THE RAMBLER

20 March 1750–14 March 1752

6. Two early tributes

1750

Text from the Gentleman’s Magazine, xx (1750), 4 65.
The first, from the Remembrancer, is the opening of ‘an ingenious Rambling Letter’ signed ‘Dennis Ductile’. The second, believed to be by Christopher Smart, occurred in the final paragraph of an essay on ‘Gratitude’ in the Student, or the Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, II. i. 1–3. Both were reprinted in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1750. Also reprinted (but not reproduced here) were laudatory verses ‘To the Author of the Rambler, on reading his Allegories’. They were taken from the Daily Advertiser, 24 August 1750. See Introduction, pp. 3, 22.

(a) 21 April 1750, the Remembrancer: ‘If a new writer, blessed with a vigorous imagination, under the restraint of a classical judgment, a master of all the charms and graces of expression, had not lately made his appearance to the public under the stile and title of The Rambler, I would myself have assumed that character, as the most suitable to my own.’

(b) 2 October 1750, the Student: ‘There is one gentleman from whom we should be proud to borrow, if our plan forbad it not; and, since our text is GRATITUDE we beg leave to return acknowledgements to him for the noble and rational entertainments he has given us, we mean the admirable author of the RAMBLER, a work that exceeds any thing of the kind ever published in this kingdom, some of the SPECTATORS excepted—if indeed they may be excepted. We own ourselves unequal to the task of commending such a work up to its merits—where the diction is the most high-wrought imaginable, and yet, like the brilliancy of the diamond, exceeding perspicuous in its riches—where the sentiments enoble the style, and the style familiarizes the sentiments—where every thing is easy and natural, yet every thing is masterly and strong. May the publick 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.’

7. Johnson surveys his purpose and achievement, Rambler No. 208

14 March 1752

Text from fourth edition, 1756.

DIOG. LAERT.¹

Begone, ye blockheads, Heraclitus cries,

And leave my labours to the learn’d and wise;

By wit, by knowledge, studious to be read,

I scorn the multitude, alive and dead.

Time, which puts an end to all human pleasures and sorrows, has likewise concluded the labours of the Rambler. Having supported, for two years, the anxious employment of a periodical writer, and multiplied my essays to four volumes, I have now determined to desist.

The reasons of this resolution it is of little importance to declare, since justification is unnecessary when no objection is made. I am far from supposing, that the cessation of my performances will raise any inquiry,

for I have never been much a favourite of the public, nor can boast that, in the progress of my undertaking, I have been animated by the rewards of the liberal, the caresses of the great, or the praises of the eminent.

But I have no design to gratify pride by submission, or malice by lamentation; nor think it reasonable to complain of neglect from those whose regard I never solicited. If I have not been distinguished by the distributers of literary honours, I have seldom descended to the arts by which favour is obtained. I have seen the meteors of fashion rise and fall, without any attempt to add a moment to their duration. I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day; I have rarely exemplified my assertions by living characters; in my papers no man could look for censures of his enemies, or praises of himself; and they only were expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.

To some, however, I am indebted for encouragement, and to others for assistance. The number of my friends was never great, but they have been such as would not suffer me to think that I was writing in vain, and I did not feel much dejection from the want of popularity.

My obligations having not been frequent, my acknowledgments may be soon dispatched. I can restore to all my correspondents their productions, with little diminution of the bulk of my volumes, though not without the loss of some pieces to which particular honours have been paid.

The parts from which I claim no other praise than that of having given them an opportunity of appearing, are the four billets in the tenth paper, the second letter in the fifteenth, the thirtieth, the forty-fourth, the ninety-seventh, and the hundredth papers, and the second letter in the hundred and seventh.²

Having thus deprived myself of many excuses which candor might have admitted for the inequality of my compositions, being no longer able to allege the necessity of gratifying correspondents, the importunity with which publication was solicited, or obstinacy with which correction was rejected, I must remain accountable for all my faults, and submit, without subterfuge, to the censures of criticism, which, however, I shall not endeavour to soften by a formal deprecation, or to overbear by the influence of a patron. The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and though greatness has sometimes sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness.

Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of truth, I will not at last violate it by the confession of terrors which I do not feel: Having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of dedication.

The seeming vanity with which I have sometimes spoken of myself, would perhaps require an apology, were it not extenuated by the example of those who have published essays before me, and by the privilege which every nameless writer has been hitherto allowed. ‘A mask,’ says Castiglione, ‘confers a right of acting and speaking with less restraint, even when the wearer happens to be known.’³ He that is discovered without his own consent may claim some indulgence, and cannot be rigorously called to justify those sallies or frolics which his disguise must prove him desirous to conceal.

But I have been cautious lest this offence should be frequently or grossly committed; for, as one of the philosophers⁴ directs us to live with a friend, as with one that is some time to become an enemy, I have always thought it the duty of an anonymous author to write, as if he expected to be hereafter known.

I am willing to flatter myself with hopes, that by collecting these papers, I am not preparing for my future life, either shame or repentance. That all are happily imagined or accurately polished, that the same sentiments have not sometimes recurred, or the same expressions been too frequently repeated, I have not confidence in my abilities sufficient to warrant. He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day, will often bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: He will labour on a barren topic, till it is too late to change it; or in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

Whatever shall be the final sentence of mankind, I have at least endeavoured to deserve their kindness. I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence. When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy by applying them to popular ideas, but have rarely admitted

any word not authorized by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent, will be able to express his thoughts without further help from other nations.

As it has been my principal design to inculcate wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to the idle sports of imagination. Some, perhaps, may be found, of which the highest excellence is harmless merriment, but scarcely any man is so steadily serious, as not to complain, that the severity of dictatorial instruction has been too seldom relieved, and that he is driven by the sternness of the Rambler’s philosophy to more chearful and airy companions.

