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THE

BEAUTIES

OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

CONSISTING OF

MAXIMS AND OBSERVATIONS,

Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous;

TO WHICH ARE NOW ADDED,

BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF THE DOCTOR,

SELECTED FROM

THE WORKS OF MRS. PIOZZI,

HIS LIFE BY MR. BOSWELL,

And other authentic Testimonies;

ALSO,

THE SPEECH AND SERMON

HE WROTE FOR THE LATE DR. DODD.

A NEW EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. KAY,

95, WOOD STREET, CHEAPSIDE.

PRINTED IM Great AniFRAM

PREFACE.

THE works of Dr. Johnson have been, occasionally, so much the object of general reading, for their fancy, judgment, and, above all, the interesting and moral observations which they contain upon life and manners, that in order to impress those observations the better on the mind, I availed myself of some leisure months last summer, to select them under proper heads, and arrange them in alphabetical order. As I proceeded in this work, I found myself bringing out, into one view, a body of maxims and observations, which I imagined would be more than useful to myself; hence I thought it a duty incumbent on me to publish them.

Such is the origin of the present publication, a publication, that as I feel it has benefited myself in the compiling, so I trust it will others in the perusal ; and happy shall I be, if, by any economy of mine in the works of such a writer, I can contribute to make them more generally known or remembered, as by it I am sure I shall perform an essential service to mankind.

In respect to the use of selection, (particularly as I have here applied it) Dr. Johnson makes the best apology for me to the public, in his Idler, and which, I hope, he will accept himself as an additional motive for this undertaking.

"Writers of extensive comprehension," says he, "have incidental remarks upon topics very remote

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