The
necessity
and danger of looking into futurity.
Samuel Johnson
He disdained, as derogatory from the dignity of
a teacher, to thus humour trifling minds, and to barter by idle conceits
for the reception of his precepts. His aim was not to amuse but to
instruct, not to ridicule the frivolities of fashion, but to lash the
enormities of guilt. He resolved to write a book in which nothing should
be flattered that men had agreed to flatter, and in which no tenderness
should be shown to public prejudice or to private folly[6]. In pursuance
of this deep and solemn purpose we accordingly find him imploring
assistance in his labours from that "Giver of all good things, without
whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom
is folly[7]. "
The Rambler was published on Tuesday March 20, 1749-50, and appeared
without intermission every Tuesday and Saturday until March 14, 1752,
on which day it closed[8]. The Author was not exhausted nor weary; his
latter pages do not fall off; perhaps, without partiality, we may say,
that he evidently gathered strength as he proceeded in his work. But
prepared as the age had been by preceding writers, it was not enlightened
to an extent adequate to the universal reception of truths so abstract
and so spoken out[9]; it could not comprehend within its reach of sight
such bold and broad sketches of human nature. In the sententious and
didactic papers of the Rambler, where truth appears "towering and
majestic, unassisted and alone[10]," lighter readers missed with regret
the sportive variety of his predecessors. We can adduce perhaps no
stronger proof of Johnson's elevation above his times, than the fact
that the meagre, common-place, and jejune paper of Richardson, was the
only one that obtained an immediate popularity[11]. The sale of the Rambler
seldom exceeded five hundred; while it is on record that twenty thousand
Spectators were sometimes sold in a day[12]. But Johnson wrote not for
his own generation alone, but for posterity, and posterity will pay him
his meed of immortality.
The Rambler, with some trivial exceptions, is the work of a single
and unaided author, who composed it during his performance of a task
which had fatigued "united academies and long successions of learned
compilers[13]. " He wrote, as he pathetically describes himself, "under the
pressure of disease, obstructed by constitutional indolence, and when
much of his time was spent in provision for the day that was passing
over him[14]. " The only contributions in aid of his work, all of which
he acknowledges in his concluding Rambler, were the following papers.
In Number 10, the four billets were written by Miss Mulso, daughter
of Thomas Mulso, Esq. who came of an ancient family at Twywell,
Northamptonshire. She is better known to the public as Mrs. Chapone. The
above articles are said to have been her first literary productions[15].
For Number 30. Dr. Johnson was indebted to Miss Catherine Talbot, only
daughter of the Rev. Edward Talbot, Archdeacon of Berks, and Preacher at
the Rolls. She was provided for, by the liberal bequest of Archbishop
Secker, with whom she had chiefly resided; and her composition in
the Rambler, like all her other works, breathes a spirit of piety
characteristic of her exemplary patron and protector.
Numbers 44 and 100 were contributed by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the justly
celebrated translator of Epictetus, whose eminence in literature was
only surpassed by her amiable deportment in the milder duties of domestic
life[16]. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, Pamela, &c. wrote Number 97,
to which allusion has already been made. The second letter, signed Amicus,
in Number 107, was from an unknown correspondent.
The rest of the Rambler was produced by one mind, whose resources were
developed, but not exhausted, by the work. To give a history of its
progress; to record the praises with which it was at once greeted by the
philosophic reader[17]; the empty clamour which the light, the ignorant,
and envious raised against it; the editions through which it has passed;
the countries through which it has been circulated, and the effects which
it has produced on our national style, would be among the most interesting
of researches, but the detail would be incompatible with the limits of
a Preface. Every little particular connected with it has been again
and again canvassed with that admiration or hostility which only great
works can call forth. The very title has afforded ground for censure,
for licentious imitation[18], and for acrimonious abuse. "The Rambler,"
says the sprightly Lady Montague, "is certainly a strong misnomer[19]:
he always plods in the beaten road of his predecessors, following the
Spectator (with the same pace a pack-horse would do a hunter) in the
style that is proper to lengthen a paper. " A formal refutation of so
flippant a charge would equal in ludicrous absurdity the attack itself.
The passage is merely quoted in evidence of the literature of the
times. For if so lively and acute a writer could so far overlook the
design and plan of the Rambler, what could be expected from his less
cultivated readers? The Italians have rendered it by Il Genio errante,
and most unhappily by Il Vagabondo. [20] Its adoption was an instance of
our Author's lofty contempt of the class who could not understand his
meaning. "I sat down at night," he observed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "upon
my bed side, and resolved that I would not sleep till I had fixed its
title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it. " He was
then in no trifling mode of mind. He felt himself "a solitary wanderer in
the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of view; a gloomy
gazer on a world to which he bore little relation. [21]" This description
of himself he gave under the oppressive remembrance of a particular
privation: but he long before most deeply felt the "bitterness of being. "
He felt his own misery, and, thoroughly convinced that man was miserable,
he boldly announced his conviction.