Next to the excursions of fancy are the disquisitions of criticism, which, in my opinion, is only to be ranked among the subordinate and instrumental arts. Arbitrary decision and general exclamation I have carefully avoided, by asserting nothing without a reason, and establishing all my principles of judgment on unalterable and evident truth.

In the pictures of life I have never been so studious of novelty or surprise, as to depart wholly from all resemblance; a fault which writers deservedly celebrated frequently commit, that they may raise, as the occasion requires, either mirth or abhorrence. Some enlargement may be allowed to declamation, and some exaggeration to burlesque; but as they deviate farther from reality, they become less useful, because their lessons will fail of application. The mind of the reader is carried away from the contemplation of his own manners; he finds in himself no likeness to the phantom before him; and though he laughs or rages, is not reformed.

The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment. I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.

⁵

Celestial pow’rs! that piety regard,

From you my labours wait their last reward.

8. Arthur Murphy, Essay on the Life and Genius of Johnson

1792

Text from Johnson’s Works, 1792, i. 56–9, 155–62.
One of the most influential memoirists of Johnson was the dramatist and miscellaneous writer, Arthur Murphy (1727–1805), a man ‘whom [Johnson] very much loved’ (Boswell, Life, ii. 127). His Essay formed the prefatory matter to the 1792 edition of Johnson’s Works. See Introduction, pp. 15, 22.

At the time of instituting the club in Ivy-lane, Johnson had projected the Rambler. The title was most probably suggested by the Wanderer; a poem which he mentions, with warmest praise, in the Life of Savage.¹ With the same spirit of independence with which he wished to live, it was now his pride to write. He communicated his plan to none of his friends: he desired no assistance, relying entirely on his own fund, and the protection of the Divine Being, which he implored in a solemn form of prayer, composed by himself for the occasion.

[quotes prayer. See Boswell, Life, i. 203.]

Having invoked the special protection of Heaven, and by that act of piety fortified his mind, he began the great work of the Rambler. The first number was published on Tuesday, March the 20th, 1750; and from that time was continued regularly every Tuesday and Saturday for the space of two years, when it finally closed on Saturday, March 14, 1752. As it began with motives of piety, so it appears, that the same religious spirit glowed with unabating ardour to the last. His conclusion is:

[quotes final paragraph of Rambler No. 208. See above, No. 7.]

The whole number of Essays, amounted to two hundred and eight. Addison’s, in the Spectator, are more in number, but not half in point of quantity: Addison was not bound to publish on stated days; he could

watch the ebb and flow of his genius, and send his paper to the press when his own taste was satisfied. Johnson’s case was very different. He wrote singly and alone. In the whole progress of the work he did not receive more than ten essays. This was a scanty contribution. For the rest, the author has described his situation:

[quotes ‘He that condemns himself’ to ‘examine or reduce’, from Rambler No. 208. See above, No. 7.]

Of this excellent production the number sold on each day did not amount to five hundred: of course the bookseller, who paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful trade. His generosity and perseverance deserve to be commended; and happily, when the collection appeared in volumes, were amply rewarded. Johnson lived to see his labours flourish in a tenth edition.² His posterity, as an ingenious French writer has said on a similar occasion, began in his lifetime….

The Rambler may be considered as Johnson’s great work. It was the basis of that high reputation which went on increasing to the end of his days. The circulation of those periodical essays was not, at first, equal to their merit. They had not, like the Spectators, the art of charming by variety; and indeed how could it be expected? The wits of queen Anne’s reign sent their contributions to the Spectator; and Johnson stood alone. A stage-coach, says Sir Richard Steele, must go forward on stated days, whether there are passengers or not.³ So it was with the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for two years. In this collection Johnson is the great moral teacher of his countrymen; his essays form a body of ethics; the observations on life and manners are acute and instructive; and the essays, professedly critical, serve to promote the cause of literature. It must, however, be acknowledged, that a settled gloom hangs over the author’s mind; and all the essays, except eight or ten, coming from the same fountain-head, no wonder that they have the raciness of the soil from which they sprung. Of this uniformity Johnson was sensible. He used to say, that if he had joined a friend or two, who would have been able to intermix papers of a sprightly turn, the collection would have been more miscellaneous, and, by consequence, more agreeable to the generality of readers. This he used to illustrate by repeating two beautiful stanzas from his own Ode to Cave, or Sylvanus Urban:⁴

[quotes last two stanzas, in Latin.]

It is remarkable, that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first assumed in the Rambler. His Dictionary was going on at the same time, and, in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical and scholastic words he thought that the bulk of his readers were equally learned; or at least would admire the splendour and dignity of the style. And yet it is well known, that he praised in Cowley the ease and unaffected structure of the sentences.⁵ Cowley may be placed at the head of those who cultivated a clear and natural style. Dryden, Tillotson, and Sir William Temple, followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, with more correctness, carried our language well nigh to perfection. Of Addison, Johnson used to say, He is the Raphael of Essay Writers. How he differed so widely from such elegant models is a problem not to be solved, unless it be true that he took an early tincture from the writers of the last century, particularly Sir Thomas Browne. Hence the peculiarities of his style, new combinations, sentences of an unusual structure, and words derived from the learned languages. His own account of the matter is, ‘When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I familiarized the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas.’⁶ But he forgot the observation of Dryden: ‘If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them.^’7 There is, it must be admitted, a swell of language, often out of all proportion to the sentiment; but there is, in general, a fullness of mind, and the thought seems to expand with the sound of the words. Determined to discard colloquial barbarisms and licentious idioms, he forgot the elegant simplicity that distinguishes the writings of Addison. He had what Locke calls a roundabout view of his subject;⁸ and, though he was never tainted, like many wits with the ambition of shining in paradox, he may be fairly called an ORIGINAL THINKER. His reading was extensive. He treasured in his mind whatever was worthy of notice, but he added to it from his own meditation. He collected, quae reconderet, auctaque promeret.⁹ …Johnson had a fund of humour, but he did not know it, nor was he willing to descend to the familiar idiom and the variety of diction which that mode of composition

required. The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young girl that wants a place, will illustrate this observation….

