1

1

copyright law before his eyes) made interesting

extracts.

These letters being now public property, I have been at liberty to follow up Mr. Boswell's imperfect example, and have therefore made numerous and copious selections from them, less as specimens of Johnson's talents for letter-writing, than as notices of his domestic and social life during the intervals of Mr. Boswell's narrative. Indeed, as letters, few of Johnson's can have any great charm for the common reader; they are full of good sense and good-nature, but in forms too didactic and ponderous to be very amusing. In the extracts which I have made from Mrs. Thrale's correspondence, I have been guided entirely by the object of completing the history of Johnson's life.1

The most important addition, however, which I have made is one that needs no apology the incorporation with the 'LIFE' of the whole of the TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES,' which Boswell published in one volume in 1785, and which, no doubt, if he could legally have done so, he would himself have incorporated in the LIFE-of which indeed he expressly tells us, he looks on the TOUR but as a portion. It is only wonderful, that since the copyright has expired, any edition of his Life of Johnson should have been published without the addition of this, the most original, curious, and amusing portion of the whole biography.

The Prayers and Meditations, published by Dr. Strahan too hastily after Johnson's death, and I think in other respects also, indiscreetly2, have likewise been made use of to an extent | which was forbidden to Mr. Boswell. What Dr. Strahan calls meditations are, in fact, nothing but diaries of the author's moral and religious state of mind, intermixed with some notices of his bodily health and of the interior circumstances of his domestic life. Mr. Boswell had ventured to quote some of these: the present edition contains all that appear to offer any thing of interest.

I have also incorporated a diary which Johnson had kept during a Tour through North Wales, made, in 1775, in company with Mr. Thrale and his family. Mr. Boswell had, it appears, inquired in vain for this diary if he could have obtained it, he would, no doubt, have inserted it, as he did the similar notes of the Tour in France in the succeeding year. By the liberality of Mr. Duppa, who published it in 1806, with copious explanatory notes, I was enabled to add it to my edition. I have likewise given in the Appendix an Account of Dr. Johnson's early

1 The number of original letters in my edition of 1831 was about 100- to which I have now added about 20; and there are above 50 extracts from the Thrale Correspondence. 2 See the remarks on this subject, pp. 792. 803. 3 Sir Walter Scott and Sir James Boswell, to whom, as the grandson of Mr. Boswell, the inquiries were addressed, unfortunately missed one another in mutual calls; but 1 have heard from another quarter that the original

life, written by himself, published in 1802, but now become scarce; and I have thrown into the notes or the Appendix a few extracts from other published lives and anecdotes of Dr. Johnson which seemed necessary to complete Boswell's picture.

But besides these printed materials, I have been favoured with many papers connected with Dr. Johnson, his life, and society, hitherto unpublished. Of course, my first inquiries were directed towards the original manuscript of Mr. Boswell's Journal, which would no doubt have enabled me to fill up all the blanks and clear away much of the obscurity that exist in the printed LIFE. It was to be hoped that the archives of Auchinleck,' which Mr. Boswell frequently and pompously mentions, would contain the original materials of these works, which he himself, as well as the world at large, considered as his best claims to distinction. And I thought that I was only fulfilling the duties of courtesy in requesting from Mr. Boswell's representative any information which he might be disposed to afford on the subject. To that request I never received any answer: though the same inquiry was afterwards, on my behalf, repeated by Sir Walter Scott, whose influence might have been expected to have produced a more satisfactory result." But was more fortunate in other quarters.

The Reverend Doctor Hall, Master of Pembroke College, was so good as to collate the printed copy of the Prayers and Meditations with the original papers, now (most appropriately) deposited in the library of that college, and some, not unimportant, light has been thrown on that publication by the personal inspection of the papers which he permitted me to make. Doctor Hall has also elucidated some facts and corrected some misstatements in Mr. Boswell's account of Johnson's earlier life, by an examination of the college records; and he has found some of Johnson's Oxford exercises, one or two specimens of which have been selected as likely to interest the classical reader. He has further been so obliging as to select and copy several letters written by Dr. Johnson to his early and constant friends, the daughters of Sir Thomas Aston, which, having fallen into the hands of Mrs. Parker, were by her son, the Reverend S. H. Parker, presented to Pembroke College. The papers derived from this source are marked Pemb. MSS. Hall, feeling a fraternal interest in the most illustrious of the sons of Pembroke, continued, as will appear in the course of the work, to favour me with his valuable assistance.

Dr.

