fitted. He disdained, as derogatory from the dignity of a teacher, to thus humour trifling minds, and to barter by idle conceits for the reception of his precepts. His aim was not to amuse but to instruct, not to ridicule the frivolities of fashion, but to lash the enormities of guilt. He resolved to write a book in which nothing should be flattered that men had agreed to flatter, and in which no tenderness should be shewn to public prejudice or to private folly. In pursuance of this deep and solemn purpose we accordingly find him imploring assistance in his labours from that "Giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly 8."

The Rambler was published on Tuesday March 20, 1749-50, and appeared without intermission every Tuesday and Saturday until March 14, 1752, on which day it closed. The Author was not exhausted nor weary; his latter pages do not fall off; perhaps, without partiality, we may say, that he evidently gathered strength as he proceeded in his work. But prepared as the age had been by preceding writers, it was not enlightened to an extent adequate to the universal reception of truths so abstract and so spoken out; it could not comprehend within its reach of sight such bold and broad sketches of human nature. In the sententious and didactic papers of the Rambler, where truth appears "towering and majestic, unassisted and alone," lighter readers missed with regret the sportive variety of his predecessors. We can adduce perhaps no stronger proof of Johnson's elevation above his times, than the fact that the meagre, commonplace, and jejune paper of Richardson, was the only one that obtained an immediate popularity'. The sale of the Rambler

f Chalmers' Preface to the Idler, British Essayists, vol. xxxiii. Prayer on the Rambler.

See Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. i. and Chalmers' Preface to Rambler. Precepts of morality, besides the natural corruption of our tempers, are abstracted from ideas of sense.--ADDISON.

Rambler, Number 96.

This fact was communicated, on the authority of Mr. Payne, (the original publisher of the Rambler,) by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Chalmers.

seldom exceeded five hundred; while it is on record that twenty thousand Spectators were sometimes sold in a day m. But Johnson wrote not for his own generation alone, but for posterity, and posterity will pay him his meed of immortality.

The Rambler, with some trivial exceptions, is the work of a single and unaided author, who composed it during his performance of a task which had fatigued "united academies and long successions of learned compilers"." He wrote, as he pathetically describes himself, " under the pressure of disease, obstructed by constitutional indolence, and when much of his time was spent in provision for the day that was passing over him." The only contributions in aid of his work, all of which he acknowledges in his concluding Rambler, were the following papers.

In Number 10, the four billets were written by Miss Mulso, daughter of Thomas Mulso, Esq. who came of an ancient family at Twywell, Northamptonshire. She is better known to the public as Mrs. Chapone. The above articles are said to have been her first literary productions P.

For Number 30. Dr. Johnson was indebted to Miss Catherine Talbot, only daughter of the Rev. Edward Talbot, Archdeacon of Berks, and Preacher at the Rolls. She was provided for, by the liberal bequest of Archbishop Secker, with whom she had chiefly resided; and her composition in the Rambler, like all her other works, breathes a spirit of piety characteristic of her exemplary patron and protector.

See Dr. Drake's Literary Life of Dr. Johnson in his Essays on the Rambler,

&c.

His Rambler, which is almost all essence of thought, unalloyed by those baser íngredients which so commonly add to the quantity without adding to the worth of human compositions, experienced at first a general coldness, discouragement, and even censure and ridicule. Censura Literara, vol. viii. p.

361. first edition.

m Addisoniana, 12mo. vol. ii. p. 52.

n Plan of an English Dictionary.

• Preface to the English Dictionary.

P Chalmers' Prefaces to Rambler and Adventurer.

Numbers 44 and 100 were contributed by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the justly celebrated translator of Epictetus, whose eminence in literature was only surpassed by her amiable deportment in the milder duties of domestic life. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, Pamela, &c. wrote Number 97, to which allusion has already been made. The second letter, signed Amicus, in Number 107, was from an unknown correspondent.

