The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol 1 | Page 8

diligent and successful in his search after Johnson's letters,
of so many of which Boswell with all his persevering and pushing
diligence had not been able to get a sight. The editor of Mr. Croker's
Correspondence and Diaries[41] goes, however, much too far when, in
writing of Macaulay's criticism, he says: 'The attack defeated itself by
its very violence, and therefore it did the book no harm whatever.
Between forty and fifty thousand copies have been sold, although
Macaulay boasted with great glee that he had smashed it.' The book
that Macaulay attacked was withdrawn. That monstrous medley
reached no second edition. In its new form all the worst excrescences
had been cleared away, and though what was left was not Boswell, still
less was it unchastened Croker. His repentance, however, was not
thorough. He never restored the text to its old state; wanton
transpositions of passages still remain, and numerous insertions break
the narrative. It was my good fortune to become a sound Boswellian
before I even looked at his edition. It was not indeed till I came to write
out my notes for the press that I examined his with any thoroughness.
'Notes,' says Johnson, 'are often necessary, but they are necessary
evils[42].' To the young reader who for the first time turns over
Boswell's delightful pages I would venture to give the advice Johnson

gives about Shakespeare:--
'Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and
who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read
every play from the first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his
commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at
correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged let it
disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let
him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and
corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his
interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased let
him attempt exactness and read the commentators[43].'
So too let him who reads the Life of Johnson for the first time read it in
one of the Pre-Crokerian editions. They are numerous and good. With
his attention undiverted by notes he will rapidly pass through one of the
most charming narratives that the world has ever seen, and if his taste is
uncorrupted by modern extravagances, will recognise the genius of an
author who, in addition to other great qualities, has an admirable eye
for the just proportions of an extensive work, and who is the master of
a style that is as easy as it is inimitable.
Johnson, I fondly believe, would have been pleased, perhaps would
even have been proud, could he have foreseen this edition. Few
distinctions he valued more highly than those which he received from
his own great University. The honorary degrees that it conferred on him,
the gown that it entitled him to wear, by him were highly esteemed. In
the Clarendon Press he took a great interest[44]. The efforts which that
famous establishment has made in the excellence of the typography, the
quality of the paper, and the admirably-executed illustrations and
facsimiles to do honour to his memory and to the genius of his
biographer would have highly delighted him. To his own college he
was so deeply attached that he would not have been displeased to learn
that his editor had been nursed in that once famous 'nest of singing
birds.' Of Boswell's pleasure I cannot doubt. How much he valued any
tribute of respect from Oxford is shown by the absurd importance that
he gave to a sermon which was preached before the University by an

insignificant clergyman more than a year and a half after Johnson's
death[45]. When Edmund Burke witnessed the long and solemn
procession entering the Cathedral of St. Paul's, as it followed Sir Joshua
Reynolds to his grave, he wrote: 'Everything, I think, was just as our
deceased friend would, if living, have wished it to be; for he was, as
you know, not altogether indifferent to this kind of observances[46].' It
would, indeed, be presumptuous in me to flatter myself that in this
edition everything is as Johnson and Boswell would, if living, have
wished it. Yet to this kind of observances, the observances that can be
shown by patient and long labour, and by the famous press of a great
University, neither man was altogether indifferent.
Should my work find favour with the world of readers, I hope again to
labour in the same fields. I had indeed at one time intended to enlarge
this edition by essays on Boswell, Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, and perhaps
on other subjects. Their composition would, however, have delayed