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the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion, will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and, when I am well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are however, not to make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness; for be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts.

"I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can with any convenience send them me. Please to present a set in my name to Mr. Ruddiman', of whom, I hear, that his learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the mottos, and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the last in the magazine 2, in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you; but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you with regard, when I do not, perhaps, give the proofs which I ought, of being, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter upon a mournful occa

sion.

1 Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of several authours. He was also a man of a most worthy private character. His zeal for the royal House of Stuart did not render him less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye.-BoswELL.

2 If the Magazine here referred to be that for October, 1752 (see Gent. Mag. vol. 22, p. 468), then this letter belongs to a later period. If it relates to the Magazine for September, 1750 (see Gent. Mag. vol. 20, p. 406), then it may be ascribed to the month of October in that year, and should have followed the subsequent letter.-MALONE. [It seems clear from the expression of the letter that it refers to Cave's first publication of the mottos, and was probably written in Oct. 1750; but in either case it should have followed the letter of the 25th Sept.; though the editor has not thought it worth while to disturb Mr. Boswell's original arrangement.-ED.]

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TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.
"September 25, 1750.

"DEAR SIR,-You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she should rather mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan 3, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any farther use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another is to guard, and excite, and elevate, his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed 4. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God; yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity.

"There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from her earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satis

3 [Sister to Mr. Elphinston.-Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 755. It is to be observed, that, for many of his early acquaintance, Johnson was indebted to the society of Mr. Strahan.-ED.]

4 [This letter may, as the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine observes (loc. cit.), be read as a commentary on the celebrated passages in Johnson's Meditations, relative to the intermediate state of departed friends.—ED.]

faction is sincerely wished you by, dear sir, | ous, considering how universally those volyour most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

The Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded it was published in six duodecimo volumes 1; and its author lived to see ten numerous editions of it in London, beside those of Ireland and Scotland.

I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind which the Rambler exhibits. That Johnson had penetration enough to see, and, seeing, would not disguise, the general misery of man in this state of being, may have given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence, displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has every where inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shown, in a very odious light, a man, whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. Tois he has done very strongly in his chararter of Suspirius, (No. 55) from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in his comedy of " The good-natured Man," as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very obvious.

To point out the numerous subjects which the Rambler treats, with a dignity and per

nity which are there united in a manner which we shall in vain look for any where de, would take up too large a portion of book, and would, I trust, be superflu

umes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly been selected under the name of "BEAUTIES 2," are of considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe, that the Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty, of critical investigations, and allegorical and oriental tales, that no mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study and meditation, assimilated to itself all that may be found there. No. 7, written in Passion-week, on abstraction and self-examination, and No. 110, on penitence and the placability of the Divine Nature, cannot be too often read. No. 54, on the effect which the death of a friend should have upon us, though rather too dispiriting, may be occasionally very medicinal to the mind. Every one must suppose the writer to have been deeply impressed by a real scene; but he told me that was not the case; which shows how well his fancy could conduct him to the “house of mourning." Some of these more solemn papers, I doubt not, particularly attracted the notice of Dr. Young, the author of "The Night Thoughts," of whom my estimation is such, as to reckon his applause an honour even to Johnson. I have seen some volumes of Dr. Young's copy of the Rambler, in which he has marked the passages which he thought particularly excellent, by folding down a corner of the page; and such as he rated in a supereminent degree are marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased when told of the minute attention with which Young had signified his approbation of his essays.

I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32, on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism, as the sun of Revelation is This is not quite accurate. In the Gent. brighter than the twilight of Pagan philosoMag. for Nov. 1751, while the work was yet phy. I never read the following sentence proceeding, is an advertisement, announcing that without feeling my frame thrill: "I think fs volumes of the Rambler would speedily be there is some reason for questioning whethpoblated, and, it is believed, that they were pub-er the body and mind are not so proportionind in the next month. The fifth and sixth volta, with tables of contents, and translations of the costos, were published in July, 1752, by Payne (the anginal publisher), three months after the 2 Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this seek of the work. When the Rambler was collection, and wrote to Mr. Kearsley, bookseller, leed into volumes, Johnson revised and correct-in Fleet street, the following note:ed throughout. Mr. Boswell was not aware of the circumstance, which has lately been discovered, and accurately stated, by Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in a new edition of these and various er periodical essays, under the title of "The Brash Essayists."-MALONE.

ed, that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue can

"Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of BEAUTIES. May 20, 1782." -BOSWELL.

not stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be sooner separated than subdued."