A belief has circulated, almost as widely as Johnson's writings,
of his hurried and slovenly manner of composition. He has been
represented by Boswell himself, as sending his papers to the press,
and never afterwards even perusing them. With regard to the Rambler,
this opinion is directly opposed to fact. The labour which he bestowed
on its revision, betokened the most anxious zeal for its utility. [22]
He almost _re-wrote_ it. A comparison of the original folio Rambler,
with the copies now in circulation, would prove the nearly literal
accuracy of this assertion. Mr. Chalmers, in his British Essayists,
and Dr. Drake in his Essays on the Rambler, have given specimens. [23]
It may perhaps be equally satisfactory to state that the alterations
exceeded six thousand. Wherever Johnson laboured, amendment and excellence
must have ensued. And on the Rambler no labour was misapplied; for its
usefulness is universal. There is scarcely a situation in life for the
regulation of which some right rule may not thence be drawn. It does
not glitter to the vulgar eye, but it is a deep mine, where, if we must
labour, yet our labours are rewarded with the richest ore.
A varied knowledge of character is the first requisite for a teacher
of moral prudence. [24] This was among Johnson's most early attainments,
for his was not that mere "lip-wisdom which wants experience. [25]" He
was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways,
but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who
sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with
distress in the lower walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and
his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary
elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of
mixed character.
Mrs. Piozzi's assignments have perhaps little better foundation in fact
than the sage conjectures of the Rumford club,[26] who fondly imagined
themselves to be the only _Ridicules_ in the world. "Not only every man,"
observes the Rambler, "has in the mighty mass of the world great numbers
in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages,
escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but
there is such an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from
adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is
scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind. "
Whether his view of our condition on earth was too gloomy or not, may
be agitated as a question without any impeachment of his sincere desire
to correct our faults, and to soothe our sorrows. For although other
philosophers have deplored human weaknesses and errors, and other
satirists have derided human follies, yet few have sympathized with
the wretched and the guilty with the same warm-hearted benevolence as
Johnson. He was indeed himself, as he has described another,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend. [27]
His own temperament was morbidly melancholy, but his writings contain
the best antidotes against that pitiable affection. He ridicules it when
indulged on occasion of each chance and trivial annoyance; he scorns
it as "hypocrisy of misery," when assumed by those little-minded beings
who complain for the luxury of pity: and he proposes the most salutary
remedies for it, when a real and deeply-seated malady, in active and in
honorable enterprise. [28] Above all he ever presses upon his readers,
from a view of the transitory nature of mortal enjoyment, the wisdom of
resting their hopes on the fixed prospects of futurity.
Rousseau has been termed "the apostle of affliction. " But his
conviction of the emptiness of honours and of fame, and his contempt
of the accidental distinctions of riches and of rank, led him to place
all man's possible enjoyment, and to look for the only solace of his
inevitable wretchedness, in the instant indulgence of appetite; while
his genius unhappily enabled him to throw a seductive halo around the
merest gratifications of sense.
Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
The breath that made him wretched; yet he knew
How to make madness beautiful, and cast
O'er erring deeds and words a heavenly hue
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
The eyes which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.
_Childe Harold, Canto 3, Stanza 77. _
This description was drawn by a bard who, not prejudiced against the
lover of the New Heloise, still keenly saw the practical effects which his
philosophy wrought in the mass of society, and how it tended to debase our
moral and intellectual natures. [29] Byron well knew, and needed not to be
told, that Rousseau's sentimentality was but a highly polished instinct;
though, like the scornful and unpitying Democritus,[30] he would bitterly
smile amidst the tombs, where man's pride and pleasures were alike laid
desolate. But Johnson sought to alleviate the woes over which he wept;
and no one ever sunk in sensuality from a despondency produced by his
lamentations over human misery. In none of his varied writings has he
lured others from the paths of virtue, or smoothed the road of perdition,
or covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, or taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, or stronger allurements. [31] He never
smiles, like Boileau, at vice, as if half pleased with the ludicrous
images it impresses on his fancy; nor, with Swift, does he mangle human
nature, and then scowl with a tyrant's exultation on the wounds he has
inflicted. [32] He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper,
who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks,
by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for
"another and a better world. "
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: The Champion by Fielding. 1741. 12mo. vol. i. p. 258. ]
[Footnote 2: Dr. Drake, in his Essays on the Rambler, &c. enumerates
eighty-two periodical papers published during that period. For the
comparative state of female literature, see Dr. Johnson himself, in
Rambler 173. ]
[Footnote 3: Rambler, Number 208. ]
[Footnote 4: Tatler, Number 94. ]
[Footnote 5: Guardian, Numbers 98. 114. 124. 140. ]
[Footnote 6: Chalmers' Preface to the Idler; British Essayists, vol.
