Macaulay was right when he said: "Boswell is the first of biographers. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere." Yet this language, strong as it is, exaggerated as many have thought it, is not more pronounced and emphatic than the words used by Boswell in the introduction to the "Life" :-" I will venture to say that he will be seen in this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived." There is a noble and just self-confidence in these words. The task of correcting, amending, and adding to his darling work seems to have been the occupation of the remaining years of his life. In 1793 he printed the second edition, in three volumes, octavo; and before it was issued from the press he prefixed to the first volume of that edition additions recollected and received after it was printed. While superintending the third edition as it passed through the press Boswell was seized with his fatal illness, which carried him off prematurely at his house in Great Poland Street, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, on the 19th of May, 1795. The greater part, however, if not the whole, of the text of this edition had been revised by Boswell. Malone now appears as editor. He signed the advertisement of this edition, in which also appeared some of the handiwork of James, Boswell's second son. The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth editions were published respectively in 1804, 1807, and 1811, all under the editorship of Malone. The sixth was the last which had the benefit of his care and supervision. He died, May 25, 1812, in the seventy-first year of his age. Of the seventh and eighth editions I know nothing, having never even seen them. I apprehend they were mere reprints of Malone's last edition. The ninth edition was Alexander Chalmers', published in 1822, "by the trade;" but though it bears on the title-page "the ninth edition, revised and augmented," I confess that I have

discovered no traces of special revision, and little, indeed, that could claim to be regarded as original augmentations. The tenth edition, edited by F. P. Walesby, of Wadham College, was published at Oxford, in four volumes, octavo, 1826; the handsomest edition, as far as paper and type were concerned, which had yet appeared, and superior in the quality of editing to Mr. Alexander Chalmers'. And, lastly, there appeared, in 1831, the celebrated edition of the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, in five handsomely printed volumes (Murray, 1831).

Mr. Croker had many of the qualities which fitted him to excel as the editor of such an edition of Boswell's " Life" as the lapse of time demanded. His social position, which brought him into connection with the most celebrated of the survivors of the Johnsonian circle, was no mean advantage. He had distinguished literary abilities; he brought to his labours a diligence that never tired; his spirit of inquiry rivalled that of even Boswell himself. He had a love of literary gossip, of the smaller aspects of literary history, which many would have regarded as one of the endowments which fitted him for his work, but which, I venture to think, proved a snare and bane to him. But, notwithstanding these advantages, the edition disappointed the expectations which had been raised, and to this hour irritates lovers of sound literature by serious faults, which are but too patent. No one, indeed, need now castigate the mosaic formed of the various works of Boswell, of Piozzi, of Hawkins, of Tyers, of Murphy, of Nichols, of Cumberland, of the two Wartons, of Strahan, on which Macaulay and Carlyle vented their just sarcasm and ridicule: for this unique patchwork was mainly, if not entirely, effaced in subsequent editions. Mr. Croker condemned his own work by expunging it; and a reference to it can only be justified on the ground of noticing a singular fact in literary history.

But if the mosaic we speak of were broken up, and its pieces restored to the several bodies from which, for a time at least, they had so violently been severed, one huge block was left in the middle of the book-an act for which Mr. Croker claims our praise and respect. "The most important addition," says Mr. Croker in his Preface, "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," he adds further, "no doubt, if Boswell could have legally done so, he would have himself incorporated in the 'Life.'" What legal impediments there were in the way of this purpose, we profess not to understand. The law of copyright has not been a constant quantity; it has been altered again and again, nor is it regarded by many as in a satisfactory condition at this date. But we are at a loss to conceive how the publication of the "Tour" together with the "Life" could have been barred by any state, or at any period, of the law of copyright. The author published the "Life" with Charles Dilly; he published the "Tour" with Charles Dilly; each edition of both books issued from the same publisher, who was, moreover, an intimate friend of Boswell's. There was no impediment, therefore, we apprehend, which author and publisher, acting in harmony, could not easily have overcome; in fact, there was no impediment on the ground of law. There was, however, a grand impediment on the ground of taste; and the last thing we can conceive Boswell doing would be his cramming a volume of 443 pages into the place where he mentions the beginning of the "Tour," and records its end. We entirely agree with Mr. Croker when he expresses his wonder that, "any edition of the 'Life of Johnson' should have been published without the addition of this the most original, curious, and amusing part of the whole biography." But this indispensable addition to the "Life" might have been made by printing the "Tour" together with the "Life," which is done

b

in this edition, without the monstrous violation of taste of foisting this entire book into the text, between the dates of the beginning and end of the "Tour."

But another serious liberty with the text of Boswell's books has been taken in Mr. Croker's editions. In all but the first, the text, both of the "Life" and the "Tour," has been broken up into chapters. In the last edition, 1847, the "Life" and the incorporated "Tour" are divided into eightytwo chapters. But Boswell and Malone have nothing of this division; and I hold it to be contrary to the professed plan of Boswell himself, who traces Johnson's life in the form of annals in the chronological series of his life. Divisions into books and chapters, if they have any meaning, are, as it were, articulations in the organic whole of a literary composition; and this special form cannot be super-induced merely externally. Hence in this edition this division into chapters has been removed, and the form of the book preserved, with annals of Johnson's life as the framework for his thoughts, his labours, and his conversations. Any convenience that there was in the division into chapters will be found, I hope, in the analytical table of contents prefixed to each volume. Thus no violation, at least to Boswell's text, is committed; while, as I trust, the convenience of the reader will be yet further promoted.

It was said of Warburton by Johnson, "that he has a rage for saying something, when there's nothing to be said." We never read this without thinking of Mr. Croker. His notes are excessive in number, without being conspicuous for their utility; and as a short clear note, when it is indispensable, is a comfort and satisfaction to the reader, so annotation which is quite dispensable, overloads the page and distracts, not rewards, the reader's attention. Many, therefore, of Mr. Croker's notes have been removed, but not, I believe, a single note that was needed to elucidate the text, and which in any respect fulfilled this purpose.

And, above all, I have removed those notes in which Mr. Croker seems to have considered it his duty to act as censor on Boswell,-nay, sometimes on Johnson himself. The duty of an editor and the duty of a critic differ. It is permitted, nay expected, that a critic should analyze the work of his author, approve or censure it, as he deems right. But the business of an editor is, I apprehend, more limited. His duty is to subordinate himself to his author, and admit that only which elucidates his author's meaning. But, above all, it cannot be the duty of an editor to insult the writer whose book he edits. I confess that those notes of Mr. Croker which most offend are those in which, not seldom, he delights-let me be allowed to use a familiar colloquialism-to snub "Mr. Boswell."

With regard to the new notes in this edition, they will not, I trust, be regarded as excessive in number or dogmatic in expression. The appendices to the different volumes mainly consist of discussions, too long for foot-notes, treating of various matters which have arisen in the literature of Boswell's "Life of Johnson."

One word more. It has been my great object in this edition to do justice to Boswell and his great works, the "Tour" and the "Life." I have given what I desired to give, a pure text of both-presenting them as Boswell wrote and as he left them; while the editorial notes are signed by the different authors, those of Boswell are left without signature to indicate that they are constituent parts of the original works. Whatever may be thought of my work in reference to the various commentators and editors, I claim to have been loyal to Boswell.

It remains that I should thank those persons who have kindly and courteously aided me in my labours. The Earl of Lindsay and Balcarres promptly and generously acceded to my request to place the original Round Robin in the hands of my publishers for reproduction by the photographic art; a contribution to this edition which will be generally acceptable.