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OF THE LATE

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

DURING THE LAST

TWENTY YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

BY

HESTHER LYNCH PIOZZI.

THE FOURTH EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR T. CADELL IN THE STRAND.

MDCCLXXXVI.

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I

PREFACE.

HAVE fomewhere heard or read,

that the Preface before a book, like the portico before a house, should be contrived, fo as to catch, but not detain the attention of those who defire admiffion to the family within, or leave to look over the collection of pictures made by one whofe opportunities of obtaining them we know to have been not unfrequent. I wish not to keep my readers long from fuch intimacy with the manners of Dr. Johnson, or fuch knowledge of his fentiments as thefe pages can convey. To urge my distance from England as an excufe for the book's being ill written, would be ridiculous; it might indeed ferve as a just reason for

my having written it at all; because, though others may print the fame aphorifms and ftories, I cannot here be fure that they have done fo. As the Duke fays however to the Weaver, in A Midfummer Night's Dream, "Never excufe; if your play be a bad one, keep at least the excuses to yourself."

I am aware that many will fay, I have not spoken highly enough of Dr. Johnson; but it will be difficult for those who fay fo, to fpeak more highly. If I have defcribed his manners as they were, I have been careful to fhew his fuperiority to the common forms of common life. is furely no difpraise to an oak that it does not bear jeffamine; and he who should plant honeyfuckle round Trajan's column, would not be thought to adorn, but to difgrace it.

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