xxxiii. ]
[Footnote 7: Prayer on the Rambler. ]
[Footnote 8: See Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. i. and Chalmers'
Preface to Rambler. ]
[Footnote 9: Precepts of morality, besides the natural corruption of our
tempers, are abstracted from ideas of sense. --ADDISON. ]
[Footnote 10: Rambler, Number 96. ]
[Footnote 11: This fact was communicated, on the authority of Mr. Payne,
(the original publisher of the Rambler,) by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Chalmers.
See Dr. Drake's Literary Life of Dr. Johnson in his Essays on the Rambler,
&c.
His Rambler, which is almost all essence of thought, unalloyed by those
baser ingredients which so commonly add to the quantity without adding to
the worth of human compositions, experienced at first a general coldness,
discouragement, and even censure and ridicule. Censura Literaria,
vol. viii. p. 361, first edition. ]
[Footnote 12: Addisoniana, 12mo. vol. ii. p. 52. ]
[Footnote 13: Plan of an English Dictionary. ]
[Footnote 14: Preface to the English Dictionary. ]
[Footnote 15: Chalmers' Prefaces to Rambler and Adventurer. ]
[Footnote 16: Boswell, vol. i. iii. and iv. ]
[Footnote 17: Student, vol. ii. number entitled Clio. 1750. Gentleman's
Magazine of the day. Mrs. Barbauld's Correspondence of Richardson. Dr.
Young was among the first and warmest admirers of the Rambler. See
Boswell, vol. i. ]
[Footnote 18: We allude to the infamous Rambler's Magazine, which, little
to the credit of the morality of the times, has lately been allowed to
spread anew its pestilential influence. ]
[Footnote 19: Works, 8vo. vol. iv. p. 259. See also the Edinburgh Review
for July, 1803. ]
[Footnote 20: Boswell's Life, vol. iii. and Chalmers on Rambler. Essayists,
vol. xix. See also Idler, No. 1. at the commencement. ]
[Footnote 21: In a letter to Mr. Thomas Warton, speaking of the death of
Dodsley's wife, and in allusion to the loss of his own, he concludes
with a quotation where pathos and resignation are blended,
Οιμοι· τι δ' οιμοι; Θνητα γαρ πεπονθαμεν. BOSWELL, vol. i. ]
[Footnote 22: Chalmers, as above, and Dr. Drake. ]
[Footnote 23: Mr. Chalmers gives No. 180. of the Rambler, and Dr. Drake
some paragraphs from No. 185. ]
[Footnote 24: This opinion is maintained in the Rambler, No. 129. and in
Boswell's Life, vol. iii. ]
[Footnote 25: Sidney. ]
[Footnote 26: See her Anecdotes and Rambler, 188. note. ]
[Footnote 27: Stanzas on the death of Mr. Levet. ]
[Footnote 28: See his many letters on the subject to Mr. Boswell,
who had the misfortune to be hypochondriacal. See also Rambler,
186. Introduction. ]
[Footnote 29: Rousseau's utter sensuality is ever a theme for Mary
Woolstonecraft's declamation in her Rights of Woman. --_Fas est et ab
hoste doceri. _]
[Footnote 30: Salvator Rosa has made Democritus among the tombs the
subject of one of his solemn and heart-striking pictures. For an eloquent
description of it, see Lady Morgan's Life and Times of _Il famoso pittore
di cose morale_, vol. ii. ]
[Footnote 31: Rambler, No. 77. ]
[Footnote 32: _Ita feri ut se sentiat emori. _]
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
NUMB. PAGE
1. Difficulty of the first address.
Practice of the epick poets.
Convenience of periodical performances. 1
2.
The necessity and danger of looking into futurity.
Writers naturally sanguine.
Their hopes liable to disappointment. 6
3. An allegory on criticism. 11
4. The modern form of romances preferable to the ancient.
The necessity of characters morally good. 15
5. A meditation on the Spring. 20
6. Happiness not local. 25
7. Retirement natural to a great mind. Its religious use. 30
8. The thoughts to be brought under regulation; as they
respect the past, present, and future. 35
9. The fondness of every man for his profession.
The gradual improvement of manufactures. 40
10. Four billets, with their answers.
Remarks on masquerades. 44
11. The folly of anger. The misery of a peevish old age. 50
12. The history of a young woman that came to London for
a service. 55
13. The duty of secrecy.
The invalidity of all excuses for betraying secrets. 61
14. The difference between an author's writings and his
conversation. 66
15. The folly of cards.
A letter from a lady that has lost her money. 72
16. The dangers and miseries of a literary eminence. 78
17. The frequent contemplation of death necessary to moderate
the passions. 83
18. The unhappiness of marriage caused by irregular motives
of choice. 87
19. The danger of ranging from one study to another.
The importance of the early choice of a profession. 93
20. The folly and inconvenience of affectation. 99
21. The anxieties of literature not less than those of
publick stations. The inequality of authors' writings. 104
22. An allegory on wit and learning. 109
23. The contrariety of criticism. The vanity of objection.
An author obliged to depend upon his own judgment. 113
24. The necessity of attending to the duties of common life.
The natural character not to be forsaken. 117
25. Rashness preferable to cowardice.
Enterprize not to be repressed. 122
26. The mischief of extravagance, and misery of dependence. 127
27. An author's treatment from six patrons. 132
28. The various arts of self-delusion. 136
29. The folly of anticipating misfortunes. 142
30. The observance of Sunday recommended; an allegory. 146
31. The defence of a known mistake highly culpable. 150
32. The vanity of stoicism. The necessity of patience. 156
33. An allegorical history of Rest and Labour. 161
34. The uneasiness and disgust of female cowardice. 165
35. A marriage of prudence without affection. 171
36. The reasons why pastorals delight. 176
37. The true principles of pastoral poetry. 180
38. The advantages of mediocrity; an eastern fable. 185
39. The unhappiness of women whether single or married. 190
40. The difficulty of giving advice without offending. 194
41. The advantages of memory. 199
42. The misery of a modish lady in solitude. 204
43. The inconveniences of precipitation and confidence. 208
44. Religion and Superstition; a vision. 213
45. The causes of disagreement in marriage. 218
46. The mischiefs of rural faction. 222
47. The proper means of regulating sorrow. 227
48. The miseries of an infirm constitution. 231
49. A disquisition upon the value of fame. 235
50. A virtuous old age always reverenced. 240
51. The employments of a housewife in the country. 244
52. The contemplation of the calamities of others,
a remedy for grief. 250
53. The folly and misery of a spendthrift. 254
54. A death-bed the true school of wisdom.
The effects of death upon the survivors. 258
55. The gay widow's impatience of the growth of her daughter.
The history of Miss May-pole. 263
56. The necessity of complaisance.
The Rambler's grief for offending his correspondents. 268
57. Sententious rules of frugality. 273
58. The desire of wealth moderated by philosophy. 277
59. An account of Suspirius, the human screech-owl. 281
60. The dignity and usefulness of biography. 285
61. A Londoner's visit to the country. 290
62. A young lady's impatience to see London. 295
63. Inconstancy not always a weakness. 300
64. The requisites to true friendship. 304
65. Obidah and the hermit; an eastern story. 309
66. Passion not to be eradicated.
The views of women ill directed. 313
67. The garden of Hope; a dream. 317
68. Every man chiefly happy or miserable at home.
The opinion of servants not to be despised. 322
69. The miseries and prejudice of old age. 326
70. Different men virtuous in different degrees.
The vicious not always abandoned. 330
71. No man believes that his own life will be short. 334
72. The necessity of good humour. 338
73. The lingering expectation of an heir. 342
74. Peevishness equally wretched and offensive.
The character of Tetrica. 347
75. The world never known but by a change of fortune.
The history of Melissa. 352
76. The arts by which bad men are reconciled to themselves. 357
77. The learned seldom despised but when they deserve
contempt. 361
78. The power of novelty.
Mortality too familiar to raise apprehensions. 366
79. A suspicious man justly suspected. 370
80. Variety necessary to happiness; a winter scene. 375
81. The great rule of action. Debts of justice to be
distinguished from debts of charity. 369
82. The virtuoso's account of his rarities. 383
83. The virtuoso's curiosity justified. 388
84. A young lady's impatience of controul. 393
85. The mischiefs of total idleness. 398
86. The danger of succeeding a great author: an introduction
to a criticism on Milton's versification. 402
87. The reasons why advice is generally ineffectual. 408
88. A criticism on Milton's versification.
Elisions dangerous in English poetry. 412
89.