Johnson is always lofty; he seems, to use Dryden’s phrase, to be o’er informed with meaning,¹⁰ and his words do not appear to himself adequate to his conception. He moves in state, and his periods are always harmonious. His Oriental Tales are in the true style of Eastern magnificence, and yet none of them are so much admired as the Visions of Mirza.¹¹ In matters of criticism, Johnson is never the echo of preceding writers. He thinks and decides for himself. If we except the Essays on the Pleasures of Imagination,¹² Addison cannot be called a philosophical critic. His moral Essays are beautiful; but in that province nothing can exceed the Rambler, though Johnson used to say, that the Essay on The burthens of mankind (in the Spectator No. 558) was the most exquisite he had ever read. Talking of himself, Johnson said, ‘Topham Beauclerk has wit, and every thing comes from him with ease; but when I say a good thing, I seem to labour.’¹³ When we compare him with Addison, the contrast is still stronger. Addison lends grace and ornament to truth; Johnson gives it force and energy. Addison makes virtue amiable; Johnson represents it as an awful duty. Addison insinuates himself with an air of modesty; Johnson commands like a dictator; but a dictator in his splendid robes, not labouring at the plough. Addison is the Jupiter of Virgil, with placid serenity talking to Venus:

Vultu, quo coelum tempestatesque serenat.¹⁴

Johnson is JUPITER TONANS: he darts his lightning, and rolls his thunder, in the cause of virtue and piety. The language seems to fall short of his ideas; he pours along, familiarizing the terms of philosophy, with bold inversions, and sonorous periods; but we may apply to him what Pope has said of Homer: ‘It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it; like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense.’¹⁵

It is not the design of this comparison to decide between those two eminent writers. In matters of taste every reader will chuse for himself.

Johnson is always profound, and of course gives the fatigue of thinking. Addison charms while he instructs; and writing, as he always does, a pure, an elegant, and idiomatic style, he may be pronounced the safest model for imitation.

The essays written by Johnson in the Adventurer may be called a continuation of the Rambler. The Idler,¹⁶ in order to be consistent with the assumed character, is written with abated vigour, in a style of ease and unlaboured elegance. It is the Odyssey after the Iliad. Intense thinking would not become the Idler. The first number presents a well-drawn portrait of an Idler and from that character no deviation could be made. Accordingly, Johnson forgets his austere manner, and plays us into sense.

9. George Gleig in the Encyclopaedia Britannica

1797

Text from third edition, 1797, ix. 299–300n.
Gleig (1753–1840), later to be Bishop of Brechin, author of a number of important contributions to the third edition of the Encyclopaedia, was responsible for the sympathetic article on Johnson. It was repeated with few changes in subsequent editions until replaced in the eighth by Macaulay’s in some ways inferior essay. Printed here is Gleig’s lengthy footnote on the Rambler style. See Introduction, p. 22.

The style of the Rambler has been much praised and much censured, sometimes perhaps by men who paid little attention to the author’s views. Its defects have been petulantly caricatured, and its merits unduly exalted. To attempt a defence of all the words in it which are derived from the Latin, would be in vain: for though many of them are elegant and expressive, others are harsh, and do not easily assimilate with the English idiom. But it would be as easy to defend the use of Johnson’s words as

the structure of all Addison’s sentences; for though many of these are exquisitely beautiful, it must be confessed that others are feeble, and offend at once the ear and the mind. An ingenious essayist says, that in the Rambler ‘the constant recurrence of sentences in the form of what have been called triplets, is disgusting to all readers’. The recurrence is indeed very frequent; but it certainly is not constant, nor we hope always disgusting: and as what he calls the triplet is unquestionably the most energetic form of which an English sentence is susceptible, we cannot help thinking, that it should frequently recur in detached essays, of which the object is to inculcate moral truths. He who reads half a volume of the Rambler at a sitting, will feel his ear fatigued by the close of similar periods so frequently recurring; but he who reads only one paper in the day, will experience nothing of this weariness. For purposes merely didactic, when something is to be told that was not known before, Addison’s style is certainly preferable to Johnson’s, and Swift’s is preferable to both: but the question is, Which of them makes the best provision against that inattention by which known truths are suffered to lie neglected? There are very few moral truths in the Spectator or in the Rambler of which the reader can be totally ignorant; but there are many which may have little influence on his conduct, because they are seldom the objects of his thought. If this be so, that style should be considered as best which most rouses the attention, and impresses deepest in the mind the sentiments of the author: and therefore, to decide between the style of Addison and that of Johnson, the reader should compare the effects of each upon his own memory and imagination, and give the preference to that which leaves the most lasting impression. But it is said that Johnson himself must have recognized the fault of perpetual triplets in his style, since they are by no means frequent in his last productions. Is this a fair state of the case? His last production was The Lives of the British Poets, of which a great part consists of the narration of facts; and such a narration in the style of the Rambler would be ridiculous. Cicero’s orations are universally admired; but if Caesar’s commentaries had been written in that style, who would have read them? When Johnson in his biography has any important truth to enforce, he generally employs the rounded and vigorous periods of the Rambler; but in the bare narration he uses a simpler style, and that as well in the life of Savage, which was written at an early period, as in the lives of those which were written latest. It is not, however, very prudent in an ordinary writer to attempt a close imitation of the style of the Rambler; for Johnson’s vigorous periods are fitted only to the weight of Johnson’s thought.

10. Mudford on the ‘moral utility’ of the Rambler

1802

Text from Critical Enquiry, 1802, 2–47, 51–3, 58–9, 108–9.
In his Critical Enquiry (see No. 2), which was chiefly devoted to Johnson as an essayist, Mudford expresses strong reservations about the ‘moral utility’ of the Rambler; he fully acknowledges its ‘sublimities’. See Introduction, p. 23.

