from books and men, and marked with a happiness of illustration almost peculiar to himself. He had read with critical eyes the important volume of human life, and knew the heart of man from the depths of stratagem to the surface of affectation. He knew also his own prejudices, for he had already described in print the temptations which beset and mislead a biographer: -"He that writes the life of another is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt his praise or aggravate his infamy: many temptations to falsehood will occur in the disguise of passions, too specious to fear much resistance. Love of virtue will animate panegyric, and hatred of wickedness embitter censure. The zeal of gratitude, the ardour of patriotism, fondness for an opinion, or fidelity to a party, may easily overpower the vigilance of a mind habitually well disposed, and prevail over unassisted and unfriended veracity.""

Dictatorial in conversation and confident in his own resources, he delighted in argument; nor was he at times over scrupulous in his manner of obtaining victory. He remembered an early observation of his own: " Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority." The same seeking for superiority is to be found in the Lives of the Poets,'—and the reader is now and then required to see the Doctor and Dictator triumphant over the subject of his narrative.

When Boswell remarked that in writing a life a man's peculiarities should be mentioned, because they mark his character, Johnson observed in reply, "Sir, there is no doubt as to peculiarities: the question is whether a man's vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned that Addison and Parnell drank too freely; for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this; so that more ill may be done by the example than good by telling the whole truth." Yet he observed on another occasion, and to Boswell, that "it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking, when it was seen that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it." Indeed he was not always true to himself. When asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to

expose the defects of a man with whom he had lived in intimacy, he replied, "Why, no, Sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically." And that man was Swift.

Of the errors into which Johnson has fallen in his Lives,' some account may be expected by the readers of this edition. They are of two kinds-those attributable to the imperfect information of his period, and those due to his own neglect. Thus, in the first written of the 'Lives,' that of Cowley, he tells us in one place that Cowley's unfinished epic is in three books, and in another place (a few pages on) that it is in four. We may safely suspect that he had never read Cowley's Comedy-for he mistakes its title. In his Waller' he finds fault with Fenton for an error made by himself, from confounding two poems. In the same life he calls Hampden the uncle of Waller instead of the cousin. In his Life of Milton he cites Philips (Milton's nephew) for a remarkable statement not to be found in Philips, and attributes to Ellwood (Milton's Quaker friend) the preservation of a doubtful story said to have come from Milton's own lips, which is certainly not in Ellwood;-while he states oddly enough "that Paradise Lost,' originally published in ten books, was made into twelve by dividing the seventh and twelfth," meaning of course the seventh and tenth. Where his preparations had been greater, he is still more inaccurate. Thus he says of Dryden's King Arthur' what is true of Albion and Albanius; mistakes the origin of Mac Flecknoe,' and the date of its appearance; informs his readers that King James and not King Charles made Dryden historiographer; assigns Dryden's translation of Maimbourg to a period subsequent to his conversion, when it was well known that it appeared while Charles the Second was yet alive; states positively-and in two placesthat Dryden translated only one of Ovid's Epistles, whereas he translated at least two; attributes to Settle what is by Pordage; and, from not looking into Burnet for himself, makes Dryden the author of an answer actually written by Varillas.

Let me continue, though briefly, the enumeration. He is altogether wrong about Cowley's parentage. He makes Lord Roscommon live into King James's reign; calls Lord Ro

6

chester's daughter his sister; refers to Palaprat's Alcibiade,' when there is no such production; makes Venice Preserved' the last of Otway's plays, which it was far from being; writes the Life of the Earl of Dorset,' and in three other places advances him to a dukedom, which he never obtained; ascribes to Walsh what was written by Chetwood; asserts that Addison never printed his poem to Sacheverell, whereas it is to be seen with his other earliest printed productions in so common a book as Tonson's Miscellany; confounds Sir Richard Steele with Dicky Norris the actor; attributes a discovery to Congreve-that Pindaric odes were regular-when the discovery is to be found in Ben Jonson and Philips's Theatrum Poetarum ;' taxes Warburton with making an arrangement of Pope's Epistles, which Pope himself had made; informs us in the Life of Pope' that the Pastorals of Philips and Pope appeared for the first time in the same Miscellany, but forgets his information when he comes to the life of Philips. While he is wrong in the years of birth of Savage, Somervile, Yalden, and Collins, he is equally incorrect respecting the dates of death of Dryden, Garth, Parnell, and Collins.

Boswell complains that Johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy, and omitted when reprinting his Lives to correct the errors that were pointed out to him. Indeed, in his brief Advertisement to the whole work he acknowledges that in the minute kind of history, so constantly requisite in biographical writing, the succession of facts is not easily discovered, and that "longer premeditation" might have added to his materials, while in the lives of later writers he might by attention and inquiry have gleaned many particulars which would have diversified and enlivened his work. "To adjust the minute events of literary history is," he tells us in his 'Life of Dryden,'" tedious and troublesome; it requires indeed no great force of understanding, but often depends upon inquiries which there is no opportunity of making, or is to be fetched from books and pamphlets not always at hand." He reverts to the same subject and to other attendant difficulties in the first written of the second series of his Lives-that of Addison : "The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons,

is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records; but Lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolic, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished, and coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say nothing that is false, than all that is true."

This was written late in life, long after he had put the case, as was his custom, in a somewhat different light. "If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition. We know how few can portray a living acquaintance except by his most prominent and observable peculiarities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession of copies will lose all resemblance of the original. If the biographer writes from personal knowledge and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, bis fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyric, and not to be known from one another but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. • Let me

remember,' says Hale, 'when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there is l'kewise a pity due to the country.' If we regard the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth."4

Where Johnson does not cite his authorities in footnotes, he leaves the reader to infer that he has obtained his information from accessible materials. Yet and mark his incessant love of truth-where he introduces new matter, he is particularly careful to name the persons from whom he derived it. Thus we find him citing his father, an old bookseller, in illustration of the sale of Absalom and Achitophel,' and the characteristic story he has given of the preaching of Burnet and Sprat. His friends in early life are frequently appealed to. From Walmsley (most enduringly remembered in these Lives) he derives a story about Rag Smith and Addison. Andrew Corbet of Shropshire is his authority for the anecdote of Addison and the barring out. Mr. Ing and "the well-known Ford" (Hogarth's Ford) are chied in support of passages in his Life of Broome. Mr. Locker of the Leather-sellers' Company, and Mr. Clark of Lincoln's Inn, are two more authorities to whom he refers, and of whom I have learnt nothing. I would that Boswell had known them! Dr. Madden" a name which Ireland ought to honour"— is produced thrice as his authority in his Lives of Addison and Swift. Dr. Hawkesworth he acknowledges as his authority for an anecdote of modest Foster (no common man). He draws at times on booksellers of name in support of what he states. Thus we find him referring to Mr. Draper,-to Osborne, whom he knocked down, and in two or three places to Mr. Dodsley. Persons of still greater reputation occasionally occur. What Lord Orrery told him of Swift he has induced into Swift's Life; and what Lord Marchmont, Bishop Warburton, Richardson the painter, and D bson the scholar, told him about Pope, he has given on their authority. "Miller, the great gardener," "the late learned Mr. Dyer," Dr. Gregory, Mr. Tayer, Mr. Hampton (the translator of Polybius), and Mrs. Porter the actress, are

'Rambler,' No. 60.