I

PREFACE.

HAVE fomewhere heard or read,

that the Preface before a book, like the portico before a house, should be contrived, fo as to catch, but not detain the attention of those who defire admiffion to the family within, or leave to look over the collection of pictures made by one whose opportunities of obtaining them we know to have been not unfrequent. I wish not to keep my readers long from fuch intimacy with the manners of Dr. Johnson, or fuch knowledge of his fentiments as thefe pages can condiftance from Engurge my land as an excufe for the book's being ill written, would be ridiculous; it might indeed serve as a just reason for

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my having written it at all; becaufe, though others may print the fame aphorisms and ftories, I cannot here be fure that they have done fo. As the Duke fays however to the Weaver, in A Midfummer Night's Dream, "Never excufe; Never excufe; if your play

be a bad one, keep at least the excuses to yourself."

I am aware that many will fay, I have not spoken highly enough of Dr. Johnson; but it will be difficult for thofe who fay fo, to fpeak morė highly. If I have defcribed his manners as they were, I have been careful to fhew his fuperiority to the common forms of common life. is furely no difpraise to an oak that it does not bear jeffamine; and he who fhould plant honeyfuckle round Trajan's column, would not be thought to adorn, but to difgrace it.

It

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When have faid, that he was more a man of genius than of learning, I mean not to take from the one part of his character that which I willingly give to the other. The erudition of Mr. Johnfon proved his genius; for he had not acquired it by long or profound study: nor can I think thofe characters the greatest which have most learning driven into their heads, any more than I can perfuade myfelf to confider the river Jenifea as fuperior to the Nile, becaufe the firft receives near feventy tributary ftreams in the courfe of its ünmarked progrefs to the fea, while the great parent of African plenty, flowing from an almoft invifible fource, and unenriched by any extraneous waters, except eleven nameless rivers, pours his majestic torrent into the ocean by feven celebrated mouths.