notwithstanding the affected carelessness and ease of the Idler, it is very easy to trace the mighty master's hand beneath the veil.

The contributions to the Idler were more numerous than to the Rambler; yet still they were but few. Johnson had indeed learned somewhat to soften the rigidity of his introductory paper, and to court with some degree of earnestness the support of his contemporaries. This was a request he did not condescend to make in his Rambler but pretended to disdain all help as needless, being conscious of his own capability; and perhaps secretly supposing that the request would be unnecessary, as the wits of the day would be anxious to have their productions by the side of his. But experience taught him the contrary; he was convinced that merit was confined to a very small circle, and that the confidence or the vanity of authors, are generally sufficient to resist obtrusion where they are not solicited. A consciousness of this therefore probably induced him to beg that support for his

Idler, which he would gladly have received for his Rambler ;the consequence is obvious.*~

The Idler does not offer much for remark. Its general character is fidelity and ease. It contains few of those blemishes which obscure the Rambler, and is thus far more valuable; but at the same time, it contains as few of its sublimities. There are not many laborious speculations or moral enquiries, which would indeed be incompatible with the assumed character, which is admirably supported throughout the whole. The Idler has been styled by one of his biographers, the Odyssey after the Iliad. This definition is not, perhaps, very exact; but it is expressive, and I am not inclined to detect the impropriety.

t

*

Johnson's reflections on life in this work are more natural than in his Rambler.He seems less inclined to querulous exaggeration, and less attached to the enlargement of mournful truths; he even tells us in one of the papers, that we shall find each day possessed of its pleasures and its joys; a declaration not

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to be found, I believe, in all the Ramblers. He had, perhaps, seen his folly when it was too late to retract or it might be owing to a concurrence of slight causes not now known, but which will often operate very visibly on the intellect. Whatever the reason may have been, it is very certain, that Johnson displays in the Idler more candour in his delineations, and more veracity in his assertions than he commonly did; and he has certainly more impartially estimated the motives and consequences of human action, and their moral rectitude and obliquity. But. this I shall no longer insist upon here. It must be sufficiently known to those who have read the Idler; and to those who have not, the remarks will be un→ necessary. I shall therefore commence my observations upon it, and it, and pursue them with what brevity I may find convenient.

Johnson's love of singularity has betrayed him into a contradiction of himself, which it is of importance to note, as it may be the source of error. It is a certain truth, that of literary minds, some are more vigorous in winter, others

in

or nature.

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in spring; some are active only in the morning, others in the gloom and silence of night. That this is frequently the case is acknowledged, and it is of little importance whether it be owing to habit It is well known that Milton's genius flowed only from the autumnal to the vernal equinox, and that Gray could compose only at stated times. It is remarkable that this supposed necessity has been ridiculed by Johnson, after he had declared that it frequently happened, and had even endeavoured to prove why it happened. For the amusement of my reader I shall quote the passages.

"To men of study and imagination, the winter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind and concentration of ideas; and the privation of external pleasure naturally causes an effort to find entertainment within. This is the time in which those whom literature enables to find amusements for themselves, have more than common convictions of their own happiness. When they are condemned by the elements to retirement, and debarred

debarred from most of the diversions which are called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of enquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness which hangs always flagging upon the vacant mind."-Rambler.

"If men who have given up themselves to fanciful credulity, would confine their conceits in their own minds, they might regulate their lives by the barometer with inconvenience only to themselves; but to fill the world with accounts of intellects subject to ebb and flow; of one genius that awakened in the spring, and another that ripened in the autumn; of one mind, expanded in the summer, and of another concentrated in the winter, is no less dangerous than to tell children of bugbears and goblins."-Idler.

Here Johnson manifestly contradicts himself, and shews either the weakness of opinion, or the folly of eccentricity. The latter is probably the cause; for had he been convinced of any impropriety,, I am persuaded his integrity would have prompted either to a public disavowal or to a secret erasure in some subsequent edition

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