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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE IDLER.

THE whole number of papers of which the IDLER originally consisted, are contained in this edition, although not all the productions of Dr. Johnson. The authors of 9, 15, 42, 54, and 98, are unknown. Nos. 33, 93, and 96, are by WHARTON. No. 67 by LANGTON. Nos. 76, 79, and 82, by REYNOLDS.

Of the Essays written by Dr. Johnson, those contained in the Idler were the most popular. The Rambler, though unquestionably the basis of Dr. Johnson's great fame, did not during the author's lifetime meet with the success it deserved. Its style was more dignified, and less miscellaneous than the Spectator. The Spectator pleased and charmed by its variety-it could not fail to do otherwise; for the great wits of Queen Anne's reign were its contributors. The Rambler was more uniform and less amusing, though not less instructive partaking somewhat of that settled gloom which always seemed to hang over the author's mind. That it should be wanting in novelty is not to be wondered at; for Dr. Johnson stood alone in its composition. Yet it must be confessed, that in this collection the great moral teachings of Dr. Johnson are seldom, if at all, equalled by any thing in the Spectator. His observation upon men and things shows an acute observance of all that was passing around him. He brought in all things, men and their actions, to the test of principle; and made truth and virtue the great levers by which human

conduct should be regulated. The essays in the Rambler might, indeed, almost form a body of Ethics.

Dr. Johnson had probably become aware of the objections which had been made to the gravity and seeming pomp of diction which marked the Rambler; and seems to have studied to make the papers which constitute the Idler, to be in keeping with its title. He lays aside his austerity, and assumes a style more easy and less vigorous, losing nothing however of the elegance of composition which is to be found in all his productions. Great depth of thought and profound research into motives and principles, would not well become an Idler. He should look upon men and manners as one desirous of passing his life with as little trouble, as would comport with his general character-which simply is, to know something of the motives and actions by which society is governed, without too laborious investigation of the one, or too severe a criticism upon the other. We accordingly find that wnile Dr. Johnson still continues his lectures upon human life, he takes hold of the local follies and gayeties of his time, seeks to place common occurrences in a stronger light, and adverts more frequently to the ordinary topics of the day. He thus made the Idler much more popular at the time than the Rambler. He, in fact, may be said to have written the Rambler for posterity-the Idler for his own time and himself.

THE IDLER.

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that does by others what he might do himself, or sacrifices duty or pleasure to the love of ease.

Scarcely any name can be imagined from which less envy or competition is to be dreaded. The Idler has no rivals or enemies. The man of business forgets him; the man of enterprise despises him; and though such as tread the same track of life fall commonly into jealousy and discord, Idlers are always found to associate in peace; and he who is most famed for doing nothing, is glad to meet another as idle as himself.

What is to be expected from this paper, whether it will be uniform or various, learned or familiar, serious or gay, political or moral, continued or interrupted, it is hoped that no reader will inquire. That the Idler has some scheme cannot be doubted; for to form schemes is the Idler's privilege. But though he has many projects in his head, he is now grown sparing of communication, having observed, that his hearers are apt to remember what he forgets himself; that his tardiness of execution exposes him to the encroachments of those who catch a hint and fall to work; and that very specious plans, after long contrivance and pompous displays, have subsided in weariness without a trial, and without miscarriage have been blasted by derision.

If similitude of manners be a motive to kindness, the Idler may flatter himself with universal patronage. There is no single character under which such numbers are comprised. Every man is, or hopes to be, an Idler. Even Something the Idler's character be may supthose who seem to differ most from us are hast-posed to promise. Those that are curious after ening to increase our fraternity; as peace is diminutive history, who watch the revolutions the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate of families, and the rise and fall of characters purpose of the busy. either male or female, will hope to be gratified by this paper; for the Idler is always inquisitive and seldom retentive. He that delights in obloquy and satire, and wishes to see clouds gathering over any reputation that dazzles him with its brightness, will snatch up the Idler's essays with a beating heart. The Idler is na turally censorious; those who attempt nothing themselves, think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.

There is perhaps, no appellation by which a writer can better denote his kindred to the human species. It has been found hard to describe man by an adequate definition. Some philosophers have called him a reasonable animal; but others have considered reason as a quality of which many creatures partake. He has been termed, likewise, a laughing animal; but it is said that some men have never laughed. Perhaps man may be more properly distinguished as an idle animal; for there is no man who is not sometimes idle. It is at least a definition from which none that shall find it in this paper can be excepted; for who can be more idle than the reader of the Idler?

