THE SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

THE book of the week, which is in itself a" library," is the edition of BOSWELL'S Annals of JOHNSON, brought out by the assi

duous care, research, and taste, of the late Secretary of the Ad

miralty. There are few books which have been more read or are better known than BOSWELL'S reports of JOHNSON'S conversa

tion and life; and the respective parts and characters of Dr. Pozz and Mr. Bozz are as familiar to the common apprehension as the established person of a popular drama, and the entertainment to

be expected from their exhibition as clearly defined as the humours of Harlequin and Pantaloon. Many editions of the work have been circulated : BOSWELL himself printed two editions of his book, Mr. MALONE four, Mr. CHALMERS one, an anonymous editor another at Oxford in 1826, besides others by booksellers. The idea appears to have occurred to Mr. CROKER of taking BOSWELL as a framework, and moulding into it all the publica tions and anecdotes that have been recorded in various forms concerning him. This edition, then, contains JOHNSON body and soul. By means of brackets and marginal references, the editor has contrived to interweave into the text all the anecdotes by Mrs. Piozzi—a Tour in Wales by Dr. JOHNSON, lately published from MS. by Mr. Duppa—the Account of the Early Life of Dr. JOHNSON, with his correspondence with Miss BOOTHBY—a great portion of Mrs. Ptozzi's two volumes of Letters—large extracts from the life of Dr. JOHNSON by Sir JOHN HAWKINS—extracts from the Sketches of Dr. JOHNSON by THOMAS TYERS, Esq.extracts from MURPHY'S Essay on the Life of Dr. JOHNSON—together with materials drawn from a variety of miscellaneous sources. He has also embodied the whole of the Tour to the Hebrides, which BOSWELL published as a separate work previous to the Life, and which, though it is only a chapter of the larger work on the same scale and the same plan, has never been incorporated with it. In addition to this portion of his labours, Mr. CROKER has applied to the survivors of Dr. JOHNSON'S wra, and to the individuals who at least lived with the men of his time, and gathered thence all the illustrations of facts and allusions, now fading into obscurity, which their recollection could assist him with. The information of Lord STOWELL, which is represented as valuable (as might be expected from the quarter whence it was drawn), was transmitted by post for the perusal of Sir WALTER SCOTT; it miscarried, and has never since been heard of. Mr. CROKER'S notes consist chiefly of the intelligence obtained from individuals able to give it, as well as of a sifting and examination of many of the alleged anecdotes of JOHNSON. It is melancholy to see how few stand the test of a collection of dates and circumstances. BOSWELL, the accurate, the painstaking, the assiduous, very often quails under the juxtaposition of a few dry figures : "we are a' glen to leeing," says the song; but it is really surprisingto think how few speak the truth even by accident, and what a mass of falsehood is floating about the world on book and tongue. Mr. CROKER'S close investigation of dates, his inquiries into registers and other similar sources of information, not only throw light on facts, but serve to illuminate some of the obscure recesses of character and prejudice. A notable instance occurs early in the Life of JOHNSON. They who have looked into his Dictionary, under the head EXCISE, have found it defined—" A hateful tax, levied upon commodities, and adjudged not bythe common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." In the Idler (No. 65), JOHNSON calls a Commissioeinit OF EXCISE "-one of the lowest of human beings."

"This violence of language seems so little reasonable, that the editor was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity : this mention of the trade (his father's trade) in parchment (an exciseable article) afforded a clue which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise board, is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield. 'July 27, 1725.—The Commissioners received yours of the 22nd inst. ; and since the Justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the tanner, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the Board direct, the next time be offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the Exchequer.' It does not appear whether he offended again ; but here is a sufficient cause of his son's animosity against the Commissioners of Excise, and of the allusion in the Dictionary to the special jurisdiction under which that revenue is administered. The reluctance of the Justices to convict will not appear unnatural, when it is recollected that Mr. Johnson was this very year chief magistrate of the city."

This is Mr. CROKER'S note, and it is a very good one. It shows the nature of the great lexicographer's mind: his father endeavoured to defraud the revenue, and the son was influenced by the consequences so far as to misinterpret the English language and deceive his fellow-subjects. The parental injury, acting upon a mind of great tenacity, was never forgotten ; it warped the son's most serious opinions many years after. Of such materials was the mind of the great moralist composed. He hated the Scotch, but what could be wore clannish than to revenge his father's in

justice by an injustice of his own ?—the man of Lichfield used the inky pen, he of Clanmanmawr the bloody dirk.

We admire, with all the rest of the world, the powers of mind which distinguished SAMUEL JOHNSON, and we respect the kind of hereditary veneration which has induced Mr. CHOKER to spend such vast portions of leisure on the illustration of his biography ; nevertheless, we are unable to join in the blind adulation with which he was honoured by his age.

