To stretch a point in _talking_, in the use of a conventional phrase, did not matter. Common politeness, or the course of argument might demand it. Did he not himself often 'talk for victory'? What he insisted on was that men should not deceive themselves and others by _thinking_ foolishly. "Clear your _mind_" he said "of cant." "Such," to quote Boswell for the last time, "was SAMUEL JOHNSON." Though he was the foremost man of letters of his generation, it is not for his scholarship or his writings, but rather for his pluck and his patriotism, his humour and his oddities, his blunt common-sense and his large humanity, and, above all, for the expression of these qualities in his talk, that he is best loved and remembered. For to appreciate Johnson's talk one need not be literary; it is enough to be English. FOOTNOTES: [35] When he made the often-quoted remark 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' Johnson was referring to 'patriots' only in the party sense, to those who made patriotism a "cloak for self-interest." [36] Buckingham House, which stood on the site of the present Buckingham Palace. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ was published in 1785 and reached a sixth edition in 1813. Many of the later editors of Boswell have included the _Tour_ in their editions of the _Life_. It is published as a separate volume in Dent's _Temple Classics_, with a few notes by Arnold Glover (1898) and is contained in a volume of Dent's _Everyman's Library_. The _Life_ appeared in two quarto volumes in 1791 and went through ten editions before the much-criticised edition of J. W. Croker in 1831. The sixth edition, 1811, edited by Malone, is the safest of the early editions. It is not disfigured by the liberties which Croker took with Boswell's text. Later editions are almost innumerable. Napier's edition of 1884 included some valuable new material, but the incomparable edition for students is that of George Birkbeck Hill, published by the Oxford University Press in 1887. It is in six volumes, of which four contain the _Life_, one the _Tour_, and one the monumental index to which every student of Johnson must pay his debt of gratitude. Among modern editions the following may be noted: Arnold Glover: 6 volumes (text of 1811), annotated. Dent. 1901. Roger Ingpen: 2 volumes, illustrated. Pitman. 1907. Among the cheapest and handiest modern reprints are: The _Oxford_ edition. (Two volumes; or, on India paper, in one volume.) The _Globe_ edition. (One volume; double columns of print. Macmillan.) The _Everyman_ edition. (Two volumes. Dent.) The contemporary authorities for Johnson's life, other than Boswell, are Sir John Hawkins's _Life_, Mrs Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, Fanny Burney's _Diary_, and anecdotes by many others.