F volume informs us, that twelve entire essays were a contribution from different hands. One of these, N° 33, is the journal of a Senior Fellow at Cambridge, but, as Johnson, being himself an original thinker, always revolted from servile imitation, he has printed the piece, with an apology, importing that the journal of a citizen in the Spectator almost precluded the attempt of any subsequent writer. This account of the Idler may be closed, after observing, that the author's mother being buried on the 23d of January, 1759, there is an admirable paper occasioned by that event, on Saturday the 27th of the same month, N° 41. The reader, if he pleases, may compare it with another fine paper in the Rambler, N° 54, on the conviction that rushes on the mind at the bed of a dying friend. "Rassellas," says Sir John Hawkins, "is a specimen of our language scarcely to be paralleled; it is written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force of turgid eloquence." One cannot but smile at this encomium. Rasselas is undoubtedly both elegant and sublime. It is a view a view of human life, displayed, it must be owned, in gloomy colours. The author's natural melancholy, depressed, at the time, by the approaching dissolution of his mother, darkened the picture. A tale, that should keep curiosity awake by the artifice of unexpected incidents, was not the design of a mind pregnant with better things. He, who reads the heads of the chapters, will find, that it is not a course of adventures that invites him forward, but a discussion of interesting questions; Reflections on Human Life; the History of Imlac, the Man of Learning; a Dissertation upon Poetry; the Character of a wise and happy Man, who discourses with energy on the government of the passions, and on a sudden, when Death deprives him of his daughter, forgets all his maxims of wisdom and the eloquence that adorned them, yielding to the stroke of affliction with all the vehemence of the bitterest anguish. It is by pictures of life, and profound moral reflection, that expectation is engaged and gratified throughout the work. The History of the Mad Astronomer, who imagines, that, for five he possessed the regulation of the weather, years, M 4 weather, and that the sun passed from tropick to tropick by his direction, represents in striking colours the sad effects of a distempered imagination. It becomes the more affecting when we recollect that it proceeds from one who lived in fear of the same dreadful visitation; from one who says emphatically, "Of "the uncertainties in our present state, the "most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain 66 continuance of reason." The inquiry into the cause of madness, and the dangerous prevalence of imagination, till, in time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention, and the mind recurs constantly to the favourite conception, is carried on in a strain of acute observation; but it leaves us room to think that the author was transcribing from his own apprehensions. The discourse on the nature of the soul gives us all that philosophy knows, not without a tincture of superstition. It is remarkable that the vanity of human pursuits was, about the same time, the subject that employed both Johnson and Voltaire. ; but Candide is the work of a lively imagination, and Rasselas, with all its splendour of eloquence, exhibits a gloomy picture. It should ז' should, however, be remembered, that the world has known the wEEPING as well as the LAUGHING philosopher. The Dictionary does not properly fall within the province of this essay. The preface however, will be found in this edition. He who reads the close of it, without acknowledging the force of the pathetick and sublime, must have more insensibility in his composition than usually falls to the share of a man. The work itself, though in some instances abuse has been loud, and in others malice has endeavoured to undermine its fame, still remains the MOUNT ATLAS of English Literature. Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow, That Johnson was eminently qualified for the office of a commentator on Shakspeare, no man can doubt; but it was an office which he never cordially embraced. The publick expected more than he had diligence to perform; and yet his edition has been the ground on on which every subsequent commentator has chosen to build. One note, for its singularity, may be thought worthy of notice in this place. Hamlet says, For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god-kissing carrion. In this Warburton discovered the origin of evil. Hamlet, he says, breaks off in the middle of the sentence; but the learned commentator knows what he was going to say, and, being unwilling to keep the secret, he goes on in a train of philosophical reasoning that leaves the reader in astonishment. Johnson, with true piety, adopts the fanciful hypothesis, declaring it to be a noble emendation, which almost sets the critick on a level with the author. The general observations at the end of the several plays, and the preface, will be found in this edition. The former, with great elegance and precision, give a summary view of each drama. The preface is a tract of great erudition and philosophical criticism. Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was his motive for writing them, whether gratitude for his pension, or the solicitation of men in power, did not support the cause for which |