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Samuel Johnson
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.
[Greek: Auton ek makaron autaxios eiae amoibae. ]
Celestial pow'rs! that piety regard,
From you my labours wait their last reward.
END OF VOL. III.
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes
by Samuel Johnson
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes
Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler
Author: Samuel Johnson
Release Date: April 15, 2004 [EBook #12050]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, VOL. IV. ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders
DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
THE
ADVENTURER AND IDLER.
THE
WORKS
OF
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.
IN NINE VOLUMES.
VOLUME THE FOURTH.
MDCCCXXV.
PREFATORY NOTICE
TO
THE ADVENTURER.
The Adventurer was projected in the year 1752, by Dr. John Hawkesworth.
He was partly induced to undertake the work by his admiration of the
Rambler, which had now ceased to appear, the style and sentiments of
which evidently, from his commencement, he made the models of his
imitation.
The first number was published on the seventh of November, 1752. The
quantity and price were the same as the Rambler, and also the days of
its appearance. He was joined in his labours by Dr. Johnson in 1753,
whose first paper is dated March 3, of that year; and after its
publication Johnson applied to his friend, Dr. Joseph Warton, for his
assistance, which was afforded: and the writers then were, besides the
projector Dr. Hawkesworth, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Joseph Warton, Dr. Bathurst,
Colman, Mrs. Chapone and the Hon. Hamilton Boyle, the accomplished son
of Lord Orrery [1].
Our business, however, in the present pages, does not lie with the
Adventurer in general, but only with Dr. Johnson's contributions; which
amount to the number of twenty-nine, beginning with No. 34, and ending
with No. 138.
Much criticism has been employed in appropriating some of them, and the
carelessness of editors has overlooked several that have been
satisfactorily proved to be Johnson's own[2].
Mr. Boswell relies on internal evidence, which is unnecessary, since in
Dr. Warton's copy (and his authority on the subject will scarcely be
disputed) the following remark was found at the end: "The papers marked
T were written by Mr. S. Johnson. " Mrs. Anna Williams asserted that he
dictated most of these to Dr. Bathurst, to whom he presented the
profits. The anecdote may well be believed from the usual benevolence of
Johnson and his well-known attachment to that amiable physician, whose
professional knowledge might undoubtedly have enabled him to offer hints
to Johnson in the progress of composition. Thus we may account for the
references to recondite medical writers in No. 39, which so staggered
Boswell and Malone in pronouncing on the genuineness of this paper.
Those who are familiar with Johnson's writings can have little
hesitation, we conceive, in recognising his style, and manner, and
sentiments in those papers which are now published under his name. They
may be considered as a continuation of the Rambler. The same subjects
are discussed; the interests of literature and of literary men, the
emptiness of praise and the vanity of human wishes. The same intimate
knowledge, of the town and its manners is displayed[3]; and occasionally
we are amused with humorous delineation of adventure and of
character[4].
From the greater variety of its subjects, aided, perhaps, by a growing
taste for periodical literature, the sale of the Adventurer was greater
than that of the Rambler on its first appearance. But still there were
those, who "talked of it as a catch-penny performance, carried on by a
set of needy and obscure scribblers[5]. " So slowly is a national taste
for letters diffused, and so hardly do works of sterling merit, which
deal not in party-politics, nor exemplify their ethical discussions by
holding out living characters to censure or contempt, win the applause
of those, whose passions leave them no leisure for abstracted truth, and
whom virtue itself cannot please by its naked dignity. But, by such,
Johnson professed, that he had little expectation of his writings being
perused. Keeping then our main object more immediately in view, the
elucidation of Johnson's real character and motives, we cannot but
admire the prompt benevolence, with which he joined Hawkesworth in his
task, and the ready zeal, with which he embraced any opportunity of
promoting the interests of morality and virtue. "To a benevolent
disposition every state of life will afford some opportunities of
contributing to the welfare of mankind," is the characteristic opening
of his first Adventurer. And when we have admired the real excellence of
his heart, we must wonder at the vigour of a mind, which could so
abstract itself from its own sorrows and misfortunes, which too often
deaden our feelings of pity, as to sympathize with others in affliction,
and even to promote innocent cheerfulness. Bowed down by the loss of a
wife[6], on whom he had called from amidst the horrors of a hopeless
melancholy, to "hide him from the ills of life," and depressed by
poverty, "that numbs the soul with icy hand," his genius sank not
beneath a load, which might have crushed the loftiest; but the
"incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, 'as dew-drops
from a lion's mane[7]. '"
The same pure and exalted morality, which stamps their chief value on
the pages of the Rambler, instructs us in the lessons of the Adventurer.