Though instruction be the predominant purpose of the Rambler, yet it is enlivened with a considerable portion of amusement. Nothing can be more erroneous than the notion which some persons have entertained, that Johnson was then a retired authour, ignorant of the world; and, of consequence, that he wrote only from his imagination, when he described characters and manners. He said to me that, before he wrote that work, he had been "running about the world," as he expressed it, more than almost any body; and I have heard him relate, with much satisfaction, that several of the characters in the Rambler were drawn so naturally, that when it first circulated in numbers, a club in one of the towns in Essex imagined themselves to be severally exhibited in it, and were much incensed against a person who, they suspected, had thus made them objects of publick notice; nor were they quieted till authentick assurance was given them, that the Rambler was written by a person who had never heard of any one of them. Some of the characters are believed to have been actually drawn from the life 2, particularly that of Prospero from Garrick 3, who never entirely forgave

1 [This anecdote was, according to Mrs. Piozzi, communicated to Johnson by Mr. Murphy, but (as the lady tells it), with details which savour more of a desire to make a good story than to tell a true one. See Piozzi, p. 180.-ED.] 2 That of GELIDUS, in No. 24, from Professor Colson, and that of EUPHUES in the same paper, which, with many others, was doubtless drawn from the life. EUPHUES, I once thought, might have been intended to represent either Lord Chesterfield or Soame Jenyns; but Mr. Bindley, with more probability, thinks that George Bubb Doddington, who was remarkable for the homeliness of his person, and the finery of his dress, was the person meant under that character. MALONE. [See (ante, p. 38) reasons for doubting that Gelidus could be meant for Professor Colson. The folly of such guesses at characters is forcibly exemplified in Mr. Malone's producing three such different candidates for that of Euphues, as Lord Chesterfield, Soame Jenyns, and Bubb Doddington!-ED.]

3 [Having just seen Garrick's generous and successful endeavours to advance the fame and improve the fortunes of his friend, it were melancholy to be obliged, by the evidence of Boswell, Murphy, and Mrs. Piozzi, to believe that Johnson meant to satirize that amiable, inoffensive, and (to him) most friendly man, whose profession, as well as his personal feelings, rendered him peculiarly sensitive to such attacks. Mr. Murphy, with less taste and good nature than is usual to him, seems to make light of poor Garrick's vexation; but amongst the many instances which have been adduced of that infirmity of

its pointed satire. [Sophron was likewise a picture drawn from reality; and by Gelidus, the philosop meant to represent Mr. Coulson, a matician, who formerly lived at ter. The man immortalized for like a cat was, as he told Mrs. Pio Busby, a proctor in the Commo who barked so ingeniously, and the the drawer to drive away the dog, wa to Dr. Salter, of the Charterhouse. sung a song, and, by correspondent of his arm, chalked out a giant on t was one Richardson, an attorney.

For instances of fertility of fancy, curate description of real life, I ap No. 19, a man who wanders from fession to another, with most plaus sons for every change: No. 34, fen tidiousness and timorous refineme 82, a virtuoso who has collected cur No. 88, petty modes of entertaining pany, and conciliating kindness: fortune-hunting: No. 194-195, a account of the follies of his pupil: -198, legacy-hunting: He has specimen of his nice observation of external appearances of life, in the f passage in No. 179, against affectati frequent and most disgusting quality that stands to contemplate the crow fill the streets of a populous city will be difficult to behold without c many passengers, whose air and m and laughter: but if he examine w

the

appearances that thus powerfull his risibility, he will find among th ther poverty nor disease, nor any in ry or painful defect. The dispos derision and insult is awakened by ness of foppery, the swell of insole liveliness of levity, or the solemnity deur; by the sprightly trip, the state the formal strut, and the lofty mien; tures intended to catch the eye, and

Johnson's temper, which almost amount vy, there is none that seems, all the circ considered, more unjustifiable than th have been. Hawkins, however, who missed an opportunity of displaying faults or frailties, does not, even, whe ing his conduct towards Garrick, alluc offence. (See Life p. 421). Let us hope, that the other biographers made cation of the character of Prospero wh son did not intend.-ED.]

