This decadence in the art and practice of the communication of ideas, and in the cultivation of facile and coloured language, is commonly attributed to the wide extension of literature and the press, which give to every man all the knowledge of matters of interest which he can require without the intervention of a fellow-creature. It may be that men may now read and think too much to talk, but the change is, perhaps, rather the effect of certain alterations in the structure of society itself, accompanied by the fastidiousness that tries to make up by silence and seclusion for the arbitrary distinctions and recognised barriers, which limited and defined the game of life, but admitted so much pleasant freedom within the rules. We can however, still acknowledge the value of such records as those of the late Mr. Nassau, Senior, whose “Conversations” with the most eminent politicians and men of action of his time, especially in France, afford trustworthy and interesting materials for the future historian, and where a legal mind and well-trained observation take the place of vivid representation and literary skill. “Quand un bon mot,” writes Monsieur L.’Enfant in one of his prefaces to his “Poggiana” “est en même temps un trait d’Histoire, on fait aisèment grace à’ce qui peut lui manquer du côté de la force et du sel.” The title of “Boswelliana,” which the editor has taken from the original manuscript, is hardly correct. This is, in fact, one of the note-books of the anecdotes and _facetiæ_ of the society in which Boswell lived; and though such a use of the termination may find some analogy in the Luculliana,—cherries that Lucullus brought from Pontus—and the Appiana—apples introduced into Rome by him of the Appian way,—yet the term “Ana,” in its most important applications, has always referred not to the collector, but to the personage or at any rate to the subject-matter of the book. Some vindication for its use on the present occasion may, however, be found in those instances in which Boswell acts as Bozzy to himself, and where the opinions and the mode of enunciating them are so thoroughly Boswellian that they give a characteristic flavour to the whole. What can be more delightfully his own than the prefixes “Uxoriana,” and “My son Alexander?” There is some mystery in the insertion of certain occasional Johnsoniana, which could hardly have found their way into this collection, if Boswell had at the time been keeping special memoranda of his great Oracle. They are not very numerous nor consecutive, nor do they imply that at the time they were taken down they were intended as portions of the _magnum opus_. Most of them, however, are incorporated in it, and are only repeated here to preserve the integrity of the manuscript. The few omissions, such as they are, are of the same character as the _lacunæ_ in the Temple letters.