Here is no cold doctrine of expediency or dangerous speculations on
moral approbation, no easy virtue which can be practised without a
struggle, and which interdicts the gratification of no passion but
malice: here is no compromise of personal sensuality, for an endurance
of others' frailties, amounting to an indifference of moral distinctions
altogether. Johnson boldly and, at once, propounds the real motives to
Christian conduct; and does not, with some ethical writers, in a slavish
dread of interfering with the more immediate office of the divine, hold
out slender inducements to virtuous action, which can never give us
strength to stem the torrent of passion; but holding with the acute Owen
Feltham[8], "that, as true religion cannot be without morality, no more
can morality, that is right, be without religion," Johnson ever directs
our attention, not to the world's smile or frown, but to the discharge
of the duty which Providence assigns us, by the consideration of the
awful approach of that night when no man can work. To conclude with the
appropriate words of an eloquent writer, "in his sublime discussions of
the most sacred truths, as no style can be too lofty nor conceptions too
grand for such a subject, so has the great master never exerted the
powers of his great genius with more signal success. Impiety shrinks
beneath his rebuke; the atheist trembles and repents; the dying sinner
catches a gleam of revealed hope; and all acknowledge the just
dispensations of eternal Wisdom[9]. "
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the general history of the Adventurer, the reader may be
referred to Chalmers' British Essayists, xxiii, Dr. Drake's Essays
on Rambler, Adventurer, &c. ii, and Boswell's Journal, 3rd edit. p.
240.
[2] Five of these, Nos. 39, 67, 74, 81, and 128, which Sir John Hawkins
omitted to arrange among the writings of Johnson, are given in this
edition.
[3] See particularly the Letters of Misagargyrus.
[4] The description in No. 84, of the incidents of a stage-coach
journey, so often imitated by succeeding writers, but, perhaps,
never surpassed, will exemplify the above remark.
[5] See Lounger, No. 30.
[6] "I have heard, he means to occasionally throw some papers into the
Daily Advertiser; but he has not begun yet, as he is in great
affliction, I fear, poor man, for the loss of his wife. "--Letter
from Miss Talbot to Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Johnson died March 17, 1752.
[7] See the Preface to Shakespeare.
[8] Owen Feltham's Resolves.
[9] Indian Observer, No. 1, 1793. See likewise Adventurers, Nos. 120,
126, 128.
PREFATORY NOTICE
TO
THE IDLER.
The Idler may be ranked among the best attempts which have been made to
render our common newspapers the medium of rational amusement; and it
maintained its ground in this character longer than any of the papers
which have been brought forward by Colman and others on the same
plan[1]. Dr. Johnson first inserted this production in the Universal
Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, April 15, 1758, four years after he had
desisted from his labours as an essayist. It would seem probable, that
Newbery, the publisher of the Chronicle, projected it as a vehicle for
Johnson's essays, since it ceased to appear when its pages were no
longer enlivened by the humour of the Idler.
It is well known, that Johnson was not "built of the press and pen[2]"
when he composed the Rambler; but his sphere of observation had been
much enlarged since its publication, and his more ample means no longer
suffered his genius to be "limited by the narrow conversation, to which
men in want are inevitably condemned[3]. " "The sublime philosophy of the
Rambler cannot properly be said to have portrayed the manners of the
times; it has seldom touched on subjects so transient and fugitive, but
has displayed the more fixed and invariable operations of the human
heart[4]. " But the Idler breathes more of a worldly spirit, and savours
less of the closet than Johnson's earlier essays; and, accordingly, we
find delineated in its diversified pages the manners and characters of
the day in amusing variety and contrast.
