Obvious typographical errors have been corrected inthis text. For a complete list, please see the bottom ofthis document.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1892
[All rights reserved]
| page | |
| Dr. Johnson's Writings | 1 |
| Crabbe | 33 |
| William Hazlitt | 67 |
| Disraeli's Novels | 106 |
| Massinger | 141 |
| Fielding's Novels | 177 |
| Cowper and Rousseau | 208 |
| The First Edinburgh Reviewers | 241 |
| Wordsworth's Ethics | 270 |
| Landor's Imaginary Conversations | 308 |
| Macaulay | 343 |
A book appeared not long ago of which it was the professed object togive to the modern generation of lazy readers the pith of Boswell'simmortal biography. I shall, for sufficient reasons, refrain fromdiscussing the merits of the performance. One remark, indeed, may bemade in passing. The circle of readers to whom such a book is welcomemust, of necessity, be limited. To the true lovers of Boswell it is, tosay the least, superfluous; the gentlest omissions will always manglesome people's favourite passages, and additions, whatever skill they maydisplay, necessarily injure that dramatic vivacity which is one of thegreat charms of the original. The most discreet of cicerones is anintruder when we open our old favourite, and, without further magic,retire into that delicious nook of eighteenth-century society. Uponthose, again, who cannot appreciate the infinite humour of the original,the mere excision of the less lively pages will be thrown away. There