but which are not for the most part included in his collected works. In
some cases I have ventured to set my judgment against Boswell's, and
have refused to admit that Johnson was the author of the feeble pieces
which were fathered on him. Once or twice in the course of my reading I
have come upon essays which had escaped the notice of his biographer,
but which bear the marks of his workmanship. To these I have given a
reference. While the minute examination that I have so often had to make
of Boswell's narrative has done nothing but strengthen my trust in his
statements and my admiration of his laborious truthfulness, yet in one
respect I have not found him so accurate as I had expected. 'I have,' he
says, 'been extremely careful as to the exactness of my quotations[8].'
Though in preparing his manuscript he referred in each case 'to the
originals,' yet he did not, I conjecture, examine them once more in
revising his proof-sheets. At all events he has allowed errors to slip
in. These I have pointed out in my notes, for in every case where I
could I have, I believe, verified his quotations.

I have not thought that it was my duty as an editor to attempt to refute
or even to criticise Johnson's arguments. The story is told that when
Peter the Great was on his travels and far from his country, some
members of the Russian Council of State in St. Petersburgh ventured to
withstand what was known to be his wish. His walking-stick was laid upon
the table, and silence at once fell upon all. In like manner, before
that editor who should trouble himself and his readers with attempting
to refute Johnson's arguments, paradoxical as they often were, should be
placed Reynolds's portrait of that 'labouring working mind[9].' It might
make him reflect that if the mighty reasoner could rise up and meet him
face to face, he would be sure, on which ever side the right might be,
even if at first his pistol missed fire to knock him down with the
butt-end of it[10]. I have attempted therefore not to criticise but to