This is not the case with Mr. Croker’s insertions. They are not chosen
as Boswell would have chosen them. They are not introduced as Boswell
would have introduced them. They differ from the quotations scattered
through the original Life of Johnson, as a withered bough stuck in the
ground differs from a tree skilfully transplanted with all its life
about it.
Not only do these anecdotes disfigure Boswell’s book; they are
themselves disfigured by being inserted in his book. The charm of Mrs.
Thrale’s little volume is utterly destroyed. The feminine quickness
of observation, the feminine softness of heart, the colloquial
incorrectness and vivacity of style, the little amusing airs of a
half-learned lady, the delightful garrulity, the “dear Doctor Johnson,”
the “it was so comical,” all disappear in Mr. Croker’s quotations. The
lady ceases to speak in the first person; and her anecdotes, in the
process of transfusion, become as flat as Champagne in decanters,
or Herodotus in Beloe’s version. Sir John Hawkins, it is true, loses
nothing; and for the best of reasons. Sir John had nothing to lose.
The course which Mr. Croker ought to have taken is quite clear. He
should have reprinted Boswell’s narrative precisely as Boswell wrote
it; and in the notes or the appendix he should have placed any anecdotes
which he might have thought it advisable to quote from other writers.
This would have been a much more convenient course for the reader, who
has now constantly to keep his eye on the margin in order {389}to see
whether he is perusing Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, Murphy, Hawkins, Tyers,
Cradock, or Mr. Croker. We greatly doubt whether even the Tour to the
Hebrides ought to have been inserted in the midst of the Life. There is
one marked distinction between the two works. Most of the Tour was seen
by Johnson in manuscript. It does not appear that he ever saw any part
of the Life.
We love, we own, to read the great productions of the human mind as
they were written. We have this feeling even about scientific treatises;
though we know that the sciences are always in a state of progression,
and that the alterations made by a modern editor in an old book on any
branch of natural or political philosophy are likely to be improvements.
Some errors have been detected by writers of this generation in the
speculations of Adam Smith. A short cut has been made to much knowledge
at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived through arduous and circuitous paths.
Yet we still look with peculiar veneration on the Wealth of Nations and
on the Principia, and should regret to see either of those great works
garbled even by the ablest hands. But in works which owe much of their
interest to the character and situation of the writers the case
is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure
_rifacimenti_, harmonies, abridgments, expurgated editions? Who ever
reads a stage-copy of a play when he can procure the original? Who ever
cut open All’s. Siddons’s Milton? Who ever got through ten pages of Mr.
Gilpin’s translation of John Bun-yan’s Pilgrim into modern English? Who
would lose, in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which
belongs to the narrative of the disciple whom Jesus loved? The feeling
of a reader who has become {390}intimate with any great original work is
that which Adam expressed towards his bride:
“Should God create another Eve, and I