drawn up by Johnson, fetting forth the incorrectnefs of the early editions, the original obfcurity and fubfequent corruptions of the text, the neceffity of notes, and the failures of former editors.

A stranger to Johnson's character and temper would have thought, that the study of an author, whose skill in the fcience of human life was fo deep, and whofe perfections were fo many and various as to be above the reach of all praise, must have been the most pleasing employment that his imagination could fuggeft, but it was not fo in a visit that he one morning made to me, I congratulated him on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius, and that, requiring none of that severe application which his dictionary had condemned him to, I doubted not would be executed con amore,-His anfwer was, I look upon this as I did upon the dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or defire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of,'--And the event was evidence to me, that in this fpeech he declared his genuine fentiments; for neither in the first place did he fet himself to collect early editions of his author, old plays, tranflations of hiftories, and of the claffics, and other materials neceffary for his purpofe, nor could he be prevailed on to enter into that courfe of reading, without which it feemed impoffible to come at the sense of his author. It was provoking to all his friends to fee him wafte his days, his weeks, and his months fo long, that they feared a mental lethargy had seized him, out of which he would never recover. In this, however, they were happily deceived, for, after

two

two years inactivity, they find him roufed to action, and engaged-not in the profecution of the work, for the completion whereof he stood doubly bound, but in a new one, the furnishing a series of periodical effays, intitled, and it may be thought not improperly,

The Idler,' as his motive to the employment was averfion to a labour he had undertaken, though in the execution, it must be owned, it merited a better

name.

As Johnson was diverted from his work of Shakefpeare, fo am I from my purpose of tracing the progrefs of it, being to relate the occurrences of nine years of his life before I can congratulate the reader on its appearance.

The engagement for the Idler was with Newbery the bookfeller, a man of a projecting head, a good understanding, and great integrity; and who, by a fortunate connection with Dr. James the phyfician, and the honest exertions of his own industry, became the founder of a family. Taking advantage of that rage for intelligence, which the fucceffes of the war had excited, in even the lowest order of the people, he planned a weekly paper, which he called 'The Univerfal Chronicle,' and, as the fize of it rendered it fufceptible of more matter than the occurrences, during the intervals of its publication, would fupply, it was part of his fcheme, that it fhould contain an effay or fhort difcourfe on fuch fubjects of morality, or of wit and humour, as, in former instances, had been found to engage the attention of the public. A fhare in the profits of this paper was Johnfon's inducement to the furnishing fuch a discourse, and, accordingly, it appeared, on Saturday the fifteenth day

of

of April 1758, and continued to be published on the fame day in every week for near two years thence following.

The profits accruing from the fale of this paper, and the fubfcriptions which, from the year 1756, he was receiving for the edition of Shakespeare by him propofed, were the only known means of his fubfiftence for a period of near four years, and we may suppose them hardly adequate to his wants, for, upon finding the balance of the account for the dictionary against him, he quitted his houfe in Gough fquare, and took chambers in Gray's inn; and Mrs. Williams, upon this removal, fixed herself in lodgings at a boarding-school in the neighbourhood of their former dwelling.

About this time he had, from a friend who highly esteemed him*, the offer of a living, of which he might have rendered himself capable by entering into holy orders it was a rectory, in a pleafant country, and of fuch a yearly value as might have tempted one in better circumstances than himself to accept it; but he had fcruples about the duties of the ministerial function, that he could not, after deliberation, overcome. 'I have not,' faid he, the requifites for the office, and I cannot, in my conscience, fhear that flock which I am unable to feed.'-Upon converfing with him on that inability which was his reafon for declining the offer, it was found to be a fufpicion of his patience to undergo the fatigue of catechifing and inftructing a great number of poor ignorant perfons,

Mr. Langton, of Langton in Lincolnshire, the father of his much-beloved friend Bennet Langton, Efq; mentioned in the codi cil to his will, and husband of the countefs dowager of Rothes.

who,

who, in religious matters, had, perhaps, every thing to learn.

Thus fcrupulously did he think of the nature of the minifterial office, and thus did he testify the fincerity of thofe cenfures, which he would fometimes pafs on the conduct of the generality of the clergy of his time; for though, as a body of men, he held them in great veneration, and was ever ready to defend them against the encroachments of fome, and the reproaches of others of the ignorant laity, he exacted from all who had the cure of fouls a punctilious difcharge of their duty, and held in utter deteftation those who, renouncing their garb and clerical character, affected to appear men of the world.

He thought of Dr. Clarke, whofe fermons he valued above all other, that he complied too frequently with invitations to dine with perfons of high rank, his parishioners, and fpent too much of his time in ceremonious vifits: differing in this refpect from his contemporary Smalridge, the elegant Favonius of the Tatier, who, in the height of his reputation as a preacher, was ever ready to vifit a fick perfon in the moft obfcure alley of Westminster.

In the beginning of the year 1759, and while the Idler continued to be published, an event happened, for which it might be imagined he was well prepared, the death of his mother, who had then attained the age of ninety; but he, whofe mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality, was as little able to fuftain the fhock as he would have been had this lofs befallen him in his nonage. It is conjectured that, for many years before her deceafe, fhe derived almoft the whole of her fupport from this

her

her dutiful fon, whofe filial piety was ever one of the most distinguishable features in his character *. Report fays, but rather vaguely, that, to fupply her neceffities in her last illness, he wrote and made money of his Raffelas,' a tale of his invention, numbered among the best of his writings, and published in the spring of 1759, a crisis that gives credit to fuch a fuppofition. No. 41 of the Idler, though it pretends to be a letter to the author, was written by Johnson himself, on occafion of his mother's death, and may be supposed to describe, as truly as pathetically, his fentiments on the separation of friends and relations. The fact, refpecting the writing and publishing the story of Raffelas is, that finding the Eastern Tales written by himself in the Rambler, and by Hawkesworth in the Adventurer, had been well received, he had been for fome time meditating a fictitious hiftory, of a greater extent than any that had appeared in either of those papers, which might serve as a vehicle to convey to the world his sentiments of human life and the difpenfations of Providence, and having digefted his thoughts on the fubject, he obeyed the fpur of that neceffity which now preffed him, and fat down to compofe the tale abovementioned, laying the scene of it in a country that he had before occafion to contemplate, in his tranflation of Padre Lobo's voyage.

As it was written to raise money, he did not long delay difpofing of it; he gave it, as I have been told, to Mr. Baretti, to fell to that bookfeller who would

• I find in his diary a note of the payment to Mr. Allen the printer, of fix guineas, which he had borrowed of him, and fent to his dying mother.