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H. Baldwin, J. Robson, J. Johnson, C. Dilly, T. Vernor, W. Nicoll,

G. G. J. and J. Robinson, T. Cadell, T. Carnan, J. Nichols,

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and E. Newbery.

M.DCC.LXXXVII.

THE

LIFE

O F

Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

HE general fense of mankind, and the practice

THE

of the learned in all ages, have given a fanction to biographical history, and concurred to recommend that precept of the wife son of Sirach, in which we are exhorted to praise famous men, such as by their counfels and by their knowledge of learning were meet for the people,—and were wife and eloquent in their inftructions, and fuch as recited verses in writing.' In each of these faculties did the perfon, whose history I am about to write, fo greatly excel, that, except for my presumption in the attempt to display his worth, the undertaking may be thought to need no apology; efpecially if we contemplate, together with his mental endowments, those moral qualities which diftinguished him, and reflect that, in an age when literary acquifitions and

Ecclus. Chap. XLIV. Verfe 1, et feqq.