when all the actors in the scene shall be numbered with the dead."

Such was the anticipation of its first editor, over whom the grave has now closed; and each succeeding year seems to confirm the accuracy of Malone's prediction. But the publick have so long expressed their approbation of the work now once more offered to their notice, that we feel ourselves relieved from the necessity of an elabo-. rate introduction; and we are not so blindly partial as to willingly assume the office of panegyrists. Boswell professed (we use his own words) to give but a Flemish picture; and we do not affect to deny that, like those painters of workday life, he has frequently, in order to preserve their identity, admitted that into his sketches which fastidious delicacy would wish to have been concealed. But poor is the taste which can dwell on the grosser parts of the Flemish feast or fair; and corrupt, indeed, must that man be, who, uninfluenced by their virtues, selects the failings of the good to sanctify his own. How far we are justified in placing on record the vices of the great, or how much of their history we should prudentially hide, in the fear of holding up to the vulgar gaze a contagious example, are questions so momentous, and of such varied and extensive bearings, that we undertake not their discussion. On this subject, however, we cannot refrain from

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quoting an answer made by the pious Baxter, who was an acute casuist, as well as a learned divine, to those who objected to him that one of his assertions, on a particular subject, might encourage sin: "I am not," replied the venerable man, to tell a lie to prevent it." This wise reply places the duty of the biographer plain before him. Had Boswell been less explicit in his narrative, its moral influence would have been diminished; and we submit, that in the following anecdotes, injudicious as some of them may be confessed to be, Johnson's fame alone is sullied, while the interests of religion and virtue are never compromised to preserve the smartness of repartee, or the caustick severity of satire. Happy for many a reader would it have been, could a like eulogy be honestly pronounced on every memoir. And even Johnson's character, weighed in this exact balance, has not been found wanting. He is unveiled before us; his every heedless word uttered under irritated feelings is recorded; his every foible is revealed; and, despite of all his imperfections, we venerate him as the "Guide, Philosopher, and Friend." Certainly few men could have borne the scrutiny of so injudicious an admirer as Boswell, whose excess of veneration led him into all the faults for which he has been so severely arraigned. Had he assumed the proud scorner's motto, " Nil admirari," he

would have abstained from many a trivial detail, and would never have been quoted as furnishing an example to lord Bacon's maxim, "that it is not given unto man to love and to be wise." But had he loved less, he would not have laboured so diligently in compiling these memoirs, to which succeeding biographers have been able to add so little; and had he been more coldly wise, he would have produced a less amusing, and, if we may be allowed the phrase, a less graphick work. Neither would he so duly have discharged the legitimate office of biography-a faithful narrative of the sayings and doings of its subject. Besides, he was sanctioned by Johnson himself, who warmly advocated this candid species of biography, on the principle of publick utility. Were the grandeur of great souls only displayed, we should despair of attaining their elevation, and sit down in despondent inactivity: but when we learn that the great and good have occasionally been the victims of evil passions, which only virtuous perseverance subdued; and when we see that on their enlightened minds clouds have often rested, which only painful efforts have dispelled; we, no longer feeling solitary in our weakness, are encouraged to emulate their example. Whether Boswell's production of every minute and trivial incident, affecting the subject of his labours, was the result of a weak and ill regulated mind,

as it has been charged to be, is not for us to enquire; we have merely to discuss the general utility of this out-spoken species of biography. If veracity is the precedent qualification of the historian, we cannot recognize the justice of those who impute this very virtue to our author as a fault for Boswell, who was so heedless of any thing like the suppression of the true, can never be suspected of a suggestion of the false. The value of this candour may be best estimated, by considering the important effects it would have produced had the historians and biographers of every age been under its influence.

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"How

happy would the learned world have been," says the present bishop Huntingford, had Pericles, Plato, or Socrates possessed such a friend and companion as Boswell was to Dr. Johnson."

As a picture of men and manners, the chief charm of Boswell's work would have been destroyed by a more artificial structure. And it is in this that the merit of the book before us mainly consists; for in its miscellaneous pages there is ever-and-again sketched some pleasing homescene in the landscape of human life, on which the eye, wearied with the huge masses of history, may repose in tranquil enjoyment. We may see, in distinct portraiture, Johnson's companions clustered around their venerated master in all the grotesque variety of their undisguised character,

listening to conversations of which Athens might have been justly proud. And if amidst those conversations we are sometimes surprised at lively paradox, on subjects too grave for trifling; let us not forget that the wisest men in their own peculiar circle have indulged in this playful sophistry without offence. Boswell too; who did not readily apprehend irony, has occasionally recorded as arguments of serious intent, mere sallies of humorous pleasantry, with which Johnson sometimes delighted to puzzle his unsuspecting friend. But from those loose conversations, many a hint of Johnson's has been expanded into copious argument by subsequent writers; and the truth of many an observation, apparently uttered on the moment, has been confirmed by subsequent experience. Where so many merits shine, surely it is cynical to pry out half hidden blemishes.

In conclusion to this already too-lengthened advertisement, we beg leave to subjoin some few words on the present edition. The industry of Boswell in searching for materials was such, that not even the vivacious enquiries of Craddock, and the minute research of Polwhele, have added much to the original life. We have carefully perused most of the memoirs of Johnson's contemporaries, his life by Hawkins, Anderson, and Piozzi, and all the papers relating to him dis