Written professedly for a paper of miscellaneous intelligence, the Idler
dwells on the passing incidents of the day, whether serious or light[5],
and abounds with party and political allusion. Johnson ever surveyed
mankind with the eye of a philosopher; but his own easier circumstances
would now present the world's aspect to him in brighter, fairer colours.
Besides, he could, with more propriety and less risk of misapprehension,
venture to trifle now, than when first he addressed the public.
The World[6] had diffused its precepts, and corrected the fluctuating
manners of fashion, in the tone of fashionable raillery; and the
Connoisseur[7], by its gay and sparkling effusions, had forwarded the
advance of the public mind to that last stage of intellectual
refinement, in which alone a relish exists for delicate and half latent
irony. The plain and literal citizens of an earlier period, who conned
over what was "so nominated in the bend," would have misapprehended that
graceful playfulness of satire, elegant and fanciful as ever charmed the
leisure of the literary loungers of Athens. For, in the writings of
Bonnel Thornton and Colman, the philosophy of Aristippus may indeed be
said to be revived[8]. We would not, however, be supposed, by these
allusions, to imply that all the papers of the Idler are light and
sportive; or that Johnson for a moment lost sight of a grand moral end
in all his discussions. His mind only accommodated itself to the
circumstances in which it was placed, and diligently sought to avail
itself of each varying opportunity to admonish and to benefit, whether
from the chair of philosophic reproof or in the cheerful, social circle.
Whatever faults have been charged upon the Idler may be traced, we
conceive, to this source. Nobody at times, said Johnson, talks more
laxly than I do[9]. And this acknowledged propensity may well be
presumed to have affected the humorous and almost conversational tone of
the work before us. In the conscious pride of mental might and in the
easier moments of conversations, that illuminated the minds of
Reynolds[10] and of Burke, Johnson delighted to indulge in a lively
sophistry which might sometimes deceive himself, when at first he merely
wished to sport in elegant raillery or ludicrous paradox. When these
sallies were recorded and brought to bear against him on future
occasions, irritated at their misconstruction and conscious to himself
of an upright intention, or at most of only a wish to promote innocent
cheerfulness, he was too stubborn in retracting what he had thus
advanced. Hence, when menaced with a prosecution for his definition of
Excise in his Dictionary, so far from offering apology or promising
alteration, he called, in his Idler, a Commissioner of Excise the lowest
of human beings, and classes him with the scribbler for a party[11]. So
strange a definition and still less pardonable adherence to it can only
be justified on the ground of Johnson's warm feelings for the comfort of
the middle class of society. He knew that the execution of the excise
laws involved an intrusion into the privacies of domestic life, and
often violated the fireside of the unoffending and quiet tradesman. He,
therefore, disliked those laws altogether, and his warm-hearted
disposition would not allow him to calculate on their abstract
advantages with modern political economists, who, in their generalizing
doctrines, too frequently overlook individual comfort and interests. His
remarks, in the same paper, on the edition of the Pleas of the Crown
cannot be thus vindicated, and we must here lament an error in an
otherwise honest and well-intentioned mind[12]. Every impartial reader
of his works may thus easily trace to their origin Johnson's chief
political errors, and his research must terminate in admiration of a
writer, who never prostituted his pen to fear or favour; and who, though
erroneous often in his estimate of men and measures, still, in his
support of a party, firmly believed himself to be the advocate of
morality and right. His tenderness of spirit, his firm principles and
his deep sense of the emptiness of human pursuits are visible amidst the
lighter papers of the Idler, and his serious reflections are, perhaps,
more strikingly affecting as contrasted with mirthfulness and
pleasantry.
