When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns," I feel an impression at once awful and tender. Requiescant in pace! It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend :-" Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpartil and the BON CHRETIEN?" On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it we owe all those interesting apothegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French have made under the title of Ana, affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the "Conversation" between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's "Anecdotes" of Pope, and other valuable remains in our own language. How delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of Shakspeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely any thing but their admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their contemporaries! All these are now irrecoverable. Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect must have been lost, how much is it to be regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom and wit have not been attended by friends of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register, their conversation! Second Edition.-Note on line 4: "While these sheets were passing through the press my valuable friend, Sir Alexander Dick, mentioned in p. 226, has been added to the number." Ibid.-Line 27: Read "all these are now irrevocably lost." 1 "I am first to publish the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides in company with him, which will exhibit a specimen of that wonderful conversation in which wisdom and wit were equally conspicuous. My talent for recording conversation is handsomely acknowledged by your lordship upon the blank leaf of Selden's 'Table Talk,' with which you were so good as to present me. The 'Life' will be a large work enriched with letters and other original pieces of Dr. Johnson's composition; and as I wish to have the most ample collection I can make, it will be some time before it is nearly ready for publication." "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro." They whose inferiour exertions are recorded, as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated, and having their names carried down to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character. Before I quit this subject, I think it proper to say, that I have suppressed every thing that I thought could really hurt any one Second Edition.-Line 9: "I quit this subject" altered to "I conclude." Ibid.-On line 10, this note:-" Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am." Third Edition.-Add to this note: "A contemptible scribbler, of whom I have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were defamatory, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publickly to disprove ; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in the lie o'erthrown.' As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other, will find that the passages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings, which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed." 1 "Mr. Urban," wrote Mr. Boswell to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, on March 9, 1786-"It having been asserted in a late scurrilous publication that some passages relating to a noble lord, which appeared in the first edition of my 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,' were omitted in the second edition of that work, in consequence of a letter from his lordship, I think myself called upon to declare that that assertion is false. "In a note, p. 527, of my second edition, I mentioned that 'having found, on a revision of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might, perhaps, be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the present edition.' "I did not then think it necessary to be more explicit. But as I now find that I have been misunderstood by some, and grossly misrepresented by others, I think it proper to add that soon after the publication of the first edition of my work, from the motive above mentioned alone, without any application from any person whatever, I ordered twenty-six lines relative to the noble lord to be omitted in the second edition, for the loss of which I trust twenty-two additional pages are a sufficient compensation; and this was the sole alteration that was made in my book relative to that nobleman; nor was any application made to me by the nobleman alluded to, at any time to quote any alteration in my journal. "To any serious criticism or ludicrous banter to which my journal shall be liable, I shall never object, but receive both the one and the other with perfect good humour; but I cannot suffer a malignant and injurious falsehood to pass uncontradicted. "Yours, &c., "JAMES BOSWELL.' now living. With respect to what is related, I thought it my duty to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice;" and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson's satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of imagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that they who are the object of them have good sense and good temper enough not to be displeased. "I believe," says Sir Walter Scott, "the scribbler alluded to was William Thompson, author of the Man in the Moon,' who was once a member of the Kirk." Such a notion seems extraordinary, as Boswell's description points exactly to the notorious Dr. Walcott, who "disgraced and deserted the clerical character," and picked up in London a scanty livelihood under the "feigned name "of Peter Pindar. He wrote "an Epistle to James Boswell, Esq.," in which he indicated the various incidents of the Tour, referring, in foot-notes, to the proper pages. The passage alluded to by Mr. Boswell compensated for its offensive character, by a prophecy curiously fulfilled : "Thou curious scrapmonger shalt live in song, When death hath stilled the rattle of thy tongue; Let Lord M'Donald threat thy breech to kick, And o'er thy shrinking shoulders shake his stick." In a note on these lines it is stated that