Mr. Boswell takes this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the many
valuable communications which he has received to enable him to render
his _Life of Dr. Johnson_ more complete. His thanks are particularly due
to the Rev. Dr. Adams, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr.
Langton, Dr. Brocklesby, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Mr. Hector of
Birmingham, Mrs. Porter, and Miss Seward.
He has already obtained a large collection of Dr. Johnson's letters to
his friends, and shall be much obliged for such others as yet remain in
private hands; which he is the more desirous of collecting, as all the
letters of that great man, which he has yet seen, are written with
peculiar precision and elegance; and he is confident that the
publication of the whole of Dr. Johnson's epistolary correspondence
will do him the highest honour.
APPENDIX A.
(_Page_ 80.)
As no one reads Warburton now--I bought the five volumes of his
_Divine Legation_ in excellent condition, bound in calf, for ten pence--one
or two extracts from his writing may be of interest. His Dedication
of that work to the Free-Thinkers is as vigorous as it is abusive. It has
such passages as the following:--'Low and mean as your buffoonery is,
it is yet to the level of the people:' p. xi. 'I have now done with
your buffoonery, which, like chewed bullets, is against the law of arms;
and come next to your scurrilities, those stink-pots of your offensive
war.
Pages:
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493