nd an old press in
Sydney, of Campbell's _Diary of a Visit to England_--though Professor
Jowett was inclined to doubt the authenticity of the latter--the most
valuable accession of evidence to the Johnsonian circle of interest, and
they shed on Boswell and his method a light which otherwise would leave
much in darkness, or, at least, but ensure a general acceptance of the
harsher features in the criticism by Macaulay. From the remark by
Boswell to Temple--'remember and put my letters into a book neatly; see
which of us does it first,' it has been inferred that he meditated, in
some sort of altered appearance, their republication. That Temple
entertained the same idea on his part we know from his own words, and
from the title under which Boswell suggested their issue--_Remarks on
Various Authors, in a Series of Letters to James Boswell, Esq._ But that
Boswell himself ever did intend the publication of his own must be
pronounced, by all that know what lies behind their printed form, a
moral impossibility.

The first preserved letter is dated from Edinburgh, July 29, 1758. It
reveals at once the historic Boswell, such as he remained to the close,
the cheerful self-confidence, the gregarious instincts, the pleasing air
of moralizing, and the easy flow of style. 'Some days ago I was
introduced to your friend Mr Hume; he is a most discreet affable man as
ever I met with, and has really a great deal of learning, a choice
collection of books ... we talk a good deal of genius, fine learning,
improving our style, etc., but I am afraid solid learning is much worn
out. Mr Hume is, I think, a very proper person for a young man to
cultivate an acquaintance with.' Then he digresses to 'my passion for
Miss W----t,' of whom, he assures his friend, he is 'excessively fond,
so don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend who used
to carry it so high, and talk with such a composed indifference of the
beauteous sex, should all at once commence Don Quixote for his adorable
Dulcinea.' We catch sight of him, at eighteen, going on the northern
circuit with his father and Lord Hailes. There, by the advice of an
Edinburgh acquaintance, Love, an old actor at Drury Lane, but then a
teacher of elocution in the town, he began 'an exact journal,' and on
that journey it was that Hailes made Boswell aware of the fact that was
to henceforward colour the entire tide of his life, the existence of Dr
Johnson as a great writer in London, 'whi