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ADVERTISEMENT.

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I AT last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and of which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised.1 The delay of its publication must be imputed, in a considerable degree, to the extraordinary zeal which has been shewn by distinguished persons in all quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its illustrious Subject; resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient nations, of which every individual was eager to throw a stone upon the grave of a departed Hero, and thus to share in the pious office of erecting an honourable monument to his memory.

The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed, will hardly be conceived by those who read them with careless facility. The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations were preserved, I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with wonder; and I must be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work in other respects, as it consists of

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1 The book was published in April, and by August, 1200 out of an edition of 1700, had been sold. Nearly 4000 copies, Malone says, were sold in thirteen years. Boswell's letters, on the eve of publication, show a nervousness. was deeply in debt, and distracted at the chances of failure. Up to the last moment he could not make up his mind whether to dispose of it to a publisher, or bring it out at his own risk. wished to obtain a thousand pounds for it, and at one time thought he would have accepted five hundred pounds. Indeed, the publishers did not seem eager to give him a good price; and this may have

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determined him to publish it himself.— Letters to Malone, ap. Croker.

2 "You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials; in supplying omissions; in searching for papers buried in different masses; and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; many a time I have thought of giving it would it were in the booksellers' shops. Methinks if I had this magnum opus launched, the public has no further claim on me; for I have promised no more, and I may die in peace."-Bos. Lett., 312.

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innumerable detached particulars, all which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain with a scrupulous authenticity, has occasioned a degree of trouble far beyond that of any other species of composition. Were I to detail the books which I have consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen of my trouble, that I have sometimes had to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my discredit. And after all perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be surprized if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious severity. I have also been extremely careful as to the exactness of my quotations; holding that there is a respect due to the Publick which should oblige every Authour to attend to this, and never to presume to introduce them with "I think I have read; "—or,- "If I remember right; "when the originals may be examined.

I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have been pleased to favour me with communications and advice in the conduct of my Work. But I cannot sufficiently acknowledge my obligations to my friend Mr. Malone, who was so good as to allow me to read to him almost the whole of my manuscript, and made such remarks as were greatly for the advantage of the Work; though it is but fair to him to mention, that upon many occasions I differed from him, and followed my own judgement. I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the benefit of his revision, when but about one half of the book had passed through the press; but after having completed his very laborious and

The following is a sketch of Boswell's progress in his great task. In March, 1785, he was writing to Bishop Percy for his assistance:-"It is long since I resolved to write his (Johnson's) life. I may say his life and conversation. He was very well informed of my intention, and communicated to me a thousand particulars, from his earliest years upwards."-(Nich. Illus., vii. 303.) In February, 1788, he was writing to Percy that he had still seven years of Johnson to write. By January, 1789, the rough

draft of the whole was nearly ready, and the author proposed to go to press when one half had been revised with Malone's aid. He was, perhaps, waiting, as George Steevens wrote to Bishop Percy, until Mrs. Piozzi's account should come out. By March, 1789, he had made such way that he hoped to begin printing the fol lowing week, but was interrupted by the illness and death of his wife. By October, he and Malone had gone seriously to work; and in February of the next year the MS. was at last sent to the printer's, though [ƒ]

admirable edition of Shakspeare, for which he generously would accept of no other reward but that fame which he has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his promise of a long-wishedfor visit to his relations in Ireland; from whence his safe return finibus Atticis is desired by his friends here, with all the classical ardour of Sic te Diva potens Cypri; for there is no man in whom more elegant and worthy qualities are united; and whose society therefore is more valued by those who know him.

It is painful to me to think, that while I was carrying on this Work, several of those to whom it would have been most interesting have died. Such melancholy disappointments we know to be incident to humanity; but we do not feel them the less. Let me particularly lament the Reverend Thomas Warton, and the Reverend Dr. Adams. Mr. Warton, amidst his variety of genius and learning, was an excellent Biographer. His contributions to my Collection are highly estimable; and as he had a

the revision had not been completed.
He looked forward to having the whole
out by the month of August; but he was
again interrupted by some electioneering
schemes and his duties as Recorder at
Carlisle. Not until April the 6th, 1791,
did he find himself correcting the last
sheet. But he had still to get ready an
index, and make corrections, so that it
was not until May that he could put forth
the following advertisement, which is
evidently his own composition:-
"On Monday, the 16th of May, will be
published,

In Two Volumes quarto,
Price two guineas, in boards,
Dedicated to Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS,
and illustrated with the following plates:
-Dr. JOHNSON, by HEATH, from the
large picture painted by Sir Joshua
Reynolds in 1756, being the first, and

never

before engraved; facsimiles of his handwriting at different periods; and a round-robin addressed to him concerning his epitaph on Dr. Goldsmith, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

The extraordinary zeal which has been shown by distinguished persons in all quarters in supplying additional information, authentic manuscripts, and singular anecdotes of Dr. Johnson has occasioned such an enlargement of this

Work that it has been unavoidably
delayed much longer than was intended.
At the same time will be published by
Charles Dilly

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
The 3d
edition corrected, to which is now added
a map describing the route of the tra-
vellers.

N.B. The map, price 6d., may be had separately to accommodate the purchasers of the former editions."

In 1792, an edition in three handsome octavos was published at Dublin, which seems to have suggested to Boswell the model for his second edition, issued in 1793. The new volumes contained 128 pp. of additional matter. Some valuable materials reached him when a great portion of the work had been nearly printed off, and these he was obliged to insert at the end of the second volume, and at the beginning of the first. He, in fact, became rather bewildered, owing to his eagerness to present, in any shape, all the fresh matter that he had received; and was reduced to the expedient of inserting new facts and alterations of the text in his table of corrections. At the last moment he inserted a page of "additional corrections," and another "additional table of contents."

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Johnson from his early
What reason I had to

true relish of my "Tour to the Hebrides," I trust I should now have been gratified with a larger share of his kind approbation. Dr. Adams, eminent as the Head of a College, as a writer, and as a most amiable man, had known years, and was his friend through life. hope for the countenance of that venerable Gentleman to this Work, will appear from what he wrote to me upon a former occasion from Oxford, November 17, 1785:-"Dear Sir, I hazard this letter, not knowing where it will find you, to thank you for your very agreeable Tour,' which I found here on my return from the country, and in which you have depicted our friend so perfectly to my fancy, in every attitude, every scene and situation, that I have thought myself in the company, and of the party almost throughout. It has given very general satisfaction; and those who have found most fault with a passage here and there, have agreed that they could not help going through, and being entertained through the whole. I wish, indeed, some few gross expressions had been softened, and a few of our hero's foibles had been a little more shaded; but it is useful to see the weaknesses incident to great minds; and you have given us Dr. Johnson's authority that in history all ought to be told."

Such a sanction to my faculty of giving a just representation of Dr. Johnson I could not conceal. Nor will I suppress my satisfaction in the consciousness, that by recording so considerable a portion of the wisdom and wit of "the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century," I have largely provided for the "I instruction and entertainment of mankind..

London, April 20, 1791.

See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare.

Here follows "the Alphabetical Table of Contents to both volumes," transferred for convenience' sake to the end of the present edition. Also "Corrections and Additions, which the reader is requested to make with his pen before perusing the following life."

The four lines from Shakspeare on "the honest chronicler," Griffith-usually prefixed, and marked "Boswell,"

by Mr. Croker-are not found in the author's editions.

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