HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

PREFACE

то

THE RAMBLER.

WHEN a work like the Rambler is presented to the world, it may be presumed that it is expected by the reader that some account of its author should accompany the edition. He naturally wishes to know as much as possible of so eminent a teacher of morals, and entertaining a writer. The circumstances that attended him, the features of his private character, his conversation, and the means by which he rose to eminence, become the favourite objects of inquiry. Curiosity is excited; and the admirer of his works is eager to know his private opinions, his course Rambler.

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of study, the particularities of his conduct, and, above all, whether he pursued the wisdom which he recommends, and practised the virtue which his writings inspire. A principle of gratitude is awakened in every generous mind. For the entertainment and instruction which genius and diligence have provided for the world, men of refined and sensible tempers are ready to pay their tribute of praise, and even to form a posthumous friendship with the author.

In reviewing the life of such a 'writer, there is, besides, a rule of justice to which the public have an undoubted claim. Fond admiration and partial friendship should not be suffered to represent his 'virtues with exaggeration; nor should malignity be allowed, under a specious disguise, to magnify mere defects, the usual failings of human nature, into vice or gross deformity. The lights and shades of the character should be given; and, if this be done with a strict regard to truth, a just estimate of Dr. Johnson will afford a lesson per haps as valuable as the moral doctrine that speaks with energy in every page of his works.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the author of this work, was born at Lichfield, September the 7th, 1709, O.S. His father, Michael Johnson, was a book

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seller in that city; a man of large athletic make, and violent passions; wrong-headed, positive, and at times afflicted with a degree of melancholy, little short of madness. His mother was sister to Dr. Ford, a practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of Parson FORD, the same who is represented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conversation. In the life of Fenton, Johnson says, that “his abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise.” Being chaplain to the Earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embassy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote: " You should go," said the witty peer, “if to your many vices you would add one more.” “ Pray, my Lord, what is that?” “Hypocrisy, my dear Doctor.” Johnson had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the

age
of

twenty-seven or twenty-eight.-Michael Johnson, the father was chosen in the year 1718 Under Bailiff of Lichfield, and in the year 1725 lie served the office of the Senior Bailiff. He had a brother

. of the name of Andrew, who, for some years, kept the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was never thrown or conquered. Michael, the father, died December 1731, at the age of seventy-six; his mother at eighty-nine of a gradual decay, in 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice . Johnson did not delight in talking of his relations. “There is little pleasure,” he said to Mrs. Piozzi, “in relating the anecdotes of beggary.”

Johnson derived from his parents, or from an

Rufutkunwholesome nurse, the distemper called the

King's Evil. The Jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch ; and accordingly Mrs. Johnson presented her son, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient all the healing virtues in her power. He was afterwards cut for that scrophulus humour, and the un- . der part of his face was seamed and disfigured by the operation. It is supposed that this disease deprived him of the sight of his left eye, and also impaired his hearing. At eight years old, he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the free-school at Lichfield, where he was not re

his own.

markable for diligence or regular application. Whatever he read his tenacious memory made

In the fields with his school-fellows he talked more to himself than with his companions. In 1725, when he was about sixteen years old, he went on a visit to his cousin Cornelius Ford, who detained him for some months, and in the mean time assisted him in the classics. The general direction of his studies, which he then received, he related to Mrs. Piozzi. “ Obtain,” says Ford, “some general principles of every science: he who can talk only on one subject, or act only in one department, is seldom wanted, and, perhaps, never wished for; while the man of general knowledge can often benefit, and always please.” This advice Johnson seems to have pursued with a good inclination. His reading was always desultory, seldom resting on any particular author, but rambling from one book to another, and by hasty snatches hoarding up a variety of knowledge. It

may

be proper in this place to mention another general rule laid down by Ford for Johnson's future conduct : “ You will make your way easy in the world, as you are contented to dispute no man's claim to conversation-excellence: they will, therefore, more willingly allow your