A free and candid enquiry into his literary character still remains in some measure open. It still remains to consider the nature and tendency of his writings; as ethical how far adapted to common life and domestic purposes; how far they may be considered as just; and where they exhibit marks of prejudice and misanthropy.* It still remains undecided how far our language is indebted to him for its present elegance, perspicuity, and energy; or to what degree of refinement he has advanced it. These are topics which have hitherto been neglected, or at least but faintly discussed, though of acknowledged importance. But they would require the hand of a master; and the following observations will be confined to a few strictures on his moral writings, with, perhaps, some occasional remarks on the preceding hints.

Before the appearance of Johnson’s Rambler the public was possessed of many diurnal papers. The Tatler, the Guardian, the Spectator, and many others, had embraced the arduous project of instructing their countrymen, and laboured to extirpate the vices and immorality then existing. To this effect they thought ridicule the most powerful weapon; and employed it sometimes with dexterity, and sometimes with propriety: every foible was exposed, and every vice abhorred; but descending too much to the minute fopperies of giddy fashion, and prescribing rules for

the adjustment of female dress, their writings were sought after rather as a recreation from satiety and listlessness, than as a manual of truth and morality.

This great defect Johnson was aware of; ambitious of distinction, his gigantic mind was upon the wing for every avenue which might lead to it; and it was doubtless a ready suggestion, that a pure body of ethics was still wanting; and, (perhaps, conscious of his own capability) he determined to commence the difficult employment. Having read much, and possessing a retentive memory, he found his mind stored with abundance of matter; Classical allusions were ready at his command, and a peculiar felicity of combination; an accurate observer of nature, he readily bared the human breast to his inspection, and detected, with uncommon penetration, the multifarious involutions of human passion. Thus qualified for the attempt, he published his first Rambler, March 20, 1750.

To consider every paper individually, would be a tedious and unprofitable task. Their ultimate tendency and probable effect is the thing to be discussed, and this requires to be done with as much precision, brevity and perspicuity, as possible. How far I may attain to this, is properly the decision of my readers.

Johnson naturally possessed a misanthropic way of thinking; and this had probably been greatly confirmed by the numerous disappointments of his early life. A slave, likewise, to the most absurd prejudices, which he could never overcome, for he too much indulged them, his judgment was often perverted: and he may be suspected of sometimes, endeavouring to give dignity to trifles, of which he was conscious, and of persisting in error rather than retract what he had once advanced. His misanthropy and prejudice are eminently manifest in his Rambler.

The great design of this work was to instruct mankind; to teach the happiness of virtue and religion; to display the horrors of vice and impiety; to inculcate a proper subordination of the passions; and to arm the mind against the vicissitudes of life. A more noble and exalted undertaking could not employ the mind of man. But to produce the proposed effect, much was required, and much which Johnson never could attain; he taught the happiness of virtue, and displayed the miseries of vice with peculiar energy; here his whole soul was employed, and he felt the indignation he expressed; but when he would support us against the contingencies of existence, his mind becomes darkened by intervening clouds of prejudice, and his arguments degenerate into sophistical declamation. Yet, in his own words, ‘to have attempted much is always laudable even when the enterprise is above the strength that undertakes it; to rest below his aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose views are comprehensive.’¹

Life, in its very sunshine, is perhaps sufficiently beset with evil; and we need not Monitors to tell us, at every step, that destruction may be the consequence. This is perpetually awakening the mind to a bitter consciousness of its situation, and barring every access to genuine pleasure, even when pursued with the most unerring virtue. The motive is unquestionably just: a desire to guard unthinking youth from the precipices which surround them, and to impress upon their hearts the conviction, that a life of heedless security is a life of guilt and misery. But this end will rarely be attained if thus sought; a perpetual alarm of probable dangers and miscarriages soon loses its effect; human judgment is not infallible; we may expect to err more frequently than to be right, and our prophecies will often be found to be erroneous. This influences the mind, and not unfrequently engenders a sceptical habit, which directly discredits every thing, on the pretence that some are false.

A young mind rising from a perusal of the Rambler would conceive the most melancholy ideas of human nature and human events. Mankind would appear to him as an undistinguished mass of fraud, perfidy, and deceit; oppressing the humble, exalting the base, and levelling the virtuous; awarding its suffrages and honours to the unworthy and degenerate, and turning, with disgust, from the manly struggles of the truly wise and worthy. Life would appear to him as one incessant warfare with envy, malevolence, and falshood; as the precarious tenure of a minute, never free from open assault or secret undermining; as beset on every side with misery, with want, with disease; as a road for ever obstructed by the pitfalls of infamy and remorse, and into which every step may plunge us; he will, I say, conceive this life to be a monstrous association of all possible evils, and unattended with any alleviation but religion, and unvisited by any hope but that of futurity and a MERCIFUL CREATOR.

The utility of Dr. Johnson’s Rambler as a moral work may be justly questioned. Every thing which tends to obstruct the activity of man, and to crush well-founded hopes on this life, severely merits reprehension. The circle of our pleasures is sufficiently contracted, and our truest happiness can be derived only from the present moment; the past and future being objects either of regret or desire. To restrict them still more is of no avail, whether the end proposed be the advancement either of religion or morality; but it may be the cause of infinite injury. The gloomy representations of life as exhibited by Johnson, have this direct and only

tendency, to repress the arm of industry, to check the vigour of enterprize, to suppress rational wishes, to fill the mind with a hateful distrust of society, and to foster the most pernicious prejudices. They are also capable of repressing other generous sentiments of the mind which form the most important links of human connection. In short, the papers of the Rambler which relate to life, are in his own words, fit only ‘to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts, and shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of the past, or melancholy prognostics of the future; their only aim is to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and alloy the golden hours of gaiety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion.’²

[Lengthy examples follow, based on Rambler Nos. 2, 32, 144, 190.]

