Mr. Boswell has been collecting materials for this work for more than
twenty years, during which he was honoured with the intimate friendship
of Dr. Johnson; to whose memory he is ambitious to erect a literary
monument, worthy of so great an authour, and so excellent a man. Dr.
Johnson was well informed of his design, and obligingly communicated to
him several curious particulars. With these will be interwoven the most
authentick accounts that can be obtained from those who knew him best;
many sketches of his conversation on a multiplicity of subjects, with
various persons, some of them the most eminent of the age; a great
number of letters from him at different periods, and several original
pieces dictated by him to Mr. Boswell, distinguished by that peculiar
energy, which marked every emanation of his mind.
Mr. Boswell takes this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the many
valuable communications which he has received to enable him to render
his _Life of Dr. Johnson_ more complete. His thanks are particularly due
to the Rev. Dr. Adams, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr.
Langton, Dr. Brocklesby, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Mr. Hector of
Birmingham, Mrs. Porter, and Miss Seward.
He has already obtained a large collection of Dr. Johnson's letters to
his friends, and shall be much obliged for such others as yet remain in
private hands; which he is the more desirous of collecting, as all the
letters of that great man, which he has yet seen, are written with
peculiar precision and elegance; and he is confident that the
publication of the whole of Dr. Johnson's epistolary correspondence
will do him the highest honour.