1738

Johnson has just published London, his evocative paen to that sprawling city and the Boswell takes an epistolary turn, perhaps feeling uncomfortable with ascertaining the tone and fibre of this relative lull, Boswell reprints entire letters to demonstrate aesthetic frustration (both his and Johnson's).

As to Burton, I read William Gass' introduction and I found it glib, unsuitable, in fact. Conversely, Holbrook Jackson has been a delight in his examination of both Burton and the Melancholy, the dearth of biographical hard data but the easy surmise that Burton's life was a bookish one. These are Sunday morning joys and for such I am thankful.