It is difficult to conceive a man more oppressed with melancholy, or more governed by prejudice than Dr. Johnson. In him there is no variation; he is for ever one and the same. All his pictures are alike, and in all we trace the reflection of a cynic. His sensations could seldom be enviable; he must have turned away with visible horror and disgust from all that bore the smiles of happiness, or the gaiety of mirth….

Justice now demands that I should say something of the beauties of this work, for beauties it certainly possesses. Some of them it will be sufficient to point out, others I shall transcribe.

A noble effusion of Johnson’s mind is the seventh Rambler, and which, perhaps, is not exceeded by any he afterwards wrote. It contains many just and penetrating remarks, great sublimity of sentiment, and energy of language, originality of speculation, and a most pious and worthy end. Johnson will perhaps never be excelled by any writer on religion. All his papers on that subject breathe a spirit of the most elevated piety. The solemnity of his language, the multiplicity of his ideas, the vigour of his intellect, and the sincerity of his heart, all conspire to give an awful dignity to his religious writings, which can hardly fail of awakening the most obdurate mind. I confess I never rise from a perusal of this paper without a most thorough conviction of all that it inculcates. None who shall read it with due attention, will I think be able to deny the efficacy of retirement for the advancement of religion. I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing the following paragraphs with which it concludes.

[quotes last three paragraphs.]

The allegories of Johnson, tho’ not numerous are, I think, always just;

and I know not whether they may not be preferred to those of Addison for strength and invention. The principal allegories of the Rambler are, those of Criticism, No. 3; of Hope, No. 67; the Voyage of Life, No. 102; and that of Wit and Learning, No. 22; which last exceeds any that this language can produce. It exhibits all the powers of invention in the most charming combination; of wit replete with delicacy, and of Learning guided by judgment. The allegory is in itself so complete, that I know nothing which could be added or taken away without injury; and the language is at the same time so pure and nervous, that praise is lost in admiration and delight. This alone would have conferred the title of poet upon Johnson, had his imitations of Juvenal never been written; and I doubt whether he does not rather merit it from this and his other allegories than from all the rhymes he ever published. This, indeed, was the opinion of his friend and contemporary, Dr. Goldsmith, who observed he was more a poet in his prose than in his imitations, and his authority must be allowed to have some weight even though my own opinions should be rejected. It is not merely the cadence of the syllables, or the final jingle of the words which constitute a poet; for these are trifling and mechanical; but it is that power of invention, that strength of imagery, and that vigour and variety of combination, which confer that glorious title. No reader of Johnson can be ignorant of the eminent degree in which he possesses all these qualities, and which he adorns and illustrates with all the strength of reason, all the power of eloquence, and all the harmony of language….

No. 77 of the Rambler presents a noble specimen of virtuous indignation against the immorality of authors. It might, indeed, be recommended to the serious perusal of some writers of the present day, who would do well to listen to its dictates. —Such, I would be understood, as that gross and libidinous creature, who styles himself Peter Pindar, that violator of all morality and religion Godwin,³ and others needless to enumerate. Johnson never employs ridicule against any vice he would extirpate; he always chuses the more solemn and efficacious powers of reason and argument. He does not strive to laugh you out of your follies or your errors, but he demonstrates with perspicuity wherein it is wrong, and where it degrades you from your station as a rational being: and then having awakened the mind to a sense of its impropriety, he displays, with inimitable majesty and force, the consequences they lead to; and, in a moral estimation, how loudly they call for repression and extinction.

This it is which gives that peculiar energy to his writings, and which renders them far more valuable than those of Addison, who, by adopting ridicule for his weapon, often amused only, where he intended to instruct, and his precepts were frequently forgotten amid the general hilarity, which the gaiety of his essays produced; hence, where the latter is once mentioned, the former is quoted perhaps a hundred times, on account that his writings being totally divested of that unseasonable mirth, the mind is never divided by laughter and seriousness, but the effect being uniform, they make a constant and equable impression, and rarely fade off the memory.

The native vigour of Johnson’s mind is finally displayed in this essay. What he censures he censures with dignity; and never degenerates into that vulgarity of diction, which sometimes characterize the most valuable productions. He is lofty and sublime; and he appeals to the heart without exciting the passions. He disdained the meanness of controversial epithets, and always maintains an innate grandeur of thought and expression which chains the attention of the reader, and forcibly impresses conviction….

Apart from a moral consideration I would recommend the three papers (86, 88, 90) on Milton, as an elegant specimen of criticism, and greatly divested of that ill nature which distinguished his subsequent remarks.⁴ He has determined with great precision wherein the true harmony of the English poetry consists, and has considered the versification of Milton with great judgment. These papers are indeed a valuable accession to literary criticism.

Innumerable are the beauties of this work which might be noticed; but it would be in some measure idle; for where is the person who lays any claim to learning that has not read the Rambler of Johnson? The History of Anningait and Ajut is pleasing;⁵ and the concluding paper is a noble specimen of literary magnanimity; in which the author disclaims all protection or favour during the progress of his work, and anticipates censure by a firm avowal, that he sought only the advancement of morality, and ‘that he shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if he can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue and confidence to truth.’⁶ …

The Idler does not offer much for remark. Its general character is fidelity and ease. It contains few of those blemishes which obscure the

Rambler, and is thus far more valuable; but at the same time, it contains as few of its sublimities. There are not many laborious speculations or moral enquiries, which would indeed be incompatible with the assumed character, which is admirably supported throughout the whole. The Idler has been styled by one of his biographers,⁷ the Odyssey after the Iliad. This definition is not, perhaps, very exact; but it is expressive, and I am not inclined to detect the impropriety.

