He was a man of literature. Johnson loved to enter with him into a difcuffion of metaphyfical, moral, and critical fubjects; in those conflicts, exercising his talents, and, according to his custom, always contending for victory. Dr. Bathurst was the perfon on whom Johnson fixed his affection. He hardly ever spoke of him without tears in his eyes. It was from him, who was a native of Jamaica, that Johnson received into his fervice Frank*, the black fervant, whom, on account of his master, he valued to the end of his life. At the time of inftituting the club in Ivy-lane, Johnson had projected the Rambler. The title was most probably fug. gested by the Wanderer; a poem which he mentions, with the warmeft praise, in the Life of Savage. With the fame spirit of independence with which he wished to live, it was now his pride to write. He communicated his plan to none of his friends; he defired no affiftance, relying entirely on his own fund, and the protection of the Divine Being, which he implored in a folemn form of prayer, composed by himself for the occafion. Having formed a refolution to undertake a work that might be of use and ho * See Gent. Mag. vol. LXXI. p. 190. nour nour to his country, he thought, with Milton, that this was not to be obtained" but "by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit "that can enrich with all utterance and "knowledge, and fend out his feraphim "with the hallowed fire of his altar, to "touch and purify the lips of whom he "pleases." Having invoked the fpecial protection of Heaven, and by that act of piety fortified his mind, he began the great work of the Rambler. The first number was published on Tuesday, March the 20th, 1750; and from that time was continued regularly every Tuefday and Saturday for the space of two years, when it finally clofed on Saturday, March 14, 1752. As it began with motives of piety, so it appears that the fame religious fpirit glowed with unabating ardour to the last. His conclufion is: "The Effays profeffedly ferious, if I have been able to execute my "own intentions, will be found exactly con"formable to the precepts of Christianity, "without any accommodation to the licen "tiousness and levity of the prefent age. I "therefore look back on this part of my "work "work with pleafure, which no man fhall "diminish or augment. I fhall never envy "the honours which wit and learning obtain "in any other caufe, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour "to virtue, and confidence to truth." The whole number of Effays amounted to two hundred and eight. Addifon's, in the Spectator, are more in number, but not half in point of quantity: Addison was not bound to publish on ftated days; he could watch the ebb and flow of his genius, and fend his paper to the press when his own tafte was fatisfied. Johnfon's cafe was very different. He wrote fingly and alone. In the whole progrefs of the work he did not receive more than ten effays. This was a fcanty contribu tion. For the reft, the author has defcribed his fituation. "He that condemns himself "to compofe on a stated day, will often "bring to his task an attention diffipated, a memory embarraffed, an imagination over“whelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, "a body languishing with difeafe: he will "labour on a barren topic, till it is too late "to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, "diffufe his thoughts into wild exuberance, "which the preffing hour of publication "cannot fuffer judgment to examine or re"duce." Of this excellent production the number fold on each day did not amount to five hundred of course the bookfeller, who paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful trade. His generosity and perfeverance deferve to be commended; and happily, when the collection appeared in volumes, were amply rewarded. Johnson lived to fee his labours flourish in a tenth edition. His pofterity, as an ingenious French writer has faid on a fimilar occafion, began in his life-time. In the beginning of 1750, foon after the Rambler was fet on foot, Johnfon was induced by the arts of a vile impoftor to lend his affiftance, during a temporary delufion, to a fraud not to be paralleled in the annals of literature. One LAUDER, a native of Scotland, who had been a teacher in the Univerfity of EDINBURGH, had conceived a mortal antipathy to the name and character of Milton. His reason was, because the prayer of Pamela, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, was, as he supposed, malicioufly inferted by the great great poet in an edition of the Eikon Bafilike, in order to fix an imputation of impiety on the memory of the murdered king. Fired with refentment, and willing to reap the profits of a grofs impofition, this man collected from several Latin poets, fuch as Mafenius the Jefuit, Staphorftius a Dutch divine, Beza, and others, all fuch paffages as bore any kind of resemblance to different places in the Paradise Loft; and these he published, from time to time, in the Gentleman's Magazine, with occasional interpolations of lines, which he himself translated from Milton. The public credulity fwallowed all with eagerness; and Milton was supposed to be guilty of plagiarism from inferior modern writers. The fraud fucceeded fo well, that Lauder collected the whole into a volume, and advertised it under the title of "An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns, in his Paradife Loft; dedicated "to the Univerfities of Oxford and Cambridge." While the book was in the press, the prooffheets were fhewn to Johnfon at the Ivy-lane Club, by Payne, the bookfeller, who was one of the members. No man in that fociety was in poffeffion of the authors from whom Lauder |