getting with credit or enjoying with dignity. Parents folly who inftead of animating children initiate them in fervility. N.

Vive tibi, nam moriere tibi.

Aunt a card-player-when not at hunting play'd at cards.'

In the above article we difcern the rudiments of two most excellent papers, in the Rambler, number 197, and 198, the defign whereof is to defcribe and ridicule the folly of legacy-hunting.

Here follows another, in which is contained the hints from which he formed that humorous relation of a Journey in a Stage Coach, given in the Adventurer, Number 84.

At Gravefend waiting for the coaches -Adventures not of five hours but half one Each ⚫ entered the room with haughtiness — Each sat filent not with reverence but contempt At laft the red coat, what o'clock - Watch-not go well-coft 401.-Grave man calls for the news -Price of stocks, fold out 40,000l. Red coat filent-Only one that escaped contempt, a young woman who wanted a fervice, was going down and was very officious to ferve the company. Red < coat wondered at our filence, told us how much he loved to be on a level with his company. - Wo

man, hard for women of any condition to wait fo • long in public informed that she was a fer< vant maid married to a trader. Another observed ⚫ how frequently people of great figure were in fuch

places in disguise, and the pleasure of fometimes appearing below ourselves.

'Jam vaga profiliet frænis natura remotis.

• How hard (dixit quædam) for people ufed to < their own coaches to ride in mixed company*.

The collection above-mentioned contains alfo Johnson's own opinions, fentiments on feveral fubjects, and among them the following on writers for bread, from whence we learn his genuine fentiments of that profeffion;

• Quid expedivit Pfittacus,

• Reasons of writing, benevolence, defire of fame, vanity, hunger, curiofity to know the rate of a man's own understanding. Which most justifiable. All may be forgiven if not persisted in, but writing for bread most, Rich talk without excufe, Rofc. If write well, not lefs innocent or laudable than prefcribing - pleadingjudging fighting, tranfacting public affairs, much better than cringing, carrying a white ftaff or voting. If ill, fails with lefs hazard to the public than others. The prefcriberpleader-judge hurt others. He only bookfeller who will not ⚫ venture much upon a new name. Controverfy fufpicious, if more to be got on one fide yet argument the fame.

-

The greatest writers have' [written] for bread-Homer• Shakespear---Dryden- Pope. Fatui non fama -Degente de fatu et affame d'argent.

Inconveniences, of this life. To the public; the prefs is crouded with many books, yet this may diffufe knowledge, and leaves lefs room for vanity, fometimes it may choak the way to letters, ⚫ and hinder learning but rarely. To themselves most inconven. feldom above want, endless labour, always a new work, fubfcriptions folicited, fhameless importunity, meanness, patrons ⚫ and encouragers to be got, wretched obfequioufnefs, companions of polite follies, vices, dedication, hateful flattery, utmost ambition or hope fmall place, youth of labour, old age of dependence. This place often not got, Gay.

Being thus ftored with matter, Johnfon proceeded to publish his paper; and the firft number came abroad on Tuesday the twentieth day of March, 1750.

It was the office of a cenfor of manners to curb the irregularities into which, in these new modes of living, the youthful of both fexes were apt to fall, and this he endeavoured to effect by gentle exhortation, 'by fober reproof, and, not seldom, by the powers of wit and ridicule; but with what fuccefs, others are as well able to tell as myfelf; however, if that is to be judged of by the fale of the paper, it was doubtless great, for though its reception was at firft cool, and its progress flow, the world were too wife to fuffer it to fink into oblivion: it was collected into volumes, and it would be too much for any one to fay, that ten impreffions of twelve hundred and fifty each, of a book fraught with the foundeft precepts of œconomical wisdom, have been diffeminated in vain.

On the first publication of the Rambler it met with a few readers who objected to it for certain particularities in the ftyle, which they had not been used to in papers of the like kind, new and original combinations of words, fentences of an unusual form, and words derived from other languages, though accominodated to the genius of our own; but for these fuch reasons are affigned in the close of the laft paper, as not only are a defence of them, but fhew them to be improvements of our language.

Of fingularity it may be obferved, that, in general, it is originality, and therefore not a defect, and that all is not tumidity which men of little and confined reading pleafe to call fo. It is from a fervile imitation

S7

imitation of others, and the use of whole phrases and fentences, and cuftomary combinations of words, that the variety of styles is not nearly as great as that of faces. The vulgar opinion is, that the ftyle of this century is the perfection of our language, and that we owe its ultimate and final improvement to Mr. Addifon, and when we make his cold and languid periods the teft, it is no wonder if we mistake strength and animation for tumidity.

And here I cannot but remark the error and miffortune of thofe who are blind to the excellencies of style that occur in the works of many English profe writers of the last century, which are rejected for no better a reafon, than that in them we fometimes meet with words not now in common ufe. A reader ignorant of the ftate of our language at different periods, and not converfant with the writings of ages long paft, is an incompetent judge of the fubject, and his opinion of ftyles of no weight or value. Such a one we may suppose hardly restrained from cenfuring the ftyle of our liturgy, compiled for the most part fo long ago as the reign of Edward the fixth, and the antiquated phrase of the state-papers in the Cabala, the Burleigh, Sidney and Strafforde collections, notwithflanding they feverally contain the most perfect models of precatory eloquence and civil negociation.

I find an opinion gaining ground not much to the advantage of Mr. Addifon's ftyle, the characteristics whereof are feeblenefs and inanity. I fpeak of that alone, for his fentiments are excellent and his humour exquifite. In fome inftances he adopts vulgar phrafe, as when he calls an indifcreet action a piece of folly, and too often ufes the expletive adverb along, thus,

Come

Come along with me. Yet I am not willing to deprive him of the honour implied in Johnfon's teftimony, < that his profe is the model of the middle style;' but if he be but a mediocrift, he is furely not a subject of imitation; it being a rule, that of examples the best are always to be selected.

That Johnson owed his excellence as a writer to the divines and others of the last century, myself can atteft, who have been the witnefs of his course of reading, and heard him declare his fentiments of their works. Hooker he admired for his logical precifion, Sanderson for his accuteness, and Taylor for his amazing erudition; Sir Thomas Browne for his pe netration, and Cowley for the eafe and unaffected fructure of his periods. The tinfel of Sprat difgufted him, and he could but juft endure the smooth verbofity of Tillotfon. Hammond and Barrow he thought involved, and of the latter that he was unne ceffarily prolix.

It may perhaps be thought, as his literary acquaintance was extenfive, and the toil of compiling his dictionary very great, that Johnfon was helped in the publication of the Rambler by the communications of others; but this was not the fact, he forbore to folicit affiftance, and few prefumed to offer it, fo that in the whole series of those papers, we know with certainty of only four that were not of his own writing. Of these, No. 30, was fent him by Mrs. Catherine Talbot, daughter of Mr. Edward Talbot herein before fpoken of; No. 97, by Mr. Richardfon, the author of Clariffa, and numbers 44 and 100, by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter of Deal, a lady to whofe reputation for learning,

and