Johnson’s reflections on life in this work are more natural than in his Rambler. He seems less inclined to querulous exaggeration, and less attached to the enlargement of mournful truths; he even tells us in one of the papers, that we shall find each day possessed of its pleasures and joys;⁸ a declaration not to be found, I believe, in all the Ramblers. He had, perhaps, seen his folly when it was too late to retract; or it might be owing to a concurrence of slight causes not now known, but which will often operate very visibly on the intellect. Whatever the reason may have been, it is very certain, that Johnson displays in the Idler more candour in his delineations, and more veracity in his assertions than he commonly did; and he has certainly more impartially estimated the motives and consequences of human action, and their moral rectitude and obliquity. But this I shall no longer insist upon here. It must be sufficiently known to those who have read the Idler; and to those who have not, the remarks will be unnecessary.

11. Alexander Chalmers in British Essayists

1802

Text from British Essayists, 1823 edition, xvi. pp. xl-xlviii.
Chalmers (1759–1834) was well known in the early nineteenth century for editions of prose and poetry, an abridgement of Johnson’s Dictionary, and other miscellaneous writings. His edition of British Essayists in forty-five volumes in 1802 included all Johnson’s essays. Printed here are extracts from the preface to the Rambler volumes. See Introduction, p. 22.

On the general merit of this work, it is now unnecessary to expatiate: the prejudices which were alarmed by a new style and manner have long subsided; critics and grammarians have pointed out what they thought defective, or dangerous for imitation; and although a new set of objectors have appeared since the author’s death the world has not been much swayed in its opinions by that hostility which is restrained until it can be vented with impunity. The few laboured, and perhaps pedantic sentences which occur, have been selected and repeated with incessant malignity, but without the power of depreciation; and they who have thus found Johnson to be obscure and unintelligible, might with similar partiality celebrate Shakspeare only for his puns and his quibbles. Luckily, however, for the taste and improvement of the age, these objections are not very prevalent, and the general opinion, founded on actual observation, is, that although Dr. Johnson is not to be imitated with perfect success, yet the attempt to imitate him, where it has neither been servile nor artificial, has elevated the style of every species of literary composition. In every thing, we perceive more vigour, more spirit, more elegance. He not only began a revolution in our language, but lived till it was almost completed.

With respect to the plan of the Rambler, he may surely be said to have executed what he intended: he has successfully attempted the propagation of truth; and boldly maintained the dignity of virtue. He has accumulated in this work a treasure of moral science, which will not be soon exhausted. He has laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something he certainly has added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence.¹

Comparisons have been formed between the Rambler and its predecessors, or rather between the genius of Johnson and of Addison, but have generally ended in discovering a total want of resemblance. As they were both original writers, they must be tried, if tried at all, by laws applicable to their respective attributes. But neither had a predecessor. We can find no humour like Addison’s; no energy and dignity like Johnson’s. They had nothing in common but moral excellence of character; they could not have exchanged styles for an hour. Yet there is one respect in which we must give Addison the preference, more general utility. His writings would have been understood at any period; Johnson’s would have perhaps been unintelligible a century ago, and are calculated for the more improved and liberal education, now so common. In both, however, what was peculiar was natural. The earliest of Dr. Johnson’s works confirm this; from the moment he could write at all, he wrote in stately periods; and his conversation, from first to last, abounded in the peculiarities of his composition. In general we may say, with Seneca, Riget eius oratio, nihil in ea placidum, nihil lene.² Addison’s style was the direct reverse of this. —If the Lives of the Poets be thought an exception to Dr. Johnson’s general habit of writing, let it be remembered that he was for the most part confined to dates and facts, to illustrations and criticisms, and quotations; but when he indulged himself in moral reflections, to which he delighted to recur, we have again the rigour and loftiness of the Rambler, and only miss some of what have been termed his hard words.

Addison principally excelled in the observation of manners, and in that exquisite ridicule he threw on the minute improprieties of life. Johnson, although by no means ignorant of life and manners, could not descend to familiarities with tuckers and commodes, with fans and hoop-petticoats. A scholar by profession, and a writer from necessity, he loved to bring forward subjects so near and dear as the disappointments of authors—the dangers and miseries of literary eminence—anxieties of literature—contrariety of criticism—miseries of patronage—value of fame—causes of the contempt of the learned—prejudices and caprices of criticism—vanity of an author’s expectations—meanness of dedication— necessity of literary courage; and all those other subjects which relate to

authors and their connexion with the public. Sometimes whole papers are devoted to what may be termed the personal concerns of men of literature; and incidental reflections are everywhere interspersed for the instruction or caution of the same class.

When he treats of common life and manners, it has been observed that he gives to the lowest of his correspondents the same style and lofty periods; and it may also be noticed, that the ridicule he attempts is in some cases considerably heightened by this very want of accommodation of character. Yet it must be allowed that the levity and giddiness of coquets and fine ladies, are expressed with great difficulty in the Johnsonian language. It has been objected also that even the names of his ladies have very little of the air either of court or city, as Zosima, Properantia, &c. Every age seems to have its peculiar names of fiction. In the Spectator’s time, the Damons and Phillises, the Amintors, Amandas, and Cleoras, &c. were the representatives of every virtue, and every folly. These were succeeded by the Philamonts, Tenderillas, Timoleons, Seomanthes, Pantheas, Adrastas, and Bellimantes; names to which Mrs. Heywood gave currency in her Female Spectator;³ and from which at no great distance of time Dr. Johnson appears to have taken his Zephyrettas, Trypheruses, Nitellas, Misotheas, Vagarios, and Flirtillas.

