Oxford English Classics.
DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
THE RAMBLER.
VOL. I.
Talboys and Wheeler, Printers, Oxford.
THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
IN NINE VOLUMES.
[Illustration: DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA]
Oxford:
Published by Talboys and Wheeler;
and W. Pickering, London.
MDCCCXXV.
An attentive consideration of the period at which any work of moral
instruction has appeared, and of the admonitions appropriate to the state
of those times, is highly necessary for a correct estimate of the merits
of the writer. For to quote the judicious remarks of one of our earlier
Essayists[1], "there is a sort of craft attending vice and absurdity;
and when hunted out of society in one shape, they seldom want address
to reinsinuate themselves in another: hence the modes of licence vary
almost as often as those of dress, and consequently require continual
observation to detect and explode them anew." The days in which the
Rambler first undertook to reprove and admonish his country, may be
said to have well required a moralist of their own. For the modes of
fashionable life, and the marked distinction between the capital and
the country, which drew forth the satire, and presented scope for the
admonitions of the Spectator and the Tatler, were then fast giving place
to other follies, and to characters that had not hitherto subsisted. The
crowd of writers[2], whatever might be their individual merit, who offered
their labours to the public, between the close of the Spectator and the
appearance of the Rambler, had contributed, in a most decided manner,
towards the diffusion of a taste for literary information. It was no
longer a coterie of wits at Button's, or at Will's, who, engrossing all
acquaintance with Belles Lettres, pronounced with a haughty and exclusive
spirit on every production for the stage or the closet; but it was a
reading public to whom writers now began to make appeal for censure
or applause. That education which the present day beholds so widely
spread had then commenced its progress; and perhaps it is not too bold
to say, that Johnson almost foresaw the course that it would run. He saw
a public already prepared for weightier discussions than could have been
understood the century before. In addition to a more general education,
the improved intercourse between the remotest parts of the country and
the metropolis made all acquainted with the dissipation and manners,
which, during the publication of the Spectator, were hardly known beyond
the circle where they existed. The pages of that incomparable production
were therefore perused by general readers, as well for the gratification
of curiosity, as for the improvement of morals. The passing news of the
day, the tattle of the auction or the Mall, the amusing extravagances of
dress, and the idle fopperies of fashion, topics that excited merriment
rather than detestation, were those most judiciously selected to allure
a nation to read. Addison and Steele therefore in their age acted wisely;
their cotemporaries would have been driven[3] "by the sternness of the
Rambler's philosophy to more cheerful and airy companions." The pages
of the Tatler were enlivened by foreign and domestic politics, by the
current scandal of the town, and by easy critiques on the last new play;
by advertisements of "orangerie for beaux[4]," and by prescriptions for
the cure of love-sickness or the spleen. The Guardian uttered forth his
moral lessons from the wide and voracious mouth of an imaginary lion,
whose roarings were to have influence[5] "for the purifying of behaviour
and the bettering of manners." But for Johnson was reserved a different
task, and one for which his powers and the natural bent of his mind
were peculiarly fitted. He disdained, as derogatory from the dignity of
a teacher, to thus humour trifling minds, and to barter by idle conceits
for the reception of his precepts. His aim was not to amuse but to
instruct, not to ridicule the frivolities of fashion, but to lash the
enormities of guilt. He resolved to write a book in which nothing should
be flattered that men had agreed to flatter, and in which no tenderness
should be shown to public prejudice or to private folly[6]. In pursuance
of this deep and solemn purpose we accordingly find him imploring
assistance in his labours from that "Giver of all good things, without
whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom
is folly[7]."