the principal end of the drama.1 Indeed, Garrick has complained to me that Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing the impressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmesley's prediction, that he would 'turn out a fine tragedy writer,' was therefore ill-founded. Johnson was wise enough to be convinced that he had not the talents necessary to write successfully for the stage, and never made another attempt in that species of composition.

When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, 'Like the Monument; meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be remembered, as an admonition to the genus irritabile of dramatic writers, that this great man, instead of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all occasions a great deference for the general opinion: 'A man,' said he, 'who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.'

On occasion of this play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that, as a dramatic author, his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he therefore ap

Profit..

£195 17 0 He also received for the copy 100 00

In all..........£295 17 0'

In a preceding page (52) Mr. Murphy says: 'Irene was acted at Drury Lane on Monday, Feb. 6, and from that time, without interruption, to Monday, February the 20th, being in all thirteen nights.'

On this Mr. Reed somewhat indignantly has written: This is false; it was acted only nine nights, and never repeated afterwards. Mr. Murphy, in making the above calculation, includes both the Sundays and Lent-days.'

The blunder, however, is that of the Monthly Reviewer, from whom Murphy took, without acknowledgment, the greater part of his essay. M. R. vol. lxxvii. р. 135.-А. СHALMERS.

* Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallet, gives the following account of Irene, after having seen it :-'I was at the anomalous Mr. Johnson's benefit, and found the play his proper representative; strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.'-BOSWELL.

peared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold-laced hat. He humorously observed to Mr. Langton, 'that when in that dress he could not treat people with the same ease as when in his usual plain clothes.' Dress indeed, we must allow, has more effect even upon strong minds than one should suppose, without having had the experience of it. His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and during its performance, brought him acquainted with many of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more favourable opinion of their profession than he had harshly expressed in his Life of Savage. With some of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as he and they lived, and was ever ready to show them acts of kindness. He, for a considerable time, used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue, saying, 'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensitics.'

CHAPTER VIII.

1750-1751.

IN 1750 Johnson came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified-a majestic teacher of moral and religious wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper, which he knew had been upon former occasions employed with great success. The Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian were the last of the kind published in England, which had stood the test of a long trial; and such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form of instruction would in some degree have the advantage of novelty. A few days before the first of his Essays came out, there started another competitor for fame in the same form, under the title of The Tatler Revived, which I believe was 'born but to die.' Johnson was, I think, not very happy in the choice of his title-The Rambler; which certainly is not suited to a series of grave and moral discourses, which the Italians have literally but ludicrously translated by Il Vagabondo, and which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler's Magazine. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name:-'What must be done, sir, will be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that oсcurred, and I took it.''

With what devout and conscientious sentiments this paper was undertaken, is evidenced by the following prayer, which he composed and offered up on the occasion:

'Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly; grant, I beseech Thee, that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others: grant this, O Lord, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.'[Pr. and Med. p. 9.]

The first paper of the Rambler was published on Tuesday the 20th of March 1749-50; and its author was enabled to continue it, without interruption, every Tuesday and Saturday, till Saturday the 17th of March2 1752, on which day it closed. This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his, which I have had occasion to quote elsewhere, that 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it; for, notwithstanding his constitutional indolence, his depression of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his Dictionary, he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from the stores of his mind, during all that time; having received no assistance, except four billets in No. 10, by Miss Mulso, now Mrs. Chapone; No. 30, by Mrs. Catherine Talbot; No. 97, by Mr. Samuel Richardson, whom he describes in an introductory note as 'an author who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue;' and Nos. 44 and 100, by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter.

Posterity will be astonished when they are

Our Garrick's a salad, for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree !'

At last, the company having separated, without anything of which they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of The World. -BOSWELL

* This is a mistake, into which the author was very pardonably led by the inaccuracy of the original folio edition of the Rambler, in which the concluding paper of that work is dated on Saturday, March 17.' But Saturday was in fact the fourteenth of March. This circumstance though it may at first appear of very little importance, is yet worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the seventeenth of March.-MALONE.

• Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 23. BOSWELL.

told, upon the authority of Johnson himself, that many of these discourses, which we should suppose had been laboured with all the slow attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed. It can be accounted for only in this way: that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to clothe in the most apt and energetic expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company, to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him.1

Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a periodical writer; for I have in my possession a small duodecimo volume in which he has written, in the form of Mr. Locke's CommonPlace Book, a variety of hints for essays on different subjects. He has marked upon the first blank leaf of it, 'To the 128th page, collections for the Rambler; and in another place, 'In fifty-two there were seventeen provided; in 97, 21; in 190, 25.' At a subsequent period, probably after the work was finished, he added, 'In all, taken of provided materials, 30.'

