The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol 1 | Page 3

time I passed on to the
other great writers of his and the succeeding age, finding in their
exquisitely clear style, their admirable common sense and their
freedom from all the tricks of affectation, a delightful contrast to so
many of the eminent authors of our own time. Those troublesome
doubts, doubts of all kinds, which since the great upheaval of the
French Revolution have harassed mankind, had scarcely begun to ruffle
the waters of their life. Even Johnson's troubled mind enjoyed vast
levels of repose. The unknown world alone was wrapped in stormy
gloom; of this world 'all the complaints which were made were
unjust[1].' Though I was now familiar with many of the great writers,
yet Boswell I had scarcely opened since my boyhood. A happy day
came just eighteen years ago when in an old book-shop, almost under
the shadow of a great cathedral, I bought a second-hand copy of a
somewhat early edition of the Life in five well-bound volumes. Of all
my books none I cherish more than thesc. In looking at them I have
known what it is to feel Bishop Percy's 'uneasiness at the thoughts of
leaving his books in death[2].' They became my almost inseparable
companions. Before long I began to note the parallel passages and
allusions not only in their pages, but in the various authors whom I
studied. Yet in these early days I never dreamt of preparing a new
edition. It fell to my lot as time went on to criticise in some of our
leading publications works that bore both on Boswell and Johnson.
Such was my love for the subject that on one occasion, when I was
called upon to write a review that should fall two columns of a weekly
newspaper, I read a new edition of the Life from beginning to end
without, I believe, missing a single line of the text or a single note. At
length, 'towering in the confidence'[3] of one who as yet has but set his
foot on the threshold of some stately mansion in which he hopes to find
for himself a home, I was rash enough more than twelve years ago to
offer myself as editor of a new edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Fortunately for me another writer had been already engaged by the
publisher to whom I applied, and my offer was civilly declined. From
that time on I never lost sight of my purpose but when in the troubles of
life I well-nigh lost sight of every kind of hope. Everything in my
reading that bore on my favourite author was carefully noted, till at

length I felt that the materials which I had gathered from all sides were
sufficient to shield me from a charge of rashness if I now began to raise
the building. Much of the work of preparation had been done at a
grievous disadvantage. My health more than once seemed almost
hopelessly broken down. Nevertheless even then the time was not
wholly lost. In the sleepless hours of many a winter night I almost
forgot my miseries in the delightful pages of Horace Walpole's Letters,
and with pencil in hand and some little hope still in heart, managed to
get a few notes taken. Three winters I had to spend on the shores of the
Mediterranean. During two of them my malady and my distress
allowed of no rival, and my work made scarcely any advance. The third
my strength was returning, and in the six months that I spent three
years ago in San Remo I wrote out very many of the notes which I am
now submitting to my readers.
An interval of some years of comparative health that I enjoyed between
my two severest illnesses allowed me to try my strength as a critic and
an editor. In Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, which I
published in the year 1878, I reviewed the judgments passed on
Johnson and Boswell by Lord Macaulay and Mr. Carlyle, I described
Oxford as it was known to Johnson, and I threw light on more than one
important passage in the Life. The following year I edited Boswell's
Journal of a Tour to Corsica and his curious correspondence with the
Hon. Andrew Erskine. The somewhat rare little volume in which are
contained the lively but impudent letters that passed between these two
friends I had found one happy day in an old book-stall underneath the
town hall of Keswick. I hoped that among the almost countless readers
of Boswell there would be many who would care to study in one of the
earliest attempts of his joyous youth the man whose ripened genius was
to place him at the very head of all the biographers of whom the world
can