d." We have
many such inextricable labyrinths of pronouns as that which follows:
"Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote; he told it to the editor the
first time that he had the honour of being in his company." Lastly, we
have a plentiful supply of sentences resembling those which we subjoin.
"Markland, _who_, with Jortin and Thirlby, Johnson calls three
contemporaries of great eminence."[2] "Warburton himself did not feel,
as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully _of_
Johnson."[3] "It was _him_ that Horace Walpole called a man who never
made a bad figure but as an author."[4] One or two of these solecisms
should perhaps be attributed to the printer, who has certainly done his
best to fill both the text and the notes with all sorts of blunders. In
truth, he and the editor have between them made the book so bad, that we
do not well see how it could have been worse.

[2] IV. 377.
[3] IV. 415.
[4] II. 461.

When we turn from the commentary of Mr. Croker to the work of our old
friend Boswell, we find it not only worse printed than in any other
edition with which we are acquainted, but mangled in the most wanton
manner. Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative is, without the
shadow of a reason, degraded to the appendix. The editor has also taken
upon himself to alter or omit passages which he considers as indecorous.
This prudery is quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral in
Boswell's book, nothing which tends to inflame the passions. He
sometimes uses plain words. But if this be a taint which requires
expurgation, it would be desirable to begin by expurgating the morning
and evening lessons. The delicate office which Mr. Croker has undertaken
he has performed in the most capricious manner. One strong, old-fashioned,
English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, is
changed for a softer synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand
unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an
indelicate subject, an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note
pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite
sure that the meaning would never be discovered by any of those for
whose sake books are expurgated, is altogether omitted. In another
place, a coarse and stupid jest of Dr. Taylor on the subject, expressed
in the broadest language, almost the only passage, as far as we
remember, in all Boswell's book, which we should have been incl