IN LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHNSON. "THE IDLER"-"RASSELAS." NDOLENCE, like most other vices, whether physical or mental, tends to perpetuate itself and to increase its intensity. Whoever yields to its demands to-day, will find them renewed with greater authority to-morrow; while the precedent of yielding already afforded will effectually justify its continuance. Motives that take their rise in the physical constitution are commonly found to exert the most direct and imperious control over the will, and so constitutional indolence-the vis inertia of mindnot only controls the will, but, to the extent of its operation, takes away the power of willing. But while idleness is thus doubling the folds of indolence upon the spirit, the motive powers of the soul are renewing their strength by repose, and preparing themselves anew to demand their appropriate exercise. By this means even indolence may be made to subserve the cause of industry, and opportunities are afforded to its victims to escape from its tyranny. Johnson's growing disinclination to action seemed at length to quite deprive him of the power to choose as well as to act wisely. At no period were the claims upon his activity more numerous and imperative than at this time. The same unelevated but imperious demands of hunger and thirst, that had so severely pressed upon him in former times, still called him to work that he might live. The additional weight of a great reputation was also to be sustained-a burden most galling to a sensitive spirit-amid the gloom and privations of poverty. And to these was now added the force of a moral obligation arising from the promise made to the public of an edition of Shakspeare, to be issued as soon as the end of the year 1757, out of which had arisen a large number of personal claims, from subscription, that were paid for in advance. This last claim, so obvious and inevitable, it is probable, alone secured the fulfillment of the promise to the public; and it was a public exhibition of the fact that the subscription had been taken, and the equivalent not rendered, that at length aroused him to finish his hated task. proceeded from the same pen. It is, indeed, of the same substance as the "Rambler," but greatly diluted and enervated. Its identity of character with its great predecessor is easily made out, but "The Idler" is "The Rambler” in dishabille— the solemn teacher has become a social friend and companion. The subjects discussed are generally less serious and profound, and their tone and manner indicate less earnestness on the part of the writer. The style is looser, freer, and much more simple; for an idler could not be expected to master the hard words, nor to wield the swelling periods of "The Rambler." And these seeming defects, this absence of attempted excellence, rendered "The Idler" a much greater favorite with the public. It will be readily believed that many of these essays were written very hastily; and as they received but little subsequent emendation, they remain in all their original freshness.. It should not be inferred, however, that these essays are destitute of sound philos But even idleness was now to be tortured into a virtue. The excessive forcibleness of Johnson's style, and the pregnancy of his discourses, had operated unfavorably upon the demand for them. He had written in a manner that compelled his readers to think; and that intolerable drudgery but few would consent to do, and therefore his writings were not popular. Could he be gotten to write without thinking, or with the least possible amount of thought, then both his own indolence and that of his readers might be indulged, and even the author of the "Rambler" find read-ophy and valuable lessons of practical iners in the bowers of pleasure, or among struction. Johnson's thoughts would bear the poppy shades of idleness. A new to be diluted without danger of becoming weekly newspaper, the "Universal Chron- vapid and inane; he probably erred more icle," was started about the first of April, frequently by excess than by defect in this 1758, and the aid of the great moralist was matter. As it is quite consistent with the evoked to add to its respectability and at- character he had assumed to be a philosotractiveness. His themes and modes of pher, and especially to moralize on the writing were all left to his own determina- burdens of life-to complain now, of the tion, and yielding to the suggestions of sluggishness of time, now of its stealthy his indolence, he embodied in its numbers flight-to execrate the labor of thinking the thoughts that floated upon the surface and to speculate carelessly on all the afof his mind. No difficulty was experi- fairs of society-a wide range was given enced in fixing on the appropriate title to to the drowsy muse of the essayist. These this new series of essays,-the offspring things, for the most part, constitute his of indolence could be only "The Idler." themes; and though generally they are As they were issued but once a week, and discussed characteristically, yet are they were neither so long nor so elaborate, sometimes treated with real ability, and either in thought or structure, as were the with much of their author's usual energy. Ramblers, they occasioned but little dis- When once aroused by his own mental turbance to their author's habitual inactiv-action, it was difficult for him to appear ity. Their publication was carried on other than himself. through two entire years, and the whole number of essays amounted to a hundred and three. Of these, Johnson composed all but twelve. Three were written by Rev. Joseph Warton; three by Sir Joshua Reynolds; and one by Bennet Langton. The authorship of the other five is not ascertained. Though "The Idler" bears sufficient evidence of its original, it is a very different production from most that had hitherto VOL. III, No. 2.