but the waiters were all fo overcome with fleep, that it was two hours before we could get a bill, and it was not till near eight that the creaking of the street-door gave the fignal for our departure.

My mirth had been confiderably abated by a fevere fit of the tooth-ach, which had troubled me the greater part of the night, and which Bathurst endeavoured to alleviate by all the topical remedies and palliatives he could think of; and I well remember, at the instant of my going out of the tavern-door, the fenfation of fhame that affected me, occafioned not by reflection on any thing evil that had paffed in the courfe of the night's entertainment, but on the refemblance it bore to a debauch. However, a few turns in the Temple, and a breakfast at a neighbouring coffee-house, enabled me to overcome it.

In the foregoing pages I have affigned the motives that induced Johnfon to the inftitution of the club, and the writing of the Rambler; and here I may add, that his view in both was fo far anfwered, as that the amufements they afforded him contributed, not only to relieve him from the fatigue of his great work the dictionary, but that they ferved to divert that me. lancholy, which the public now too well knows was the disease of his mind. For this morbid affection, as he was used to call it, no caufe can be affigned; nor will it gratify curiofity to fay, it was conftitutional, or that it difcovered itfelf in his early youth, and haunted him in his hours of recreation; and it is but a furmife that it might be a latent concomitant of that disease, which, in his infancy, had induced his mother to feek relief from the royal touch. His

own

own conjecture was, that he derived it from his father. of whom he was used to speak as of a man in whofe temper and character melancholy was predominant. Under this perfuafion, he at the age of about twenty, drew up a state of his cafe for the opinion of an eminent phyfician in Staffordshire, and from him received an answer, that from the symptoms therein described, he could think nothing better of his diforder, than that it had a tendency to infanity; and without great care might poffibly terminate in the deprivation of his rational faculties.' The dread of fo great a calamity was one inducement with him to abftain from wine at certain periods of his life, when his fears in this refpect were greatest; but it was not without fome reluctance that he did it, for he has often been heard to declare, that wine was to him fo great a cordial, that it required all his refolution to refift the temptations to ebriety.

It was fortunate for the public, that during a period of two years, the depreffion of his mind was at no time fo great as to incapacitate him for fending forth a number of the Rambler on the days on which it became due; nor did any of the effays or discourses therein contained, either in the choice of fubjects or the manner of treating them, indicate the leaft fymptom of drooping faculties or laffitude of spirit. Nevertheless, whether the conftant meditation on fuch topics as most frequently occur therein, had not produced in his mind a train of ideas that were now become uneafy to him, or whether, that intenfenefs of thought which he must have exerted, first, in the conception, and next, in the delivery of fuch original

original and noble fentiments as these papers abound with, had not made the relaxation of his mind neceffary, he thought proper to difcontinue the Rambler at a time when its reputation was but in its dawn.

The paper in which this his refolution is announced, is that of March 14, 1752, which concludes the work. As he had given his readers no warning of his intention, they were unprepared for the fhock, and had the mortification to receive the tidings and the blow at the fame inftant, with the aggravation of a sympathetic melancholy, excited by the mournful expreffions with which he takes his leave. And though he affects to think the reasons for discontinuing the publication a fecret to his readers, it is but too apparent that it was written in the hours of dejection, and that the want of affistance and encouragement was not the weakest of his motives. Of the former of these two he had furely no right to complain, for he was fo far from being ever known to wish for affiftance, that his moft intimate friends feemed to think it would have been prefumption to offer it. The want of encouragement indeed might be a juftifiable caufe of difcontent, for I have reafon to think that the number of papers taken off hardly amounted to five hundred on any of the days of publication. Nevertheless, the flow circulation of the paper was to be accounted for by other reafons than that the author was never a favourite with the public, a reflection that would have been but excufable, had his imitations of Juvenal become waste paper, or his Irene, inftead of being fuffered to run nine nights, been configned to oblivion on the first;

for it must be confidered, that the merits of the Rambler were of a kind not likely to recommend it to those who read chiefly for amusement, and of readers, this class will ever be by much the most numerous : the fubjects therein difcuffed are chiefly the weightieft and most important, refpecting more our eternal than temporal happiness; and that these were the obftacles to the progrefs of his paper, himself has unawares confeffed in his apology for the conduct of it. I have never,' fays he, complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day. I have rarely exemplified my affertions by living characters; in my papers no man could look for cenfures of his enemies or praises ' of himself; and they only were expected to peruse them, whose paffions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.'

Towards the close of this laft paper, he seems to refer to the final fentence of mankind,' with a fort of prefage, that one more deliberate than that to which he was fubmitting might be more favourable to his labours. He little thought at this time to what length the juftice of mankind would go; that he fhould be a witnefs to the publication of the tenth edition of the Rambler, or that his heart would ever be dilated, as his friends can teftify it was, with the news of its being tranflated into the Ruffian language.

Much might be faid in commendation of this excellent work; but fuch fuffrages as thofe here mentioned fet it almoft above praife. In the author's own

opinion

opinion it was lefs estimable than in that of his judges: fome merit indeed he claims for having enriched his native language, but in terms fo very elegant and modeft, that they at once hold forth an exemplar, and convey an apology. I have laboured,' fays he, 'to refine our language to grammar and purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarifns, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something perhaps I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence. When common words were lefs pleafing to the ear, or lefs diftinct in their fignification, I have familiarized the terms of philofophy by applying them to popular ideas, but have rarely admitted any word not authorized by former writers.'-With what fuccefs thefe endeavours of his have been attended is best known to thofe who have made eloquence their study; and it may go far towards the ftamping a lafting character of purity, elegance, and ftrength on the ftyle of Johnfon, to fay, that fome of the most popular orators of this country now living, have not only propofed it to themfelves as a model for fpeaking, but for the purpofe of acquiring the cadence and flow of his periods, have actually gotten whole essays from the Rambler by heart.

The concluding paragraph of his farewel paper is fo very awful, that I cannot refift the temptation to infert it, and the rather for that it feems to have been written under a perfuafion, that Almighty God had been propitious to his labour, and that the folemn addrefs to him which he had compofed and offered up, on occafion of his engaging in it, had been heard, and was likely to be accepted.

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