are they so precise as Mr. Boswell, with good After all, however, Mr. Boswell himself is not

in the details of facts reason, claims to be. exempt from those errors

and an attentive examination and collation of the authorities (and particularly of Mr. Boswell's own) produced the final conviction that the minor biographers are entitled not merely to more credit than Mr. Boswell allows them, but to as much as any person writing from recollection, and not from notes made at the moment, can be.

But much the largest, and, for the purpose of filling up the intervals of his private history, the most valuable part of Dr. Johnson's correspondence was out of Boswell's reach, namely, that which he for twenty years maintained with Mrs. Thrale, and which she published in 1788, in two volumes octavo. For the copyright of these, Mr. Boswell says, in a tone of admiring envy, "she received five hundred pounds." The publication, however, was not very successful-it never reached a second edition, and is now almost forgotten. But through these letters are scattered almost the only information we have relative to Johnson during the long intervals between Mr. Boswell's visits; and from them he has occasionally but cautiously (having the fear of the 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.

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, indiscreetly, 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 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 supposed 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 I 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. Dr. 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.

The Reverend Dr. Harwood, the historian 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.

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." 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 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.

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 survivors of that society, not only approved and encouraged my design, but was, as the reader will see, good enough to contribute to its execution. It were to be wished, that he himself could have been induced to undertake the work-too humble indeed for his powers, but which he was, of all men then living, perhaps, the fittest to execute.

Mr. Alexander Chalmers, the ingenious and learned editor of the last London edition, gave me, with great candour and liberality, all the assistance in his power-regretting and wondering, like Lord Stowell and Sir James Mackintosh, that so much should be forgotten of what at no remote period every body must have known.

To Mr. D'Israeli's love and knowledge of literary history, and to his friendly assistance, I was very much indebted; as well as to Mr. (now Sir Henry) Ellis of the British Museum, for his readiness on this and other occasions to afford me every information in his power.

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