Johnson. He knew men who had intimately known both the hero and his
biographer, and he gathered much that but for his care would have been
lost for ever. He was diligent and successful in his search after
Johnson's letters, of so many of which Boswell with all his persevering
and pushing diligence had not been able to get a sight. The editor of
Mr. Croker's _Correspondence and Diaries_[41] goes, however, much too
far when, in writing of Macaulay's criticism, he says: 'The attack
defeated itself by its very violence, and therefore it did the book no
harm whatever. Between forty and fifty thousand copies have been sold,
although Macaulay boasted with great glee that he had smashed it.' The
book that Macaulay attacked was withdrawn. That monstrous medley reached
no second edition. In its new form all the worst excrescences had been
cleared away, and though what was left was not Boswell, still less was
it unchastened Croker. His repentance, however, was not thorough. He
never restored the text to its old state; wanton transpositions of
passages still remain, and numerous insertions break the narrative. It
was my good fortune to become a sound Boswellian before I even looked at
his edition. It was not indeed till I came to write out my notes for the
press that I examined his with any thoroughness.

'Notes,' says Johnson, 'are often necessary, but they are necessary
evils[42].' To the young reader who for the first time turns over
Boswell's delightful pages I would venture to give the advice Johnson
gives about Shakespeare:--

'Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and
who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read
every play from the first scene to the last with utter negligence of all
his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop
at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged let