The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes | Page 2

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