His concluding paper and the one[13] on the death of his mother have,
perhaps, never been surpassed. Here is no affectation of sentimentality,
no morbid and puling complaints, but the dignified and chastened
expression of sorrow, which a mind, constituted as Johnson's, must have
experienced on the departure of a mother. A heart, tender and
susceptible of pathetic emotion, as his was, must have deeply felt, how
dreary it is to walk downward to the grave unregarded by her "who has
looked on our childhood. " Occasions for more violent and perturbed grief
may occur to us in our passage through life, but the gentle, quiet death
of a mother speaks to us with "still small voice" of our wasting years,
and breaks completely and, at once, our earliest and most cherished
associations. This tenderness of spirit seems ever to have actuated
Johnson, and he is surely greatest when he breathes it forth over the
sorrows and miseries of man. Even in his humorous papers, he never
wounds feeling for the sake of raising a laugh, nor sports with folly,
but in the hope of reclaiming the vicious and with the design of warning
the young of the delusion and danger of an example, which can only be
imitated by the forfeiture of virtue and the practice of vice. "In
whatever he undertook, it was his determined purpose to rectify the
heart, to purify the passions, to give ardour to virtue and confidence
to truth[14]. "
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Genius was published by Colman in the St. James's Chronicle,
1761, 1762. The Gentleman, by the same author, came out in the
London-Packet, 1775. The Grumbler was the production of the
Antiquary Grose, and appeared in the English Chronicle, 1791.
[2] Owen Feltham.
[3] Preface to Shakespeare.
[4] Country Spectator, No. 1.
[5] Idler, No. 6.
[6] The World was published in 1753.
[7] The Connoisseur appeared in 1754.
[8] See Dr. Drake's Essays, II.
[9] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
[10] See life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to his Works by Malone,
i. 28, &c.
[11] See Idler, No. 65 and Mr. Chalmers' Preface to vol. 33 of the
British Essayists.
[12] See Gentleman's Magazine 1706. p. 272.
[13] Idler, No. 41.
[14] See Pursuits of Literature, Dialogue I. note.
CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.
THE ADVENTURER.
34. Folly of extravagance. The story of Misargyrus
39. On sleep
41. Sequel of the story of Misargyrus
45. The difficulty of forming confederacies
50. On lying
53.
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.
[Greek: Auton ek makaron autaxios eiae amoibae. ]
Celestial pow'rs! that piety regard,
From you my labours wait their last reward.
END OF VOL. III.
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes
by Samuel Johnson
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes
Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler
Author: Samuel Johnson
Release Date: April 15, 2004 [EBook #12050]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, VOL. IV. ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders
DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
THE
ADVENTURER AND IDLER.
THE
WORKS
OF
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.
IN NINE VOLUMES.
VOLUME THE FOURTH.
MDCCCXXV.
PREFATORY NOTICE
TO
THE ADVENTURER.
The Adventurer was projected in the year 1752, by Dr. John Hawkesworth.
He was partly induced to undertake the work by his admiration of the
Rambler, which had now ceased to appear, the style and sentiments of
which evidently, from his commencement, he made the models of his
imitation.
The first number was published on the seventh of November, 1752. The
quantity and price were the same as the Rambler, and also the days of
its appearance. He was joined in his labours by Dr. Johnson in 1753,
whose first paper is dated March 3, of that year; and after its
publication Johnson applied to his friend, Dr. Joseph Warton, for his
assistance, which was afforded: and the writers then were, besides the
projector Dr. Hawkesworth, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Joseph Warton, Dr. Bathurst,
Colman, Mrs. Chapone and the Hon. Hamilton Boyle, the accomplished son
of Lord Orrery [1].
Our business, however, in the present pages, does not lie with the
Adventurer in general, but only with Dr. Johnson's contributions; which
amount to the number of twenty-nine, beginning with No. 34, and ending
with No. 138.
Much criticism has been employed in appropriating some of them, and the
carelessness of editors has overlooked several that have been
satisfactorily proved to be Johnson's own[2].
Mr. Boswell relies on internal evidence, which is unnecessary, since in
Dr. Warton's copy (and his authority on the subject will scarcely be
disputed) the following remark was found at the end: "The papers marked
T were written by Mr. S. Johnson. " Mrs. Anna Williams asserted that he
dictated most of these to Dr. Bathurst, to whom he presented the
profits. The anecdote may well be believed from the usual benevolence of
Johnson and his well-known attachment to that amiable physician, whose
professional knowledge might undoubtedly have enabled him to offer hints
to Johnson in the progress of composition. Thus we may account for the
references to recondite medical writers in No. 39, which so staggered
Boswell and Malone in pronouncing on the genuineness of this paper.
Those who are familiar with Johnson's writings can have little
hesitation, we conceive, in recognising his style, and manner, and
sentiments in those papers which are now published under his name. They
may be considered as a continuation of the Rambler. The same subjects
are discussed; the interests of literature and of literary men, the
emptiness of praise and the vanity of human wishes. The same intimate
knowledge, of the town and its manners is displayed[3]; and occasionally
we are amused with humorous delineation of adventure and of
character[4].
From the greater variety of its subjects, aided, perhaps, by a growing
taste for periodical literature, the sale of the Adventurer was greater
than that of the Rambler on its first appearance. But still there were
those, who "talked of it as a catch-penny performance, carried on by a
set of needy and obscure scribblers[5]. " So slowly is a national taste
for letters diffused, and so hardly do works of sterling merit, which
deal not in party-politics, nor exemplify their ethical discussions by
holding out living characters to censure or contempt, win the applause
of those, whose passions leave them no leisure for abstracted truth, and
whom virtue itself cannot please by its naked dignity. But, by such,
Johnson professed, that he had little expectation of his writings being
perused. Keeping then our main object more immediately in view, the
elucidation of Johnson's real character and motives, we cannot but
admire the prompt benevolence, with which he joined Hawkesworth in his
task, and the ready zeal, with which he embraced any opportunity of
promoting the interests of morality and virtue. "To a benevolent
disposition every state of life will afford some opportunities of
contributing to the welfare of mankind," is the characteristic opening
of his first Adventurer. And when we have admired the real excellence of
his heart, we must wonder at the vigour of a mind, which could so
abstract itself from its own sorrows and misfortunes, which too often
deaden our feelings of pity, as to sympathize with others in affliction,
and even to promote innocent cheerfulness. Bowed down by the loss of a
wife[6], on whom he had called from amidst the horrors of a hopeless
melancholy, to "hide him from the ills of life," and depressed by
poverty, "that numbs the soul with icy hand," his genius sank not
beneath a load, which might have crushed the loftiest; but the
"incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, 'as dew-drops
from a lion's mane[7]. '"
The same pure and exalted morality, which stamps their chief value on
the pages of the Rambler, instructs us in the lessons of the Adventurer.
Here is no cold doctrine of expediency or dangerous speculations on
moral approbation, no easy virtue which can be practised without a
struggle, and which interdicts the gratification of no passion but
malice: here is no compromise of personal sensuality, for an endurance
of others' frailties, amounting to an indifference of moral distinctions
altogether. Johnson boldly and, at once, propounds the real motives to
Christian conduct; and does not, with some ethical writers, in a slavish
dread of interfering with the more immediate office of the divine, hold
out slender inducements to virtuous action, which can never give us
strength to stem the torrent of passion; but holding with the acute Owen
Feltham[8], "that, as true religion cannot be without morality, no more
can morality, that is right, be without religion," Johnson ever directs
our attention, not to the world's smile or frown, but to the discharge
of the duty which Providence assigns us, by the consideration of the
awful approach of that night when no man can work. To conclude with the
appropriate words of an eloquent writer, "in his sublime discussions of
the most sacred truths, as no style can be too lofty nor conceptions too
grand for such a subject, so has the great master never exerted the
powers of his great genius with more signal success. Impiety shrinks
beneath his rebuke; the atheist trembles and repents; the dying sinner
catches a gleam of revealed hope; and all acknowledge the just
dispensations of eternal Wisdom[9]. "
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the general history of the Adventurer, the reader may be
referred to Chalmers' British Essayists, xxiii, Dr. Drake's Essays
on Rambler, Adventurer, &c. ii, and Boswell's Journal, 3rd edit. p.