That the definition may be complete, idleness must be not only the general, but the peculiar characteristic of man; and, perhaps, man is the onl being that can be properly called idle,

I think it necessary to give notice, that I make no contract nor incur any obligation. If those who depend on the Idler for intelligence and entertainment, should suffer the disap pointment which commonly follows ill-placed expectations, they are to lay the blame only on themselves.

Yet hope is not wholly to be cast away. The Idler, though sluggish, is vet alive and

may sometimes be stimulated to vigour and activity. He may descend into profoundness, or tower into sublimity; for the diligence of an Idler is rapid and impetuous, as ponderous bodies forced into velocity move with violence proportionate to their weight.

But these vehement exertions of intellect cannot be frequent, and he will therefore gladly receive help from any correspondent, who shall enable him to please without his own labour. He excludes no style, he prohibits no subject; only let him that writes to the Idler remember, that his letters must not be long: no words are to be squandered in declaration of esteem, or confessions of inability; conscious dullness has little right to be prolix, and praise is not so welcome to the Idler as quiet.

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MANY positions are often on the tongue, and seldom in the mind; there are many truths which every human being acknowledges and forgets. It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence, or peevish exclamation. He that embarks in the voyage of life, will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind, than the strokes of the oar; and many founder in the passage, while they lie waiting for the gale that is to waft them to their wish. It will naturally be suspected that the Idler has lately suffered some disappointment, and that he does not talk thus gravely for nothing. No man is required to betray his own secrets. I will, however, confess, that I have now been a writer almost a week, and have not yet heard a single word of praise, nor received one hint from any correspondent.

thrasher vociferates his heroics in the barn; when our traders deal out knowledge in bulky volumes, and our girls forsake their samplers to teach kingdoms wisdom, it may seem very unnecessary to draw any more from their proper occupations, by affording new opportunities of literary fame.

I should be, indeed, unwilling to find that, for the sake of corresponding with the Idler, the smith's iron had cooled on the anvil, or the spinster's distaff stood unemployed. I solicit only the contributions of those who have already devoted themselves to literature, or, without any determinate intention, wander at large through the expanse of life, and wear out the day in hearing at one place what they utter at

another.

Of these the great part are already writers. One has a friend in the country upon whom he exercises his powers; whose passions he raises and depresses; whose understanding he per plexes with paradoxes, or strengthens by argument; whose admiration he courts, whose praises he enjoys; and who serves him instead of a senate or a theatre; As the young soldiers in the Roman camp learned the use of their weapons by fencing against a post in the place of an enemy.

Another has his pockets filled with essays and epigrams which he reads from house to house, to select parties, and which his ac quaintances are daily entreating him to withhold no longer from the impatience of the public.

If among these any one is persuaded that, by such preludes of composition, he has qualified himself to appear in the open world, and is yet afraid of those censures which they who have already written, and they who cannot write, are equally ready to fulminate against public pretenders to fame, he may, by transmitting his performances to the Idler, make a cheap experiment of his abilities, and enjoy the pleasure of success, without the hazard of miscarriage.

Whence this negligence proceeds I am not able to discover. Many of my predecessors Many advantages not generally known arise have thought themselves obliged to return their from this method of stealing on the public. acknowledgments in the second paper, for the The standing author of the paper is always the kind reception of the first, and in a short time object of critical malignity. Whatever is mean apologies have become necessary to those inge-will be imputed to him, and whatever is excelnious gentlemen and ladies whose performan-lent be ascribed to his assistants. It does not ces, though in the highest degree elegant and learned, have been unavoidably delayed.

What then will be thought of me, who having experienced no kindness, have no thanks to return; whom no gentleman or lady has yet enabled to give any cause of discontent, and who have, therefore, no opportunity of showing how skilfully I can pacify resentment, extenuate negligence, or palliate rejection ?

I have long known that splendour of reputation is not to be counted among the necessaries of life, and therefore shall not much repine if praise be withheld till it is better deserved. But surely I may be allowed to complain that, in a nation of authors, not one has thought me worthy of notice after so fair an invitation.

At the time when the rage of writing had seized the old and the young, when the cook warbles her lyrics in the kitchen, and the

much alter the event, that the author and his correspondents are equally unknown; for the author, whoever he be, is an individual, of whom every reader has some fixed idea, and whom he is, therefore, unwilling to gratify with applause; but the praises given to his correspondents are scattered in the air, none can tell on whom they will light, and therefore none are unwilling to bestow them.