The Reverend Dr. Harwood, the historian

journals do not exist at Auchinleck: perhaps to this fact the silence of Sir James Boswell may be attributed. The manuscript of the TOUR was, it is known, fairly transcribed, and so, probably, were portions of the LIFE; but it appears from a memorandum book and other papers in Mr. Anderdon's possession, that Boswell's materials were in a variety of forms; and it is feared that they have been irretrievably dispersed.

of Lichfield, procured for me, through the favour of Mrs. Pearson, the widow of the legatee of Miss Lucy Porter, many, letters addressed to this lady by Johnson; for which, it seems, Mr. Boswell had inquired in vain. These papers are marked Pearson MSS. Dr. Harwood supplied also some other papers, and much information collected by himself.1

Lord Rokeby, the nephew and heir of Mrs. Montague, was so kind as to communicate Dr. Johnson's letters to that lady.

Mr. Langton, the grandson of Mr. Bennet Langton, has furnished some of his grandfather's papers, and several original MSS. of Dr. Johnson's Latin poetry, which have enabled me to explain some errors and obscurities in the published copies of those compositions.

Mr. J. F. Palmer, the grand-nephew of Sir Joshua Reynolds and of Miss Reynolds, most liberally communicated all the papers of that lady, containing a number of letters or rather notes of Dr. Johnson to her, which, however trivial in themselves, tend to corroborate all that the biographers have stated of the charity and kindness of his private life. Mr. Palmer also contributed a paper of more importance-a MS. of about seventy pages, written by Miss Reynolds, and entitled Recollections of Dr. Johnson.2 The authenticity and general accuracy of these Recollections cannot be doubted, and I had therefore admitted extracts from them into the text of my first edition; I have now given the whole in the Appendix.

Mr. Markland has, as the reader will see by the notes to which his name is affixed, favoured me with a great deal of zealous assistance and valuable information.

He also communicated a copy of Mrs. Piozzi's anecdotes, copiously annotated, propriâ manu, by Mr. Malone. These notes have been of use in explaining some obscurities; they guide us also to the source of many of Mr. Boswell's charges against Mrs. Piozzi; and have had an effect that Mr. Malone could neither have expected or wished-that of tending rather to confirm than to impeach that lady's veracity.

Mr. J. L. Anderdon favoured me with the inspection of a portfolio bought at the sale of the library of Boswell's second son James, which contained some of the original letters, memoranda, and note books, which had been used as materials for the LIFE. Their chief value, now, is to show that as far as we may judge from this specimen, the printed book is

1 Dr. Harwood likewise favoured me with permission to engrave for the edition of 1831, the earliest known portrait of Dr. Johnson-a miniature worn in a bracelet by his wife, which Dr. Harwood purchased from Francis Barber, Dr. Johnson's servant and legatee. The engraving in the original was by mistake stated to be in the possession of Mrs. Pearson." It belonged to Dr. Harwood.

2 A less perfect copy of these Recollections was also communicated by Mr. Gwatkin, who married one of Sir Joshua's nieces.

3 This attention on the part of Lord Chesterfield renders still more puzzling Johnson's conduct towards his lordship. See pp. 58. 84. et seq.

a faithful transcript from the original notes, except only as to the suppression of names. Mr. Anderdon's portfolio also contains Johnson's original draft of the Prospectus of the Dictionary, and a fair copy of it (written by an amanuensis, but signed, in form, by Johnson), addressed to Lord Chesterfield, on which his lordship appears to have made a few critical notes. 3

Through the obliging interposition of Mr. Appleyard, private secretary of the second Earl Spencer, Mrs. Rose, the daughter of Dr. Strahan, favoured me with copies of several letters of Dr. Johnson to her father, one or two only of which Mr. Boswell had been able to obtain.

In addition to these contributions of manuscript materials, I have to acknowledge much and valuable assistance from numerous literary and distinguished friends.

The venerable Lord Stowell, the friend and executor of Dr. Johnson, was one of the first persons who suggested this work to me: he was pleased to take a great interest in it, and kindly endeavoured to explain the obscurities which were stated to him; but he confessed, at the same time, that the application had in some instances come rather too late, and regretted that an edition on this principle had not been undertaken when full light might have been obtained. His lordship was also so kind as to dictate, in his own happy and peculiar style, some notes of his recollections of Dr. Johnson. These, by a very unusual accident', were lost, and his lordship's great age and increasing infirmity deterred me from again troubling him on the subject. A few points, however, in which I could trust to my own recollection, will be found in the notes.