His first attempt at characteristic familiarity occurs in No. 12, in a letter from a young girl who wants a place; and in my opinion it is the most successful: the style is seldom turgid, and it has a considerable portion of humour; a quality in which it is now acknowledged Dr. Johnson excelled, although one of his biographers seems to think he did not know it.⁴ It was a considerable time before I was fully convinced that Dr. Johnson wrote this letter, so little appears of his usual manner: it attacks a species of cruelty which he could not often have witnessed; and when he came to revise the original Ramblers, he made fewer alterations in this than in any other: a delicacy which he always observed with regard to his correspondents. But the paper is undoubtedly his, and evinces an accurate observation of common life.

With respect to humour, the following papers may be enumerated as pregnant proofs that he possessed that quality: No. 46, on the mischiefs of rural fiction; 51, on the employments of a housewife in the country; 59, Suspirius, or the human screech-owl, from which Dr. Goldsmith took his character of Croaker; 61, a Londoner’s visit to the country; 73, the lingering expectation of an heir; 82, the virtuoso’s account of his

rarities; 101, a proper audience necessary to a wit; 113, 115, history of Hymenaeus’s courtship; 116, the young trader’s attempt at politeness; 117, the advantages of living in a garret; 119, Tranquilla’s account of her lovers; 123, the young trader turned gentleman; 138, the character of Mrs. Busy; 141, the character of Papilius; 157, the scholar’s complaint of his own bashfulness; 161, the revolutions of a garret; 165, the impotence of wealth, the visit of Serotinus to the place of his nativity; 177, an account of a club of antiquaries; 192, love unsuccessful without riches; 197, 198, the history of a legacy-hunter; 200, Asper’s complaint of the insolence of Prospero; and 206, the art of living at the cost of others. If these papers are not allowed to contain humour, if the characters are not drawn and the stories related with that quality which forces a smile at the expense of absurdity, and delights the imagination by the juxta-position of unexpected images and allusions, it will be difficult to say where genuine humour is to be found. If it has not the ease, and sometimes the good-nature of Addison, this is saying no more than that it is not Addison’s humour: neither is it that of Swift or Arbuthnot. This does not take from its originality, nor weaken the influence it produces upon contempt, the passion to which humour more particularly addresses itself. It ought to be observed also that the greater part of the subjects enumerated above are new in the history of Essay-writing: and the few that were touched by former writers, such as the virtuoso’s rarities, recommend themselves to the fancy by new combinations and sportive fictions.

But the religious and moral tendency of the Rambler is, after all, its principal excellence, and what entitles it to a higher praise than can be earned by the powers of wit or of criticism. On subjects connected with the true interests of man, what our author has said of Goldsmith may with much more truth be applied to himself, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.⁵ If we do not discover in his essays the genius which invents, we have a wonderful display of those powers of mind which, second only to the genius of the poet, most happily illustrate, and almost instantly strike conviction. Whatever position Dr. Johnson lays down, is laid down with irresistible force; it is not new, but we wonder that we have before heard it with indifference; it is perhaps familiar, and yet we receive it with the welcome of a discovery. Whatever virtue he praises, receives dignity and strength; and whatever vice he exposes, becomes more odious and contemptible. To select examples from a work so well known would be superfluous; yet one paper, No. 148, on parental cruelty, which has not

generally been pointed out by his critics, has ever appeared to me preeminent in every grace of moral expostulation. Men who have not seen much of life, and who believe cautiously of human depravity, cannot think it possible that such a paper should ever be read without improvement; yet without any very extensive knowledge of what is daily passing in the world, we may be allowed to assert with the author, that there are some on whom its persuasions may be lost.

[quotes ‘He that can bear’ to ‘the force of reason’, Rambler No. 148.]

Instances might be multiplied in which common truths and common maxims are supported by an eloquence no-where else to be found; and in which the principles of human nature are explained with a facility and truth which could result only from what appears to have been the author’s favourite study, the study of the heart. Yet this distinguishing characteristic of the Rambler, added to a style by no means familiar, may have rendered it a less agreeable companion to a very numerous class of readers, than other works of the kind. It is certainly not a book for the uneducated part of the world, nor for those who, whatever their education, read only for their amusement. In the comparison of books with men, it may be said that the Rambler is one of those which are at first repulsive, but which grow upon us on a further acquaintance. Accordingly those who have read it oftenest are most sensible of its excellence: it will not please at first sight, nor suit the gay who wish to be amused, nor the superficial who cannot command attention. It is to be studied as well as read; and the few objections that have been made to it, would have probably been retracted, if the objectors had returned frequently to the work, and examined whether the author had preferred any claims which could not fairly be granted. It cannot be too often repeated that the Rambler is not a work to be hastily laid aside; and that they who from the apparent difficulties of style and manner have been led to study it attentively, have been amply rewarded by the discovery of new beauties; and have been ready to confess, what it would be now extremely difficult to disprove, that literature, as well as morals, owes the greatest obligations to this writer; and that since the work became popular, every thing in literature or morals, in history or dissertation, is better conceived, and better expressed—conceived with more novelty, and expressed with greater energy.

12. William Hazlitt on the Rambler

1819

Text from Lectures, 1819, 195–201.
Before Hazlitt (1778–1830) published his Lectures on the English Comic Writers in 1819, virtually all critics preferred Johnson’s essays to those of Addison. Hazlitt vigorously dissented from the general opinion. See Introduction, pp. 22–3.

