MR. MALONE'S ADVERTISEMENTS.

TO THE THIRD EDITION.

EVERAL valuable letters, and other curious matter, having

SEVERAL and other curious patterned in

that chronological order, which he had endeavoured uniformly to observe in his work, he was obliged to introduce them in his second edition, by way of Addenda, as commodiously as he could. In the present edition they have been distributed in their proper places. In revising his volumes for a new edition, he had pointed out where some of these materials should be inserted; but unfortunately, in the midst of his labours, he was seized with a fever, of which, to the great regret of all his friends, he died on the 19th of May, 1795., All the notes that he had written in the margin of the copy, which he had in part revised, are here faithfully preserved; and a few new notes have been added, principally by some of those friends to whom the author, in the former editions, acknowledged his obligations. Those subscribed with the letter B. were communicated by Dr. Burney; those to which the letters J. B. are annexed, by the Rev. J. B. Blakeway, of Shrewsbury, to whom Mr. Boswell acknowledged himself indebted for some judicious remarks on the first edition of his work; and the letters J. B—. O. are annexed to some remarks furnished by the author's second son, a student of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford. Some valuable observations were communicated by James Bindley, Esq., first commissioner in the Stamp-office, which have been acknowledged in their proper places. For all those without any signature, Mr. Malone is answerable. Every new remark, not written by the author, for the sake of distinction has been enclosed within crotchets ; in one instance, however, the printer, by mistake, has affixed this mark to a note relative to the Rev. Thomas Fysche Palmer [see vol. iii., p. 243], which was written by Mr. Boswell, and therefore ought not to have been thus distinguished.

I have only to add, that the proof-sheets of the present edition not having passed through my hands, I am not answerable for any typographical errors that may be found in it. Having, however, been printed at the very accurate press of Mr. Baldwin, I make no doubt it will be found not less perfect than the former edition; the greatest care having been taken, by correctness and elegance, to do justice to one of the most instructive and entertaining works in the English language.

8th April, 1799.

EDM. MALONE.

TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

In this edition are inserted some new letters, of which the greater part has been obligingly communicated by the Rev. Dr. Vyse, Rector of Lambeth. Those written by Dr. Johnson, concerning his mother in her last illness, furnish a new proof of his great piety and tenderness of heart, and therefore cannot but be acceptable to the readers of this very popular work. Some new notes also have been added, which, as well as the observations inserted in the third edition, and the letters now introduced, are carefully included within crochets, that the author may not be answerable for any thing which had not the sanction of his approbation. The remarks of his friends are distinguished as formerly, except those of Mr. Malone, to which the letter M. is now subjoined. Those to which the letter K. is affixed were communicated by my learned friend, the Rev. Dr. Kearney, formerly senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and now beneficed in the diocese of Raphoe, in Ireland, of which he is archdeacon.

Of a work which has been before the public for thirteen years with increasing approbation, and of which near four thousand copies have been dispersed, it is not necessary to say more; yet I cannot refrain from adding, that, highly as it is now estimated, it will, I am confident, be still more valued by posterity a century hence, when all the actors in the scene shall be numbered with the dead; when the excellent and extraordinary man, whose wit and wisdom are here recorded, shall be viewed at a still greater distance; and the instruc

tion and entertainment they afford will at once produce reverential gratitude, admiration, and delight.

20th June, 1804.

E. M.

TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

In this fifth edition some errours of the press, which had crept into text and notes, in consequence of repeated impressions, have been corrected. Two letters written by Dr. Johnson and several new notes, have been added: by which, it is hoped, this valuable work is still further improved.

January 1st, 1807.

E. M.

TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

GREAT pains have been taken to make this sixth edition accurate, in point of typography. With this view the entire work has been read over by the author's second son, James Boswell, of the Inner Temple, Esq., by which means many errours of the press, occasioned by repeated impressions, have been discovered. All these have been carefully amended. Several new notes and some letters have been added and in the Index,-a very useful appendage to a book containing so much miscellaneous and unconnected matter,-many new articles have been inserted

By these improvements, the present impression has been rendered the amplest, and it is hoped, will be found the most correct edition of this valuable work, which has yet appeared.

Foley Place, May 2nd, 1811.

E. M.

PREFACE TO MR. CROKER'S EDITION.

I1

T were superfluous to expatiate on the merits, at least as a source of amusement, of Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON. Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the propriety of the original publication-however naturally private confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended, the voices of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general applause. And no wonder-the work combines within itself the four most entertaining classes of writing-biography, memoirs, familiar letters, and that assemblage of literary anecdotes which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination Ana.

It was originally received with an eagerness and relished with a zest which undoubtedly were sharpened by the curiosity which the unexpected publication of the words and deeds of so many persons still living could not but excite. But this motive has gradually become weaker, and may now be said to be extinct; yet we do not find that the popularity of the work, though somewhat changed in quality, is really diminished; and as the interval which separates us from the actual time and scene increases, so appear to increase the interest and delight which we feel at being introduced, as it were, into that distinguished society of which Dr. Johnson formed the centre, and of which his biographer is the historian.

But though every year thus adds to the interest and instruction which this work affords, something is, on the other hand, deducted from the amusement which it gives, by the gradual obscurity that time throws over the persons and incidents of private life: many circumstances known to all the world when Mr. Boswell wrote are already obscure to the best informed, and wholly forgotten by the rest of mankind.

For instance, when he relates [vol. i., p. 172] that a "great personage" called the English Divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

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Giants," we conclude that George III. was the great personage; but all my inquiries (and some of His Majesty's illustrious family have condescended to permit these inquiries to extend even to them) have failed to ascertain to what person or on what occasion that happy expression was used.

Again: When Mr. Boswell's capricious delicacy induced him to suppress names and to substitute such descriptions as "an eminent friend," "a young gentleman," "a distinguished orator," these were well understood by the society of the day; but it is become necessary to apprise the reader of our times, that Mr. Burke, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Fox were respectively meant. Nor is it always easy to appropriate Mr. Boswell's circumlocutory designations. It will be seen in the course of this work, that several of them have become so obscure that even the surviving members of the Johnsonian Society were unable to recollect who were meant, and it was on one of these occasions that Sir James Mackintosh told me that " my work had, at least, not come too soon."

Mr. Boswell's delicacy is termed capricious, because he is on some occasions candid even to indiscretion, and on others unaccountably mysterious. In the report of a conversation he will clearly designate half the interlocutors, while the other half, without any apparent reason, he casts into studied obscurity.

Considering himself to be (as he certainly has been to a greater degree than he could have contemplated) one of the distributors of fame, he has sometimes indulged his partialities or prejudices by throwing more or less light, and lights more or less favourable, on the different persons of his scene; some of whom he obtrudes into broad day, while others he only "adumbrates" by imperfect allusions. But many, even of those the most clearly designated and spoken of as familiar to every eye and ear, have already lived their day, and are hardly to be heard of except in this work. Yet this work must be read with imperfect pleasure, without some knowledge of the history of those more than half-forgotten persons.

Facts, too, fade from memory as well as names; and fashions and follies are still more transient. But, in a book mainly composed of familiar conversation, how large a portion most bear on the facts, the follies, and the fashions of the time!

To clear up these obscurities-to supply these deficiencies-to retrieve obsolete and to collect scattered circumstances-and so to