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76. note 1. for
*8. note 5.

89. note 5. add

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Mrs. Hoole," read "Mr."

"private secretary," omit "private."

"I have since found that my conjecture was right, and that Johnson alluded to an
alteration in the hall of University College, which made some noise at the
time; and, I suppose, was effected by some college authorities, who happened
to be whigs."

91 with reference to Collins, add note “2 Antè, p. 5. and post, p. 336.”

108. note 2. for "9th May," read "19th."

114.

to Letter of 25th January, prefix a [

147. note 2. for "when," read "where.

190. note 5. for " M. Thynne," read "Mr."

213. note 4. for "28th Oct.," read "25th."

217. note 2. for "1780," read "1781."

231. Heading of Chapter, for "Ranelagh," read "Pantheon."

251. note 2. for "LOCKHART," read " Prayers and Meditations"

409. note 2. for "Buller," read" Butler."

428. note 5. for "372," read "378."

505, note 3. for "1778" read "1783."
452. note 5 for "Pau," read "Pan."
522. Letter to Fowke, add [-];
593. note 1. for "euz," read "o."

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608 note 2. for "criticisms," read "criticism."

note 5. for " 597," read "579."

Pp. 68. n. 3., 89. n. 3., 260. n. 2., 298. n. 4., 314. n. 7., 458. n. 5., 611. n. 4., 646. n. 8., 834.n. 3., to each
add signature, "CROKER."

845

PREFACE TO MR. CROKER'S EDITION.'

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Ir were superfluous to expatiate on the merits, at least as a source of amusement, of Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON. Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the propriety of the original publication-however naturally private confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended, the voices of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general applause. And no wonder-the work combines within itself the four most entertaining classes of writing - biography, memoirs, familiar letters, and that assemblage of literary anecdotes which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination Ana.

It was originally received with an eagerness and relished with a zest which undoubtedly were sharpened by the curiosity which the unexpected publication of the words and deeds of so many persons still living could not but excite. But this motive has gradually become weaker, and may now be said to be extinct; yet we do not find that the popularity of the work, though somewhat changed in quality, is really diminished; and as the interval which separates us from the actual time and scene increases, so appear to increase the interest and delight which we feel at being introduced, as it were, into that distinguished society of which Dr. Johnson formed the centre, and of which his biographer is the historian.

But though every year thus adds to the interest and instruction which this work affords, something is, on the other hand, deducted from the amusement which it gives, by the gradual obscurity that time throws over the persons and incidents of private life: many circumstances known to all the world when Mr. Boswell wrote are already obscure to the best informed, and wholly forgotten by the rest of mankind.2

For instance, when he relates (p. 69.) that a "great personage" called the English Divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen

A few slight alterations have been made in the original preface, to suit it to the present edition. — 1847. !Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of an intended edition of the Spectator, with notes. He observed that all w which describe manners require notes in sixty or wenty years or less," post, p. 249. And Dean Swift wrote to Pope on the subject of the Dunciad, "I could wish the 1tes to be very large in what relates to the persons conred; for I have long observed, that twenty miles from Leon nobody understands hints, initial letters, or town ser passages, and in a few years not even those who live ledo." Lett. 16. July, 1728.

Mr. Boswell confesses that he has sometimes been infered by the subsequent conduct of persons in exhibiting *ppressing Dr. Johnson's unfavourable opinion of them. - the cases of Lord Monboddo, p. 200., and of Mr. kardım, p. 204.; and it is to be feared he has some

turies "Giants," we conclude that George III. was the great personage; but all my inquiries (and some of His Majesty's illustrious family have condescended to permit these inquiries to extend even to them) have failed to ascertain to what person or on what occasion that happy expression was used.

Again: When Mr. Boswell's capricious delicacy induced him to suppress names and to substitute such descriptions as 66 an eminent friend," " a young gentleman," " a distinguished orator," these were well understood by the society of the day; but it is become necessary to apprise the reader of our times, that Mr. Burke, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Fox were respectively meant. Nor is it always easy to appropriate Mr. Boswell's circumlocutory designations. It will be seen in the course of this work, that several of them have become so obscure that even the surviving members of the Johnsonian Society were unable to recollect who were meant, and it was on one of these occasions that Sir James Mackintosh told me that "my work had, at least, not come tvo

soon.

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times done so without confessing, perhaps without being conscious, of the prejudice. On the other hand, he is sometimes more amiably guilty of extenuation, as in the instances of Doctors Robertson and Beattie, pp. 182. 191. 244. and 25%. It is not easy to explain why Mr. Boswell was unfavourably disposed towards old Sheridan and Goldsmith, though the bias is obvious; but wholly unaccountable are the frequent ridicule and censure which he delighted to provoke and to record against the amiable Bennet Langton. This is, I think, more apparent latterly: though he still generally designates him by some kindly epithet.

