OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. DURING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS OF HIS LIFE. BY HESTHER LYNCH PIOZZI. A NEW EDITION. UNIV. OF LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. AND J. ALLMAN, PRINCES STREET, PREFACE. P4 1822 MAIN I HAVE Somewhere heard or read, that the preface before a book, like the portico before a house, should be contrived, so as to catch, but not detain, the attention of those who desire admission to the family within, or leave to look over the collection of pictures, made by one whose opportunities of obtaining them we know to have been not unfrequent. I wish not to keep my readers long from such intimacy with the manners of Dr. Johnson, or such knowledge of his sentiments as these pages can convey. To urge my distance from England as an excuse for the book's being ill written, would be ridiculous; it might indeed serve as a just reason for my having written it at all; because, though others may 425451 |