LETTER 17. TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.

[No date.]

"DEAR SIR, - I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence; but hope the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion, will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and, when I am well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness; for, be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts.

I

"I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your publication; and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them me. Please to present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman (1), of whom, I hear, that his learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the mottos, and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the

(1) Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of several authors. He was also a man of the most worthy private character. His zeal for the Royal House of Stuart did not render him less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye. 1 BOSWELL. [Ruddiman was born in 1674, and died at Edinburgh in 1757. A Life of him, with Anecdotes of Buchanan, was published by Mr. George Chalmers, in 1794.]

last in the Magazine (1), in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you; but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you with regard, when I do not, perhaps, give the proofs which I ought, of being, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter upon a mournful occasion.

LETTER 18. TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.

"September 25. 1750.

"DEAR SIR,-You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother (2); and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she should rather mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan (3), and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid.

The business of life summons

(1) See Gent. Mag. vol. xx. p. 406. This letter was probably written in Oct. 1750; in which case it should have followed the one of the 25th of September. - MALONE.

(2) [Elphinston's mother's maiden name was Honeyman. She was the daughter of the minister of Kinef, and the niece of Dr. Horneyman, bishop of Orkney.]

(3) [The wife of William Strahan, Esq., the King's printer; who, on his death in 1785, bequeathed Elphinston 100l. a year, 2001. in money, and 20 guineas for mourning: to which Mrs. Strahan, who died a month after her husband, added 2007. a year more.]

us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. (1) Whether this be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God; yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable, that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity.

"There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is

(1) This letter may be read as a commentary on the celebrated passages in Johnson's Meditations, relative to the intermediate state of departed friends. Gent. Mag. vol. lv. p. 755.

sincerely wished you by, dear Sir, your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

The Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodecimo volumes (1); and its author lived to see ten numerous editions of it in London, beside those of Ireland and Scotland.

I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind, which the Rambler exhibits. That Johnson had penetration enough to see, and, seeing, would not disguise, the general misery of man in this state of being, may have given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence, displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to

(1) This is not quite accurate. In the Gent. Mag. for Nov. 1751, while the work was yet proceeding, is an advertisement, announcing that four volumes of the Rambler would speedily be published; and it is believed that they were published in the next month. The fifth and sixth volumes, with tables of contents and translations of the mottos, were published in July, 1752, by Payne (the original publisher), three months after the close of the work. When the Rambler was collected into volumes, Johnson revised and corrected it throughout. The original octavo edition not having fallen into Mr. Boswell's hands, he was not aware of this circumstance, which has lately been pointed out by Mr. Alexander Chalmers in his edition of the British Essayists. MALONE.

every where Nay, he has

despondency and indifference. He has inculcated study, labour, and exertion. shown, in a very odious light, a man, whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirius (No. 55.), from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in his comedy of "The Good-natured Man," as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very obvious.

To point out the numerous subjects which the Rambler treats, with a dignity and perspicuity which are there united in a manner which we shall in vain look for any where else, would take up too large a portion of my book, and would, I trust, be superfluous, considering how universally those volumes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly been selected under the name of "BEAUTIES (1)," are of considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe, that the Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty, of critical investigations, and allegorical and oriental tales, that no mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study

(1) Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet Street, the following

note:

"Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of BEAUTIES. May 20. 1782."