it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let
him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and
corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his
interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased let
him attempt exactness and read the commentators[43].'

So too let him who reads the _Life of Johnson_ for the first time read
it in one of the _Pre-Crokerian_ editions. They are numerous and good.
With his attention undiverted by notes he will rapidly pass through one
of the most charming narratives that the world has ever seen, and if his
taste is uncorrupted by modern extravagances, will recognise the genius
of an author who, in addition to other great qualities, has an admirable
eye for the just proportions of an extensive work, and who is the master
of a style that is as easy as it is inimitable.

Johnson, I fondly believe, would have been pleased, perhaps would even
have been proud, could he have foreseen this edition. Few distinctions
he valued more highly than those which he received from his own great
University. The honorary degrees that it conferred on him, the gown that
it entitled him to wear, by him were highly esteemed. In the Clarendon
Press he took a great interest[44]. The efforts which that famous
establishment has made in the excellence of the typography, the quality
of the paper, and the admirably-executed illustrations and facsimiles to
do honour to his memory and to the genius of his biographer would have
highly delighted him. To his own college he was so deeply attached that
he would not have been displeased to learn that his editor had been
nursed in that once famous 'nest of singing birds.' Of Boswell's
pleasure I cannot doubt. How much he valued any tribute of respect from
Oxford is shown by the absurd importance that he gave to a sermon which
was preached before the University by an insignificant clergyman more