counts unexceptionable. However, I shall send you the manuscript, since you desire it, and let you dispose of it as you please."

On this subject of Mr Boswell's 'Tour to the 'Hebrides,' I likewise received a letter, some time thereafter from Dr Beattie, which I shall insert here. But as it refers to one of mine, to which it is in answer; and as that letter contains some information respecting the publication of that work of Mr Boswell's which I am not ill pleased should be known, I shall venture, for the first and only time, to insert in this work a letter of my own. I found it among some hundreds, which Dr Beattie had preserved: for he seems seldom or never to have destroyed the letters he received from his friends.

LETTER CLXXXVII.

SIR WILLIAM FORBES TO DR BEATTIE.

*

Edinburgh, 9th January, 1786. "Boswell's book, which I dare say you have seen before now, contains many things that might, and several that ought to have been omitted. In regard to those of the first description, Mr Boswell seems to have adopted the idea of the writers on

* Mr Boswell's acquaintance and mine began at a very early period of life, and an intimate correspondence continued between us ever after. It scarcely requires to be mentioned here, that he was the chosen friend of General Paoli and of Dr Johnson. The circle of his acquaintance among the learned, the witty, and indeed among men of all ranks and professions, was extremely extensive, as his talents were considerable, and his convivial powers made his company much in request. His warmth of heart towards his friends, was very great; and I have known few men who possessed a stronger sense of piety, or more fervent devotion, (tinctured, no doubt, with some little share of superstition, which had probably been in some degree fostered by his habits of intimacy with Dr Johnson,) perhaps not always sufficient to regulate his imagination or direct his conduct, yet still genuine, and founded both in his understanding and his heart. His Life' of that extraordinary man, with all the faults with which it has been charged, must be allowed to be one of

glass, so well described by Lord Hailes in one of his papers in the World,' who think a fact ought to be recorded merely because it is a fact: for surely he has retained a great deal of conversation neither instructive nor entertaining; although other parts again are highly so. As to the offensive passages, I really do not believe that he considered them in that light when he gave them to the press: for I do believe him to have been sincere in his declaration, that it was not his intention to hurt any mortal; and my memory serves me to recollect many passages of the original MS. which he has omitted for that very reason; and in his second edition, which is now printed, he tells me he has omitted a good deal of the first. I have been accused of being his adviser to print the book, from a letter of mine towards the conclusion; which, by the bye, he inserted without my knowledge or permission: but that letter merely related to a perusal of the MS., at a time when I had not the most distant

the most characteristic and entertaining biographical works in the English language. For Mr Boswell I entertained a sincere regard, which he returned by the strongest proof in his power to confer, by leaving me the guardian of his children. He died in London, 19th May, 1795, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

idea of his printing his Journal. I have also been accused of having written that complimentary letter, because of the eulogium with which he has been pleased to honour me in his book: but that passage, in which I am mentioned in so flattering a manner, was not in the original MS. which I saw.* As his Life of Dr Johnson' will probably be a work of a similar nature, I have taken the liberty of strongly enjoining him to be more careful what he inserts, so as not to make to himself enemies, or give pain to any person whom he may have occasion to mention: and I hope he will do so, as he seems sorry for some parts of the other.

T

"I have been much pleased with Dr Johnson's 'Prayers and Meditations:' they show him to have been a man of sincere and fervent piety: but I think Mr Strahan has been much to blame in printing the MS. verbatim. I do not think an editor is at liberty to add a single iota to the work of his author; but surely there could have been no crime in Mr Strahan's retrenching occasionally a few things, which throw, in some degree, an air of ridicule on a work of so serious a

* He has mentioned this in his second edition, p. 524.

nature; and which, by giving cause for scoffing, will perhaps diminish the good effects the book might otherwise be expected to produce: had he likewise substituted Elizabeth, (which Boswell tells me was Mrs Johnson's real name,) in the place of such a ridiculous appellation as Tetty, surely no man could have found fault with the change. It is somewhat extraordinary to see a mind so vigorous as his was, distressing itself with terrors on subjects apparently of no great importance, while the whole tenor of his life had been so irreproachable and useful to the world by his writings; which, one should think, are of sufficient magnitude to render unnecessary his self-accusation of idleness.

*

"It would give you pleasure, I am sure, to hear of Mr William Gregory's having got a living. He is a most excellent young man; and has well supported Dr Reid's character of him, when, in a letter to me while he was at Glasgow college, the Doctor called him one of the incorruptibles. The living is worth about L. 160, and it is a good thing to have such a patron as the Archbishop of Canterbury."

* Son of the late Dr John Gregory. He is since dead.