Dr. JOHNSON was the god of commonplace ; there was no contingency in life or morals for which he had not an appropriate general remark, supported, most usually, by an apt illustration, for which he was indebted to a fertile fancy. On these merits rest his claims to the name of a great man. " If it were not for

his bow-wow way, his sayings would be nothing," shrewdly re marked the Lord PEMBROKE of his day : what the bow-wow way is in dialogue, antithesis is in writing. Clink gives assurance of

point in the latter, just as solemnity the idea of weight and im

portance in the former. JOHNSON had none of the sagacity of BACON, of the patient thought and ready invention of NEWTON ; be had neither the facility nor 'the felicity of ADDISON ; SWIFT excelled him in versatility, shrewdness, and three; and with POPE he possesses no point of rivalry except in his satire on London. Among his contemporaries, he was neither eloquent like BURKE, nor energetic like Fox ; he had not the wit of SHERIDAN, milthe learn ing of GIBBON: ill what, then, was lie supereminent ? With a person that imposed by its awful mass, a voice of power,

and a vast self-possession, he was enabled to put down

modester men by means of a mighty machinery of commonplace. The only person who ever w itlistood JOHNSON in argument, was a young man, who, in after life, owed his fame to similar means of success—a tremendous voice, ungovernable ferocity of manner, and a fertility of' commonplace : this was PARR. JOHNSON was antithetical ; PARR was trithetical, if we may use the term. JOHNSON had cultivated the art of making sentences of a dual form, each member evenly balancing the other ; PARR improved upon the simplicity of antithesis, and introduced the trefoil flowers of rhetoric into the garden of his oratory. Both these men, great in their day, were irresistible in conversation ; while, in their writings, with perhaps the exception of Rasselus, and a few fine things in the Lives of the Poets, they are excelled, each in his walk, by almost every name pretending to eminence. So much for manner, voice, air, self-satisfaction, assumption, insolence. PARR had his showman, but he was far less fortunate than JOHNSON; BARKER is not a BOSWELL.

Mr. CROKER truly observes, that the life of JOHNSON is a chapter in the history of man. There never was a man so watched : he dwelt in a glass hive. When lie dined, the rest of the company were spectators when he drank tea, his voice and that of the tea-urn were alone audible. BOSWELL came up from Scotland every now and then to make notes of his conversation; Mrs. Piozzt recorded his anecdotes, and filed his letters ; Sir Jong HA.wieters lay in wait for the moment of his death, that he might "attempt his life." It is greatly to his everlasting praise, that all this espionage detected no faults of conduct, no vice, no folly, of which a man needs to be ashamed: this is high eulogy. JOHNSON'S errors and absurdities were on the surface, and open to the detection of the commonest observer. He was a man of the bitterest and blindest prejudices : in politics he was a wretched bigot, as ignorant as he was obstinate ; in political economy, he was as great a blunderer* as a far more eminent man, we mean NAPOLEON; in philology, his great boast, his learning was confined, and his views were not large—he was, however, an admirable definitionist, where neither his prejudice nor his ignorance interfered. We have seen how he defined a Commissioner of Excise ; and he himself, when asked why in his Dictionary he defined PASTERN, "the knee of a horse," was obliged to avow that he knew nothing of the matter: these are small examples. His superstition and credulity may, at first sight, be supposed inconsistent with his powers of mind: but, let us remember, his abilities were displayed in marshalling sentences, and not in noting and comparing with sagacity and acuteness the nature of evidence and the condition of humanity. He was impressed with a kind of secret horror, a trembling awe, a profound veneration, not of the Author and Creator of our being, but of every old woman's ghost, rural spectre, or Highlandman's second-sight : he was, like Gulliver, bound down and blinded by myriads of the manikins of Lilliput. In the opposite scale are to be put many admirable qualities. JonersoN was liberal in his opinion in all points not connected It is singular, that among the narrow views JOHNSON entertained of this science, he should have hit upon and expounded Mr. M'Cui.metes doctrine of Absenteeism. "I own," said JOHNSON, "that to consider it as a duty to reside on a family estate, is a prejudice; for we must consider, that working-people get employment equally, and the produce of land is sold equally, whether a great family resides at home or nct ; and if the rents of an estate be carried to London, they return again in the circulation of commerce; nay, Sir, we must perhaps allow, that carrying the rents to a distance is a ..00d, because it contributes to that circulation. We must, however; allow, that a well-regulated great family may improve a neighbourhood in civility and elegance, and give an example of good order, virtue; and piety ; and so its residence at home may be of much advantage. But if a great family be disorderly and vicious, its residence at home is very pernicious to a neighbourbood."—Vol. IV. p. 28.. • .

It will be allowed that this is a remarkable coincidence ; for Mr. M`Cm.Locti confesses no obligation to JoBbisorr on this subject, beyond that which biamaws owns to—namely, that most of his words are to be found in the Doctor's Dictionary.

'with Government, or where he was not warped by some accidental prejudice ; he was charitable, generous, and humane ; he sympathized with suffering wherever he found it, and relieved want whenever his means permitted. In person, he was awkward, ungainly, and almost disgusting,—in proof of which, it is recorded that he lost the mastership of two schools, because the patrons were afraid his twitchings would frighten the scholars : but he was not the less kind and affectionate in his disposition to every creature that appealed to his 'feelings. His self-denial was as great as his charity : he lived upon less than almost any man, that he might give more in proportion than the most charitable and humane. His life was a great conversation, and his superiority in dialogue his pride, his food, his exercise. The works he left behind, though valuable and instructive, are not commensurate with his great fame : but they might make the reputation of any ordinary man. The most entertaining and the most imposing is undoubtedly the Life before us ; which, though collected by BoswELL, is as much JouNsolv's as XENOPHON'S Memorabilia belong to SOCRATES. The present edition is worthy of all parties, and may be considered final. Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH observed of it to the author, that it had "not Milne too soon"—neither has it come too late.