4 [These characters are alluded to in clusion of the 188th Rambler, but so sli it seems hardly worth while to inquire the hints were furnished by observation tion. As to the anecdote told of the Salter, it could have only been, as Mr. observes, the repetition of some story of ful days, for he was 70 years of age became a member of the Ivy-lane club.

elaborately formed as evidences of impor- |

tance."

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[Of the allegorical papers in the Rambler, Labour and Rest (No. 33) was Johnson's favourite; but Serotinus (No 165), the man who returns late in life to receive honours in his native country, and meets with mortification instead of respect, was considered by him as a masterpiece in the science of life and manners.] Every page of the Rambler shows a mind teeming with classical allusions and poetical magery: illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready, and minge so easily, in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture.

The style of this work has been censured by some shallow criticks as involved and turgid, and abounding with antiquated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of this objection, that I will challenge all who may honour this book with a perusal, to point out any English writer whose lanquage conveys his meaning with equal force and perspicuity 1. It must, indeed, be alhowed, that the structure of his sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin; and that he delighted to express familiar thoughts in philosophical language; being in this the reverse of Socrates, who, it is said, reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend to what he himself says in his concluding paper: "When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms philosophy, by applying them to popular deas," And, as to the second part of this objection, upon a late careful revision of the work, I can with confidence say, that it is amaring how few of those words, for which it has been unjustly characterised, are actsally to be found in it: I am sure not the proportion of one to each paper 2 2. This

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No. 70.

idle charge has been echoed from one babbler to another, who have confounded Johnson's Essays with Johnson's Dictionary; and because he thought it right in a lexicon of our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse, but were supported by great authorities, it has been imagined that all of these have been interwoven into his own compositions. That some of them have been adopted by him unnecessarily, may, perhaps, be allowed; but, in general, they are evidently an advantage, for without them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger meaning 3." He Idler, once told me, that he had formed word not authorized by former writers; but where are we to seek authorities for resuscitation, orbity, volant, fatuity, divaricate, asinine, narand innumerable others of the same stamp, which cotic, vulnerary, empireumatic, papilionaceous,' abound in and disgrace his pages?—for ‘obtund, disruption, sensory, or panoply,' all occurring in the short compass of a single essay in the Rambler;-or for cremation, horticulture, germination, and decussation,' within a few pages in his Life of Browne? They may be found, perhaps, in the works of former writers, but they make no part of the English language. They are the illegitimate offspring of learning by vanity." It is wonderful, that, instead of asking where these words were to be found, Dr. Burrowes did not think of referring to Johnson's own dictionary. He would have found good authorities for almost every one of them; for instance, for resuscitation, Milton and Bacon are quoted; for volant, Milton and Phillips; for fatuity, Arbuthnot; for asinine, Milton; for narcotic and vulnerary, Browne; though these authorities, which Dr. Burrowes for germination, Bacon, and so on. might have found in the dictionary, are a sufficient answer to his question, let it be also observed, that many of these words were in use in more familiar authors than Johnson chose to quote, and that the majority of them are now become familiar, which is a sufficient proof that the English language has not considered them as illegitimate.

Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant humour; for the ingenious Bounell Theraton published a mock Rambler in the Dru--ED.] ryan Journal.-BOSWELL.-[And Mr. Murphy, in commenting on this passage, quotes the a otservation of Dryden: "If so many forwords are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed not to assist the natives but to qer them." Life, p. 157.-ED.]

[Mr. Boswell's zeal carries him too far: o's style, especially in the Rambler, is freStly turgid, even to ridicule; but he has been tom often censured with a malicious flippancy, wc Boswell may be excused for resenting; and even graver critics have sometimes treated with inconsiderate injustice; for instance,The Eer Dr. Burrowes (now Dean of Cork), in

Essay on the Style of Dr. Johnson," ed in the first volume of the Transactions the Royal Irish Academy (1787), observes: Johnson says that he has rarely admitted any

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3 [This is a truism in the disguise of a sophism. "He that thinks with more extent will," no doubt, "want words of a larger meaning," but the words themselves may be plain and simple; the number of syllables, and oro-rotundity (if one may venture to use the expression) of the sound of a word can never add much, and may, in some cases, do injury to the meaning. What words were ever written of a larger meaning than the following, which, however, are the most simple and elementary that can be found-" God said, Let there be light, and there was light!" If we were to convert the proposition in the Idler, and say, that " he who thinks feebly needs bigger words to cover his inanity," we should be nearer the truth. But it must be admitted (as Mr. Boswell soon after observes) that Johnson (though he, in some of his works, pushed his peculiarities

Hawk.

p. 271.

his style upon that of Sir William Temple, | name him, would stamp a reverence on the and upon "Chambers's Proposal for his opinion. Dictionary 1." He certainly was mistaken; [That Johnson owed his excelor if he imagined at first that he was imi- lence as a writer to the divines and tating Temple, he was very unsuccessful 2; others of the last century, Sir John for nothing can be more unlike than the sim- Hawkins attests, from having been the witplicity of Temple, and the richness of John-ness of his course of reading, and heard him son. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's View of the State of Religion in the Western Parts of the World.