240.
[2] Five of these, Nos. 39, 67, 74, 81, and 128, which Sir John Hawkins
omitted to arrange among the writings of Johnson, are given in this
edition.
[3] See particularly the Letters of Misagargyrus.
[4] The description in No. 84, of the incidents of a stage-coach
journey, so often imitated by succeeding writers, but, perhaps,
never surpassed, will exemplify the above remark.
[5] See Lounger, No. 30.
[6] "I have heard, he means to occasionally throw some papers into the
Daily Advertiser; but he has not begun yet, as he is in great
affliction, I fear, poor man, for the loss of his wife. "--Letter
from Miss Talbot to Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Johnson died March 17, 1752.
[7] See the Preface to Shakespeare.
[8] Owen Feltham's Resolves.
[9] Indian Observer, No. 1, 1793. See likewise Adventurers, Nos. 120,
126, 128.
PREFATORY NOTICE
TO
THE IDLER.
The Idler may be ranked among the best attempts which have been made to
render our common newspapers the medium of rational amusement; and it
maintained its ground in this character longer than any of the papers
which have been brought forward by Colman and others on the same
plan[1]. Dr. Johnson first inserted this production in the Universal
Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, April 15, 1758, four years after he had
desisted from his labours as an essayist. It would seem probable, that
Newbery, the publisher of the Chronicle, projected it as a vehicle for
Johnson's essays, since it ceased to appear when its pages were no
longer enlivened by the humour of the Idler.
It is well known, that Johnson was not "built of the press and pen[2]"
when he composed the Rambler; but his sphere of observation had been
much enlarged since its publication, and his more ample means no longer
suffered his genius to be "limited by the narrow conversation, to which
men in want are inevitably condemned[3]. " "The sublime philosophy of the
Rambler cannot properly be said to have portrayed the manners of the
times; it has seldom touched on subjects so transient and fugitive, but
has displayed the more fixed and invariable operations of the human
heart[4]. " But the Idler breathes more of a worldly spirit, and savours
less of the closet than Johnson's earlier essays; and, accordingly, we
find delineated in its diversified pages the manners and characters of
the day in amusing variety and contrast.
Written professedly for a paper of miscellaneous intelligence, the Idler
dwells on the passing incidents of the day, whether serious or light[5],
and abounds with party and political allusion. Johnson ever surveyed
mankind with the eye of a philosopher; but his own easier circumstances
would now present the world's aspect to him in brighter, fairer colours.
Besides, he could, with more propriety and less risk of misapprehension,
venture to trifle now, than when first he addressed the public.
The World[6] had diffused its precepts, and corrected the fluctuating
manners of fashion, in the tone of fashionable raillery; and the
Connoisseur[7], by its gay and sparkling effusions, had forwarded the
advance of the public mind to that last stage of intellectual
refinement, in which alone a relish exists for delicate and half latent
irony. The plain and literal citizens of an earlier period, who conned
over what was "so nominated in the bend," would have misapprehended that
graceful playfulness of satire, elegant and fanciful as ever charmed the
leisure of the literary loungers of Athens. For, in the writings of
Bonnel Thornton and Colman, the philosophy of Aristippus may indeed be
said to be revived[8]. We would not, however, be supposed, by these
allusions, to imply that all the papers of the Idler are light and
sportive; or that Johnson for a moment lost sight of a grand moral end
in all his discussions. His mind only accommodated itself to the
circumstances in which it was placed, and diligently sought to avail
itself of each varying opportunity to admonish and to benefit, whether
from the chair of philosophic reproof or in the cheerful, social circle.
