n his _Life_ are not reprinted.

_Select Essays of Dr. Johnson_. Edited by GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. In
two volumes. 1889. (Temple Library.) These Essays are chiefly from
_The Rambler_ and _The Idler_.

_Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson_. Selected and arranged by GEORGE
BIRKBECK HILL. 1888. This consists of sayings on various subjects
arranged alphabetically, with an interesting introduction.

The main authority for the life of Johnson is, of course, Boswell. His
account is given in two books, the _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
with Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, published in 1785, and the _Life_ which
followed in two volumes in 1791. {254} The best edition of the _Life_
is that edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill in six volumes, one of which is
given to the _Tour to the Hebrides_, published in 1887. No one who has
worked on Johnson since that year can overstate his debt to this book
or his gratitude to its author. The prettiest and pleasantest of all
editions of Boswell is that known as Wright's Croker. It is a revision
by J. Wright of the edition by J. W. Croker, and includes a collection
of Johnsoniana. It consists of ten handy volumes, illustrated by many
steel engravings, and first appeared in 1831.

The most important of the many accounts of Johnson left by other
contemporaries are those given by Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney and his
executor, Sir John Hawkins. Mrs. Thrale's is contained in a volume
entitled _Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL. D., during the last
Twenty Years of his Life_. _By Hester Lynch Piozzi_. It was first
published in 1786. Fanny Burney's picture of him is to be found in her
_Diary and Letters_, of which the best edition is that by Austin
Dobson, 1904. Sir John Hawkins prefixed a Life of Johnson to the
edition of his works which he brought out in 1787. Dr. Birkbeck Hill
has reprinted a large collection of biographical matter drawn from a
variety of sources in his two volumes of _Johnsonian Miscellanies_,
1897.

The critical studies of Johnson are of course innumerable. Among the
best are Carlyle's, printed in his _Works_ among the _Miscellaneous
Essays_, Sir Leslie Stephen's volume in the "English Men of Letters"
series, and Sir Walter Raleigh's _Six Essays on Johnson_. The _Life_
written by Macaulay for the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ and reprinted by
Matthew Arnold in his edition of the _Six Chief Lives_ must not be
confused with the essay reprinted in the collected Essays.