a teacher, to thus humour trifling minds, and to barter by idle conceits
for the reception of his precepts. His aim was not to amuse but to
instruct, not to ridicule the frivolities of fashion, but to lash the
enormities of guilt. He resolved to write a book in which nothing should
be flattered that men had agreed to flatter, and in which no tenderness
should be shown to public prejudice or to private folly[6]. In pursuance
of this deep and solemn purpose we accordingly find him imploring
assistance in his labours from that "Giver of all good things, without
whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom
is folly[7]. "
The Rambler was published on Tuesday March 20, 1749-50, and appeared
without intermission every Tuesday and Saturday until March 14, 1752,
on which day it closed[8]. The Author was not exhausted nor weary; his
latter pages do not fall off; perhaps, without partiality, we may say,
that he evidently gathered strength as he proceeded in his work. But
prepared as the age had been by preceding writers, it was not enlightened
to an extent adequate to the universal reception of truths so abstract
and so spoken out[9]; it could not comprehend within its reach of sight
such bold and broad sketches of human nature. In the sententious and
didactic papers of the Rambler, where truth appears "towering and
majestic, unassisted and alone[10]," lighter readers missed with regret
the sportive variety of his predecessors. We can adduce perhaps no
stronger proof of Johnson's elevation above his times, than the fact
that the meagre, common-place, and jejune paper of Richardson, was the
only one that obtained an immediate popularity[11]. The sale of the Rambler
seldom exceeded five hundred; while it is on record that twenty thousand
Spectators were sometimes sold in a day[12]. But Johnson wrote not for
his own generation alone, but for posterity, and posterity will pay him
his meed of immortality.
The Rambler, with some trivial exceptions, is the work of a single
and unaided author, who composed it during his performance of a task
which had fatigued "united academies and long successions of learned
compilers[13]. " He wrote, as he pathetically describes himself, "under the
pressure of disease, obstructed by constitutional indolence, and when
much of his time was spent in provision for the day that was passing
over him[14]. " The only contributions in aid of his work, all of which
he acknowledges in his concluding Rambler, were the following papers.
In Number 10, the four billets were written by Miss Mulso, daughter
of Thomas Mulso, Esq. who came of an ancient family at Twywell,
Northamptonshire. She is better known to the public as Mrs. Chapone. The
above articles are said to have been her first literary productions[15].
For Number 30. Dr. Johnson was indebted to Miss Catherine Talbot, only
daughter of the Rev. Edward Talbot, Archdeacon of Berks, and Preacher at
the Rolls. She was provided for, by the liberal bequest of Archbishop
Secker, with whom she had chiefly resided; and her composition in
the Rambler, like all her other works, breathes a spirit of piety
characteristic of her exemplary patron and protector.
Numbers 44 and 100 were contributed by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the justly
celebrated translator of Epictetus, whose eminence in literature was
only surpassed by her amiable deportment in the milder duties of domestic
life[16]. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, Pamela, &c. wrote Number 97,
to which allusion has already been made. The second letter, signed Amicus,
in Number 107, was from an unknown correspondent.
The rest of the Rambler was produced by one mind, whose resources were
developed, but not exhausted, by the work. To give a history of its
progress; to record the praises with which it was at once greeted by the
philosophic reader[17]; the empty clamour which the light, the ignorant,
and envious raised against it; the editions through which it has passed;
the countries through which it has been circulated, and the effects which
it has produced on our national style, would be among the most interesting
of researches, but the detail would be incompatible with the limits of
a Preface. Every little particular connected with it has been again
and again canvassed with that admiration or hostility which only great
works can call forth. The very title has afforded ground for censure,
for licentious imitation[18], and for acrimonious abuse. "The Rambler,"
says the sprightly Lady Montague, "is certainly a strong misnomer[19]:
he always plods in the beaten road of his predecessors, following the
Spectator (with the same pace a pack-horse would do a hunter) in the
style that is proper to lengthen a paper. " A formal refutation of so
flippant a charge would equal in ludicrous absurdity the attack itself.
The passage is merely quoted in evidence of the literature of the
times. For if so lively and acute a writer could so far overlook the
design and plan of the Rambler, what could be expected from his less
cultivated readers? The Italians have rendered it by Il Genio errante,
and most unhappily by Il Vagabondo. [20] Its adoption was an instance of
our Author's lofty contempt of the class who could not understand his
meaning. "I sat down at night," he observed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "upon
my bed side, and resolved that I would not sleep till I had fixed its
title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it. " He was
then in no trifling mode of mind. He felt himself "a solitary wanderer in
the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of view; a gloomy
gazer on a world to which he bore little relation. [21]" This description
of himself he gave under the oppressive remembrance of a particular
privation: but he long before most deeply felt the "bitterness of being. "
He felt his own misery, and, thoroughly convinced that man was miserable,
he boldly announced his conviction.