Those who knew Mr. Boswell intimately have informed me (as indeed he himself involuntarily does) that his vanity was very sensitive, and there can be no doubt that personal pique tinged many passages of his book, which, whenever I could trace it, I have not failed to notice.

and ear, have already lived their day, and are hardly to be heard of except in this work. Yet this work must be read with imperfect pleasure, without some knowledge of the history of those more than half-forgotten per

sons.

Facts, too, fade from memory as well as names; and fashions and follies are still more transient. But, in a book mainly composed of familiar conversation, how large a portion must bear on the facts, the follies, and the fashions of the time!

To clear up these obscurities—to supply these deficiencies - to retrieve obsolete and to collect scattered circumstances and so to restore to the work as much as possible of its original clearness and freshness, were the main objects of the present Editor. I am but too well aware how unequal I am to the task, and how imperfectly I have accomplished it. But as the time was rapidly passing away in which any aid could be expected from the contemporaries of Johnson, or even of Boswell, I determined to undertake the work-believing that, however ill I might perform it, I should still do it better than, twenty years later, it could be done by any diligence of research or any felicity of conjecture.

But there were also deficiencies to be supplied. Notwithstanding the diligence and minuteness with which Mr. Boswell detailed what he saw of Dr. Johnson's life, his book left large chasms. It must be recollected that they never resided in the same neighbourhood, and that the detailed account of Johnson's domestic life and conversation is limited to the opportunities afforded by Mr. Boswell's occasional visits to London-by the Scottish Tour-and by one meeting at Dr. Taylor's in Derbyshire. Of above twenty years, therefore, that their acquaintance lasted, periods equivalent in the whole to about three-quarters of a year only fell under the personal notice of Boswell and thus has been left many a long hiatus valde deflendus, and now, alas, quite irreparable!

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Mr. Boswell endeavoured, indeed, to fill up these chasms as well as he could with letters, memoranda, notes, and anecdotes collected from every quarter; but the appearance of his work was so long delayed, that Sir John Hawkins, Mrs. Piozzi, Dr. Strahan, Mr. Tyers, Mr. Nichols, and many others, had anticipated

1 It appears from the LIFE, that Mr. Boswell visited England a dozen times during his acquaintance with Dr. Johnson, and that the number of days on which they met were about 180, to which is to be added the time of the TOUR, when they were together from the 18th August to the 22d November, 1773; in the whole about 276 days. The number of pages in the separate editions of the two works is 2528, of which, 1320 are occupied by the history of these 276 days; so that a little less than an hundredth part of Dr. Johnson's life occupies above one half of Mr. Boswell's works. Every one must regret that his personal intercourse with his great friend was not more frequent or more continued; hut 1 could do but little towards rectifying this disproportion, except by the insertion of the correspondence with Mrs. Thrale.

2 On the use of this Latinism, I venture to repeat

much of what he would have been glad to tell. Some squabbles about copyright had warned him that he must not avail himself of their publications 3; and he was on such bad terms with his rival biographers that he could not expect any assistance or countenance from them. He nevertheless went as far as he thought the law would allow in making frequent quotations from the preceding publications; but as to all the rest, which he did not venture to appropriate to his own use, --the grapes were sour—and he took every opportunity of representing the anecdotes of his rivals as extremely inaccurate and generally undeserving of credit.

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and an attentive examination and collation of the authorities (and particularly of Mr. Boswell's own) produced the final conviction that the minor biographers are entitled not merely to more credit than Mr. Boswell allows them, but to as much as any person writing from recollection, and not from notes made at the moment, can be.

But much the largest, and, for the purpose of filling up the intervals of his private history, the most valuable part of Dr. Johnson's correspondence was out of Boswell's reach, namely, that which he for twenty years maintained with Mrs. Thrale, and which she published in 1788, in two volumes octavo. For the copyright of these, Mr. Boswell says, in a tone of admiring envy, "she received five hundred pounds.' The publication, however, was not very successful-it never reached a second edition, and is now almost forgotten. But through these letters are scattered almost the only information we have relative to Johnson during the long intervals between Mr. Boswell's visits; and from them he has occasionally but cautiously (having the fear of the

a pleasant anecdote told by Bishop Elrington. The late Lord Avonmore, giving evidence relative to certain certificates of degrees in the University of Dublin, called them (as they are commonly called) "Testimoniums." As the clerk was writing down the word, one of the counsel said, "Should it not be rather testimonia?" "Yes," replied Lord Avonmore, "if you think it better English !” pleasantry contains a just grammatical criticism; but memoranda has of late been so generally used as an English plural that I have ventured to retain it.

