persed through the Gentleman's Magazine. We have also before us a mass of original papers, purchased at the Boswell sale; and have even taken pains to court conversations with some old servants who remembered Johnson, in the anxious desire of gleaning something illustrative of his peculiarities. The result of our diligence must be judged of by a candid publick. In pursuance of the same plan as we adopted in editing Johnson's works, we have left no portion of the original narrative unsifted; but, in scrupulous avoidance of tedious and redundant annotation, we have added nothing of our own after having satisfied ourselves of the accuracy of Boswell. At the same time we beg leave to assure our readers that they will discover many fresh anecdotes, and many important corrections, in this edition. After his decease many letters, poems, translations, and minor essays appeared in the St. James's Chronicle, and other publications of the day, purporting to be from the pen of Johnson. We have carefully examined these, but admitted none except on the best internal and external evidence. With regard to the typography, we presume that it will not be found inferiour in beauty to any of the books that we have hitherto published; and as to the text, we have used every care to render it accurate.

Oxford, January, 1827.

POSTSCRIPT.

THE following verbal alterations in some of Johnson's letters to T. Warton, have been kindly communicated to us by the learned 'President of Trinity college, who possesses the originals. We beg to offer them here, as they were discovered too late for insertion in their proper places.

Vol. I. p. 204. 1. 25. Which I therefore hope to see in about a fortnight. Ib. p. 208. In the letter to Mr. Chambers, the last two paragraphs but one are transposed.

Ib. p. 209. 1. 14. I have not been able yet to procure.

Ib. p. 211. 1. 16. I shall be extremely glad to hear from you soon.

Ib. p. 212. Whether I shall find upon the coast a Calypso that will court, or a Polypheme that will eat me. But if Polypheme comes to me, have at his

eye.

Ib. p. 213. 1. 19. Nor know in what state my little affair stands.
Ib. p. 217. 1. 24. Remember that you have subscribed a sheet a year.

Ib. p. 217. 1. 27.
Ib.

p. 224. 1. 20.

What will be its fate I know not, nor much think.
The word willingly is not in the original.

Ib. p. 225. 1. 6. Whether they are yet unpublished.

Ib. p. 247. The superscription to the original letter is, To Mr. Warton, Professor of Poetry in Oxford. The last paragraph of the letter explains the reason of this official formality, which Johnson evidently adopted playfully. Ib. p. 257. 1. 4. Your notes upon my poet were very acceptable to me. 258. 1. 7. I shall be very glad of them.

Ib. P.

The above alterations, with the exception of that relating to Polypheme, may seem to some too minute. We trust, at all events, that our readers will accept them as evidence of our vigilant attention to our duty.

Oxford, March, 1827.

THE LIFE

OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

To write the life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments, or his various works, has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task.

Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man's life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition. Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death.

As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view; as he was well apprized of this circumstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my inquiries, by communicating to me the incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility

VOL. I.

a

Idler, No. 84.

B

in recollecting, and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him, from every quarter where I could discover that they were to be found, and have been favoured with the most liberal communications by his friends; I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such a work as this with more advantages; independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing.

Since my work was announced, several lives and memoirs of Dr. Johnson have been published; the most voluminous of which is one compiled for the booksellers of London, by sir John Hawkins, knight", a man whom, during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, I think, but once, and I am sure not above twice. Johnson might have esteemed him for his decent, religious demeanour, and his knowledge of books and literary history; but from the rigid formality of his manners, it is evident that they never could have lived together with companionable ease and familiarity; nor had sir John Hawkins that nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments

of

b The greatest part of this book was written while sir John Hawkins was alive; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But though I would not war with the dead" offensively, I think it necessary to be strenuous in defence my illustrious friend, which I cannot be, without strong animadversions upon a writer who has greatly injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not have been very prompt to gratify sir John Hawkins with any compliment in his lifetime, I do now frankly acknowledge, that, in my opinion, his volume, however inadequate and improper as a life of Dr. Johnson, and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects, contains a collection of curious anecdotes and observations, which few men but its author could have brought together.-BOSWELL.

of a diary and other papers as were left; of which, before delivering them up to the residuary legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, as I have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous labours, I must acknowledge, exhibit a farrago, of which a considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works, (even one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys,) a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an author is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend; who, I trust, will, by a true and fair delineation, be vindicated both from the injurious misrepresentations of this author, and from the slighter aspersions of a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him.

There is, in the British Museum, a letter from bishop Warburton to Dr. Birch, on the subject of biography; which, though I am aware it may expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it:

"I shall endeavour," says Dr. Warburton, "to give you what satisfaction I can in any thing you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton, and am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux, are indeed. strange insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of