he tells us he had collected, and meant to make use For instance, there is the following specimen :- "Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his mind as he grew up. Voluminous. - No wonder. If every man was to tell, or mark, on how many subjects he has changed, it would make vols. but the changes not always observed by man's self. From pleasure to bus. [business] to quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect. to piety; from dissipation to domestic. by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial non progredi, progress. esse conspicimus. Look back, consider what was thought at some dist. period. 66 Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies all enamelled before him, as a distant prospect sun-gilt (2); (1) In this instance Mr. Boswell is more unlucky than Hawkins, whose account is by no means incorrect. He knew very well, and distinctly states, that Addison's published "Notanda" were a mere pleasantry, consisting of topics drolly selected and arranged; but he infers, rationally enough, that Addison had taken the idea from his own real practice of collecting notanda; and he is quite justified in adding, "much of the same kind are Johnson's Adversaria."— CROKER. (2) This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays. t inequalities only found by coming to it. Love is to be all joy — children excellent - Fame to be constan caresses of the great applauses of the learned. smiles of Beauty. 66 Fear of disgrace — Bashfulness Finds things of less importance. Miscarriages forgot like excelif remembered, of no import. lencies; sinking into negligence of reputation; of disgrace destroy activity. Danger of - lest the fear "Confidence in himself. Long tract of life before him. No thought of sickness. affairs. Distraction of family. Embarrassment of Public calamities. all No sense of the prevalence of bad habits. Negligent of time ready to undertake careless to pursue changed by time. - "Confident of others unsuspecting as unexperienced-imagining himself secure against neglect, never imagines they will venture to treat him ill. Ready to trust; expecting to be trusted. Convinced by time of the selfishness, the meanness, the cowardice, the treachery of men. "Youth ambitious, as thinking honours easy to be had. dang. hurt, &c. de "Different kinds of praise pursued at different periods. Of the gay in youth. spised. "Of the fancy in manhood. Ambit. stocks bargains. Of the wise and sober in old age serious ness formality maxims, but general- only of the rich, otherwise age is happy but at last every thing referred to riches no having fame, honour, influence, without subjection to caprice. "Horace. "Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views with which they leave it, or left as they enter it. no regard to bene No hope volence no undertaking "Youth to be taught the piety of age retain the honour of youth." age to This, it will be observed, is the sketch of Number 196. of the Rambler. I shall gratify my readers with another specimen :— "Confederacies difficult; why. nor "Seldom in war a match for single persons in peace; therefore kings make themselves absolute. Confederacies in learning every great work the work of one. Bruy. Scholars' friendship like ladies. Scribe. bamus, &c. Mart.(') The apple of discord--the laurel of discord the poverty of criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses united. That union scarce possible. His remarks just ;- --man a social, not steady nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled by passions. Orb drawn by attraction, rep. [repelled] by centrifugal. "Common danger unites by crushing other passions. - but they return. Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces insolence and envy. Too much regard in each to private interest; - too little. "The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies The fitness of social attraction diffused through the whole. The mischiefs of too partial love of our country. Contraction of moral duties.. Οἱ φίλοι, ου φιλος. Every man moves upon his own centre, and therefore repels others from too near a contact, though he may comply with some general laws. "Of confederacy with superiors every one knows the inconvenience. With equals, no authority; every man his own opinion - his own interest. “Man and wife hardly united; scarce ever with (1) Lib. xii. 96. "In Tuccam æmulum omnium suorum studiorum.". MALONE. T out children. Computation, if two to one against two, Here we see the embryo of Number 45. of the Adventurer; and it is a confirmation of what I shall presently have occasion to mention, that the papers in that collection marked T. were written by Johnson. This scanty preparation of materials will not, however, much diminish our wonder at the extraordinary fertility of his mind; for the proportion which they bear to the number of essays which he wrote, is very small; and it is remarkable, that those for which he had made no preparation, are as rich and as highly finished, as those for which the hints were lying by him. It is also to be observed, that the papers formed from his hints are worked up with such strength and elegance, that we almost lose sight of the hints, which become like "drops in the bucket." Indeed, in several instances, he has made a very slender use of them, so that many of them remain still unapplied. (') (1) Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of materials, what he calls the "Rudiments of two of the papers of the Rambler." But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. Thus he writes, p. 266., "Sailor's fate any mansion;" whereas the original is "Sailor's life my aversion." He has also transcribed the unappropriated hints on Writers for bread, in which he decyphers these notable passages, one in Latin, fatui non fame, instead of fami_non famæ; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty, that he was supposed fami non famæ scribere; and another in French, Degenté de fate et affamé As the Rambler was entirely the work of one man, there was, of course, such a uniformity in its texture, as very much to exclude the charm of variety; and the grave and often solemn cast of thinking, which distinguished it from other periodical papers, made it, for some time, not generally liked. So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve editions have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, that even in the closing number the author says, “I have never been much a favourite of the public."(1) d'argent, instead of Degouté de fame (an old word for renommée), et affamé d'argent. The manuscript, being written in an exceedingly small hand, is, indeed, very hard to read; but it would have been better to have left blanks than to write nonsense. (1) The Ramblers, certainly, were little noticed at first. Smart, the poet, first mentioned them to me as excellent papers, before I had heard any one else speak of them. When I went nto Norfolk, in the autumn of 1751, I found but one person (the Rev. Mr. Squires, a man of learning, and a general purchaser of new books) who knew any thing of them. But he had been misinformed concerning the true author; for he had been told they were written by a Mr. Johnson of Canterbury, the son of a clergyman who had had a controversy with Bentley, and who had changed the readings of the old ballad entitled Norton Falgate, in Bentley's bold style (meo periculo), till not a single word of the original song was left. Before I left Norfolk, in the year 1760, the Ramblers were in high favour among persons of learning and good taste. Others there were, devoid of both, who said that the hard words in the Rambler were used by the author to render his Dictionary indispensably necessary. BURNEY. It may not be improper to correct a slight error in the preceding note, though it does not at all affect the principal object of Dr. Burney's remark. The clergyman above alluded to, was Mr. Richard Johnson, schoolmaster at Nottingham, who, in 1717, published an octavo volume in Latin, against Bentley's edition of Horace, entitled "Aristarchus Anti-Bentleianus." In the middle of this Latin work (as Mr. Bindley observes to me) he has introduced four pages of English criticism, in which |