method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered. In the preface to the third edition of the _Journal_ he writes:--'Remarks have been industriously circulated in the publick prints by shallow or envious cavillers, who have endeavoured to persuade the world that Dr Johnson's character has been _lessened_ by recording such various instances of his lively wit and acute judgment, on every topick that was presented to his mind. In the opinion of every person of taste and knowledge that I have conversed with, it has been greatly _heightened_; and I will venture to predict, that this specimen of his colloquial talents will become still more valuable, when, by the lapse of time, he shall have become an _ancient_; and no other memorial of this great and good man shall remain but the following Journal.' This is not the writing of one who has been without a clear idea of what he was undertaking, and of his own qualifications for the task. 'You, my dear sir,' he tells Sir Joshua Reynolds in the dedication, 'perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus.' The inclusion of the letters and of private details was an integral part of his scheme. When he introduced the subject of biography at Dr Taylor's, no doubt with his own book in his eye, he said that in writing a man's life the man's peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. When he resolved on their publication, he thought it right to ask Johnson explicitly on this point, and the reply was what in 1773 the doctor had given to Macleod in Skye, when he had asked if Orrery had done wrong, to expose the defects of Swift with whom he had lived in terms of intimacy. 'Why, no, sir,' Johnson had decided, 'after the man is dead, for then it is done historically.' A biographer that would omit or disguise the relations of Nelson to Lady Hamilton, would be justly suspected of disingenuousness, and Lockhart, especially in his treatment of the political side of his subject,--for example in the notorious _Beacon_ incident--is but too open to this charge. But disingenuousness is a charge that never could have occurred to Boswell, whose veracity is the prime quality that has made him immortal. When the _Journal_ was in the press, Hannah More, studious of the name of the moralist and the sage, 'besought him to mitigate his asperities.' 'I will not,' said Boswell roughly, but wisely for posterity, 'cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to please anyone.'