A belief has circulated, almost as widely as Johnson's writings,
of his hurried and slovenly manner of composition. He has been
represented by Boswell himself, as sending his papers to the press,
and never afterwards even perusing them. With regard to the Rambler,
this opinion is directly opposed to fact. The labour which he bestowed
on its revision, betokened the most anxious zeal for its utility. [22]
He almost _re-wrote_ it. A comparison of the original folio Rambler,
with the copies now in circulation, would prove the nearly literal
accuracy of this assertion. Mr. Chalmers, in his British Essayists,
and Dr. Drake in his Essays on the Rambler, have given specimens. [23]
It may perhaps be equally satisfactory to state that the alterations
exceeded six thousand. Wherever Johnson laboured, amendment and excellence
must have ensued. And on the Rambler no labour was misapplied; for its
usefulness is universal. There is scarcely a situation in life for the
regulation of which some right rule may not thence be drawn. It does
not glitter to the vulgar eye, but it is a deep mine, where, if we must
labour, yet our labours are rewarded with the richest ore.
A varied knowledge of character is the first requisite for a teacher
of moral prudence. [24] This was among Johnson's most early attainments,
for his was not that mere "lip-wisdom which wants experience. [25]" He
was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways,
but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who
sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with
distress in the lower walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and
his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary
elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of
mixed character.
Mrs. Piozzi's assignments have perhaps little better foundation in fact
than the sage conjectures of the Rumford club,[26] who fondly imagined
themselves to be the only _Ridicules_ in the world. "Not only every man,"
observes the Rambler, "has in the mighty mass of the world great numbers
in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages,
escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but
there is such an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from
adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is
scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind. "
Whether his view of our condition on earth was too gloomy or not, may
be agitated as a question without any impeachment of his sincere desire
to correct our faults, and to soothe our sorrows. For although other
philosophers have deplored human weaknesses and errors, and other
satirists have derided human follies, yet few have sympathized with
the wretched and the guilty with the same warm-hearted benevolence as
Johnson. He was indeed himself, as he has described another,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend. [27]
His own temperament was morbidly melancholy, but his writings contain
the best antidotes against that pitiable affection. He ridicules it when
indulged on occasion of each chance and trivial annoyance; he scorns
it as "hypocrisy of misery," when assumed by those little-minded beings
who complain for the luxury of pity: and he proposes the most salutary
remedies for it, when a real and deeply-seated malady, in active and in
honorable enterprise. [28] Above all he ever presses upon his readers,
from a view of the transitory nature of mortal enjoyment, the wisdom of
resting their hopes on the fixed prospects of futurity.
Rousseau has been termed "the apostle of affliction. " But his
conviction of the emptiness of honours and of fame, and his contempt
of the accidental distinctions of riches and of rank, led him to place
all man's possible enjoyment, and to look for the only solace of his
inevitable wretchedness, in the instant indulgence of appetite; while
his genius unhappily enabled him to throw a seductive halo around the
merest gratifications of sense.
Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
The breath that made him wretched; yet he knew
How to make madness beautiful, and cast
O'er erring deeds and words a heavenly hue
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
The eyes which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.
_Childe Harold, Canto 3, Stanza 77. _
This description was drawn by a bard who, not prejudiced against the
lover of the New Heloise, still keenly saw the practical effects which his
philosophy wrought in the mass of society, and how it tended to debase our
moral and intellectual natures. [29] Byron well knew, and needed not to be
told, that Rousseau's sentimentality was but a highly polished instinct;
though, like the scornful and unpitying Democritus,[30] he would bitterly
smile amidst the tombs, where man's pride and pleasures were alike laid
desolate. But Johnson sought to alleviate the woes over which he wept;
and no one ever sunk in sensuality from a despondency produced by his
lamentations over human misery. In none of his varied writings has he
lured others from the paths of virtue, or smoothed the road of perdition,
or covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, or taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, or stronger allurements. [31] He never
smiles, like Boileau, at vice, as if half pleased with the ludicrous
images it impresses on his fancy; nor, with Swift, does he mangle human
nature, and then scowl with a tyrant's exultation on the wounds he has
inflicted. [32] He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper,
who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks,
by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for
"another and a better world. "
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: The Champion by Fielding. 1741. 12mo. vol. i. p. 258. ]
[Footnote 2: Dr. Drake, in his Essays on the Rambler, &c. enumerates
eighty-two periodical papers published during that period. For the
comparative state of female literature, see Dr. Johnson himself, in
Rambler 173. ]
[Footnote 3: Rambler, Number 208. ]
[Footnote 4: Tatler, Number 94. ]
[Footnote 5: Guardian, Numbers 98. 114. 124. 140. ]
[Footnote 6: Chalmers' Preface to the Idler; British Essayists, vol.
