wards, 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 errors and obscurities in the published copies of those compositions.

some

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. Jchnson.' 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, aud 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.

The Marquis Wellesley took an encouraging interest in the work, and improved it by some valuable observations; and the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Spencer, Lord Bexley, and Lord St. Helens, the son of Dr. Johnson's early friend Mr. Fitzherbert, were so obliging as to answer some inquiries with which I found it necessary to trouble them.

In this edition (1847) I have had some valuable assistance from Mr. Peter Cunningham (son of Allan Cunningham the Poet) as well as from my friend Mr. Lockhart, author of the "Life of Sir Walter Scott ". '—a work second only, if indeed it be second, to that of Boswell, in all its higher qualities.

How I may have arranged all these materials, and availed myself of so much assistance, it is not for me to decide. Situated as I was when I began, and until I had nearly completed the edition of 1835, I could not have ventured to undertake a more serious task; and I fear that even this desultory and gossiping kind of employment must have suffered from the weightier occupations in which I was then engaged, as well as from my own deficiencies.

If unfortunately any one should think that I have failed in my attempt to improve the original work, I still have the consolation of thinking that there is no great harm done. For, as I have retrenched nothing from the best editions of the "Life," and the "Tour," the worst that can happen is that what I have added to the collection may, if the reader so pleases, be rejected as surplusage.

Of the value of the notes with which my friends favoured me, I can have no doubt; of my own, I will only say, that I have endeavoured to make them at once concise and explanatory. I hope I have cleared up some obscurities, supplied some deficiencies, and, in many cases, saved the reader the trouble of referring to dictionaries and magazines for notices of the various persons and facts which are incidentally mentioned.

In some cases I candidly confess, and in many more I fear that I have shown, my own ignorance; but I can say, that when I have so failed, it has not been for want of diligent inquiry after the desired information.

I have not considered it any part of my duty to defend or to controvert the statements or opinions recorded in the text; but in a few instances, in which either a matter of fact has been evidently misstated, or an important principle has been heedlessly

invaded or too lightly treated, I have ventured a few words towards correcting the error.

The desultory nature of the work itself, the repetitions in some instances and the contradictions in others, are perplexing to those who may seek for Dr. Johnson's final opinion on any given subject. This difficulty I could not hope, and have, therefore, not attempted to remove; it is inevitable in the transcript of table-talk so various, so loose, and so extensive; but I have endeavoured to alleviate it by occasional references to the different places where the same subject is discussed, and by a copious, and I trust, satisfactory index.

I have added translations of most if not all the classical quotations in the work-generally from the most approved translators -sometimes, when they did not appear to hit the point in question, I have ventured a version of my own.

With respect to the spirit towards Dr. Johnson himself by which I was actuated, I beg leave to say that I feel and have always felt for him a great, but, I hope, not a blind admiration. For his writings, and especially for his "Vanity of Human Wishes," the "Prefaces" to the Dictionary and Shakepeare, and the "Lives of the Poets," that admiration has little or no alloy. In his personal conduct and corversation there may be occasionally something to regret and (though rarely) something to disapprove, but less, perhaps, than there would be in those of any other man, whose words, actions, and even thoughts should be exposed to public observation so nakedly as, by a strange concurrence of circumstances, Dr. Johnson's have been.

Having no domestic ties or duties, the latter portion of his life was, as Mrs. Piozzi observes, nothing but conversation, and that conversation was watched and recorded from night to night and from hour to hour with zealous attention and unceasing diligence. No man, the most staid or the most guarded, is always the same in health, in spirits, in opinions. Human life is a series of inconsistencies; and when Johnson's early misfortunes, his protracted poverty, his strong passions, his violent prejudices, and, above all, his bodily and I may say mental infirmities, are considered, it is only wonderful that a portrait so laboriously minute and so painfully faithful does not exhibit more of blemish, incongruity, and error.

The life of Dr. Johnson is indeed a most curious chapter in the history of man; for certainly there is no instance of the life