dominate an assemblage in which sat Reynolds, the greatest portrait painter, Burke, the greatest orator, Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Goldsmith, the greatest author of light literature, of the period, must needs be worth our study. Nor was Johnson attractive to men alone. Miss Burney imitated his style and had the warmest personal regard for him, while the fickle and flippant Mrs. Thrale made him as welcome at her entertainments as did her worthy husband.

Fortunately the material for this study is at hand in the work of James Boswell. The character and ability of Boswell have received the most varied judgments. Macaulay has nothing but contempt for Boswell as a man, though he grants that his work will be read as long as the English language exists. George Birkbeck Hill, a more favorable critic, speaks of him as "the man whose ripened genius was to place him at the very head of all the biographers of whom the world can boast."

The purpose of this volume is to give the student the material necessary to judge for himself of this greatest of biographies and its author, as well as to furnish information about Johnson and other eighteenth century men of letters. For that reason, criticism is reduced to a minimum in both introduction and notes.

Some few facts in the life of Boswell should be known. He was born in Edinburgh, October 29, 1740, thirty-one years after Johnson was born in Lichfield. His father was a judge of the Court of Sessions, and bore the title of Lord Auchinleck, to which the son succeeded. In the letter from Johnson to Boswell on the death of his father (p. 78), one may get a sufficient idea of the importance and responsibility of that position. The son was destined

for his father's profession and studied at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the University of Utrecht. Lacking both the native love for the law and the pressure of necessity, he never practised assiduously.

Boswell's tastes led him rather to travel and to literature. At one time or another he journeyed to Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, and, in company with Johnson, to the Hebrides. The fruits of these travels were two works, An Account of Corsica (1768), which was translated into several languages, and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785).

His bent for literature led him to seek introductions to many of the most prominent men of the time. First among these was Samuel Johnson, whom he met May 16, 1763, when Johnson was already fifty-four years of age. It has been computed that Boswell was in the company of Johnson on only two hundred and seventy-six days in all, yet his industry in collecting anecdotes and information about him was so great that he has written probably the most minute and intimate biography that we have in all literature. This biography alone has made Boswell famous.

TO THE TEACHER

This little volume springs from a conviction that it is poor school-teaching to ask a pupil to accept another's opinion on an author or his work, even when that other is a Macaulay, if the material is at hand to enable him to form an opinion for himself. Macaulay's Essay on Johnson is one of the most widely read classics in our school courses. In connection with the study of it, one may reasonably expect that the pupil will form, first, a correct

opinion of Johnson and his place in English literature; second, an estimate of other men of letters of that time; and, third, a critical appreciation of Macaulay's style as biographer and critic.

Suppose our immediate task is the first of these. Shall we not do well to supplement Macaulay's statements about the piety and filial devotion of Johnson by reading some of the prayers, and the beautiful and pathetic letters to his mother?

Under the second head we necessarily consider Boswell. Certainly after reading that he ". was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious," we should let Boswell himself speak of his first meeting with Johnson and other similar incidents.

If we would form a critical opinion of Macaulay's style, no method can be more instructive than that of comparison with a work on the same subject but in an entirely different manner.

These three instances will indicate the purpose of these SELECTIONS and the method of using them. They are intended primarily as a source book in connection with the study of Macaulay or other works on Johnson and his period. The choice of passages has been dictated by personal experience. Most of them have been used in the editor's classes, where selections were read parallel with the parts of Macaulay's essay on the same topics. With the aid of the index, this method may easily be followed, parallel passages being assigned for reading outside the class, or read aloud for the first time by the teacher in the classroom. If it seems more desirable, the study of Macaulay can be completed, and the impression made by his essay can then be modified by reading Boswell.

In either case, there should be much discussion, orally or in writing, of many points, such as the merits of Boswell and Macaulay as biographers, Boswell as a critic, and so on. To this end, such a passage as the one in which Boswell discusses the writings of Johnson and Addison (p. 17) should prove fruitful as throwing light upon Johnson and Addison and also on Boswell's capacity as a critic.

The selections appear here in the same order as in the original, the page and volume numbers referring to the edition by Augustine Birrell.