This

3 It is a curious proof of these jealousies, that Mr. Boswell entered at Stationers' Hall as distinct publications, Dr. Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield, and the account of his Conversation with George III., which occupy a few pages of the LIFE.

copyright law before his eyes) made interesting

extracts.

These letters being now public property, I have been at liberty to follow up Mr. Boswell's imperfect example, and have therefore made numerous and copious selections from them, less as specimens of Johnson's talents for letter-writing, than as notices of his domestic and social life during the intervals of Mr. Boswell's narrative. Indeed, as letters, few of Johnson's can have any great charm for the common reader; they are full of good sense and good-nature, but in forms too didactic and ponderous to be very amusing. In the extracts which I have made from Mrs. Thrale's correspondence, I have been guided entirely by the object of completing the history of Johnson's life.1

The most important addition, however, which I have made is one that needs no apology the incorporation with the 'LIFE' of the whole of the 'TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES,' which Boswell published in one volume in 1785, and which, no doubt, if he could legally have done so, he would himself have incorporated in the LIFE-of which indeed he expressly tells us, he looks on the TOUR but as a portion. It is only wonderful, that since the copyright has expired, any edition of his Life of Johnson should have been published without the addition of this, the most original, curious, and amusing portion of the whole biography.

The Prayers and Meditations, published by Dr. Strahan too hastily after Johnson's death, and I think in other respects also, indiscreetly2, have likewise been made use of to an extent which was forbidden to Mr. Boswell. What Dr. Strahan calls meditations are, in fact, nothing but diaries of the author's moral and religious state of mind, intermixed with some notices of his bodily health and of the interior circumstances of his domestic life. Mr. Boswell had ventured to quote some of these: the present edition contains all that appear to offer any thing of interest.

I have also incorporated a diary which Johnson had kept during a Tour through North Wales, made, in 1775, in company with Mr. Thrale and his family. Mr. Boswell had, it appears, inquired in vain for this diary: if he could have obtained it, he would, no doubt, have inserted it, as he did the similar notes of the Tour in France in the succeeding year. By the liberality of Mr. Duppa, who published it in 1806, with copious explanatory notes, I was enabled to add it to my edition. I have likewise given in the Appendix an Account of Dr. Johnson's early

1 The number of original letters in my edition of 1831 was about 100-to which I have now added about 20; and there are above 50 extracts from the Thrale Correspondence. 2 See the remarks on this subject, pp. 792. 803.

3 Sir Walter Scott and Sir James Boswell, to whom, as the grandson of Mr. Boswell, the inquiries were addressed, tsfortunately missed one another in mutual calls; but I have heard from another quarter that the original

life, written by himself, published in 1802, but now become scarce; and I have thrown into the notes or the Appendix a few extracts from other published lives and anecdotes of Dr. Johnson which seemed necessary to complete Boswell's picture.

But besides these printed materials, I have been favoured with many papers connected with Dr. Johnson, his life, and society, hitherto unpublished. Of course, my first inquiries were directed towards the original manuscript of Mr. Boswell's Journal, which would no doubt have enabled me to fill up all the blanks and clear away much of the obscurity that exist in the printed LIFE. It was to be hoped that the archives of Auchinleck,' which Mr. Boswell frequently and pompously mentions, would contain the original materials of these works, which he himself, as well as the world at large, considered as his best claims to distinction.

And I thought that I was only fulfilling the duties of courtesy in requesting from Mr. Boswell's representative any information which he might be disposed to afford on the subject. To that request I never received any answer: though the same inquiry was afterwards, on my behalf, repeated by Sir Walter Scott, whose influence might have been expected to have produced a more satisfactory result. But was more fortunate in other quarters.

The Reverend Doctor Hall, Master of Pembroke College, was so good as to collate the printed copy of the Prayers and Meditations with the original papers, now (most appropriately) deposited in the library of that college, and some, not unimportant, light has been thrown on that publication by the personal inspection of the papers which he permitted me to make. Doctor Hall has also elucidated some facts and corrected some misstatements in Mr. Boswell's account of Johnson's earlier life, by an examination of the college records; and he has found some of Johnson's Oxford exercises, one or two specimens of which have been selected as likely to interest the classical reader. He has further been so obliging as to select and copy several letters written by Dr. Johnson to his early and constant friends, the daughters of Sir Thomas Aston, which, having fallen into the hands of Mrs. Parker, were by her son, the Reverend S. H. Parker, presented to Pembroke College. The papers derived from this source are marked Pemb. MSS. Hall, feeling a fraternal interest in the most illustrious of the sons of Pembroke, continued, as will appear in the course of the work, to favour me with his valuable assistance.