Whatever faults have been charged upon the Idler may be traced, we
conceive, to this source. Nobody at times, said Johnson, talks more
laxly than I do[9]. And this acknowledged propensity may well be
presumed to have affected the humorous and almost conversational tone of
the work before us. In the conscious pride of mental might and in the
easier moments of conversations, that illuminated the minds of
Reynolds[10] and of Burke, Johnson delighted to indulge in a lively
sophistry which might sometimes deceive himself, when at first he merely
wished to sport in elegant raillery or ludicrous paradox. When these
sallies were recorded and brought to bear against him on future
occasions, irritated at their misconstruction and conscious to himself
of an upright intention, or at most of only a wish to promote innocent
cheerfulness, he was too stubborn in retracting what he had thus
advanced. Hence, when menaced with a prosecution for his definition of
Excise in his Dictionary, so far from offering apology or promising
alteration, he called, in his Idler, a Commissioner of Excise the lowest
of human beings, and classes him with the scribbler for a party[11]. So
strange a definition and still less pardonable adherence to it can only
be justified on the ground of Johnson's warm feelings for the comfort of
the middle class of society. He knew that the execution of the excise
laws involved an intrusion into the privacies of domestic life, and
often violated the fireside of the unoffending and quiet tradesman. He,
therefore, disliked those laws altogether, and his warm-hearted
disposition would not allow him to calculate on their abstract
advantages with modern political economists, who, in their generalizing
doctrines, too frequently overlook individual comfort and interests. His
remarks, in the same paper, on the edition of the Pleas of the Crown
cannot be thus vindicated, and we must here lament an error in an
otherwise honest and well-intentioned mind[12]. Every impartial reader
of his works may thus easily trace to their origin Johnson's chief
political errors, and his research must terminate in admiration of a
writer, who never prostituted his pen to fear or favour; and who, though
erroneous often in his estimate of men and measures, still, in his
support of a party, firmly believed himself to be the advocate of
morality and right. His tenderness of spirit, his firm principles and
his deep sense of the emptiness of human pursuits are visible amidst the
lighter papers of the Idler, and his serious reflections are, perhaps,
more strikingly affecting as contrasted with mirthfulness and
pleasantry.
His concluding paper and the one[13] on the death of his mother have,
perhaps, never been surpassed. Here is no affectation of sentimentality,
no morbid and puling complaints, but the dignified and chastened
expression of sorrow, which a mind, constituted as Johnson's, must have
experienced on the departure of a mother. A heart, tender and
susceptible of pathetic emotion, as his was, must have deeply felt, how
dreary it is to walk downward to the grave unregarded by her "who has
looked on our childhood. " Occasions for more violent and perturbed grief
may occur to us in our passage through life, but the gentle, quiet death
of a mother speaks to us with "still small voice" of our wasting years,
and breaks completely and, at once, our earliest and most cherished
associations. This tenderness of spirit seems ever to have actuated
Johnson, and he is surely greatest when he breathes it forth over the
sorrows and miseries of man. Even in his humorous papers, he never
wounds feeling for the sake of raising a laugh, nor sports with folly,
but in the hope of reclaiming the vicious and with the design of warning
the young of the delusion and danger of an example, which can only be
imitated by the forfeiture of virtue and the practice of vice. "In
whatever he undertook, it was his determined purpose to rectify the
heart, to purify the passions, to give ardour to virtue and confidence
to truth[14]. "
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Genius was published by Colman in the St. James's Chronicle,
1761, 1762. The Gentleman, by the same author, came out in the
London-Packet, 1775. The Grumbler was the production of the
Antiquary Grose, and appeared in the English Chronicle, 1791.
[2] Owen Feltham.
[3] Preface to Shakespeare.
[4] Country Spectator, No. 1.
[5] Idler, No. 6.
[6] The World was published in 1753.
[7] The Connoisseur appeared in 1754.
[8] See Dr. Drake's Essays, II.
[9] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
[10] See life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to his Works by Malone,
i. 28, &c.
[11] See Idler, No. 65 and Mr. Chalmers' Preface to vol. 33 of the
British Essayists.
[12] See Gentleman's Magazine 1706. p. 272.
[13] Idler, No. 41.
[14] See Pursuits of Literature, Dialogue I. note.
CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.
THE ADVENTURER.
34. Folly of extravagance. The story of Misargyrus
39. On sleep
41. Sequel of the story of Misargyrus
45. The difficulty of forming confederacies
50. On lying
53.
