a great man by genius," but an author by compulsion. He had selected authorship as a profession, and was compelled by the bayonet of poverty at his back to write. Had it not been for poverty," he might have knocked down an Osborne, but not with a folio of his own writings." JOHNSON "wrote to live, and luckily for mankind, he lived a good many years to write." Truly, as a great writer says, "JOHNSON was fond of fame, and he was famous." His Dictionary work, after paying his amanuensis, only yielded him a revenue of fifty shillings a week. Lord Macaulay has compared JOHNSON'S "Rambler" with Addison's "Spectator," and given the preference to the latter, but he has neglected to tell his readers that Addison had learned leisure: JOHNSON had not. Addison had help; JOHNSON had none. Out of his two hundred and eight "Ramblers" only half-a-dozen were written by others, while of the five hundred and fifty-five "Spectators," Addison wrote two hundred and forty. Addison was rich; JOHNSON steeped in poverty. Addison need write only when he felt the inspiration of genius,

and send his manuscript to the press when it pleased his taste; JOHNSON had to send his on stated days. Addison wrote his "Spectator" in gaiety; JOHNSON wrote his "Rambler" in the gloom of melancholy, amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. He tells his readers in bidding them farewell, "That to the task of writing his "Rambler," when the stated day came round, he had often to bring an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease." Who can read these words without deep emotion?

To a man thus circumstanced, pressed down so with the load of life, is it any wonder that he should not write in the gay, easy, manner by which Addison, who, flushed with past success, and elated by the prospect of a Secretaryship of State, so charmed his readers?

No one can be a student of JOHNSON'S works without knowing that he was master of two distinct styles. In the "Rambler" he assumed the position, of which he has held ever since, as England's

moralist, and as such, it was becoming that he should adopt a solid, grave, and sententious style. We are informed by Boswell, that the "Ramb ler" was meant to contain only a series of papers on grave and moral subjects. He objects to the title of "Rambler," on the ground that it was ill suited to a series of grave and moral discourses; and on the additional ground that the name of its Italian translation was "Il'Vagabando," and that the name was also borne by a licentious magazine of the day. Objections, which it must be confessed, are frivolous enough.

Macaulay criticises the pomposity of his style, very much in the spirit of that other critic who said that the hard words in the "Rambler" were used by the author to render his Dictionary absolutely necessary. JOHNSON'S Own words are a sufficient reply to all such criticisms: "Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning." No man ever lived who had a greater fund of wit and humour, of keen satire and brilliant retort. Under happier

circumstances than when he wrote his "Rambler " he could, and did use these, as witness his papers in the "Idler." Be that as it may, perhaps no book was ever so pirated as the "Rambler." Indeed it was through pirating of the "Rambler " that Arthur Murphy, who afterwards became JOHNSON'S biographer and editor of his works in 12 volumes, was introduced to him. The story, as told by Mrs. Piozzi, is as follows:-" Mr. Murphy being engaged in a periodical paper, the 'Gray'sInn Journal,' was at a friend's house in the country, and, not being disposed to lose pleasure for business, wished to content his publisher by some unstudied essay. He therefore took up a French Journal Litéraire, and, translating something he liked, sent it away to town. Time, however, discovered that he translated from the French a 'Rambler,' which had been taken from the English without acknowledgment. Upon this discovery Mr. Murphy thought it right to make his excuses to DR. JOHNSON. He went next day, and found him covered with soot, like a chimneysweeper, in a little room, as if he had been acting

Lungs in the 'Alchymist,' making ether. This being told by Mr. Murphy in company, Come, come,' said DR. JOHNSON, 'the story is black enough; but it was a happy day that brought you first to my house.'" Even Goldsmith himself has acknowledged his indebtedness. He admits that the character of Crocker in the "Good Natured Man" is borrowed from "An Account of Suspiruis, the human Screech Owl," ("Rambler," 59.)

Dickens in his "Old Curiosity Shop" is doubtless indebted also to the "Rambler." He acknowledges that the thought of Nell's Grandfather wandering about after her death, as if looking for her, was suggested to him by these beautiful lines of Roger, "And long thou mightst have seen an old man wandering as if in quest of something he could not find; he knew not what." Perhaps Dickens did not know that Rogers had not only borrowed the thought, but almost the very words, from the allegorical history of Rest and Labour, "Rambler," No. 33, where JOHNSON says, "Nothing was seen on every side but multitudes,