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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. 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.

1 See vol. i. p. 458, 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.-ED. 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, 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. I ever am, with very sincere regard, my dear sir, your faithful and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

"I agree to the above conditions.

"J. Reynolds.'

"London, 10th Sept. 1785."

An engraving from Sir Joshua's portrait is prefixed to one of these volumes: but the editor has been 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 the editor is assured) so identically like, that he has had it copied, and thinks it will be acceptable as a lively illustration of both the mind and manners of Mr. Boswell-busy self-importance and dogmatical good-nature were never more strongly expressed.-Ed.

[ORIGINAL TITLE-PAGE.]

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.

BY JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

Quò fit ut OMNIS

Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabella

VITA SENIS

HORAT.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY HENRY BALDWIN,

FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.

M DCC XCI.

"After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith 1."

SHAKSPEARE, Henry VIII.

1 See Dr. Jonnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skie, September 30, 1773: "Boswel. writes a regular Journal of our travels, which I think contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other occurrences together; 'for such a faithful chronicler is Griffith.'"-Boswell.

DEDICATION.

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

MY DEAR SIR,-Every liberal motive that can actuate an authour in the dedication of his labours concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following work should be inscribed.

with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great nian; the friend whom he declared to be "the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he If there be a pleasure in celebrating the dis- should quarrel with him, he should find the tinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed most difficulty how to abuse." You, my with a certain degree of vanity, not alto- dear sir, studied him, and knew him well; gether inexcusable, in appearing fully sen- you venerated and admired him. Yet lusible of it, where can I find one, in compli- minous as he was upon the whole, you permenting whom I can with more general ap-ceived all the shades which mingled in the probation gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the art over which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in philosophy and elegant literature, is well known to the present, and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you.

If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the world that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing myself of the usual privilege of a dedication, when I mention that there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us.

If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this opportunity, my dear sir, most sincerely to thank you for the many happy hours which I owe to your kindness, for the cordiality with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,-for the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced me,-for the noctes cænæque Deum, which I have enjoyed under your roof.

If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is,

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grand composition, all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in an authentick and lively manner, which opinion the publick has confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole of my stores.

In one respect, this work will in some passages be different from the former. In my Tour," I was almost unboundedly open in my communications; and from my eagerness to display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnson's wit, freely showed to the world its dexterity, even when I was myself the object of it. I trusted that I should be liberally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, and by no means as simply unconscious of the pointed effects of the satire. I own, indeed, that I was arrogant enough to suppose that the tenour of the rest of the book would sufficiently guard me against such a strange imputation. But it seems I judged too well of the world; for, though I could scarcely believe it, I have been undoubtedly informed, that many persons, especially in distant quarters, not penetrating enough into Johnson's character, so as to understand his mode of treating his friends, have arraigned my judgment, instead of seeing that I was sensible of all that they could observe.

It is related of the great Dr. Clarke, that when in one of his leisure hours he was un

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