No, 1758. if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's Philofophy? Sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested Etat. 49. about its confutation." On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled "THE IDLER," which came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper, called "The Univerfal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette," published by Newberry. These effays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their total number, twelve were contributed by his friends; of which, Numbers 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas Warton; No. 67 by Mr. Langton; and No. 76, 79, and 82 by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82, " and pollute his canvas with deformity," being added by Johnfon, as Sir Joshua informed me. The IDLER is evidently the work of the fame. mind which produced the RAMBLER, but has lefs body, and more fpirit. It has more variety of real life, and greater facility of language. He defcribes the miseries of idleness, with the lively fenfations of one who had felt them; and in his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find "This year I hope to learn diligence'.' Many of thefe excellent effays were written as haftily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him one evening how long it was till the post went out; and on being told about half an hour, he exclaimed, "then we shall do very well." He upon this instantly fat down and finished an Idler, which it was neceffary should be in London the next day. Mr. Langton having fignified a wish to read it, "Sir, (faid he) you fhall not do more than I have done myself." He then folded it up, and fent it off. No. 43, No. 52, Yet there are in the Idler feveral papers which fhew as much profundity of thought, and labour of language, as any of this great man's writings. No. 14, "Robbery of time;" No. 24, "Thinking;" No. 41, "Death of a friend;" "Flight of time;" No. 51, " Domestick greatness unattainable;" "Self-denial;" No. 58, “ Actual, how fhort of fancied excellence ;' No. 89, Physical evil moral good;" and his concluding paper on "The horrour of the last," will prove this affertion. I know not why a motto, the usual trapping of periodical papers, is prefixed to very few of the Idlers, as I have heard Johnson commend the cuftom; and he never could be at a loss for one, his memory being stored with innumerable paffages of the clafficks. In this series of effays he exhibits admirable inftances of grave humour, of which he had ? Prayers and Meditations, p. 30. an 1758. Etat. 49. an uncommon fhare. Nor on fome occafions has he repreffed that power of fophiftry which he poffeffed in fo eminent a degree. In No. 11, he treats with the utmost contempt the opinion that our mental faculties depend, in fome degree, upon the weather; an opinion, which they who have never experienced its truth are not to be envied, and of which he himfelf could not but be fenfible, as the effects of weather upon him were very visible. Yet thus he declaims: "Surely, nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependance on the weather and the wind for the only bleffings which Nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence.-This diftinction of feafons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance, every day is bright; and every hour is propitious to diligence. He that fhall refolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will foon make himself superiour to the seasons; and may fet at defiance the morning mist and the evening damp, the blafts of the east, and the clouds of the fouth." Alas! it is too certain, that where the frame has delicate fibres, and there is a fine fenfibility, fuch influences of the air are irresistible. He might as well have bid defiance to the ague, the palfy, and all other bodily disorders. Such boafting of the force of mind is falfe elevation. "I think the Romans call it Stoicifm." But in this number of his Idler his fpirits feem to run riot; for in the wantonnefs of his difquifition he forgets, for a moment, even the reverence for that which he held in high respect; and describes "the attendant on a Court," as one "whose business is to watch the looks of a being, weak and foolish as himself." His unqualified ridicule of rhetorical gefture or action is not, furely, a teft of truth; yet we cannot help admiring how well it is adapted to produce the effect which he wished. "Neither the judges of our laws, nor the reprefentatives of our people, would be much affected by laboured gefticulation, or believe any man the more because he rolled his eyes, or puffed his cheeks, or fpread abroad his arms, or ftamped the ground, or thumped his breast, or turned his eyes fometimes to the cieling, and fometimes to the floor." A cafual coincidence with other writers, or an adoption of a fentiment or image which has been found in the writings of another, and afterwards appears in the mind as one's own, is not unfrequent. The richness of Johnson's fancy, which could fupply his page abundantly on all occafions, and the strength of his memory, which at once detected the real owner of any thought, made him lefs liable to the imputation of plagiarifm than, perhaps, any of our writers. In the Idler, however, there is a paper, in which conversation is 1758. affimilated to a bowl of punch, where there is the fame train of comparison tat. 49. as in a poem by Blacklock, in his collection published in 1756; in which a parallel is ingeniously drawn between human life and that liquor. It ends, "Say then, physicians of each kind, "Since punch and life fo well agree?" To the Idler, when collected in volumes, he added (befide the Effay on Epitaphs, and the Differtation on those of Pope,) an Effay on the Bravery of the English common Soldiers. To the Reverend Mr. THOMAS WARTON. "DEAR SIR, notes. "YOUR notes upon my poet were very acceptable. I beg that you will be so kind as to continue your fearches. It