explain the obscurities which were stated to him; but he confessed, at the same time, that the application had in some instances come rather too late, and regretted that an edition on this principle had not been undertaken when full light might have been obtained. His lordship was also so kind as to dictate, in his own happy and peculiar style, some notes of his recollections of Dr. Johnson. These, by a very unusual accident, were lost, and his lordship's great age and increasing infirmity deterred me from again troubling him on the subject. A few points, however, in which I could trust to my own recollection, will be found in the notes. To my revered friend, Dr. Thomas Elrington, Lord Bishop of Ferns, I had to offer my thanks for much valuable advice and assistance, and for a continuance of that friendly interest with which his lordship for many years, and in more important concerns, honoured me. Sir Walter Scott, whose personal kindness to me and indefatigable good-nature to every body were surpassed only by his genius, found time from his higher occupations to annotate a considerable portion of this work-the Tour to the Hebrides-and continued his aid to the very conclusion of my task. The Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, whose acquaintance with literary men and literary history was so extensive, and who, although not of the Johnsonian circle, became early in life acquainted with most of the survivors of that society, not only approved and encouraged my design, but was, as the reader will see, good enough to contribute to its execution. It were to be wished, that he himself could have been induced to undertake the work-too humble indeed for his powers, but which he was, of all men then living, perhaps, the fittest to execute. Mr. Alexander Chalmers, the ingenious and learned editor of the last London edition, gave me, with great candour and liberality, all the assistance in his power-regretting and wondering, like Lord Stowell and Sir James Mackintosh, that so much should be forgotten of what at no remote period every body must have known. To Mr. D'Israeli's love and knowledge of literary history, and to his friendly assistance, I was very much indebted; as well as to Mr. (now Sir Henry) Ellis of the British Museum, for his readiness on this and other occasions to afford me every information in his power. d The Marquis Wellesley took an encouraging interest in the work, and improved it by some valuable observations; and the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Spencer, Lord Bexley, and Lord St. Helens, the son of Dr. Johnson's early friend Mr. Fitzherbert, were so obliging as to answer some inquiries with which I found it necessary to trouble them. In this edition (1847) I have had some valuable assistance from Mr. Peter Cunningham (son of Allan Cunningham the Poet) as well as from my friend Mr. Lockhart, author of the "Life of Sir Walter Scott"- a work second only, if indeed it be second, to that of Boswell, in all its higher qualities. How I may have arranged all these materials, and availed myself of so much assistance, it is not for me to decide. Situated as I was when I began and until I had nearly completed the edition of 1835, I could not have ventured to undertake a more serious task; and I fear that even this desultory and gossiping kind of employment must have suffered from the weightier occupations in which I was then engaged, as well as from my own deficiencies. If unfortunately any one should think that I have failed in my attempt to improve the original work, I still have the consolation of thinking that there is no great harm done. For, as I have retrenched nothing from the best editions of the "Life" and the "Tour," the worst that can happen is that what I have added to the collection may, if the reader so pleases, be rejected as surplusage. Of the value of the notes with which my friends favoured me, I can have no doubt; of my own, I will only say, that I have endeavoured to make them at once concise and explanatory. I hope I have cleared up some obscurities, supplied some deficiencies, and, in many cases, saved the reader the trouble of referring to dictionaries and magazines for notices of the various persons and facts which are incidentally mentioned. In some cases I candidly confess, and in many more I fear that I have shown, my own ignorance; but I can say, that when I have so failed, it has not been for want of diligent inquiry after the desired information. I have not considered it any part of my duty to defend or to controvert the statements or opinions recorded in the text; but in a few instances, in which either a matter of fact has been evidently misstated, or an important principle has been heedlessly invaded or too lightly treated, I have ventured a few words towards correcting the error. The desultory nature of the work itself, the repetitions in some instances and the contradictions in others, are perplexing to those who may seek for Dr. Johnson's final opinion on any given subject. This difficulty I could not hope, and have, therefore, not attempted to remove; it is inevitable in the transcript of table-talk so various, so loose, and so extensive; but I have endeavoured to alleviate it by occasional references to the different places where the same subject is discussed, and by a copious, and I trust, satisfactory index. I have added translations of most if not all the classical quotations in the work—generally from the most approved translators-sometimes, when they did not appear to hit the point in question, I have ventured a version of my own. With respect to the spirit towards Dr. Johnson himself by which I was actuated, I beg leave to say that I feel and have always felt for him a great, but, I hope, not a blind