Boswell notices Dr. Johnson having in 1775 written the preface to
Baretti's _Easy Lessons in Italian and English_; but neither he nor his
editors appear to have been aware of the preface which Dr. Johnson
contributed to an earlier work by Baretti, his _Introduction to the
Italian Language_, London, 1775, 8vo. It is accompanied by an Italian
translation, and is written with all his usual vigour, and commences:
"Unjust objections commonly proceed from unreasonable expectation;
writers are often censured for omitting what they never intended
to perform."
The note, p 48:
"Though the design of these notes is rather to teach grammar than
morality, yet, as I think nothing a deviation that can serve the
cause of virtue," &c.,
and the excellent remarks, p. 198., on Machiavel's _Life of Castruccio
Castracani_, have every internal evidence of Johnson's style, and were
no doubt dictated by him to Baretti, for whom Johnson in the same year,
1755, endeavours to obtain the loan of _Crescimbeni_ from Thomas Warton
(Croker's _Boswell_, edit. 1848, p. 91.).
Nothing is more wanted than a good and complete edition of Johnson's
Works, in which omissions similar to the above, of which I have a long
list when required, may be supplied. His prefaces and dedications to the
works of other writers are all models in their way, and not one of them
ought to be lost.