He that is known to contribute to a periodical work, needs no other caution than not to tell what particular pieces are his own; such secrecy is, indeed, very difficult; but if it can be maintained, it is scarcely to be imagined at how small an expense he may grow considerable.

A person of quality, by a single paper, may engross the honour of a volume. Fame is, in deed, dealt with a hand less and less bounteous through the subordinate ranks, till it descends

to the professed author, who will find it very | last our time, and we may leave posterity to difficult to get more than he deserves; but shift for themselves. every man who does not want it, or who needs not value it, may have liberal allowances; and, for five letters in the year sent to the Idler, of which perhaps only two are printed, will be promoted to the first rank of writers by those who are weary of the present race of wits, and wish to sink them into obscurity before the lustre of a name not yet known enough to be detested.

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Ir has long been the complaint of those who frequent the theatre, that all the dramatic art has been long exhausted, and that the vicissitudes of fortune, and accidents of life, have been shown in every possible combination, till the first scene informs us of the last, and the play no sooner opens, than every auditor knows how it will conclude. When a conspiracy is formed in a tragedy, we guess by whom it will be detected; when a letter is dropt in a comedy, we can tell by whom it will be found. Nothing is now left for the poet but character and sentiment, which are to make their way as they can without the soft anxiety of suspense, or the enlivening agitation of surprise. A new paper lies under the same disadvantages as a new play. There is danger lest it be new without novelty.

My earlier predecessors had their choice of vices and follies, and selected such as were most likely to raise meriment or attract attention; they had the whole field of life before them, untrodden and unsurveyed; characters of every kind shot up in their way, and those of the most luxuriant growth, or most conspicuous colours, were naturally cropt by the first sickle. They that follow are forced to peep into neglected corners, to note the casual varieties of the same species, and to recommend themselves by minute industry, and distinctions too subtle for common eyes.

But if the stores of nature are limited, much more narrow bounds must be set to the modes of life; and mankind may want a moral or amusing paper, many years before they shall be deprived of drink or day-light. This want, which to the busy and inventive may seem easily remediable by some substitute or other, the whole race of Idlers will feel with all the sensibility that such torpid animals can suffer.

When I consider the innumerable multitudes that, having no motive of desire, or determination of will, lie freezing in perpetual inactivity, till some external impulse puts them in motion; who awake in the morning vacant of thought, Iwith minds gaping for the intellectual food, which some kind essayist has been accustomed to supply, I am moved by the commiseration with which all human beings ought to behold the distresses of each other, to try some expe dients for their relief, and to inquire by what methods the listless may be actuated, and the empty be replenished.

There are said to be pleasures in madness known only to madmen. There are certainly miseries in idleness which the Idler only can conceive. These miseries I have often felt and often bewailed. I know by experience how welcome is every avocation that summons the thoughts to a new image; and how much languor and lassitude are relieved by that officiousness which offers a momentary amusement to him who is unable to find it for himself.

It is naturally indifferent to this race of men what entertainment they receive, so they are but entertained. They catch with equal eagerness, at a moral lecture, or the memoirs of a robber; a prediction of the appearance of a comet, or the calculation of the chances of a lottery.

They might therefore easily be pleased if they consulted only their own minds; but those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty of writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

Much mischief is done in the world with very Sometimes it may happen that the_haste or little interest or design. He that assumes the negligence of the first inquirers has left enough character of a critic, and justifies his claim by behind to reward another search; sometimes perpetual censure, and imagines that he is hurtnew objects start up under the eye, and he ing none but the author, and him he considers as that is looking for one kind of matter is amply a pestilent animal, whom every other being has gratified by the discovery of another. But still a right to persecute; little does he think how it must be allowed that as more is taken less many harmless men he involves in his own can remain; and every truth brought newly to guilt, by teaching them to be noxious without light impoverishes the mine from which suc- malignity, and to repeat objections which they ceeding intellects are to dig their treasures. do not understand; or how many honest minds Many philosophers imagine that the ele-he debars from pleasure, by exciting an artificial ments themselves may be in time exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and that by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will at last become a sandy desert.

