I had at first thought of giving extracts from Madame D'Arblay's Diary. Reflection soon convinced me that it is too good a piece of work to be hacked in pieces. He who wishes to see Johnson's 'fun, and comical humour, and love of nonsense, of which,' she says, 'he had about him more than almost anybody she ever saw'; he who would know 'Gay Sam, agreeable Sam, pleasant Sam,' must turn to her pages. It is a great pity that her Diary has never had a competent editor. In its present form it is not altogether as she originally wrote it, or even as she left it on her death. Some of the alterations, made partly by herself, partly by her niece, were unwarrantable. By the help of the manuscript, which is still in existence, though not, I believe, in a perfect condition, the original entries could in most cases be restored. Miss Seward's Letters I have passed over for a different reason: they are untrustworthy.
In the Dicta Philosophi at the end of the book, I have given a second concordance of Johnson's sayings. Neither in extent nor in quality is this collection quite equal to the first, which was gathered from the Life and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. 'Boswell's long head,' as Mrs. Thrale said, 'was equal to short-hand.' In his tablets the point of his master's wit was not blunted, and the strength of his wisdom was not weakened. 'It is not every man that can carry a bon mot.' Johnson, if I am not mistaken, in the frequency with which he is quoted, comes next to the Bible and Shakespeare. By the help of my concordances he should suffer much less than formerly from inaccuracy of quotation.
In these two volumes I am able to make some additions to Johnsonian lore. By collating the text of Prayers and Medita-
