[ORIGINAL TITLE-PAGE.] THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL, D, COMPREHENDING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES, AND NUMEROUS WORKS, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER ; A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS; AND VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION, NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED. "After my death I wish no other herald, SHAKSPEARE, Henry VIII. See Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skie, September 30, 1773: "Boswell writes a regular Journal of our travels, which I think contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other occurrences together; for such a faithful chronicler is Griffith.'"-Boswell. DEDICATION. TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. MY DEAR SIR,-Every liberal motive that can actuate an authour in the dedication of his labours concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following work should be inscribed. If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity, not altogether inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the art over which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in philosophy and elegant literature, is well known to the present, and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you. 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 cænæque 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 арprobation, 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; whom, if he should quarrel with him, 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. 66 In one respect, this work will in some passages be different from the former. In my 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 showed 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 tenour 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 un bending himself with a few friends in the most | reserved; and though I tell nothing but the 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 London, 20th April, 1791. 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. I am, my dear sir, your much obliged friend and faithful humble servant, JAMES BOSWELL. MR. BOSWELL'S ADVERTISEMENTS. TO THE FIRST EDITION. 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 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. 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 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 has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his promise of a long-wished-for visit to his relations in Ireland; from whence his safe return finibus Aticis 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. 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 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 have sometimes been obliged to run It is painful to me to think, that while I half over London, in order to fix a date cor- was carrying on this work, several of those rectly; which, when I had accomplished, I to whom it would have been most interestwell knew would obtain me no praise, ing have died. Such melancholy disapthough a failure would have been to my dis-pointments we know to be incident to hucredit. And after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be surprised if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious manity; 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 | 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 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." 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 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 London, 20th April, 1791. 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 1," I have largely provided for the instruction and entertainment of mankind. TO THE SECOND EDITION. That I was anxious for the success of a work which had employed much of my time and labour, I do not wish to conceal; but whatever doubts I at any time entertained, have been entirely removed by the very favourable reception with which it has been honoured. That reception has excited my best exertions to render my book more perfect; and in this endeavour I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular friends, but of many other learned and ingenious men, by which I have been enabled to rectify some mistakes, and to enrich the work with many valuable additions. These I have ordered to be printed separately in quarto, for the accommodation of the purchasers of the first edition. May I be permitted to say that the typography of both editions does honour to the press of Mr. Henry Baldwin, now Master of the Worshipful Company of Stationers, whom I have long known as a worthy man and an obliging friend. In the strangely mixed scenes of human existence, our feelings are often at once pleasing and painful. Of this truth, the progress of the present work furnishes a striking instance. It was highly gratifying to me that my friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it is inscribed, lived to peruse it, and to give the strongest testimony to its fidelity; but before a second edition, which he contributed to improve, could be finished, the world has been deprived of that most valuable man; a loss of which the regret will be deep and lasting, and extensive, proportionate to the felicity which he dif fused through a wide circle of admirers and friends. J. BOSWELL. In reflecting that the illustrious subject of this work, by being more extensively and intimately known, however elevated before, has risen in the veneration and love of mankind, I feel a satisfaction beyond what fame can afford. We cannot, indeed, too much or too often admire his wonderful powers of mind, when we consider that the principal store of wit and wisdom which this work contains was not a particular selection from his general conversation, but was merely his occasional talk at such times as I had the good fortune to be in his company; and, without doubt, if his discourse at other periods had been collected with the same attention, the whole tenour of what he uttered would have been found equally excellent. His strong, clear, and animated enforcement of religion, morality, loyalty, and subordination, while it delights and improves the wise and the good, will, I trust, prove an effectual antidote to that detesta'ble sophistry which has been lately imported from France, under the false name of philosophy, and with a malignant industry has been employed against the peace, good order, and happiness of society, in our free and prosperous country: but, thanks be to God, without producing the pernicious effects which were hoped for by its propagators. It seems to me, in my moments of selfcomplacency, that this extensive biographical work, however inferior in its nature, may in one respect be assimilated to the 1 See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare.-BOSWELL. |