resolved to recast much of what I had already written, and to combine that which lay scattered in a variety of papers. At the same time I began to use the fresh materials which I had gathered together, and to add to the essays that I had already written. The contents of this book therefore may be divided into three parts. The largest of these divisions consists of matter that is here published for the first time. The second division consists of articles which I have so recast and so enlarged that, so far as form at least is concerned, they may fairly claim to be original. The third portion is composed of essays that are republished in the same form in which they at first appeared. But even to many of these I have made considerable additions. I trust that I have done something to give a juster view of Johnson and his biographer, and that I have, in the chapters which do not concern them so directly, helped some little towards a better understanding of one or two among the men whom they reckoned as their friends. Should my book be received with any degree of favour, I shall hope in another volume to write of others among Johnson's friends and, perhaps, of others among his critics. I must not forget to express my grateful acknowledgments to the Editors and Proprietors of 'The Cornhill Magazine,' 'The Pall Mall Gazette,' 'The Saturday Review,' and 'The Times,' for the permission they have kindly given me to use in this volume my various contributions to their papers. GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. THE POPLARS, Burghfield: DR. JOHNSON: HIS FRIENDS AND HIS CRITICS. CHAPTER I. OXFORD IN JOHNSON'S TIME. THE Oxford of last century is with most readers the Oxford not of Johnson, but of Gibbon. They call to mind the just indignation which the great historian felt in his riper years against that University where he spent the most idle and unprofitable fourteen months of his whole life. To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation,' he wrote, 'and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother.' It is but a few pages that he gives to this mother whom he thus renounces, but his description is so lively, his satire so pointed, and his scorn so marked, that it is the sketch that he thus paints that remains fixed in our minds as the very picture of Oxford herself. B |