well. At pp. 519, 721, and 376, notes of Boswell's are signed "Croker." At p. 342, one note is cut up into two. Omitted.-At p. 91, a note, "Of the degree." P. 108, a note, "Now or late Vice-chancellor." P. 222, two notes, "Thoughts on the late transaction," and "By comparing the first with the subsequent editions this curious circumstance of ministerial authourship may be discovered." P. 409, "See Boswell's Tour." At pp. 117, 165, 266, 410, 508, 590, 556, 494, and at a number of other places, reference notes are omitted. P. 700, a note, "in both editions of Sir J. Hawkins's Life of Johnson,' lettered ignorance is printed," omitted. P. 722, the key to the charade on Dr. Barnard, "Bar," "nard," Barnard" left out. P. 88, a note of Warton's on one of his own letters: "He came to Oxford within a fortnight, and stayed about five weeks. He lodged at a house called Kettel Hall near Trinity College. But during this visit at Oxford, he collected nothing in the libraries for his dictionary," becomes-" He came to Oxford, &c. He lodged at Kettel Hall.-WARTON. But during this visit, he collected nothing, &c.-MALONE." P. 298, a long note on the Literary Club is omitted on the ground that "it is incorporated in the life."-The substance is, though not the form. With Warton's notes on his own letters, a portion of Boswell's work, other freedoms are taken. As at p. 93, where the note runs, "The words in italics are allusions to passages in Mr. Warton's poem," &c., which is wholly omitted, and a quotation from the poem itself substituted. At p. 99 is found a short note signed "Warton," but which is Mr. Croker's own composition, and the hint for which is supplied by a long note of Warton's to the letter of November 21, 1754, which is also omitted. To the same letter Boswell has given a note-" communicated to me by Mr. Thraston, who had the original "-which is again omitted. At p. 108 a new letter of Warton's is inserted by Mr. Croker without distinguishing crotchets, so that it reads as part of Boswell's text; and at p. 91 another note of Warton's is omitted. At p. 222, there should be a note of Boswell's on the word "perusal," qualified by one of Malone's, and both are omitted. Text altered.-P. 30, a list of Johnson's residences is brought from its place at the end of the book, and, to suit this alteration, the text, "I shall before this work is concluded," is turned into "I shall here." P. 458, "I am returned" for "I am now returned." At p. 703, a note of forty lines, at p. 742 a note of twenty-eight lines, with at p. 773 a passage from Boswell's controversy with Miss Seward, are introduced into the text. This latter is, however, marked with crotchets. P. 789, a note brought into the text. P. 539, a note of thirty-six lines brought into the text. P. 535, a letter of Dr. Vyse's introduced into the text, though placed by Malone between brackets. P. 187, four paragraphs from "Prayers and Meditations" inserted as part of Boswell's text, without brackets or other mark. P. 623, Boswell's "I wrote to him again," Mr. Croker alters to "I had written to him again." P. 622, a letter is placed between brackets, as if from the "Reynolds's MSS.," but it really belongs to Boswell's text. P. 697, a note of Malone's, beginning "The following letters," &c., is brought into the text; so at p. 666, where a long note is thus treated. P. 386, Mr. Croker has "This refers to the Epitaph on Philips, and the verses on Geo. II. and Cibber as his Poet Laureate, for which see ante." The original runs: "of which imperfect copies are gone about, and will appear in my Life of Dr. Johnson." P. 270, "Mr. Johnson has since told me" changed to " Mr. Johnson told me." This alteration, and many others, were made to suit Mr. Croker's arbitrary insertion of the "Tour to the Hebrides" in the body of work. P. 784, "the effect of certain medicines, as taken, and adds," altered to as taken, that." P. 778, "compliment" made "compliments." P. 291, Embru is put for Enbru, the Scotch abbreviation for Edinburgh. P. 344, a long passage relating to Lord Lovat is thrust out of the text, made into a note, and signed "Boswell." 66 P. 631, P. 215, P. 441, Mistakes in dates and references.-P. 698, Pr. and Med., p. 198 should be p. 201. P. 639, Oct. 22 should be Oct. 20. May 3rd should be May 5. P. 788, July 12 should be July 1. P. 787, Oct. 27 should be Oct. 20. P. 702, Pr. and Med., p. 206 altered to p. 203. P. 459, Sep. 14 should be Sep. 24. Sep. 27 altered to Sep. 21. 100 put for p. 101. Mar. 3 put for Mar. 23. 565, Nov. 29 put for Nov. 25. P. 450, p. 138 altered to p. 128. P. 179, Aug. 10 put for Aug. 21. P. 245, Aug. 13 for Aug. 31. P. 109, Mar. I for Mar. 8. P. 265, Pr. and Med., P. 213, p. P. P. 246, Feb. 22 for Feb. 24. But the list of touchings and polishings, by which it was thought that the general appearance of Mr. Boswell's work would be improved, would cover pages. The dates all are brought from the end to the beginning of every letter. The addresses, invariably set out with all formality by Boswell, such as "Dr. Johnson to the Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton," or to "Mr. Langton, at Langton, Spilsbury, Lincolnshire," are cut down by Mr. Croker into "Johnson to Hamilton," and "Johnson to Langton." Even so trifling an alteration is out of harmony with the dignified tone of the book. The use of italics and capitals, which lent effect to certain places, is abolished by Mr. Croker. At p. 433, "The Irish are a fair people" should be printed in large capitals, Mr. Boswell intending to convey a more than usually full-mouthed emphasis on the part of the speaker. On the other hand, some proper names in the Hebrides, such as Donald Roy, are capriciously printed in italics. At p. 289, "we must be at Aberdeen" becomes "we must be," with a loss of effect. So in the rebuke to Hannah More (p. 778), where she is bidden to consider what her flattery is worth before she choked him with it, the