admiration. For his writings, and especially for his "Vanity of Human Wishes," the "Prefaces" to the Dictionary and Shakespeare, and the "Lives of the Poets," that admiration has little or no alloy. In his personal conduct and conversation there may be occasionally something to regret and (though rarely) something to disapprove, but less, perhaps, than there would be in those of any other man, whose words, actions, and even thoughts should be exposed to public observation so nakedly as, by a strange concurrence of circumstances, Dr. Johnson's have been. Having no domestic ties or duties, the latter portion of his life was, as Mrs. Piozzi observes, nothing but conversation, and that conversation was watched and recorded from night to night and from hour to hour with zealous attention and unceasing diligence. No man, the most staid or the most guarded, is always the same in health, in spirits, in opinions. Human life is a series of inconsistencies; and when Johnson's early misfortunes, his protracted poverty, his strong passions, his violent prejudices, and, above all, his bodily and I may say mental infirmities, are considered, it is only wonderful that a portrait so laboriously minute and so painfully faithful does not exhibit more of blemish, incongruity, and error. The life of Dr. Johnson is indeed a most curious chapter in the history of man; for certainly there is no instance of the life of any other human being having been exhibited in so much detail, or with so much fidelity. There are, perhaps, not many men who have practised so much self-examination as to know themselves as well as every reader knows Dr. Johnson. We must recollect that it is not his table-talk or his literary conversations only that have been published: all his most private and most trifling correspondence—all his most common as well as his most confidential intercourses-all his most secret communion with his own conscience—and even the solemn and contrite exercises of his piety, have been divulged and exhibited to the "garish eye" of the world without reserve-I had almost said, without delicacy. Young, with gloomy candour, has said "Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight, a naked human heart." What a man must Johnson have been, whose heart, having been laid more bare than that of any other mortal ever was, has passed so little blemished through so terrible an ordeal! But while we contemplate with such interest this admirable and perfect portrait, let us not forget the painter. Mr. Burke told Sir James Mackintosh that he thought Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings, and on another occasion said, that he thought Johnson appeared greater in Boswell's volumes than even in his own. Dr. It was a strange and fortunate concurrence, that one so prone to talk and who talked so well, should be brought into such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able to record. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers, but Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He united lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding, the excellencies of others. Though proud of his own name and lineage, and ambitious of the countenance of the great, he was yet so cordial an admirer of merit, wherever found, that much public ridicule, and something like contempt, were excited by the modest assurance with which he pressed his acquaintance on all the notorieties of his time, and by the ostentatious (but in the main, laudable) assiduity with which he attended the exile Paoli and the low-born Johnson! These were amiable, and, for us, fortunate inconsistencies. His contemporaries indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, inquisitive, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive-his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objects-when he meddled, he did so, generally, from good-natured motives-his giddiness was only an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and reverence due to literature, morals, and religion: and posterity gratefully acknowledges the taste, temper, and talents with which he selected, enjoyed, and described that polished and intellectual society which still lives in his work, and without his work had perished! "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro." Such imperfect though interesting sketches as Ben Jonson's visit to Drummond, Selden's Table Talk, Swift's Journal, and Spence's Anecdotes, only tantalize our curiosity and excite our regret that there was no Boswell to preserve the conversation and illustrate the life and times of Addison, of Swift himself, of Milton, and, above all, of Shakespeare! We can hardly refrain from indulging ourselves with the imagination of works so instructive and delightful; but that were idle; except as it may tend to increase our obligation to the faithful and fortunate biographer of Dr. Johnson. Mr. Boswell's birth and education familiarized him with the highest of his acquaintance, and his good-nature and conviviality with the He describes society of all classes with the happiest discrimination. Even his foibles assisted his curiosity; he was sometimes laughed at, but always well received; he excited no envy, he imposed no restraint. It was well known that he made notes of every conversation, yet no timidity was seriously alarmed, no delicacy demurred; and we are perhaps indebted to the lighter parts of his character for the patient indulgence with which every body submitted to sit for their pictures. Mr. Boswell took, indeed, extraordinary and most laudable pains to attain accuracy. Not only did he commit to paper at night the conversation of the day, but even in general society he would occasionally take a note of any thing remarkable that occurred; and |