The rest of the Rambler was produced by one mind, whose resources were developed, but not exhausted, by the work. To give a history of its progress; to record the praises with which it was at once greeted by the philosophic reader'; the empty clamour which the light, the ignorant, and envious raised against it; the editions through which it has passed; the countries through which it has been circulated, and the effects which it has produced on our national style, would be among the most interesting of researches, but the detail would be incompatible with the limits of a Preface. Every little particular connected with it has been again and again canvassed with that admiration or hostility which only great works can call forth. The very title has afforded ground for censure, for licentious imitations, and for acrimonious abuse. "The Rambler," says the sprightly Lady Montague, "is certainly a strong misnomert: he always plods in the beaten road of his predecessors, following the Spectator (with the same pace a pack-horse would do a hunter) in the style that is proper to lengthen a paper." A formal refutation of so flippant a charge would equal in ludicrous absurdity the attack itself. The passage is merely quoted in evidence of the literature of the times. For if so lively and acute a writer could so far

Boswell, vol. i. iii. and iv.

Student, vol. ii. number entitled Clio. 1750. Gentleman's Magazine of the day. Mrs. Barbauld's Correspondence of Richardson. Dr. Young was among the first and warmest admirers of the Rambler. See Boswell, vol. i.

We allude to the infamous Rambler's Magazine, which, little to the credit of the morality of the times, has lately been allowed to spread anew its pestilential influence.

* Works, 8vo. vol. iv. p. 259. See also the Edinburgh Review for July, 1803.

my

overlook the design and plan of the Rambler, what could be expected from his less cultivated readers? The Italians have rendered it by Il Genio errante, and most unhappily by Il Vagabondo". Its adoption was an instance of our Author's lofty contempt of the class who could not understand his meaning. “I sat down at night," he observed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, " upon bed side, and resolved that I would not sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it." He was then in no trifling mode of mind. He felt himself "a solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of view; a gloomy gazer on a world to which he bore little relation." This description of himself he gave under the oppressive remembrance of a particular privation : but he long before most deeply felt the "bitterness of being.". He felt his own misery, and, thoroughly convinced that man was miserable, he boldly announced his conviction.

A belief has circulated, almost as widely as Johnson's writings, of his hurried and slovenly manner of composition. He has been represented by Boswell himself, as sending his papers to the press, and never afterwards even perusing them. With regard to the Rambler, this opinion is directly opposed to fact. The labour which he bestowed on its revision, betokened the most anxious zeal for its utility. He almost re-wrote it. A comparison of the original folio Rambler, with the copies now in circulation, would prove the nearly literal accuracy of this assertion. Mr. Chalmers, in his British Essayists, and Dr. Drake in his Essays on the Rambler, have given specimens. It may perhaps be equally satisfactory to

u Boswell's Life, vol. iii. and Chalmers on Rambler. Essayists, vol. xix. See also Idler, No. 1. at the commencement.

› In a letter to Mr. Thomas Warton, speaking of the death of Dodsley's wife, and in allusion to the loss of his own, he concludes with a quotation where pathos and resignation are blended,

Οἴμοι· τι δ' οἴμοι; θνητὰ γὰρ πεπόνθαμεν. BoswELL, vol. i.

y Chalmers, as above, and Dr. Drake.

Mr. Chalmers gives No. 180. of the Rambler, and Dr. Drake some paragraphs from No. 185.

Wherever

state that the alterations exceeded six thousand. Johnson laboured, amendment and excellence must have ensued. And on the Rambler no labour was misapplied; for its usefulness is universal. There is scarcely a situation in life for the regulation of which some right rule may not thence be drawn. It does not glitter to the vulgar eye, but it is a deep mine, where, if we must labour, yet our labours are rewarded with the rich

est ore.

A varied knowledge of character is the first requisite for a teacher of moral prudence. This was among Johnson's most early attainments, for his was not that mere "lip-wisdom which wants experience"." He was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways, but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with distress in the lower-walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of mixed character.

Mrs. Piozzi's assignments have perhaps little better foundation in fact than the sage conjectures of the Rumford club, who fondly imagined themselves to be the only Ridicules in the world. "Not only every man," observes the Rambler, "has in the mighty mass of the world great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind." ·

Whether his view of our condition on earth was too gloomy or not, may be agitated as a question without any impeachment

This opinion is maintained in the Rambler, No. 129. and in Boswell's Life, vol. iii.

b Sidney.

c See her Anecdotes and Rambler, 188. note.