xxxiii. ]
[Footnote 7: Prayer on the Rambler. ]
[Footnote 8: See Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. i. and Chalmers'
Preface to Rambler. ]
[Footnote 9: Precepts of morality, besides the natural corruption of our
tempers, are abstracted from ideas of sense. --ADDISON. ]
[Footnote 10: Rambler, Number 96. ]
[Footnote 11: This fact was communicated, on the authority of Mr. Payne,
(the original publisher of the Rambler,) by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Chalmers.
See Dr. Drake's Literary Life of Dr. Johnson in his Essays on the Rambler,
&c.
His Rambler, which is almost all essence of thought, unalloyed by those
baser ingredients which so commonly add to the quantity without adding to
the worth of human compositions, experienced at first a general coldness,
discouragement, and even censure and ridicule. Censura Literaria,
vol. viii. p. 361, first edition. ]
[Footnote 12: Addisoniana, 12mo. vol. ii. p. 52. ]
[Footnote 13: Plan of an English Dictionary. ]
[Footnote 14: Preface to the English Dictionary. ]
[Footnote 15: Chalmers' Prefaces to Rambler and Adventurer. ]
[Footnote 16: Boswell, vol. i. iii. and iv. ]
[Footnote 17: Student, vol. ii. number entitled Clio. 1750. Gentleman's
Magazine of the day. Mrs. Barbauld's Correspondence of Richardson. Dr.
Young was among the first and warmest admirers of the Rambler. See
Boswell, vol. i. ]
[Footnote 18: We allude to the infamous Rambler's Magazine, which, little
to the credit of the morality of the times, has lately been allowed to
spread anew its pestilential influence. ]
[Footnote 19: Works, 8vo. vol. iv. p. 259. See also the Edinburgh Review
for July, 1803. ]
[Footnote 20: Boswell's Life, vol. iii. and Chalmers on Rambler. Essayists,
vol. xix. See also Idler, No. 1. at the commencement. ]
[Footnote 21: In a letter to Mr. Thomas Warton, speaking of the death of
Dodsley's wife, and in allusion to the loss of his own, he concludes
with a quotation where pathos and resignation are blended,
Οιμοι· τι δ' οιμοι; Θνητα γαρ πεπονθαμεν. BOSWELL, vol. i. ]
[Footnote 22: Chalmers, as above, and Dr. Drake. ]
[Footnote 23: Mr. Chalmers gives No. 180. of the Rambler, and Dr. Drake
some paragraphs from No. 185. ]
[Footnote 24: This opinion is maintained in the Rambler, No. 129. and in
Boswell's Life, vol. iii. ]
[Footnote 25: Sidney. ]
[Footnote 26: See her Anecdotes and Rambler, 188. note. ]
[Footnote 27: Stanzas on the death of Mr. Levet. ]
[Footnote 28: See his many letters on the subject to Mr. Boswell,
who had the misfortune to be hypochondriacal. See also Rambler,
186. Introduction. ]
[Footnote 29: Rousseau's utter sensuality is ever a theme for Mary
Woolstonecraft's declamation in her Rights of Woman. --_Fas est et ab
hoste doceri. _]
[Footnote 30: Salvator Rosa has made Democritus among the tombs the
subject of one of his solemn and heart-striking pictures. For an eloquent
description of it, see Lady Morgan's Life and Times of _Il famoso pittore
di cose morale_, vol. ii. ]
[Footnote 31: Rambler, No. 77. ]
[Footnote 32: _Ita feri ut se sentiat emori. _]
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
NUMB. PAGE
1. Difficulty of the first address.
Practice of the epick poets.
Convenience of periodical performances. 1
2.
The necessity and danger of looking into futurity.
Writers naturally sanguine.
