Note 11: — Chapter XIII

Though literature did not supply for Boswell the wine of life, it had always attracted him very strongly. He had a taste for books and a very keen desire for LITERARY AMBITION learning; above all, he had literary ambition. He made a number of literary plans besides that of writing Johnson's 'Life.'11 He was not merely, in his own conception, the biographer of Johnson, but the man of letters in a most extended fashion, and something of a scholar. And it was towards the end of his life, though then concerned almost exclusively with Johnson, that Boswell was most industrious in the literary field. Not only did he publish the magnum opus four years before his death, but he continued diligently to collect fresh material. The second edition appeared two years later, in July 1793. The third edition was being prepared, with Malone's valuable help, when Boswell died. The biographer evidently did not consider his labours ended when the 'Life of Johnson' was at last published. Its favourable reception 'has excited,' he says in the Advertisement to the Second Edition, 'my best exertions to render my Book more perfect; and in this endeavour I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular friends, but of many other learned and ingenious men, by which I have been able to rectify some mistakes, and to enrich the Work with many valuable additions.'