I have only to add, that the proof-sheets of the present edition not having passed through my hands, I am not answerable for any typographical errors that may be found in it. Having, however, been printed at the very accurate press of Mr. Baldwin, I make no doubt it will be found not less perfect than the former edition; the greatest care having been taken, by correctness and elegance, to do justice to one of the most instructive and entertaining works in the English language. EDM. MALONE.

April 8, 1799.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

In this edition are inserted some new letters of which the greater part has been obligingly communicated by the Reverend Doctor 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, which, as well as the observations inserted in the third edition, and the letters now introduced, are carefully included within crotchets, that the author may not be answerable for any thing which had not the sanction of his approbation. The remarks of his friends are distinguished as formerly, except those of Mr. Malone, to which the letter M. is now subjoined. Those to which the letter K. is affixed were communicated by my learned friend, the Reverend Doctor Kearney, formerly Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and now beneficed in the diocese of Raphoe in Ireland, of which he is Archdeacon.

Of a work which has been before the public for thirteen years with increasing approbation, and of which near four thousand copies have been dispersed, it is not necessary to say more; yet I cannot refrain from adding, that, highly as it is now estimated, it will, I am confident, be still more valued by posterity a century hence, when all the actors in the scene shall be numbered with the dead; when the excellent and extraordinary man, whose wit and wisdom are here recorded, shall be viewed at a still greater distance; and the instruction and entertainment they afford will at once produce reverential gratitude, admiration, and delight. E. M.

June 20, 1804.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

In this fifth edition some errors of the press, which had crept into the text and notes, in consequence of repeated impressions, have been corrected. Two letters written by Dr. Johnson, and several new notes, have been added; by which, it is hoped, this valuable work is still further improved. E. M.

January 1, 1807.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

GREAT pains have been taken to make this sixth edition accurate, in point of typography. With this view the entire work has been read over by the author's second son, James Boswell, of the Inner Temple, Esq.; by which means many errors of the press, occasioned by repeated impressions, have been discovered. All these have been carefully amended.-Several new notes and some letters have been added; and in the Index,—a very useful appendage to a book containing so much miscellaneous and unconnected matter,-many new articles have been inserted.

By these improvements, the present impression has been rendered the amplest, and it is hoped, will be found the most correct edition of this valuable work, which has yet appeared.

May 2, 1811.

E. M.

This edition (the 6th) is the last that was published under the superintendence of the accurate and judicious Malone. He was in the author's confidence (as will be seen on reference to the first advertisement) in the original preparation of the work. After Boswell's death, Malone brought out the third and subsequent editions, up to the sixth inclusive, receiving in the course of his labours that various and valuable assistance to which he adverts in the notices prefixed to his successive publications.

Malone's last edition is dated May, 1811 (about twenty years after the first appearance of the work); and he died in the same month of the following year. This edition we propose to follow as fairly settling the text of the work, adding such notes only to those sanctioned by Boswell and his legitimate successor as may be deemed essential to an elucidation of the main subject.

Boswell himself justly remarks (Introduction, p. xxx), "What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work is the quantity it contains of Johnson's Conversation, which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently instructive and entertaining." Such is undoubtedly the case; heavy notation, therefore, in addition to what Boswell considered necessary, we would advisedly eschew, as tending, unprofitably, to call the reader's attention from the author's lively stream of narrative, or his interesting record of the "logic, and the wisdom, and the wit" (not omitting the weaknesses and the peculiarities) of Johnson and his eminent contemporaries.-ED.

March, 1851.

This edition of "Boswell's Life of Johnson" has been divided into chapters for the reader's convenience, in the perusal of so great a body of matter.

The names of previous annotators are given in full; the additional notes to which "ED." is appended are by the present Editor.

The Chronological List of the works of Dr. Johnson prepared by Boswell, will be found at the end of the Biography.

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,1 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

1 Idler, No. 84:-" Those relations are commonly of most value, in which the writer tells his own story."-BoswELL.

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 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 descent, 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, which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's 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 narra

1 The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins was alive; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction 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.

Sir John Hawkins was born in London, in 1719. He was by profession a solicitor, but is better known by his "History of Music," his edition of "Walton's Angler," and his "Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson.' He was a member of the Literary Club, and mention of him will be found in subsequent parts of the present work.-ED.