will be reputable to my work, and fuitable to your profefforship, to have fomething of yours in the As you have given no directions about your name, I fhall therefore put it. I wish your brother would take the fame trouble. A commentary must arise from the fortuitous discoveries of many men in devious walks of literature. Some of your remarks are on plays already printed: but I purpose to add an Appendix of Notes, fo that nothing comes too late. "You give yourself too much uneasiness, dear Sir, about the loss of the papers. The lofs is nothing, if nobody has found them; nor even then, perhaps, if the numbers be known. You are not the only friend that has had the fame mischance. You may repair your want out of a stock, which is depofited with Mr. Allen, of Magdalen-Hall; or out of a parcel which I have just sent to Mr. Chambers, for the use of any body that will be fo kind as to want them. Mr. Langtons are well; and Mifs Roberts, whom I have at last brought to speak, upon the information which you gave me, that she had fomething to say. "I am, &c. "[London,] April 14, 1758. SAM. JOHNSON." "Receipts for Shakspeare." "" Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India." Το 1758. A Etat. 49. £759. "DEAR SIR, To the fame. "YOU will receive this by Mr. Baretti, a gentleman particularly intitled to the notice and kindness of the profeffor of poefy. He has time but for a short stay, and will be glad to have it filled up with as much as he can hear and fee. "In recommending another to your favour, I ought not to omit thanks for the kindness which you have fhewn to myself. Have you any more notes on Shakspeare? I fhall be glad of them. "I fee your pupil' fometimes; his mind is as exalted as his ftature. I am half afraid of him; but he is no lefs amiable than formidable. He will, if the forwardness of his fpring be not blasted, be a credit to you, and to the University. He brings fome of my plays with him, which he has my permiffion to fhew you, on condition you will hide them from every body elfe. "[London,] June 1, 1758. 2 "I am, dear Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON." In 1759, in the month of January, his mother died, at the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him, not that " his mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality'," but that his reverential affection for her was not abated by years, as indeed he retained all his tender feelings even to the latest period of his life. I have been told that he regretted much his not having gone to vifit his mother for several years previous to her death. But he was conftantly engaged in literary labours, which confined him to London; and though he had not the comfort of feeing his aged parent, he contributed liberally to her fupport. Soon after this event, he wrote his "RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA ;*" concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins gueffes vaguely and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with authentick precifion. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of the Knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer told me, that Johnson "Mr. Langton." 2" Part of the impreffion of the Shakspeare, which Dr. Johnson conducted alone, and published by fubfcription. This edition came out in 1765." Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 365. wrote 1759 wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expence of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Atat. 50. Reynolds that he compofed it in the evenings of one week, fent it to the prefs in portions as it was written, and had never fince read it over. Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred pounds, but afterwards paid him twenty-five pounds more when it came to a fecond edition. Confidering the large fums which have been received for compilations, and works requiring not much more genius than compilations, we cannot but wonder at the very low price which he was content to receive for this admirable performance, which, though he had written nothing else, would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. None of his writings has been fo extensively diffufed over Europe; for it has been tranflated into moft, if not all, of the modern languages. This Tale, with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important fcenes of human life, and fhews us that this stage of our being is full of "vanity and vexation of spirit." To those who look no further than the present life, or who maintain that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it was created, the instruction of this fublime story will be of no avail. But they who think justly, and feel with strong fenfibility, will liften with eagerness and admiration to its truth and wisdom. Voltaire's CANDIDE, written to refute the fyftem of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant fuccefs, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's RASSELAS; infomuch, that I have heard Johnson say, that if they had not been published so closely one after the other that there was not time for imitation, it would have been in vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other. Though the propofition illustrated by both these works was the fame, namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton profaneness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to difcredit the belief of a fuperintending Providence: Johnfon meant, by fhewing the unfatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal. Raffelas, as was observed to me by a very accomplished lady, may be confidered as a more enlarged and more deeply philofophical difcourfe in profe, upon the interesting truth, which in his « Vanity of human Wishes" he had fo fuccefffully enforced in verse. The fund of thinking which this work contains is fuch, that almost every sentence of it may furnish a subject of long meditation. I am not fatisfied if a B b year |