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VII
Summary
In conclusion, we append brief assorted comments which largely restate or extend remarks running the risk of being overlooked amid the mass of details forming the body of this article. Johnson revised the second and fourth editions of the Preface to his unabridged Dictionary, the third and fourth editions of his Grammar, and the fourth edition of his History. We can offer an explanation for only the alterations in the fourth edition—namely, Johnson's agreement with the bookseller proprietors (apparently arrived at in 1771) to revise the fourth, which was published early in 1773 (Reddick, pp. 89-90, 170). Neither the changes made in the preliminaries to that edition nor those made earlier in the second and third editions exhibit constant examination and care. It is obvious, for example, that Johnson spent little time indeed scrutinizing the passages in the History which he borrowed from other authors. Keast's generalizations about the revisions in the Preface apply equally well to the companion pieces: without exception Johnson's revisions "were rather casual performances, not at all like his thorough-going work on the Rambler. He evidently read rapidly through the text[s], mending or improving where something happened to catch his eye" (p. 145).
Yet these actions, occasional though they were, possess considerable interest
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