ty, by
diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every
department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will
assuredly do the rest.

ON CROKER'S "BOSWELL"

[From _The Edinburgh Review_, September, 1831]

_The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions
and Notes._ By JOHN WILSON CROKER, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols., 8vo. London,
1831.

This work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been
prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable
addition to English literature; that it would contain many curious
facts, and many judicious remarks; that the style of the notes would be
neat, clear, and precise; and that the typographical execution would be,
as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless.
We are sorry to be obliged to say that the merits of Mr. Croker's
performance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which
Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he,
with characteristic energy, pronounced to be "as bad as bad could be,
ill fed, ill killed, ill kept, and ill dressed." This edition is ill
compiled, ill arranged, ill written, and ill printed.

Nothing in the work has astonished us so much as the ignorance or
carelessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his
blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well educated
gentleman commit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm with
misstatements, into which the editor never would have fallen, if he had
taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or
if he had even been well acquainted with the book on which he undertook
to comment.

We will give a few instances--

* * * * *

We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is
clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is
commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no
confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years
with respect to the publication of Goldsmith's novel, an error of twelve
years with respect to the publication of part of Gibbon's History, an
error of twenty-one years with respect to an event in Johnson's life so
important as the taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three
errors he has