Читать книгу The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - James Boswell - Страница 122

‘Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular regard from you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my sense of your favours[977]; but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus distinguished by you.

‘I am ashamed to tell you that my Shakspeare will not be out so soon as I promised my subscribers; but I did not promise them more than I promised myself. It will, however, be published before summer.

‘I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, and have hitherto left very few passages unexplained; where I am quite at a loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by commentators[978].

‘I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them, with more importunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an opportunity. I once printed them at length in the Chronicle, and some of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the Gray’s-Inn Journal) introduced them with a splendid encomium.

[Page 328: The garret in Gough-square. A.D. 1758.]

‘Since the Life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather all those that have anything of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me.

‘I am, Sir,

‘Your most obliged

‘And most humble servant,