The dramatic and conversational turn which forms the distinguishing feature and greatest charm of the Spectator and Tatler, is quite lost in the Rambler by Dr. Johnson. There is no reflected light thrown on human life from an assumed character, nor any direct one from a display of the author’s own. The Tatler and Spectator are, as it were, made up of notes and memorandums of the events and incidents of the day, with finished studies after nature, and characters fresh from the life, which the writer moralises upon, and turns to account as they come before him: the Rambler is a collection of moral Essays, or scholastic theses, written on set subjects, and of which the individual characters and incidents are merely artificial illustrations, brought in to give a pretended relief to the dryness of didactic discussion. The Rambler is a splendid and imposing common-place-book of general topics, and rhetorical declamation on the conduct and business of human life. In this sense, there is hardly a reflection that had been suggested on such subjects which is not to be found in this celebrated work, and there is, perhaps, hardly a reflection to be found in it which had not been already suggested and developed by some other author, or in the common course of conversation. The mass of intellectual wealth here heaped together is immense, but it is rather the result of gradual accumulation, the produce of the general intellect, labouring in the mine of knowledge and reflection, than dug out of the quarry, and dragged into the light by the industry and sagacity of a single mind. I am not here saying that Dr. Johnson was a man without originality, compared with the ordinary run of men’s minds, but he was not a man of original thought or genius, in the sense in which Montaigne or Lord Bacon was. He opened no new vein of precious ore, nor did he light upon any single pebbles of uncommon size and unrivalled lustre. We seldom meet with any thing to ‘give us pause’; he does not set us thinking for the first time. His reflections present themselves like reminiscences; do not disturb the ordinary march of our thoughts; arrest our attention by the stateliness of their appearance, and the costliness of their garb, but pass on and mingle with the throng of our impressions. After closing the volumes of the Rambler, there is nothing that we remember as a new truth gained to the mind, nothing indelibly stamped upon the memory; nor is there any passage that we wish to turn to as embodying any known principle or observation, with such force and beauty that justice can only be done to the idea in the author’s own words. Such, for instance, are many of the passages to be found in Burke, which shine by their own light, belong to no class, have neither equal nor counterpart, and of which we say that no one but the author could have written them! There is neither the same boldness of design, nor mastery of execution in Johnson. In the one, the spark of genius seems to have met with its congenial matter: the shaft is sped; the forked lightning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly smiles, and the loud thunder rolls far away from the ruin that is made. Dr. Johnson’s style, on the contrary, resembles rather the rumbling of mimic thunder at one of our theatres; and the light he throws upon a subject is like the dazzling effect of phosphorus, or an ignis fatuus of words. There is a wide difference, however, between perfect originality and perfect common-place: neither ideas nor expressions are trite or vulgar because they are not quite new. They are valuable, and ought to be repeated, if they have not become quite common; and Johnson’s style both of reasoning and imagery holds the middle rank between startling novelty and vapid common-place. Johnson has as much originality of thinking as Addison; but then he wants his familiarity of illustration, knowledge of character, and delightful humour. —What most distinguishes Dr. Johnson from other writers is the pomp and uniformity of his style. All his periods are cast in the same mould, are of the same size and shape, and consequently have little fitness to the variety of things he professes to treat of. His subjects are familiar, but the author is always upon stilts. He has neither ease nor simplicity, and his efforts at playfulness, in part, remind one of the lines in Milton:—

——The elephant

To make them sport wreath’d his proboscis lithe.¹

His Letters from Correspondents, in particular, are more pompous and unwieldy than what he writes in his own person. This want of relaxation and variety of manner has, I think, after the first effects of novelty and surprise were over, been prejudicial to the matter. It takes from the general power, not only to please, but to instruct. The monotony of style produces an apparent monotony of ideas. What is really striking and valuable, is lost in the vain ostentation and circumlocution of the expression; for when we find the same pains and pomp of diction bestowed upon the most trifling as upon the most important parts of a sentence or discourse, we grow tired of distinguishing between pretension and reality, and are disposed to confound the tinsel and bombast of the phraseology with want of weight in the thoughts. Thus, from the imposing and oracular nature of the style, people are tempted at first to imagine that our author’s speculations are all wisdom and profundity: till having found out their mistake in some instances, they suppose that there is nothing but common-place in them, concealed under verbiage and pedantry; and in both they are wrong. The fault of Dr. Johnson’s style is, that it reduces all things to the same artificial and unmeaning level. It destroys all shades of difference, the association between words and things. It is a perpetual paradox and innovation. He condescends to the familiar till we are ashamed of our interest in it: he expands the little till it looks big. ‘If he were to write a fable of little fishes,’ as Goldsmith said of him, ‘he would make them speak like great whales.’² We can no more distinguish the most familiar objects in his descriptions of them, than we can a well-known face under a huge painted mask. The structure of his sentences, which was his own invention, and which has been generally imitated since his time, is a species of rhyming in prose, where one clause answers to another in measure and quantity, like the tagging of syllables at the end of a verse; the close of the period follows as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, the sense is balanced with the sound; each sentence, revolving round its centre of gravity, is contained with itself like a couplet, and each paragraph forms itself into a stanza. Dr. Johnson is also a complete balance-master in the topics of morality. He never encourages hope, but he counteracts it by fear; he never elicits a truth, but he suggests some objection in answer to it. He seizes and alternately quits the clue of reason, lest it should involve him in the labyrinths of endless error: he wants confidence in himself and his fellows. He dares not trust himself with the immediate impressions of things, for fear of compromising his dignity; or follow them into their consequences, for

fear of committing his prejudices. His timidity is the result, not of ignorance, but of morbid apprehension. ‘He runs the great circle, and is still at home.’³ No advance is made by his writings in any sentiment, or mode of reasoning. Out of the pale of established authority and received dogmas, all is sceptical, loose, and desultory: he seems in imagination to strengthen the dominion of prejudice, as he weakens and dissipates that of reason; and round the rock of faith and power, on the edge of which he slumbers blindfold and uneasy, the waves and billows of uncertain and dangerous opinion roar and heave for evermore. His Rasselas is the most melancholy and debilitating moral speculation that ever was put forth. Doubtful of the faculties of his mind, as of his organs of vision, Johnson trusted only to his feelings and his fears. He cultivated a belief in witches as an out-guard to the evidences of religion; and abused Milton, and patronised Lauder,⁴ in spite of his aversion to his countrymen, as a step to secure the existing establishment in church and state. This was neither right feeling nor sound logic.