An attentive consideration of the period at which any work of moral
instruction has appeared, and of the admonitions appropriate to the state
of those times, is highly necessary for a correct estimate of the merits
of the writer. For to quote the judicious remarks of one of our earlier
Essayists[1], "there is a sort of craft attending vice and absurdity;
and when hunted out of society in one shape, they seldom want address
to reinsinuate themselves in another: hence the modes of licence vary
almost as often as those of dress, and consequently require continual
observation to detect and explode them anew." The days in which the
Rambler first undertook to reprove and admonish his country, may be
said to have well required a moralist of their own. For the modes of
fashionable life, and the marked distinction between the capital and
the country, which drew forth the satire, and presented scope for the
admonitions of the Spectator and the Tatler, were then fast giving place
to other follies, and to characters that had not hitherto subsisted. The
crowd of writers[2], whatever might be their individual merit, who offered
their labours to the public, between the close of the Spectator and the
appearance of the Rambler, had contributed, in a most decided manner,
towards the diffusion of a taste for literary information. It was no
longer a coterie of wits at Button's, or at Will's, who, engrossing all
acquaintance with Belles Lettres, pronounced with a haughty and exclusive
spirit on every production for the stage or the closet; but it was a
reading public to whom writers now began to make appeal for censure
or applause. That education which the present day beholds so widely
spread had then commenced its progress; and perhaps it is not too bold
to say, that Johnson almost foresaw the course that it would run. He saw
a public already prepared for weightier discussions than could have been
understood the century before. In addition to a more general education,
the improved intercourse between the remotest parts of the country and
the metropolis made all acquainted with the dissipation and manners,
which, during the publication of the Spectator, were hardly known beyond
the circle where they existed. The pages of that incomparable production
were therefore perused by general readers, as well for the gratification
of curiosity, as for the improvement of morals. The passing news of the
day, the tattle of the auction or the Mall, the amusing extravagances of
dress, and the idle fopperies of fashion, topics that excited merriment
rather than detestation, were those most judiciously selected to allure
a nation to read. Addison and Steele therefore in their age acted wisely;
their cotemporaries would have been driven[3] "by the sternness of the
Rambler's philosophy to more cheerful and airy companions." The pages
of the Tatler were enlivened by foreign and domestic politics, by the
current scandal of the town, and by easy critiques on the last new play;
by advertisements of "orangerie for beaux[4]," and by prescriptions for
the cure of love-sickness or the spleen. The Guardian uttered forth his
moral lessons from the wide and voracious mouth of an imaginary lion,
whose roarings were to have influence[5] "for the purifying of behaviour
and the bettering of manners." But for Johnson was reserved a different
task, and one for which his powers and the natural bent of his mind
were peculiarly fitted. 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,