Note 640 — Chapter I · FROM ADDISON TO JOHNSON. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Johnson’s relative estimates of the two (Boswell, Globe ed., pp. 186, 364) are well known; as is his apology for the Critical Reviewers’ habit [he had been one himself] of not reading the books through, as the “duller” Monthly fellows were glad to do. Later generations have perhaps contrived to be dull and not to read.