a "letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. Boswell; but though this was not literally true, there can be little doubt but that the displeasure of Lord Macdonald had been in some way conveyed to him. That Boswell was nervously anxious to propitiate him is shown by the introduction in the Appendix to the second edition of Lord Macdonald's very indifferent Latin ode. I am indebted to Lord Houghton for the "Memoir of James Boswell," published by the Grampian Club, and which has reached me with the last sheet of this edition. It includes the memoir by Dr. Rogers, and the Boswelliana, a portion only of which has hitherto been made public. Some passages in the latter are interesting, as showing the original shape in which Boswell jotted down the remarks of his great friend. Thus in the Boswelliana, Dr. Blair asked Johnson, if he thought any man could describe barbarous manners so well if he had not lived at the time and seen them. "Any man, sir," replied Mr. Johnson," any man, woman, or child, might have done it." In the "Life" it runs, "Johnson replied, "Yes, sir, many men, many women, and many children."" 66 "Mr. Samuel Johnson said, 'Sherry cannot abide me, for I always ask him, Pray, sir, what do you propose to do?""" talking of his enthusiasm for the advancement of education, Sir,' said Mr. Johnson, it won't do. He cannot carry through the scheme. He is like a man attempting to stride the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to the effect. It is setting up a candle at Whitechapel, to give light at Westminster.'"-Boswelliana. In the Life," these passages run: "Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a point. I ask him a plain question, What do you mean to teach! Besides, Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais." These passages are interesting as opening up the question as to the process adopted by Boswell in his office of reporter. It is evident that what he set down were merely catch-words and sentences which later were to set his memory at work: the lines given in italics being evidently thus furnished. But what are we to say of the substitution of Dover and Calais for Whitechapel and Westminster-for the emendation of "teach" for "do," and the like? As the rough draught was of course nearer the date of the conversa tion, the Whitechapel version seems to have been the original one, and two such opposite objects of comparison could hardly have been confounded. Before the Grampian Club volume had I have only to add, that I shall ever reflect with great pleasure on a Tour which has been the means of preserving so much of the enlightened and instructive conversation of one whose virtues will, I hope, ever be an object of imitation, and whose powers of mind were so extraordinary, that ages may revolve before such a man shall again appear. been published, the Rev. Mr. Elwin, to whom I have been so much indebted in these inquiries, had expressed his belief to me, that the success of Boswell's reports had been owing not only to their general accuracy, but to the wonderful tact of the author in selecting the essence of a conversation, or even of a particular declaration, putting aside as surplusage all repetitions, or what might amount to a less forcible statement of what had gone before. This critical view is completely sustained by the rough notes in these Boswelliana-the present instance is a specimen where several passages are dropped out; viz. "Sir, it won't do. He cannot carry through the scheme. He is like a man attempting to stride the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to the effect." It is evident that Boswell saw that these passages did not represent the vigorous style of his friend, and that he thought he must have misapprehended or misreported him. "Striding the English Channel" was not at all in point, and it may then have flashed upon him that Johnson had used this illustration (of the Channel) in connection with the candle. Some such process as this may have been adopted, and I find that the other passages have all been treated after the same principle. This amounts to an intellectual opera. tion, and is very different from the vulgar idea of Boswell's being a "mere shorthand reporter. THE END. 494 APPENDIX. Second Edition. APPENDIX. No. I. In justice to the ingenious Dr. BLACKLOCK, I publish the following letter from him, [which did not come to my hands till this edition was nearly printed off (Third Edition),] relative to a passage in p. 225. DEAR SIR, HAVI TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. [AVING lately had the pleasure of reading your account of the journey which you took with Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Western Isles, I take the liberty of transmitting my ideas of the conversation which happened between the doctor and myself concerning Lexicography and Poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your Journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution: and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering that, if every one concerned in the conversations related, were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting particulars might be recovered, which the most assiduous attention could not observe, nor the most tenacious memory retain. A little reflection, sir, will convince you, that there is not an axiom in Euclid tnore intuitive nor more evident than the doctor's assertion that poetry was of much easier execution than lexicography. Any mind therefore endowed with common sense, must have been extremely absent from itself, if it discovered the least astonishment from hearing that a poem might be written with much more facility than the same quantity of a dictionary. The real cause of my surprise was what appeared to me much more paradoxical, that he could write a sheet of dictionary with as much pleasure as a sheet of poetry. He acknowledged, indeed, that the latter was much easier than the former. For in the one case, books and a desk were requisite; in the other, you might compose when lying in bed, or walking in the fields, &c. He did |