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 person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose company has been universally courted, I am justified 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, most sincerely 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 cœnæque Deum, which I have enjoyed under your roof.

If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, 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; with whom, if he should quarrel, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, studied 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 composition, all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. 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 conversation in an authentick and lively manner, which opinion the Publick has confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole of my stores.

In my

In one respect this work will in some passages be different from the former. "Tour" I was almost unboundedly open in my communications; and from my eagerness to display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnson's wit, freely shewed

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to the world its dexterity, even when I was myself the object of it. I trusted that I should be liberally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, and by no means as simply unconscious of the pointed effects of the satire. I own, indeed, that I was arrogant enough to suppose that the tenor of the rest of the book would sufficiently guard me against such a strange imputation. But it seems I judged too well of the world; for, though I could scarcely believe it, I have been undoubtedly informed, that many persons, especially in distant quarters, not penetrating enough into Johnson's character, so as to understand his mode of treating his friends, have arraigned my judgment, instead of seeing that I was sensible of all that they could observe.

It is related of the great Dr. Clarke, that when in one of his leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicksome manner, he observed Beau Nash approaching; upon which he suddenly stopped:-"My boys, (said he,) let us be grave: here comes a fool." The world, my friend, I have found to be a great fool, as to that particular, on which it has become necessary to speak very plainly. I have, therefore, in this work been more reserved; and though I tell nothing but the truth, I have still kept in my mind that the whole truth is not always to be exposed. This, however, I have managed so as to occasion no diminution of the pleasure which my book should afford; though malignity may sometimes be disappointed of its gratifications.

ADVERTISEMENT.

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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.' The delay of its publication must be imputed, in a considerable degree, to the extraordinary zeal which has been shewn 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.

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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 allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work in other respects, as it consists of innumerable detached

He

1 The book was published in April, and by August, 1200 out of an edition of 1700, had been sold. Nearly 4000 copies, Malone says, were sold in thirteen years. Boswell's letters, on the eve of publication, show a nervousness. was deeply in debt, and distracted at the chances of failure. Up to the last moment he could not make up his mind whether to dispose of it to a publisher, or bring it out at his own risk. wished to obtain a thousand pounds for it, and at one time thought he would have accepted five hundred pounds. Indeed, the publishers did not seem eager to give him a good price; and this may have

He

determined him to publish it himself.Letters to Malone, ap. Croker.

"You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials; in supplying omissions; in searching for papers buried in different masses; and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; many a time I have thought of giving it up would it were in the booksellers' shops. Methinks if I had this magnum opus launched, the public has no further claim on me; for I have promised no more, and I may die in peace."-Bos. Lett., 312.

particulars, all 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 sometimes had 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 surprized 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 Publick which should oblige every Authour 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.

I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have been pleased to favour me with communications and advice in the conduct of 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 made 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 judgement. I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the benefit of his revision, when but about one half of the book had passed through the press; but after having completed his

1 The following is a sketch of Boswell's progress in his great task. In March, 1785, he was writing to Bishop Percy for his assistance: "It is long since I resolved to write his (Johnson's) life. I may say his life and conversation. He

was very well informed of my intention, and communicated to me a thousand particulars, from his earliest years upwards."-(Nich. Illus., vii. 303.) In February, 1788, he was writing to Percy that he had still seven years of Johnson to write. By January, 1789, the rough

1

draft of the whole was nearly ready, and the author proposed to go to press when one half had been revised with Malone's aid. He was, perhaps, waiting, as George Steevens wrote to Bishop Percy, until Mrs. Piozzi's account should come out. By March, 1789, he had made such way that he hoped to begin printing the following week, but was interrupted by the illness and death of his wife. By October, he and Malone had gone seriously to work, and in February of the next year the MS. was at last sent to the printers, though