Sir John Hawkins, who is unlucky upon all occasions, tells us that 'this method of accumulating intelligence had been practised by Mr. Addison, and is humorously described in one of the Spectators [No. 46], wherein he feigns to have dropped his paper of notanda, consisting of a diverting medley of broken sentences and loose hints, which he tells us he had collected and meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is Johnson's Adversaria.'" But the truth is, that there is no resemblance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction, in which unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were purposely jumbled together in as odd a manner as he could, in order to produce a laughable effect; whereas Johnson's abbreviations are all distinct, and applicable to each subject of which the head is mentioned.

1 The rule which Dr. Johnson observed is sanctioned by the authority of two great writers of antiquity: 'Ne id quidem tacendum est, quod eidem Ciceroni placet, nullum nostrum usquam negligentem esse sermonem: quicquid loquemur, ubicunque, sit pro sua scilicet portione perfectum.' Quinctil. x. 7.-MALONE.

As the Rambler1 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.'

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 deciphers these notable passages, one in Latin, fatui non famæ, instead of fami non fame; 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 d'argent, instead of Dégouté de fame (an old word for renommé) 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.BOSWELL.

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 into 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 anything of them. But he had been misinformed concerning the true author, for he had been told they were written by a Mr. Johnson of Canter

bury, 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 he ludicrously corrects, in Bentley's manner, one stanza, not of the ballad the hero of which lived in Norton Falgate, but of a ballad celebrating the achievements of Tom Bostock, who in a sea-fight performed prodigies of valour. The stanza on which this ingenious writer has exercised his wit is as follows:

Then old Tom Bostock he fell to the work,

He pray'd like a Christian, but fought like a Turk. And cut 'em all off in a jerk,

Which nobody can deny,' etc.-MALONE.

Yet, very soon after its commencement, there were who felt and acknowledged its uncommon excellence. Verses in its praise appeared in the newspapers; and the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine mentions, in October, his having received several letters to the same purpose from the learned. The Student of Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, in which Mr. Bonnel Thornton and Mr. Colman were the principal writers, describes it as 'a work that exceeds anything of the kind ever published in this kingdom, some of the Spectators excepted-if, indeed, they may be excepted.' And afterwards: 'May the public favours crown his merits, and may not the English, under the auspicious reign of George the Second, neglect a man who, had he lived in the first century, would have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus.' This flattery of the monarch had no effect. It is too well known that the second George never was an Augustus to learning or genius.

Johnson told me, with an amiable fondness, a little pleasing circumstance relative to this work. Mrs. Johnson, in whose judgment and taste he had great confidence, said to him, after a few numbers of the Rambler had come out, 'I thought very well of you before; but I did not imagine you could have written anything equal to this.' Distant praise, from whatever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife whom a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to 'come home to his bosom;' and being so near, its effect is most sensible and permanent.

Mr. James Elphinston, who has since published various works, and who was ever esteemed by Johnson as a worthy man, happened to be in Scotland while the Rambler was coming out in single papers at London. With a laudable zeal at once for the improvement of his countrymen and the reputation of his friend, he suggested and took the charge of an edition of those essays at Edinburgh, which followed progressively the London publication.1

The following letter written at this time, though not dated, will show how much pleased Johnson was with this publication, and what kindness and regard he had for Mr. Elphinston:

1 It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, & Cochran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo size, and with the greatest correctness; and Mr. Elphinston enriched it with translations of the mottoes. When completed, it made eight handsome volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and beautiful edition of this work; and there being but a small impression, it is now become scarce, and sells at a very high price.-BOSWELL.

With respect to the correctness of this edition, the author probably derived his information from some other person, and appears to have been misinformed; for it was not accurately printed, as we learn from Mr. A. Chalmers.-J. BOSWELL.

'TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.

[No date.]

'DEAR SIR,-I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but hope the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and when I am well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness; for be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts.

'I am glad that you still find encouragement to procced in your publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can, with any conveniance, send them me. Please to present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman, of whom I hear that his learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the mottoes and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the last in the Magazine, in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you: but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you with regard when I do not perhaps give the proofs, which I ought, of being, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter upon a mournful occasion:

'TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.

'September 25, 1750.

'DEAR SIR,-You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom therefore I

must soon lose, unless it please God that she should rather mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life and of her death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream or a just opinion of separate spirits, is indeed of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God; yet surely there is something pleasing in the belief that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity.

If

'There is one expedient by which you may in some degree continue her presence. you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet further from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you

by, dear sir, your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

The Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodecimo volumes;1

1 This is not quite accurate. In the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1751, while the work was yet proceeding, is an advertisement, announcing that four volumes of the Rambler would speedily be published; and it is believed that they were published in the next month. The fifth and sixth volumes, with tables of contents and translations of the mottoes, were published in July 1752, by Payne (the original publisher), three months after the close of the work.

When the Rambler was collected into volumes,