ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have been pleased to favour me with I AT last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and of which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised. Themmunications and advice in the conduct of delay of its publication must be imputed, in a considerable degree, to the extraordinary zeal which has been shown by distinguished persons in all quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its illustrious subject, - | resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient nations, of which every individual was eager to throw a stone upon the grave of a departed hero, and thus to share in the pious office of erecting an honourable monument to his memory. The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed, will hardly be conceived by those who read them with careless facility. The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations were preserved, I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with wonder; and I must be al lowed to suggest that the nature of the work in other respects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars-all of which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain with a scrupulous authenticity-has occasioned a degree of trouble far beyond that of any other species of composition. Were I to detail the books which I have consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen of my trouble, that I have sometimes been obliged to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly, which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my discredit. And, after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be surprised if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious severity. I have also been extremely careful as to the exactness of my quotations, holding that there is a respect due to the public, which should oblige every author to attend to this, and never to presume to introduce them with, 'I think I have read,' or, 'If I remember right,' when the originals may be examined. xii my Work. But I cannot sufficiently acknowledge my obligations to my friend Mr. Malone, who was so good as to allow me to read to him almost the whole of my manuscript, and make such remarks as were greatly for the advantage of the Work, though it is but fair to him to mention, that upon many occasions I differed from him, and followed my own judgment. I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the benefit of his revision, when not more than one-half of the book had passed through the press; but after having completed his very laborious and admirable edition of Shakspeare, for which he generously would accept of no other reward but that fame which he had so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his promise of a long-wished-for visit to his relations in Ireland, from whence his safe return finibus Atticis is desired by his friends here with all the classical ardour of Sic te Diva potens Cypri; for there is no man in whom more elegant and worthy qualities are united, and whose society, therefore, is more valued by those who know him. It is painful to me to think, that while I was carrying on this Work, several of those to whom it would have been most interesting have died. Such melancholy disappointments we know to be incident to humanity, but we do not feel them the less. Let me particularly lament the Reverend Thomas Warton, and the Reverend Dr. Adams. Mr. Warton, amidst his variety of genius and learning, was an excellent biographer. His contributions to my collection are highly estimable; and as he had a true relish of my Tour to the Hebrides, I trust I should now have been gratified with a larger share of his kind approbation. Dr. Adams, eminent as the Head of a College, as a writer, and as a most amiable man, had known Johnson from his early years, and was his friend through life. What reason I had to hope for the countenance of that venerable gentleman to this Work, will appear from what he wrote to me upon a former occasion from Oxford, November 17, 1785:-'DEAR SIR, I hazard this letter, not knowing where it will find you, to thank ADVERTISEMENT TO SUBSEQUENT EDITIONS. you for your very agreeable Tour, which I found here on my return from the country, and in which you have depicted our friend so perfectly to my fancy, in every attitude, every scene and situation, that I have thought myself in the company and of the party almost throughout. It has given very general satisfaction; and those who have found most fault with a passage here and there, have agreed that they could not help going through, and being entertained with the whole. I wish, indeed, some few gross expressions had been softened, and a few of our hero's foibles had been a little xiii more shaded; but it is useful to see the weaknesses incident to great minds, and you have given us Dr. Johnson's authority, that in history all ought to be told.' Such a sanction to my faculty of giving a just representation of Dr. Johnson I could not conceal. Nor will I suppress my satisfaction in the consciousness, that by recording so considerable a portion of the wisdom and wit of 'the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century, I have largely provided for the instruction and entertainment of mankind. LONDON, April 20, 1791. See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. SUBSEQUENT EDITIONS. THE Second Edition was published with an advertisement by Mr. Boswell, dated July 1, 1793. The Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions-the last dated May 2, 1811-were published under the superintendence of Mr. Edmund Malone. In the Advertisement to the third, he says: 'Several valuable letters and other curious matter having been communicated to the Author (Mr. Boswell) too late to be arranged in that chronological order which he had endeavoured uniformly to observe in his Work, he was obliged to introduce them in his Second Edition by way of Addenda, as commodiously as he could. In revising his volumes for a new edition, he had pointed out where some of these materials should be inserted; but, unfortunately, in the midst of his labours he was seized with a fever, of which he died on the 19th of May 1795. All the notes that he had written in the margin of the copy which he had in part revised, are here faithfully preserved; and a few new notes have been added, principally by some of those friends to whom the Author in the former editions acknowledged his obligations.' In his Advertisement to the Fourth Edition, Mr. Malone says: 'In this edition are inserted some new letters, of which the greater part has been obligingly communicated by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, Rector of Lambeth. Those written by Dr. Johnson concerning his mother in her last illness furnish a new proof of his great piety and tenderness of heart, and therefore cannot but be acceptable to the readers of this very popular Work. Some new notes also have been added.' In his Advertisement to the Fifth Edition, Mr. Malone says: 'Two letters, written by Dr. Johnson, and several new notes, have been added.' Of the sixth and last edition under his guidance, Mr. Malone states that great pains had been taken to render it accurate in point of typography; and that, with this view, the entire Work had been read over by the Author's second son, James Boswell, of the Inner Temple. Several new notes and some letters had been added; and in the Index 'many new articles had been inserted.' NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. Every effort has been made, by the careful collation of the best editions, to render the present text of the Life accurate. Some notes, which had the character more of digression and homily than of explanation, have been omitted, and others, tending to elucidate the text, have been given. * AFTER MY DEATH I WISH NO OTHER HERALD, SHAKSPEARE, Henry VIII. See Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skye, September 30, 1773:-'Boswell mites a regular Journal of our Travels, which I think contains so much of what I say and do, as of All other occurrences together; "for such a faithful chronicler is Griffith."'