believes it is useful, and violates the dictates of that belief, we see not how he can answer it, either to his conscience, or to his country, or to his God.

We have now touched upon the additional matters that seemed to us to require further notice; but we cannot leave the subject, without saying a word or two more, upon the main point discussed in this article, that is, attention to religion. We are persuaded, that the great defect in the religious experience of thousands around us, lies here, and nowhere but here.

At the risk of tediousness in repetition, we will bring forward again, a comparison which we have, in another view, before referred to. Let us suppose that there are two persons equally susceptible of impression from the works of art. The one, let us suppose, remains at home, engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life; the other is placed in Rome, for the cultivation of those powers which both possess alike. The first will feel an occasional admiration for the works of genius, as they are thrown in his way, and that is all. He is very much such a man in relation to the arts, as thousands are in relation to religion. He feels an occasional emotion, an evanescent admiration, but no actuating and governing principle. The other in process of time comes to feel a love of the arts as the grand passion of his being. It influences him in his plans, and actions, and whole life. It thrills through his whole heart, at every contemplation of his favorite pursuits. He converses in private, or he discourses in public, upon models of beauty and grandeur, with familiarity, with delight, with enthusiasm, and often with overpowering emotion. Now, what is it, we ask, that has made the difference between these two persons? And we answer, it is attention, and nothing else but attention.

And attention it is, we say, and nothing else but attention, that will make upon the mind that vivid impression of religion which thousands profess to desire. It is one of the most fixed and familiar laws in mental philosophy, that impression on every subject, other things being equal, depends on the attention given to it. But in religion, men have striven to find out some other and easier way. Frames, experiences, influences, conversions, excitements, hopes, have they looked to any thing but attention. This is a process for obtaining religion, too slow, too painful, too thorough. It

has nothing in it, to flatter pride, or to indulge indolence, or to favor the almost incorrigible reluctance of the human heart to work out its own salvation. But nothing short of this will suffice. For a fervent and happy experience of religion, attention is the least price that man can pay, or ought to pay. Let him who will not give this, be assured, that no costly offerings, nor prayers substituted for effort, no, nor repentant tears, can purchase the unspeakable boon. And the attention, too, must be intellectual, active, and faithful. It is not enough negligently to go to church, and passively to listen, either to moving or to dull discourses. It is not enough to wait upon ordinances as mere prescribed forms, as services that must be discharged to satisfy the conscience. There may be a world of formality, and very little fixed and earnest attention. The very modes of attention may be an escape from the act. There must be the act, strong, resolved, patient, persevering; and then, with God's blessing, there will be success. Then will religion be reality, beyond all other realities; and power, beyond all other powers; and joy, beyond all other joys.

We know not who will give this; but we know that they who will not give it, should not complain of their ill success. They should not tell us of their dulness, of their want of feeling and of comfort. They should not tell us, with a tone as if they distrusted the power and truth of religion, that they cannot make it a reality to themselves; that they cannot find its inexhaustible fountains of refreshment and healing and consolation; that they cannot feel its transcendent might, its transporting loveliness, and its blessed victory. They should not tell us this, nor utter a word of complaint; for the way is open, the path is plain, and the end is certain.

We will only say in closing, that we feel greatly obliged to the Compiler of the little volume which we have named at the head of this article. Such books, and many more of the same practical and devotional character, are needed, and greatly needed among us. We seize the present occasion, also, to offer our hearty commendation of the first volume of this new series of "The Christian Monitor," a commendation which we more fully expressed in preparing our last article on religious institutions, but which, with other matter, we found ourselves obliged to exclude, as that Number was drawing to a close, from the want of space.

ART. II. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides; by JAMES BOSWELL, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions and Notes, by J. W. CROKER, LL. D., F. R. S. Boston, [Stereotype Edition,] 1832. [New Impression, New York, George Dearborn, 1833,] 2 vols. 8vo.

WHILE the new Boswell was passing through the press, it was current in conversation, that the errors which "The Edinburgh Review" had so minutely traced out, would be investigated and corrected on this side the water. But, with a trifling exception or two, we see nothing of the kind done. And whatever may be thought of the temper of that article (which is altogether an irrelevant point), their corrections of errors, mainly chronological, are, it is vain to deny it, for the most part just. For instance, the dates pertaining to Sir William Forbes, Allan Ramsay (the painter), Lord Mansfield, and Mr. Derrick ("Master of Ceremonies" at Bath), the three several and contradictory assertions or implications in regard to Mrs. Piozzi's birth and age, the inaccuracy as to Goldsmith's "Traveller," - for it is not worth while to name any more, remain untouched as they stand in the London edition.