I would not advise my readers to disturb themselves by contriving how they shall live without light and water. For the days of universal thirst and perpetual darkness are at a great distance. The ocean and the sun will

fastidiousness, and making them too wise to concur with their own sensations. He who is taught by a critic to dislike that which pleased him in his natural state, has the same reason to complain of his instructor, as the madman to rail at his doctor, who when he thought himself master of Peru, physicked him to poverty. If men will struggle against their own advantage they are not to expect that the Idler will take much pains upon them; he has him

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CHARITY, or tenderness for the poor, which is now justly considered, by a great part of mankind, as inseparable from piety, and in which almost all the goodness of the present age consists, is, I think, known only to those who enjoy, either immediately or by transmission the light of revelation.

Those ancient nations who have given us the wisest models of government and the brightest examples of patriotism, whose institutions have been transcribed by all succeeding legislatures, and whose history is studied by every candidate for political or military reputation, have left behind them no mention of alms-houses, or hospitals, of places where age might repose, or sickness be relieved.

The Roman emperors, indeed, gave large donations to the citizens and soldiers, but these distributions were always reckoned rather popular than virtuous; nothing more was intended than an ostentation of liberality, nor was any recompense expected, but suffrages and acclamations.

Their beneficence was merely occasional; he that ceased to need the favour of the people, ceased likewise to court it; and therefore, no man thought it either necessary or wise to make any standing provision for the needy, to look forwards to the wants of posterity, or to secure successions of charity, for successions of distress.

Compassion is, by some reasoners, on whom the name of philosophers has been too easily conferred, resolved into an affection merely selfish and involuntary perception of pain at the involuntary sight of a being like ourselves languishing in misery. But this sensation, if ever it be felt at all from the brute instinct of uninstructed nature, will only produce effects desultory and transient; it will never settle into a principle of action or extend relief to calamities unseen, in generations not yet in being.

The devotion of life or fortune to the succour of the poor, is a height of virtue to which humanity has never risen by its own power. The charity of the Mahometans is a precept which their teacher evidently transplanted from the doctrines of Christianity; and the care with which some of the Oriental sects attend, as it is said, to the necessities of the diseased and indigent, may be added to the other arguments which prove Zoroaster to have borrowed his institutions from the law of Moses.

The present age, though not likely to shine hereafter among the most splendid periods of history, has yet given examples of charity, which may be very properly recommended to imitation. The equal distribution of wealth, which long commerce has produced, does not enable any single hand to raise edifices of piety

like fortified cities, to appropriate manors to religious uses, or deal out such large and lasting beneficence as was scattered over the land in ancient times, by those who possessed counties or provinces. But no sooner is a new species of misery brought to view, and a design of relieving it professed, than every hand is open to contribute something, every tongue is busied in solicitation, and every art of pleasure is employed for a time in the interest of virtue.

The most apparent and pressing miseries incident to man, have now their peculiar houses of reception and relief; and there are few among us, raised however little above the danger of poverty, who may not justly claim, what is implored by the Mahometans in their most ardent benedictions, the prayers of the poor.

Among those actions which the mind can most securely review with unabated pleasure is that of having contributed to an hospital for the sick. Of some kinds of charity the consequences are dubious; some evils which beneficence has been busy to remedy, are not certainly known to be very grievous to the sufferer or detrimental to the community; but no man can question whether wounds and sickness are not really painful; whether it be not worthy of a good man's care to restore those to ease and usefulnesss, from whose labour infants and wo men expect their bread, and who, by a casual hurt, or lingering disease, lie pining in want and anguish, burthensome to others, and weary of themselves.

Yet, as the hospitals of the present time subsist only by gifts bestowed at pleasure, without any solid fund of support, there is danger lest the blaze of charity which now burns with so much heat and splendour, should die away for wanting of lasting fuel; lest fashion should suddenly withdraw her smile, and inconstancy transfer the public attention to something which may appear more eligible, because it will be new.

Whatever is left in the hands of chance must be subject to vicissitude; and when any establishment is found to be useful, it ought to be the next care to make it permanent.

But man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions, and barren zeal.

The most active promoters of the present schemes of charity, cannot be cleared from some instances of misconduct, which may awaken contempt or censure, and hasten that neglect which is likely to come too soon of itself. The open competitions between different hospitals, and the animosity with which their patrons oppose one another, may prejudice weak minds against them all. For it will not be easily believed, that any man can, for good reasons wish to exclude another from doing good. The spirit of charity can only be continued by a re

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