-K During the first year of "The Idler," Johnson suffered one of those bereavements, the accounts of which diversify his history with such dark clouds of sorrow. More than twenty years had elapsed since he had left his native town, which he had not since revisited, though all this time it was the abode of his mother, a lonely widow, now almost ninety years old. For the most of this period they two were to each other sole surviving relatives in any of the proximate degrees of consanguinity; yet for twenty long years they had not seen each other. Miss Lucy Porter, Johnson's step-daughter, had during all this time resided with the elder Mrs. Johnson; and between the two a large share of mutual affection subsisted. The little bookseller's shop, once kept by old Michael Johnson, was continued by the widow, and after her decease, by Miss Porter. Johnson's failure to visit his aged mother unquestionably was not owing to any want of respect or filial regard for her. He seems to have entertained through all this period a strong repugnance to revisiting the scenes of his childhood and youth. He had left the associations of his early days with the determination to achieve for himself a name and fortune in the world; and till that was done he had no wish to revisit them. This was indeed but a poor apology for his neglect, continued through twenty years, personally to pay his respects to his aged and desolate parent; but with him impulses and repulsions were usually finally determinative; yet he was not unmindful of her; for, notwithstanding his own penury, he from time to time contributed to the means of her comfortable subsistence. An illustration of his feelings toward the place of his nativity is given in a letter to a friend, at a period a little later than that now under notice. It appears that he made a hasty visit to Litchfield sometime during the winter of 1761-2, of which he gives this account. How aptly the reality agrees with the ideal of such a case, as sketched more than once in his writings, the reader will at once perceive : "Last winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and is become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter-inlaw, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with sincere benevolence, has lost the beauty and gayety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and took the first opportunity of returning to a place, where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a diversity of good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart." But to the story. In January, 1759, he was startled with the news of the severe illness of his parent, and her probable near approach to death. That event could not have been wholly unexpected by him, yet he was evidently unprepared for it. Though he was endowed with both moral and physical courage beyond most men in ordinary affairs, yet in the near contemplation of mortality he was almost utterly without firmness. During the continuance of the sickness and shortly after his mother's decease, he sent frequent letters, first to his mother, and afterward to Miss Porter, full of religious instructions, and manifesting a lively interest in their affairs, and breathing the deepest sorrow at the fatal termination of the struggle. It is known that at this time he was especially straitened in his finances, yet did he by great efforts raise and forward to his dying parent, first, twelve guineas, and again twenty pounds—no mean sum for him to give toward meeting the extraordinary expenses of the mournful occasion. How he finally discharged these accounts will appear in the sequel. The painful review of his past relations to the deceased, seen in the case of the death of his wife, was renewed after the death of his mother. In his first letter to her after he had heard of her illness, among many other expressions equally creditable to his heart, he asked, "Pray, send me your blessing and forgive all I have done amiss to you." A few days later he wrote in a similar strain: "You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well.” Nor was this only a momentary impulse: in his "Prayers and Meditations," under date of June 22, 1759, is found this petition: "Forgive me whatever I have done unkindly to my mother, and whatever I have omitted to do." In a letter to Miss Porter, written immediately after receiving the news of his mother's decease, he remarked: "If she were to live again, surely I should behave better to her. But she is happy, and what is past is nothing to her; and for me, since I can not repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will efface them." It would be cruelly unjust to infer from these deprecatory expressions, that Johnson had been an undutiful son. But such was the strength of his feelings, and the severity of his judgment of himself, in seasons of penitential sorrow, that he was ever writing bitter things against himself. "The Idler" for January 29th of that year, (No. 41,) though in the form of a letter to himself, was acknowledged by Johnson to be his own production, written under the impressions produced by that sad event. It is evidently an artless and earnest delineation of his own heart's exercises, and as such, it is alike honorable to his feelings as a man, and his ability as a philosopher. His own case furnished him with an illustration of the strange but obvious truth so forcibly stated in the opening sentence: "Notwithstanding the warnings of philosophers, and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes which life forces upon our observation, such is the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day, such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity, or such our unwillingness to foresee what we dread, that every calamity comes suddenly upon us, and not only presses as a burden, but crushes as a blow." His own case is still more specifically noticed in another paragraph: "Nothing is more evident than that the decays of age must terminate in death; yet there is no man who does not believe that he may yet live another year; and there is none that does not upon the same principle hope another year for his parent or his friend. But the fallacy will be in time detected: the last year, the last day, must come. It has come and is past. The life that made my own life pleasant is at an end, and the gates of death are shut upon my prospects." But before quitting the subject, he resorts for comfort to his favorite notion of the guardianship of departed spirits: "Let hope, therefore, dictate," he adds, "what revelation does not confute, that the union of souls may still remain; and that we who are struggling with sin, sorrows, and infirmities, may have our part in the attention and kindness of those who have finished their course, and are now receiving their reward." The closing paragraph is a noble exhibition of the power of religion to comfort and sustain the soul when visited by these common and yet terrible bereavements; its length, however, forbids its insertion. The valuable paper for February 10th, (No. 43,) on The Flight of Time, was evidently written under the general impression produced by the same sad event; and though it has all the easy The same mournful event became the occasion of the production of another of Johnson's most valuable works-" The History of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia." The interest of that elegant and profoundly philosophical