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AN

ESSA Y

ON THE

LIFE AND GENIUS

O F

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

WH

HEN the works of a great Writer, who has bequeathed to pofterity a lafting legacy, are prefented to the world, it is naturally expected, that fome account of his life should accompany the edition. The Reader wishes to know as much as poffible of the Author. The circumftances that attended him, the features of his private character, his converfation, and the means by which he rofe to eminence, become the faVOL. I. vourite

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vourite objects of enquiry. Curiofity is excited; and the admirer of his works is eager to know his private opinions, his courfe of study, the particularities of his conduct, and, above all, whether he pursued the wisdom which he recommends, and practifed the virtue which his writings infpire. A principle of gratitude is awakened in every generous mind. For the entertainment and inftruction which genius and diligence have provided for the world, men of refined and fenfible tempers are ready to pay their tribute of praife, and even to form a pofthumous friendship with the author.

In reviewing the life of fuch a writer, there is, befides, a rule of justice to which the publick have an undoubted claim. Fond admiration and partial friendship should not be fuffered to represent his virtues with exaggeration; nor thould malignity be allowed, under a fpecious difguife, to magnify mere defects, the ufual failings of human nature, into vice or grofs deformity. The lights and shades of the character should be given; and, if this be done with a strict regard to truth, a just estimate of Dr. Johnfon will afford a leffon per

haps

haps as valuable as the moral doctrine that

speaks with energy in every page of his

works.

The prefent writer enjoyed the conversation and friendship of that excellent man more than thirty years. He thought it an honour to be fo connected, and to this hour he reflects on his lofs with regret but regret, he knows, has fecret bribes, by which the judgement may be influenced, and partial affection may be carried beyond the bounds of truth. In the prefent cafe, however, nothing needs to be difguifed, and exaggerated praife is unneceffary. It is an obfervation of the younger Pliny, in his Epiftle to his Friend of Tacitus, that history ought never to magnify matters of fact, becaufe worthy actions require nothing but the truth. Nam nec hiftoria debet egredi veritatem, et bonefte factis veritas fufficit. This rule the present biographer promises shall guide his pen throughout the following narrative.

It may be faid, the death of Dr. Johnfon kept the public mind in agitation beyond all former example. No literary character ever excited

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excited fo much attention; and, when the prefs has teemed with anecdotes, apophthegms, effays, and publications of every kind, what occafion now for a new tract on the fame threadbare fubject? The plain truth fhall be the answer. The proprietors of Johnson's Works thought the life, which they prefixed to their former edition, too unwieldy for republication. The prodigious variety of foreign matter, introduced into that performance, seemed to overload the memory of Dr. Johnfon, and in the account of his own life to leave him hardly vifible. They wished to have a more concise, and, for that reason, perhaps a more fatisfactory account, fuch as may exhibit a juft picture of the man, and keep him the principal figure in the fore ground of his own picture. To comply with that request is the defign of this effay, which the writer undertakes with a trembling hand. He has no difcoveries, no fecret anecdotes, no occafional controverfy, no fudden flafhes of wit and humour, no private converfation, and no new facts to embellish his work. Every thing has been gleaned. Dr. Johnfon faid of himself, "I am not uncandid, nor fevere: I fome

"times fay more than I mean, in jest, and

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people are apt to think me ferious *." The exercise of that privilege, which is enjoyed by every man in fociety, has not been allowed to him. His fame has given importance even to trifles, and the zeal of his friends has brought every thing to light. What fhould be related, and what should not, has been published without diftinction. Dicenda tacenda locuti! Every thing that fell from him has been caught with eagerness by his admirers, who, as he fays in one of his letters, have acted with the diligence of fpies upon his conduct. To fome of them the following lines, in Mallet's Poem on Verbal Criticism, are not inapplicable:

"Such that grave bird in Northern feas is found, "Whose name a Dutchman only knows to found; "Where-e'er the king of fifh moves on before, "This humble friend attends from fhore to fhore; "With eye ftill earnest, and with bill inclin'd, "He picks up what his patron drops behind, "With thofe choice cates his palate to regale, "And is the careful TIBBALD of A WHALE.”

* Bofwell's Life of Johnson, Vol. II. p. 465.

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