' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 238.
[1196] In the original _or_. Boswell quotes the line correctly, _ante_,
p. 220.
[1197] 'I do not (says Mr. Malone) see any difficulty in this passage,
and wonder that Dr. Johnson should have acknowledged it to be
_inaccurate_. The Hermit, it should be observed, had no actual
experience of the world whatsoever: all his knowledge concerning it had
been obtained in two ways; from _books_, and from the _relations_ of
those country swains, who had seen a little of it. The plain meaning,
therefore, is, "To clear his doubts concerning Providence, and to obtain
some knowledge of the world by actual experience; to see whether the
accounts furnished by books, or by the oral communications of swains,
were just representations of it; [I say, _swains_,] for his oral or
_viva voce_ information had been obtained from that part of mankind
_alone_, &c." The word _alone_ here does not relate to the whole of the
preceding line, as has been supposed, but, by a common licence, to the
words,--_of all mankind_, which are understood, and of which it is
restrictive.'
Mr. Malone, it must be owned, has shewn much critical ingenuity in the
explanation of this passage.
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