fiction, is not a little enhanced by a knowledge of the fact, that it was composed soon after the death of the author's only relative hitherto surviving, and for the immediate purpose of raising the means of defraying the expenses of his mother's funeral. The rapidity with which it was written is truly wonderfula volume of forty-nine chapters was composed" during the evenings of one week." The work was thrown off as fast as it could be written, and probably never re-read till it was published-or, according to a statement by Boswell, not till some years afterward, when, meeting with a copy of it, while traveling, the author read it for the first time, and expressed himself as well pleased with it. Such an account of rapid composition would be almost incredible, were any other person the subject of it. If, however, he could write forty-eight octavo pages of "The Life of Savage" in one day, and "The Vision of Theodore" in a night, after spending the evening in company, he surely might, with even greater facility, compose the whole of "Rasselas" in the time designated. Respecting Johnson's manner of writing, it should be remembered, that the last thing he commonly did with any composition was to commit it to paper. The excogitation, and the arrangement of the matter, were all done before he wrote a word. And, by the wonderful retentiveness of his memory, he was enabled to readily transcribe, with all necessary exactness, whatever he had elaborated in his meditations. The account of the production of this admirable fiction given by Hawkins, bough carped at by Boswell, is so probable, and also so appreciative of its author's condition and state of mind, that it may be adopted as presenting a fitting view of the case : appeared in either of those papers, which might serve as a vehicle to convey to the world his sentiments of human life, and the dispensations of Providence; and having digested his thoughts on the subject, he obeyed the spur of that necessity which now pressed him, and sat down to compose the tale above-mentioned, laying the scene of it in a country that he had before had occasion to contemplate, in his translation of Lobo's Voyage. "But it was composed at a time when no spring like that in the mind of Rasselas' urged this narrator-when the heavy hand of affliction almost bore him down, and the dread of future want haunted him. That he should have produced a tale fraught with lively imagery, or that he should have painted human life in gay colors, could not have been expected. poured out his sorrow in gloomy reflection; and being destitute of comfort himself, described the world as nearly without it." He To criticise a work that everybody has read, and upon which so many acute minds have given judgment, may seem at once superfluous and hazardous; but the theme is inviting beyond the power of these dissuasives. Perhaps the whole range of English literature can show no parallel to the richness of its language. The style is gorgeous and almost immaculate; and though it has the Johnsonian tumidity, even that so well agrees with the general character of the work, that it adds to the splendor without the danger of offending by a seeming affectation of excellence. As an exercise designed to enrich and strengthen a style naturally too barren and feeble, nothing better can be proposed to a young person than a diligent perusal of the pages of "Rasselas." As the tale is purely fictitious, as to both its facts and circumstances, the author had the fullest possible liberty in the selection of his characters and the formation of his plot. The design is the same that is found in all of Johnson's didactic and imaginative works to illustrate the unsatisfactory nature of all earthly enjoyments, and the delusiveness of human expectation. No intelligent reader of those writings can fail to detect this in all of them. Whether he composed a satire on the manners of the town, or sighed over the vanity of human wishes; whether he discoursed in grave didactics in "The Rambler," or laughed in pleasant satires in "The Idler;" whether, with the hermit of Teneriffe, he contemplated life with all its dangers and disasters; or, at the fountain of the fairies, saw that the most fearful ruin is made sure by the fatal power to have whatever we may wish,-in each case the ruling idea is the same :-disappointment is the common doom of man, without respect to condition or circumstances in life. In The choice of his characters is wisely made, and their delineation skillfully executed. Untutored but ingenuous youth is exhibited in intensitive perfection in the persons of the prince and princess, who, surrounded by every pleasure of sense, and absolutely free from fear of future want, are restless and unhappy because they are inactive, and sigh instinctively for a nearer contact with the world, by which mind is quickened in the pleasing excitements of effort, and gratified by the hopes and fears of its conflicts and contingencies. Imlac, the sage, is seen the picture of the philosopher, whose youthful aspirations rose above the lust of wealth, and the pageantry of material greatness-whose early manhood was devoted to the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of the understanding. Yet even he, wearied with his own loved pursuits, had been allured by the apparent felicity of the Happy Valley, to seek there the bliss he had failed to obtain in the great world; and there, too, he had experienced the common dissatisfaction of those upon whom happiness is attempted to be conferred in opposition to the designs of nature and Providence. The adventures of the prince and his associates after their escape into the world, afforded a fine opportunity to show the contrast between the ideal of life as obtained from second-hand sources of information, and the reality as learned from actual observation. The smiling exterior of society is soon found to only partially conceal a deep and almost universal dissatisfaction and positive unhappiness. The pleasures of youth, at first so fascinating, are at length seen to be purchased at the expense of virtue and self-respect, and to entail on their purchasers remorse and misery. The teacher of wisdom, who professes to guide his followers to happiness, is discovered to be himself the sport of folly and the victim of misfortune. The shepherds, whom they had considered as quite above the ordinary ills of humanity, were found to be sordid, morose, and dissatisfied with their lot. The rich man was miserable through fear of loss; and the hermit, after long pining in his solitude, again sought relief in the turmoil of society. In courts and palaces they found ambition, |
