Preparing for the Press, in one Volume Quarto, THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. MR BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq. R. Boswell has been collecting materials for this work for more than twenty years, during which he was honoured with the intimate friendship of Dr. Johnson; to whose memory he is ambitious to erect a literary monument, worthy of so great an authour, and so excellent a man. Dr. Johnson was well informed of his design, and obligingly communicated to him several curious particulars. With these will be interwoven the most authentick accounts that can be obtained from those who knew him best; many sketches of his conversation on a multiplicity of subjects, with various persons, some of them the most eminent of the age; a great number of letters from him at different periods, and several original pieces dictated by him to Mr. Boswell, distinguished by that peculiar energy, which marked every emanation of his mind. Mr. Boswell takes this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the many valuable communications which he has received to enable him to render his Life of Dr. Johnson more complete. His thanks are particularly due to the Rev. Dr. Adams, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Dr. Brocklesby, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Mr. Hector of Birmingham, Mrs. Porter, and Miss Seward. He has already obtained a large collection of Dr. Johnson's letters to his friends, and shall be much obliged for such others as yet remain in private hands; which he is the more desirous of collecting, as all the letters of that great man, which he has yet seen, are written with peculiar precision and elegance; and he is confident that the publication of the whole of Dr. Johnson's epistolary correspondence will do him the highest honour. AUTHORITIES 1. The Journey and the Tour, cited by the pages of this edition. Where it is necessary to distinguish, the two editions of the Journey (1775) are cited as first impression and second impression, the three editions of the Tour (1785-6) as 1, 2, 3. IA. Boswell's Remarks on (the first impression of) the Journey, sent by him to Johnson, and now in the collection of Mr. R. B. Adam. Not holograph, but there are insertions in Boswell's hand. Cited from Mr. Adam's Catalogue (privately printed 1921) as Remarks. IB. Malone's corrections in the first edition of the Tour, written in his copy (now in the Adam collection) and for the most part adopted by Boswell in the second edition. Cited from the original, as Malone (or M). 2. Johnson's Letters to Mrs. Thrale, published (1788) by Mrs. Piozzi. Cited by their dates. 3. Boswell's Letters to Temple, published by an anonymous editor 1857, reprinted 1908 and re-edited (from the originals) in Professor C. B. Tinker's Letters of Boswell 1924. Cited by their dates. 451 EDITOR'S NOTES The JOURNEY Page 3 1. 3 originally excited. See p. 167. 1. 12 another gentleman: Mr. Nairne, advocate', p. 193. See index. Page 4 1. 17 Maria Reg. My Journal has it Re.' Boswell's Remarks (and so p. 194, and Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale of 25 August). Page 5 1.28 the foundations were doubtless buried in rubbish since removed; but the two gables, the south wall of the nave, and parts of the choir and south transept still stand, and it is not difficult to make out the general design (except of the central tower, of which nothing remains but the stumps of the great piers), and even some of the detail, of the building. 1. 33 demolished. Expert opinion now ascribes the ruin rather to 'deliberate robbery and frigid indifference' (p. 21) than to the fury of a day. Page 6 1. 14 that laxity] their laxity 1775, which if right means Englishmen's. But confusion of that and their seems more probable than that Johnson should write slackly. 1.23 the college of St. Leonard had no habitable buildings, that of St. Salvator no revenues; they were accordingly united in 1749 (Collegium Sancti Salvatoris et Divi Leonardi). The chapel of St. Leonard's has been roofed in the present century. 1. 28 decent, if it is not a quotation of the narrator's words, seems clumsy irony; perhaps Johnson wrote recent. Page 7 1.5 Divinity: St. Mary's College. 1.9 The doctor: Principal Murison (p. 199). 1. 13 a populous, yet a cheap country: Fife and Angus; country does not mean Scotland. 1. 27 seven months. It is eight months on p. 15, but seven is right. 1. 34 the present chancellor: Thomas Hay, Earl of Kinnoull. Page 9 1. 15 only one. For a more precise account of the St. Andrews Tree see p. 202, and Boswell's Remarks: Colonel Nairne . . . must have been jocular or very ignorant. At several seats there are old trees.' 1. 27 Davies. Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland, whose Discoverie of the true Causes why Ireland was never entirely Subdued... untill the Beginning of his Majesties happie Raigne (1612) is frequently cited in Johnson's Dictionary. 1. 32 any man 1775 second impression: any Lowlander first impression. 1. 33 ever set a tree. Several were set before the Union which are now very stately. I allow that few were set. . . . Your observations on the nakedness of Scotland are just. . . .' Boswell's Remarks. Page 10 1.7 over the Firth of Tay. At Woodhaven or Newport. Page 11 1. 27 hedges. . . of stone. See p. 206. Boswell elsewhere (letter to Temple, 4 April 1775) remarks on this expression as 'strange'. But the Oxford Dictionary quotes The Florist, 1850, stone walls, or, as they are called, hedges'. 1.31 Early in the afternoon. dinner?' Boswell's Remarks. Do you call it the afternoon before Page 12 1. 15 met 1775 second impression: found first impression. 1. 31 the same magistrates. Corrected in Boswell's Remarks: The new town is a royal Borough. The old is only a Borough of Barony.' 1. 34 having been situated 1775 second impression: being built first impression. Page 13 1. 19 as om. 1775. Page 15 1.6 commence 1775 second impression: become a first impression. Page 16 1. 12 a lady: 'I happened to be espied by Lady Di. Middleton' (Letter to Mrs. Thrale, 28 August). 1. 22 overwhelmed. I do not think we traveled over the buried If I recollect right we were told of it at Mr. Frazer's.' Boswell's Remarks. Estate. 1. 24 required 1775 second impression: the first impression has re-/ruined (but the catchword is quired). Page 19 1.9 story, the] story. The 1775. 1. 26 The incommodiousness of the Scotch windows, on which in Boswell's opinion (p. 229) Johnson erroneously enlarged', is not completely removed. There are still in Highland inns many windows which cannot be opened without violence, or kept open without 'succedaneous' contrivance. Page 20 1. 25 waste of reformation. See p. 231. Page 21 1. 16 Let us not. The leaf containing pages 47-48, from could not enter to imperfect constitution, is a cancel in all copies of the first impression that I have seen. It may be recognized by the |