He was a man of literature. Johnson loved to enter with him into a difcuffion of metaphysical, moral, and critical fubjects; in those conflicts, exercifing his talents, and, according to his cuftom, always contending for victory. Dr. Bathurst was the person 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 Johnfon 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 suggested 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 pow 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

66

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, fo 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 pleasure, 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. Addison's, in the Spectator, are more in number, but not half in point of quantity: Addifon was not bound to publish on stated days; he could watch the ebb and flow of his genius, and fend his paper to the prefs when his own taste 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 contribution. For the reft, the author has defcribed his fituation. "He that condemns himself "to compose on a stated day, will often

bring to his task an attention diffipated, a "memory embarrassed, 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, "diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance,

" which

"which the preffing hour of publication "cannot suffer 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 deserve 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, Johnson 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 fuppofed, maliciously 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 feveral Latin poets, fuch as Mafenius the Jefuit, Staphorftius a Dutch divine, Beza, and others, all fuch paffages as bore any kind of refemblance to different places in the Paradife Loft; and these he published, from time to time, in the Gentleman's Magazine, with occasional interpolations of lines, which he himself tranflated from Milton. The public credulity fwallowed all with eagernefs; and Milton was fuppofed 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 Effay on Milton's Ufe and Imitation of "the Moderns, in his Paradife Loft; dedicated "to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.” While the book was in the prefs, 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