There are also liberties taken by Mr. Croker in his work, on the propriety of which, we cannot hesitate to say, it would not have been at all out of place for an intelligent editor here, to have sat in judgment again. We have now in mind some to which the Scotch critic, finding so much else to do in the work of animadversion, has not referred. Mr. Croker, as an attentive examination will show, has discarded from the margin, in a few instances, not only notes of his predecessor Malone, but what is hardly more devoid of apology, of Mr. Boswell himself. Perhaps some one may surmise, they were not of the highest importance. But any person having a due sense of typographical integrity well knows, that the culpability is affected scarcely at all by this circumstance. It may on the other hand be urged, that they were generally so brief, that, take them all together, not a page, perhaps, has been saved by their rejection; several of them being of that useful class of memoranda as to individuals introduced into the text, which it is so pleasant to recur to

in a work that is such an exhibition of the contemporaneous world, as that in question. What is the gain, then, of such unwarranted assumptions? And where shall such license stop, if it be taken without the most palpable necessity, or, when taken, it receive the tacit consent of the reading public? Of these rejected notes, we shall take the liberty to give an example at length; both because it is short, though it be the longest, probably, and, be it remembered, from Mr. Boswell himself. It has also the additional merit of being one of the most pleasant anecdotes in the whole work. The story is told of Richardson, under the year 1780 (near the close), as illustrative of his vanity.

"A literary lady has favored me with a characteristic anecdote of Richardson. One day, at his country-house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman, just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance,

that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the king's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, I think, sir, you were saying something about' pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman, provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference, answered, 'A mere trifle, sir, not worth repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much."

Now we simply ask, if it might not be expected from an editor among ourselves, if himself a man of letters, still more if he have that true love of the Boswellian record, cherished by so many, that he do not, in republishing any classical work, confide so implicitly in the fidelity of his transatlantic brother, as to think he may be spared a careful comparison of the new work with preceding editions, especially, when they are easy of access; and may not one claim from him the restoration of passages, for whose omission no imaginable cause can be found? Even had the authenticity of such an anecdote come to be doubted since its first insertion, to discard it was not Mr. Croker's business. It was to remain, with his queries or comments, if he chose to make them,

subjoined. Nobody understands this matter better than he; and his editorial execution of the great work throughout, shows, in numerous instances, that the principle here asserted was also his. There was not, indeed, probably any ground for questioning the anecdote, though there might be no absolute certainty of its truth.

Mr. Croker, it should be remembered, says in his Preface, speaking of his own undertaking, "The additions. are carefully discriminated, and hardly a syllable of Mr. Boswell's text, or of the notes in Mr. Malone's editions, have been omitted";-adding in the margin, "In two or three places, an indelicate expression has been omitted, and, in half a dozen instances, (always, however, stated in the notes), [mark this!] the insertion of new matter has occasioned the omission or alteration of a few words in the text." After the most minute examination and careful collation, we are compelled to say, that Mr. Croker has falsified the above statements. What says he to the anecdote already specified, not to mention minor notes? Beside these, we have detected, almost while writing the present paragraph, the unnoticed omission of a note which can in no sense be called minor. We refer to some pleasant notices which Malone had inserted of Mrs. Johnson (the wife), with an anecdote or two of the Doctor subjoined,—given by a Lady Knight from Rome. He who is curious to verify for himself, will find it in the Malone editions under the year 1735, which would occupy, even in the fine type of the edition before us, about half a column! This was surely not so trifling as to be thus uncivilly slurred over; and as little could it have been called irrelevant, had that been any part of the present editor's province to settle. And now with what confidence can we accompany an author, thus careless of his deliberate pledges?

So much for the correction of Mr. Croker's errors, and the restoration of his omissions, we could wish to have seen. But other amendments on the English work there was room for, and while upon the subject, we will take the liberty to suggest some of them. It was a part of Mr. Malone's editorial praise, that he furnished to a large extent numerous brief memoranda of the dramatis persone who come upon the scene, more or less, in these pages. Mr. Boswell, as is not perhaps strange, did himself very little in this way. He did