Читать книгу Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, with a Selection from his Essay on Johnson - Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay - Страница 7

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Among the "hasty and imperfect articles" which Macaulay wrote for the Edinburgh Review was one on Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. It appeared in 1831 and gave the writer a welcome opportunity to show the inaccuracy and unreliability of Croker, one of his political opponents. Nearly one half of his space he gave to criticising the editor, and that part it seems wise to omit in this edition; for we care more about Boswell and Johnson. Twenty-five years later, in 1856, when Macaulay had ceased to write for reviews, but sent an occasional article to the Encyclopædia Britannica, he wrote what is generally called the Life of Samuel Johnson. The publisher of the encyclopædia writes that it was entirely to Macaulay's friendly feeling that he was "indebted for those literary gems, which could not have been purchased with money"; that "he made it a stipulation of his contributing that remuneration should not be so much as mentioned." The other articles referred to are those on Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, and William Pitt. One writer calls them "perfect models of artistic condensation."

It is interesting to compare the later work with the earlier: to see whether there is any evidence of improvement in Macaulay's use of English, and whether he gives us a better notion of Boswell and Johnson.