DEDICATION. то SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. MY DEAR SIR, VERY liberal motive that can actuate EVE an Authour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the perfon to whom the following Work fhould be infcribed. If there be a pleasure in celebrating the diftinguished merit of merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether inexcufable, in appearing fully fenfible of it, where can I find one, in complimenting a plimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify thofe feelings? Your excellence, not only in the Art over which you have long prefided with unrivalled fame, but also in Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the prefent, and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper, your variety of converfation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hofpitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious; all thefe qualities I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flattery, afcribe to you. If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a perfon of the firft eminence in the age in which he lived, whofe company has been univerfally courted, I am juftified in availing myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us. If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this opportunity, my dear Sir, moft fincerely to thank you for the many happy hours which I owe to your kindness, for the cordiality with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,—for the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced me,for the noctes canaque Deum, which I have enjoyed under your roof. If a work should be infcribed to one who is mafter of the fubject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, muft enfure it credit and fuccefs, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him; he fhould find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, ftudied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand compofition; all the little peculiarities and flight blemishes which marked the literary Coloffus. Your very warm commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his converfation in an authentick and lively manner, which opinion the Publick has confirmed, was the beft encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole of my ftores. In one refpect, this Work will, in fome paffages, be different from the former. In my Tour," I was almoft unboundedly open in my communications; and from my eagerness to display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnfon's wit, freely fhewed to the world its dexterity, even when I was myself the object of it. I trusted that I fhould be liberally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, and by no means as |