I am aware that many will say I have not spoken highly enough of Dr.
Johnson; but it will be difficult for those who say so to speak more
highly. If I have described his manners as they were, I have been careful
to show his superiority to the common forms of common life. It is surely
no dispraise to an oak that it does not bear jessamine; and he who should
plant honeysuckle round Trajan's column would not be thought to adorn, but
to disgrace it.

When I have said that he was more a man of genius than of learning, I mean
not to take from the one part of his character that which I willingly give
to the other. The erudition of Mr. Johnson proved his genius; for he had
not acquired it by long or profound study: nor can I think those
characters the greatest which have most learning driven into their heads,
any more than I can persuade myself to consider the River Jenisca as
superior to the Nile, because the first receives near seventy tributary
streams in the course of its unmarked progress to the sea, while the great
parent of African plenty, flowing from an almost invisible source, and
unenriched by any extraneous waters, except eleven nameless rivers, pours
his majestic torrent into the ocean by seven celebrated mouths.

But I must conclude my preface, and begin my book, the first I ever
presented before the public; from whose awful appearance in some measure to
defend and conceal myself, I have thought fit to retire behind the
Telamonian shield, and show as little of myself as possible, well aware of
the exceeding difference there is between fencing in the school and
fighting in the field. Studious, however, to avoid offending, and careless
of that offence which can be taken without a cause, I here not unwillingly
submit my slight performance to the decision of that glorious country,
which I have the daily delight to hear applauded in others, as eminently
just, generous, and humane.