italics are removed by Mr. Croker, with loss of point. The arrangement of paragraphs, too, is altered, several being fused into one. These, as I say, are merely selected specimens. The whole work is so defaced that the only course for future editors of Mr. Croker's edition, will be to collate his work carefully and laboriously with the original, and ascertain the amount of these prunings and abbreviations. What, too, can be said for consigning to an appendix, established specially for the purpose, the various legal "Arguments," quotations, letters, which had been fixed in their proper places by the author himself. Such removal does violence to the text; passages such as "Dr. Johnson then dictated to me the following argument for the negro" having to be altered to suit the omission, But it is strange that it did not occur to Mr. Croker that there was a special interest connected with these essays, from the fact of their having been dictated by Johnson, and taken down on the occasion described. They are, therefore, a faithful record of the situation; we seem to hear the great sage rolling forth his full periods; we see his follower recording; and it must have been an obtuse sense which could not see that the removal of such pieces left so many blanks in the text. They are, besides, entertaining in their way, and make a break in the flow of dialogue. Not less to be reprobated as inartistic and unwarrantable, is the rude disruption of the narrative about the middle, for the purpose of arbitrarily inserting the "Tour to the Hebrides." This is defended on the ground of chronological symmetry; but the result even in this view, is, as may be imagined, clumsy and confused By this arrangement the reader is introduced to the sketch of Dr. Johnson's character, habits, &c., with which the "Tour" commences, though this had been already given at great length; and when the "Life" is once more resumed, a sort of epitome of Johnson's proceedings in Scotland follows, so that the ground is, in each case, gone over twice. Moreover, to smooth the joinings, Mr. Croker has arbitrarily taken on himself to alter various phrases; but the fact that the "Tour" had been written many years before the "Life," and was cast in the shape of a diary, while the "Life" was cast in a grave and judicial key, ought to have at once shown that the two works could never have been made to har monize. This is a more serious objection than Lord Macaulay's, viz., that the "Tour" had been perused in MS. by Johnson, whereas the "Life" had not. Finally, the various "advertisements" to the "Tour," as well as the dedication to Malone, together with the characteristic abstract of contents, which is quite Boswellian in its way, are all suppressed! The text that he has selected for the "Tour" is a sort of mongrel one, compounded from the first, second, and third editions. It might be urged, however, that interpolation should be tolerated to a certain degree, at least as regards letters of Johnson bearing on transactions incompletely dealt with by Boswell. Malone inserted several under their proper dates; notably the interesting and affect ing letters written by Johnson when his mother was dying. These Boswell had tried to obtain and failed, and they would probably have been arranged by him, in the very places they now оссиру. Yet, even in this case, a distinction should be taken between the materials for a "Life" and the disposition of such materials. Mr. Boswell was in his way an artist; nothing is more remarkable in his great book than the tact, the self-denial, the power of selection, and the rejection of all that is surplusage. The various communicated letters are not presented nakedly, merely as letters, but as illustrations of a particular incident or period. It will be seen, therefore, that the abrupt insertion of stray letters, wherever a suitable crevice offered between paragraphs, is a rude process and an intrusion on the author's ground. No one can speculate how he would have dealt with such contributions. Instances of letters inserted by Boswell himself somewhat abruptly can indeed be pointed out; but these were thus placed temporarily, which also afford a justification for the arrangement of the present edition. The fact is Mr. Boswell really left his work incomplete. A glance at his second and last edition will show this, in which various "additional communications," such as the letters to Langton, some of Dr. Maxwell's "Collectanea," and various new paragraphs and notes, are scattered up and down over the three volumes, owing, as he says, to their reaching him "too late to be inserted in their proper place." These places were not even pointed out in the second edition; but he issued the quarto tract of "Corrections and Additions" to the first edition, in which are indicated roughly the most suitable positions the circumstances would admit of. In the third edition these rude joinings were to be smoothed, and the new additions" inserted" thus hastily, to be artistically incorporated. This view of the case disposes of any argument or precedent to be drawn from such introductions, and can hardly justify even the moderate interpolations of Malone in his several editions. Boswell's work, therefore, as it stands at present, is really composed of the original life, with a mass of new matter directed to be inserted temporarily at particular places. Or, if we start from the first edition, it may be described as the original life, with certain of its statements altered, contradicted, and modified in a very characteristic and almost unique fashion, an abundance of new material worked in, and other materials subjoined, but waiting a more favourable opportunity to be dealt with in the same way. Yet the impression of the public is that the work, so deservedly its favourite, left the author's hand complete and finished, as it now stands, and it is little suspected how much was shaped and |