Dr.

The Reverend Dr. Harwood, the historian

journals do not exist at Auchinleck: perhaps to this fact the silence of Sir James Boswell may be attributed. The manuscript of the TOUR was, it is known, fairly transcribed, and so, probably, were portions of the LIFE; but it appears from a memorandum book and other papers in Mr. Anderdon's possession, that Boswell's materials were in a variety of forms; and it is feared that they have been irretrievably dispersed.

of Lichfield, procured for me, through the favour of Mrs. Pearson, the widow of the legatee of Miss Lucy Porter, many letters addressed to this lady by Johnson; for which, it seems, Mr. Boswell had inquired in vain. These papers are marked Pearson MSS. Dr. Harwood supplied also some other papers, and much information collected by himself.1

Lord Rokeby, the nephew and heir of Mrs. Montague, was so kind as to communicate Dr. Johnson's letters to that lady.

Mr. Langton, the grandson of Mr. Bennet Langton, has furnished some of his grandfather's papers, and several original MSS. of Dr. Johnson's Latin poetry, which have enabled me to explain some errors and obscurities in the published copies of those compositions.

Mr. J. F. Palmer, the grand-nephew of Sir Joshua Reynolds and of Miss Reynolds, most liberally communicated all the papers of that lady, containing a number of letters or rather notes of Dr. Johnson to her, which, however trivial in themselves, tend to corroborate all that the biographers have stated of the charity and kindness of his private life. Mr. Palmer also contributed a paper of more importance-a MS. of about seventy pages, written by Miss Reynolds, and entitled Recollections of Dr. Johnson.2 The authenticity and general accuracy of these Recollections cannot be doubted, and I had therefore admitted extracts from them into the text of my first edition; I have now given the whole in the Appendix.

Mr. Markland has, as the reader will see by the notes to which his name is affixed, favoured me with a great deal of zealous assistance and valuable information.

He also communicated a copy of Mrs. Piozzi's anecdotes, copiously annotated, propriâ manu, by Mr. Malone. These notes have been of use in explaining some obscurities; they guide us also to the source of many of Mr. Boswell's charges against Mrs. Piozzi; and have had an effect that Mr. Malone could neither have expected or wished-that of tending rather to confirm than to impeach that lady's veracity.

Mr. J. L. Anderdon favoured me with the inspection of a portfolio bought at the sale of the library of Boswell's second son James, which contained some of the original letters, memoranda, and note books, which had been used as materials for the LIFE. Their chief value, now, is to show that as far as we may judge from this specimen, the printed book is

1 Dr. Harwood likewise favoured me with permission to engrave for the edition of 1831, the earliest known portrait of Dr. Johnson—a miniature worn in a bracelet by his wife, which Dr. Harwood purchased from Francis Barber, Dr. Johnson's servant and legatee. The engraving in the original was by mistake stated to be "in the possession of Mrs Pearson." It belonged to Dr. Harwood.

2 A less perfect copy of these Recollections was also communicated by Mr. Gwatkin, who married one of Sir Joshua's

nieces.

3 This attention on the part of Lord Chesterfield renders still more puzzling Johnson's conduct towards his lordship. See pp. 58. 84. et seq.

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Through the obliging interposition of Mr. Appleyard, private secretary of the second Earl Spencer, Mrs. Rose, the daughter of Dr. Strahan, favoured me with copies of several letters of Dr. Johnson to her father, one or two only of which Mr. Boswell had been able to obtain.

In addition to these contributions of manuscript materials, I have to acknowledge much and valuable assistance from numerous literary and distinguished friends.

The venerable Lord Stowell, the friend and executor of Dr. Johnson, was one of the first persons who suggested this work to me: he was pleased to take a great interest in it, and kindly endeavoured to 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 sur

4 They were transmitted by post, addressed to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh for his perusal; after a considerabile lapse of time, Sir Walter was written to to return them — he had never had them. It then appeared that the post office bag which contained this packet and several others, had been lost, and it has never been heard of. Some of my friends reproached me with want of due caution in having trusted this packet to the post, but I think unjustly. There is, perhaps, no individual now alive who has despatched and received a greater number of letters than I have done, and I can scarcely recollect an instance of a similar loss.

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