To my revered friend, Dr. Thomas Elrington, Lord Bishop of Ferns, I had to offer my thanks for much valuable advice and assistance, and for a continuance of that friendly interest with which his lordship for many years, and in more important concerns, honoured me.

Sir Walter Scott, whose personal kindness to me and indefatigable good-nature to every body were surpassed only by his genius, found time from his higher occupations to annotate a considerable portion of this work -the Tour to the Hebrides - - and continued his aid to the very conclusion of my task.

The Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, whose acquaintance with literary men and literary history was so extensive, and who, although not of the Johnsonian circle, became early in life acquainted with most of the sur

4 They were transmitted by post, addressed to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh for his perusal; after a considerable lapse of time, Sir Walter was written to to return them - he had never had them. It then appeared that the post office bag which contained this packet and several others, had been lost, and it has never been heard of. Some of my friends reproached me with want of due caution in having trusted this packet to the post, but I think unjustly. There is, perhaps, no individual now alive who has despatched and received a greater number of letters than I have done, and I can scarcely recollect an instance of a similar loss.

portion of his life was, as Mrs. Piozzi observes, nothing but conversation, and that conversation was watched and recorded from night to night and from hour to hour with zealous attention and unceasing diligence. No man, the most staid or the most guarded, is always the same in health, in spirits, in opinions. Human life is a series of inconsistencies; and when Johnson's early misfortunes, his protracted poverty, his strong passions, his violent prejudices, and, above all, his bodily and I may say mental infirmities, are considered, it is only wonderful that a portrait so laboriously minute and so painfully faithful does not exhibit more of blemish, incongruity, and error.

The life of Dr. Johnson is indeed a most curious chapter in the history of man; for certainly there is no instance of the life of any other human being having been exhibited in so much detail, or with so much fidelity. There are, perhaps, not many men who have practised so much self-examination as to know themselves as well as every reader knows Dr. Johnson.

We must recollect that it is not his table-talk or his literary conversations only that have been published: all his most private and most trifling correspondence-all his most common as well as his most confidential intercoursesall his most secret communion with his own conscience- and even the solemn and contrite

exercises of his piety, have been divulged and exhibited to the "garish eye" of the world without reserve I had almost said, without delicacy. Young, with gloomy candour, has said

"Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight, a naked human heart." 'What a man must Johnson have been, whose heart, having been laid more bare than that of any other mortal ever was, has passed so little blemished through so terrible an ordeal!

But while we contemplate with such interest this admirable and perfect portrait, let us not forget the painter. Mr. Burke told Sir James Mackintosh that he thought Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings, and on another occasion said, that he thought Johnson appeared greater in Boswell's volumes than even in his own.

It was a strange and fortunate concurrence, that one so prone to talk and who talked so well, should be brought into such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able to record. Dr. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers, but Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He united lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding, the excellencies of others. Though proud of his own name and lineage, and ambitious of the countenance of the great, he was yet so

cordial an admirer of merit, wherever found, that much public ridicule, and something like contempt, were excited by the modest assurance with which he pressed his acquaintance on all the notorieties of his time, and by the ostentatious (but in the main, laudable) assiduity with which he attended the exile Paoli and the low-born Johnson! These were amiable, and, for us, fortunate inconsistencies. His contemporaries indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, inquisitive, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive-his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objectswhen he meddled, he did so, generally, from good-natured motives - his giddiness was only an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and reverence due to literature, morals, and religion: and posterity gratefully acknowledges the taste, temper, and talents with which he selected, enjoyed, and described that polished and intellectual society which still lives in his work, and without his work had perished!

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi: sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."

Such imperfect though interesting sketches as Ben Jonson's visit to Drummond, Selden's Table Talk, Swift's Journal, and Spence's Anecdotes, only tantalise our curiosity and excite our regret that there was no Boswell to preserve the conversation and illustrate the life and times of Addison, of Swift himself, of Milton, and, above all, of Shakespeare! We can hardly refrain from indulging ourselves with the imagination of works so instructive and delightful; but that were idle; except as

it may tend to increase our obligation to the faithful and fortunate biographer of Dr. John

son.

Mr. Boswell's birth and education familiarised him with the highest of his acquaintance, and his good-nature and conviviality with the lowest. He describes society of all classes with the happiest discrimination. Even his foibles assisted his curiosity; he was sometimes laughed at, but always well received; he excited no envy, he imposed no restraint. It was wel known that he made notes of every conversation, yet no timidity was seriously alarmed, no delicacy demurred; and we are perhaps in debted to the lighter parts of his character fo the patient indulgence with which every body submitted to sit for their pictures.

