the least of the treasures of his great collection. This copy contains notes in Malone's hand, which are clearly not a record of changes already made by Boswell, but directions for his use in preparing the second edition. These notes are of two kinds: (1) verbal corrections written out in the margin; and (2) references, presumably to a manuscript sent to Boswell, in the form of 'New Par.', 'Note', and the like. It is natural to suppose that these notes, added at Malone's suggestion, were written by him; and it may have. been he who reduced to decency the story of Sir Sawney.4

Malone's verbal changes are for the most part corrections. of Scotticisms and other inelegancies of grammar or idiom. Though few of them are of great importance taken singly, I have thought it worth while to record them, and the readings of the first edition which they displaced. These have a certain interest as being, in all likelihood, the ipsissima verba of the actual Journal read by Johnson; and the corrections themselves deserve the attention of students of the English language, as illustrating what, at that date, was considered to violate the standards of elegant diction.5

1 Infra pp. 208 and 430.

2 Infra p. 405, Hill v. 361.

3 Mr. Powell points out that Malone's supervision is mentioned in a letter from Temple to Jerningham, 3 Oct. 1785 (ed. 1911, p. 311): 'So Boswell's "Tour" is at last announced to the public. Mr. Malone corrected it, and says, if it has not very great success, he never was so much disappointed.' 4 See my notes passim, and the Appendix, p. 483. 5 Minor corrections, of spelling and punctuation, I have not as a rule recorded.

The superior authority of the third edition appears from the Advertisement, and is otherwise clear. Boswell in the Life always cites this edition. It has been rightly followed in all reprints. But all editors have, I think, forgotten that there are two causes of variation between a first and any subsequent edition-author's corrections and printer's errors. The labour of collation has not been in vain, since in some forty places it has enabled me to restore-I believe for the first time— a true reading of the first edition which was corrupted in the second or in the third. In this connexion Malone's corrections have a certain negative value for the textual critic. For it will be seen that Boswell made very few changes, merely verbal, except those which were suggested by Malone. That being so, a verbal variation, which was not suggested by Malone, may fairly be suspected to be due not to design but to accident. However that may be, the first edition has many readings which are indisputably right; and a few of these are important.1

1 See my notes to pp. 242, 280, 295, 314, 351, 415, 418 (it is surprising that all his editors should have allowed Boswell to call Johnson his reverend friend). In a large number of places the punctuation of the first edition is to be preferred; I have restored it silently.

The footnotes, unless the contrary is stated, appeared either in the first edition, or, if they are manifestly afterthoughts, in the second; additions

of the third are noted as such.