-BOSWELL. XV THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. CHAPTERI. INTRODUCTORY. To write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments or his various works, has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task. Had Dr. Johnson written his own Life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man's life may be best written by himself; had he employed, in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition. Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames a few days before his death. As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view; as he was well apprised of this circumstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my inquiries by communicating to me the incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting, and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him from every quarter where I could discover that they were to be found, and have been favoured with the most liberal communications by his friends,-I flatter myself that few biographers have entered 1 Idler, No. 84: 'Those relations are commonly of most value, in which the writer tells his own story.'BOSWELL. upon such a work as this with more advantages, independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing. Since my work was announced, several Lives and Memoirs of Dr. Johnson have been published, the most voluminous of which is one compiled for the booksellers of London, by Sir John Hawkins, Knight,1 a man whom, during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, I think, but once, and I am sure not above twice. Johnson might have esteemed him for his decent, religious demeanour, and his knowledge of books and literary history; but from the rigid formality of his manners, it is evident that they never could have lived together with companionable ease and familiarity; nor had Sir John Hawkins that nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments of a diary and other papers as were left; of which, before delivering them up to the residuary legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, as I have found upon a perusal of those papers, 1 The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins was anve; and I avow that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some coinpunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But though I would not 'war with the dead' offensively, I think it necessary to be strenuous in defence of my illustrious friend, which I cannot be without strong animadversions upon a writer who has greatly injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not have been very prompt to gratify Sir John Hawkins with any compliment in his lifetime, I do now frankly acknowledge that, in my opinion, his volume, however inadequate and improper as a Life of Dr. Johnson, and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects, contains a collection of curious anecdotes and observations, which few men but its author could have brought together.-BoSWELL. A which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins' ponderous labours, I must acknowledge, exhibit a farrago, of which a considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works (even one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and in that there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an author is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend; who, I trust, will, by a true and fair delineation, be vindicated both from the injurious misrepresentations of this author, and from the slighter aspersions of a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him. There is in the British Museum a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr. Birch, on the subject of biography; which, though I am aware it may expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it : 'I shall endeavour,' says Dr. Warburton, 'to give you what satisfaction I can in anything you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton, and am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux are indeed strange insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau, where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of disinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a book, and what's worse, it proves a book without a life; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his tedious stuff? You are the only one (and I speak it without a compliment) that, by the vigour of your style and sentiments, and the real importance of your materials, have the art (which one would imagine no one could have missed) of adding agreements to the most agreeable subject in the world, which is literary history.'" [Νου. 24, 1737.] Instead of melting down my materials into one mass, and constantly speaking in my own person, by which I might have appeared to have more merit in the execution of the work, I have 1 Brit. Mus. 4320, Ayscough's Catal. Sloane MSS.BOSWELL. resolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason in his Memoirs of Gray. Wherever narrative is necessary to explain, connect, and supply, I furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in the chronological series of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly as I can year by year, I produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes, letters, or conversation, being convinced that this mode is more lively, and will make my readers better acquainted with him, than even most of those were who actually knew him, but could know him only partially; whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which his character is more fully understood and illustrated. Indeed, I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life, than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought; by which mankind are enabled, as it were, to see him live, and to 'live o'er each scene'1 with him, as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely preserved. As it is, I will venture to say that he will be seen in this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived. And he will be seen as he really was; for I profess to write, not his panegyric, which must be all praise, but his life, which, great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was, is indeed subject of panegyric enough to any man in this state of being; but in every picture there should be shade as well as light, and when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himself recommended, both by his precept and his example. 'If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyric, and not to be known from one another but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. "Let me remember," says Hale, "when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth.' [Rambler, No. 60.] What I consider as the peculiar value of the |