Their hopes liable to disappointment. 6
3. An allegory on criticism. 11
4. The modern form of romances preferable to the ancient.
The necessity of characters morally good. 15
5. A meditation on the Spring. 20
6. Happiness not local. 25
7. Retirement natural to a great mind. Its religious use. 30
8. The thoughts to be brought under regulation; as they
respect the past, present, and future. 35
9. The fondness of every man for his profession.
The gradual improvement of manufactures. 40
10. Four billets, with their answers.
Remarks on masquerades. 44
11. The folly of anger. The misery of a peevish old age. 50
12. The history of a young woman that came to London for
a service. 55
13. The duty of secrecy.
The invalidity of all excuses for betraying secrets. 61
14. The difference between an author's writings and his
conversation. 66
15. The folly of cards.
A letter from a lady that has lost her money. 72
16. The dangers and miseries of a literary eminence. 78
17. The frequent contemplation of death necessary to moderate
the passions. 83
18. The unhappiness of marriage caused by irregular motives
of choice. 87
19. The danger of ranging from one study to another.
The importance of the early choice of a profession. 93
20. The folly and inconvenience of affectation. 99
21. The anxieties of literature not less than those of
publick stations. The inequality of authors' writings. 104
22. An allegory on wit and learning. 109
23. The contrariety of criticism. The vanity of objection.
An author obliged to depend upon his own judgment. 113
24. The necessity of attending to the duties of common life.
The natural character not to be forsaken. 117
25. Rashness preferable to cowardice.
Enterprize not to be repressed. 122
26. The mischief of extravagance, and misery of dependence. 127
27. An author's treatment from six patrons. 132
28. The various arts of self-delusion. 136
29. The folly of anticipating misfortunes. 142
30. The observance of Sunday recommended; an allegory. 146
31. The defence of a known mistake highly culpable. 150
32. The vanity of stoicism. The necessity of patience. 156
33. An allegorical history of Rest and Labour. 161
34. The uneasiness and disgust of female cowardice. 165
35. A marriage of prudence without affection. 171
36. The reasons why pastorals delight. 176
37. The true principles of pastoral poetry. 180
38. The advantages of mediocrity; an eastern fable. 185
39. The unhappiness of women whether single or married. 190
40. The difficulty of giving advice without offending. 194
41. The advantages of memory. 199
42. The misery of a modish lady in solitude. 204
43. The inconveniences of precipitation and confidence. 208
44. Religion and Superstition; a vision. 213
45. The causes of disagreement in marriage. 218
46. The mischiefs of rural faction. 222
47. The proper means of regulating sorrow. 227
48. The miseries of an infirm constitution. 231
49. A disquisition upon the value of fame. 235
50. A virtuous old age always reverenced. 240
51. The employments of a housewife in the country. 244
52. The contemplation of the calamities of others,
a remedy for grief. 250
53. The folly and misery of a spendthrift. 254
54. A death-bed the true school of wisdom.
The effects of death upon the survivors. 258
55. The gay widow's impatience of the growth of her daughter.
The history of Miss May-pole. 263
56. The necessity of complaisance.
The Rambler's grief for offending his correspondents. 268
57. Sententious rules of frugality. 273
58. The desire of wealth moderated by philosophy. 277
59. An account of Suspirius, the human screech-owl. 281
60. The dignity and usefulness of biography. 285
61. A Londoner's visit to the country. 290
62. A young lady's impatience to see London. 295
63. Inconstancy not always a weakness. 300
64. The requisites to true friendship. 304
65. Obidah and the hermit; an eastern story. 309
66. Passion not to be eradicated.
The views of women ill directed. 313
67. The garden of Hope; a dream. 317
68. Every man chiefly happy or miserable at home.
The opinion of servants not to be despised. 322
69. The miseries and prejudice of old age. 326
70. Different men virtuous in different degrees.
The vicious not always abandoned. 330
71. No man believes that his own life will be short. 334
72. The necessity of good humour. 338
73. The lingering expectation of an heir. 342
74. Peevishness equally wretched and offensive.
The character of Tetrica. 347
75. The world never known but by a change of fortune.
The history of Melissa. 352
76. The arts by which bad men are reconciled to themselves. 357
77. The learned seldom despised but when they deserve
contempt. 361
78. The power of novelty.
Mortality too familiar to raise apprehensions. 366
79. A suspicious man justly suspected. 370
80. Variety necessary to happiness; a winter scene. 375
81. The great rule of action. Debts of justice to be
distinguished from debts of charity. 369
82. The virtuoso's account of his rarities. 383
83. The virtuoso's curiosity justified. 388
84. A young lady's impatience of controul. 393
85. The mischiefs of total idleness. 398
86. The danger of succeeding a great author: an introduction
to a criticism on Milton's versification. 402
87. The reasons why advice is generally ineffectual. 408
88. A criticism on Milton's versification.
Elisions dangerous in English poetry. 412
89.
