is, at the height of the violent anti-Scotch feeling which the opponents
of Bute (a Scotsman by birth) had stirred up and were exploiting in
order to force him out of office. But the critics might have remembered
that the most savage criticism of any Scot generally comes from other
Scots who think he has not remained Scotch enough; as witness, by what
new appears to be retributive justice, the general Scots dislike of
Boswell himself. At any rate, the pamphlet was the production, not of
one Englishman imbued with a hatred of all things Scots, but of three
warmly patriotic Scotsmen.

_Critical Strictures_ is the merest of trifles, but at least three
reasons can be given for publishing a facsimile of it. Scholars on
occasion need to be able to read all the productions of great authors no
matter how trifling, and this one is excessively rare; so rare, indeed,
that few of Boswell's editors have been able to get a sight of it. It
makes a pleasant and useful footnote to _Boswell's London Journal,
1762-1765_, a work now being widely read, or at least widely circulated.
And it contains a remark or two that should be of interest to historians
of English drama in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Mr. C. Beecher Hogan has given me expert assistance in writing two of the
notes.

The copy of _Critical Strictures_ used for making this reproduction
was given to the Library of Yale University by Professor Chauncey B.
Tinker.

Frederick A. Pottle
Yale University.