The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes | Page 2

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 find delineated in its diversified pages the manners and characters of the day in amusing variety and contrast.
Written professedly for a paper of miscellaneous intelligence, the Idler dwells on the passing incidents of the day, whether serious or light[5], and abounds with party and political allusion.