No

Mr. Boswell took, indeed, extraordinary and most laudable pains to attain accuracy. only did he commit to paper at night the con versation of the day, but even in gener: society he would occasionally take a note o any thing remarkable that occurred; and h afterwards spared no trouble in arranging an

supplying the inevitable deficiencies of these hasty memoranda.1

Nor were his talents inconsiderable. He had looked a good deal into books, and more into the world. The narrative portion of his works is written with good sense, in an easy and perspicuous style, and without (which seems odd enough) any palpable imitation of Johnson. But in recording conversations he is unrivalled: that he was eminently accurate in substance, we have the evidence of all his contemporaries; but he is also in a high degree I characteristic — dramatic. The incidental observations with which he explains or enlivens the dialogue, are terse, appropriate, and picturesque we not merely hear his company, we see them!

Yet his father was, we are told, by no means satisfied with the life he led, nor his eldest son with the kind of reputation he attained; neither liked to hear of his connexion even with Paoli or Johnson; and both would have been better pleased if he had contented himself with a domestic life of sober respectability.

1 Mr. Wordsworth obligingly furnished me with the following copy of a note in a blank page of his copy of Boswell's work, dictated and signed in Mr. Wordsworth's presence by the late Sir George Beaumont, whose own accuracy was exemplary, and who lived very much in the society of Johnson's latter days.

"Rydal Mount, 12th Sept. 1826. "Sir Joshua Reynolds told me at his table, immediately after the publication of this book, that every word of it might be depended upon as if given on oath. Boswell was in the habit of bringing the proof sheets to his house previously to their being struck off, and if any of the company happened to have been present at the conversation recorded, he requested him or them to correct any error, and, not satisfied with this, he would run over all London for the sake of verifying any single word which might be disputed.

“G. H. BEAUMONT.”

Although it cannot escape notice, that Sir Joshua is here reported to have drawn a somewhat wider inference than the premises warranted, the general testimony is satisfactory, and it is to a considerable extent corroborated by every kind of evidence external and internal.

2 See p. 397. n. This feeling is less surprising in old Lord Auchinleck than in Sir Alexander, who was himself a man of the world, clever, literary, and social.

3 The following letter (in the Reynolds Papers) from Mr. Boswell to Sir Joshua, on the subject of this portrait, ought not to be lost.

"London, 7th June, 1785.

"MY DEAR SIR, - The debts which I contracted in my father's lifetime will not be cleared off by me for some years. I therefore think it unconscientious to indulge myself in any expensive article of elegant luxury. But in the mean time,

The public, however, the dispenser of fame, has judged differently, and considers the biographer of Johnson as the most eminent branch of the family pedigree. With less activity, less indiscretion, less curiosity, less enthusiasm, he might, perhaps, have been what the old lord would, no doubt, have thought more respectable; and have been pictured on the walls of Auchinleck (the very name of which we never should have heard) by some stiff, provincial painter in a lawyer's wig or a squire's hunting cap; but his portrait, by Reynolds 3, would not have been ten times engraved; his name could never have become- -as it is likely to be far spread and as lasting as the English language; and "the world had wanted" a work to which it refers as a manual of amusement, a repository of wit, wisdom, and morals, and a lively and faithful history of the manners and literature of England, during a period hardly second in brilliancy, and superior in importance, even to the Augustan age of Anne.

as

you may die, or I may die; and I should regret very much that there should not be at Auchinleck my portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom I have the felicity of living in social intercourse.

"I have a proposal to make to you. I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February. Will you now do my picture, and the price shall be paid out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate in five years hence, by myself or my representatives.

"If you are pleased to approve of this proposal, your signifying your concurrence underneath, upon two duplicates, one of which shall be kept by each of us, will be a sufficient voucher of the obligation. I ever am, with very sincere regard, my dear sir, your faithful and affectionate humble "JAMES BOSWELL.

servant,

An engraving from Sir Joshua's portrait is prefixed to the present volume. I was favoured by Mrs. Denham with a pencil sketch of Mr. Boswell in later life, by Sir Thomas Lawrence: which, although bordering on caricature, is so evidently characteristic, and (as I am assured) so identically like, that I think it worth reproducing. I have also added, on the next page, a whole length (first published in the duodecimo edition) of Boswell during the period when he "flourished" (as Mr. Chalmers slily phrases it) with JohnBoth these sketches will, I think, be acceptable, as giving a lively idea, not merely of his person, but also, (and particularly the first,) of his mind and manner :- busy selfimportance and dogmatical good-nature were seldom better expressed.

son.