The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly, much formed upon that of the great writers in the last century, Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewill, and others; those" GIANTS," as they were well characterised by a GREAT PERSONAGE 3, whose authority, were I to

to an absurd extent) has been on the whole a benefactor to our language; he has introduced more dignity into our style, more regularity into our grammatical construction, and given a fuller and more sonorous sound to the march of our sentences and the cadence of our periods.—ED.]

The paper here alluded to was, I believe, Chamber's Proposal for a second and improved edition of his Dictionary, which, I think, appeared in 1738. This proposal was probably in circulation in 1737, when Johnson first came to London.-MALONE.

declare his sentiments of their works. Hooker he admired for his logical precision, Sanderson for his acuteness, and Taylor for his amazing erudition; Sir Thomas Browne for his penetration, and Cowley for the ease and unaffected structure of his periods. The tinsel of Sprat disgusted him, and he could but just endure the smooth verbosity of Tillotson. Hammond and Barrow he thought involved; and of the latter that he was unnecessarily prolix 4.]

We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken as the motto to his Dictionary:

"Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti;
Audebit quæcumque parûm splendoris habebunt
Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,
Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant,
Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ.
Obscurata diu populo bonus eruet, atque
Proferet in lucem speciosa vocabula rerum,
Quæ priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis,
Nunc situs informis premit et deserta vetustas:
Adsciscet nova, quæ genitor produxerit usus:
Vehemens, et liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,
Fundet opes Latiumque beabit divite lingua."

Epist. I. ii. e. 2.

2 The author appears to me to have misunderstood Johnson in this instance. He did not, I conceive, mean to say that, when he first began to write, he made Sir William Temple his model, with a view to form a style that should resemble his in all its parts; but that he formed his style on that of Temple and others, by taking from each those characteristic excellencies which were most worthy of imitation. See this matter further explained under April 9, 1778; where, in a conversation at Sir Joshua Reynold's, Johnson himself mentions the particular improvements which Temple made in the English style. These, Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, doubtless, were the objects of his imitation, so far as that writer was his model.-MALONE.

3 [Here is an instance of the difficulty of explaining, after the lapse of a very few years, circumstances once of great notoriety. My learned and excellent friend, the Bishop of Ferns, writes to me, "State that this Great Personage was his late majesty, George the Third. Every one knows it now, but who will know it fifty years hence?" No doubt the generality of readers have understood Mr. Boswell to refer to the late king; but, although the Editor has made very extensive inquiries amongst those who were most likely to know, he has not been able to discover any precise authority on this point, nor has he obtained even a conjecture as to the person to whom, or the occasion on which, his majesty used this happy expression. The editor had formerly heard, but he does not recollect from whom, that when, on some occasion, the great divines of the 17th century were mentioned in the king's presence, his majesty said, "Yes-there were GIANTS in those days,"-in allusion to Genesis,

To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in another place:

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vi. 4. It is to be observed, that Mr. Boswell, in his first edition, attributed this anecdote to “one whose authority, &c.:" in subsequent editions he changed "one" into "GREAT PERSONAGE." -ED.]

4 [The editor has thought it right to preserve the foregoing, as the evidence of an eye-witness to Johnson's course of reading; though it may be well doubted whether Sir J. Hawkins has preserved exactly the characteristic qualities which he attributed to these illustrious men. It is not easy to conceive how the erudition of Taylor or the penetration of Browne could have improved Johnson's style; nor is it likely that Johnson would have celebrated the eloquent and subtile Taylor for erudition alone, or the pious and learned Browne for mere penetration. Johnson's friend, Mr. Fitzherbert, said (see post, 8th April, 1775) that "it was not every man who could carry a bon mot;" certainly Hawkins was not a man likely to convey adequately Dr. Johnson's critical opinion of Jeremy Taylor.-ED.]

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