As the assistance Dr. JOHNSON received was 30 trifling in respect to quantity, all the notice of it that is necessary may be dispatched before we proceed farther. The four billets in No. 10 were written by Miss MULSO, afterwards Mrs. CHAPONE, who will come to be mentioned in the Preface to the ADVENTURER. No. 30 was written by Miss CATHERINE TALBOT, a lady of whom a very exalted character has been handed down. She was the only daughter of the Rev. EDWARD TALBOT, Archdeacon of Berks, and Preacher at the Rolls. She possessed great natural talents, a vigorous understanding, a lively imagination and refined taste. Her principal works Reflections on the seven Days of the Week," and " Essays on various Subjects, 2 vols." breathe the noblest spirit of Christian benevolence, and discover a more than common acquaintance with human na

ture.

Miss TALBOT lived many years in the family of Archbishop SECKER, who made a very liberal provision for her and her mother in his will, leaving them the interest for their lives of fourteen thousand pounds which he directed to be afterwards given to various charities. During her residence with the venerable prelate, a singular occurrence took place. ́ In 1759, the unhappy Dr. DODD published an edition of Bishop HALL'S Meditations, and dedicated them to Miss TALBOT. This dedication, however, was so strongly expressed as to give great offence to the Archbishop, who, after a warm epistolary expostulation, insisted

on the sheet being cancelled in all the remaining copies. DODD's object was preferment; and he was weak enough to think no flattery too gross, by which his wish might be accomplished. Miss TALBOT died Jan. 9, 1770, in her 49th year. Besides the works already mentioned, she was the author of a beautiful and fanciful letter to a new-born child, daughter of Mr. John Talbot, a son of the Lord Chancellor*, and was one of the writers in "The Athenian Letters."

The only remaining contributor was Mrs. ELIZABETH CARTER, who wrote No. 44 and 100; and who, at the distance of half a century, enjoyed in full possession that liberal and enlightened mind, which had engaged the esteemn and admiration of successive generations of wits and scholars. Of this excellent lady, Dr. JOHNSON used to say that her learning did not interfere with her domestick duties." She could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek; and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem." He once composed a Greek epigram to ELIZA (CARTER), and declared that she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand†. Mrs. CARTER died Feb. 19, 1806. Her Memoirs have since been published in a quarto

* Annual Register, 1770. But a much more full and excellent account of this Lady is given in Butler's Life of Bishop Hildesley, which I had not seen, when the above sketch was prepared for the former edition of the British Essayists.

The second letter in No. 107 was from an unknown corre spondent.

volume by her nephew and executor, the Rev. M. PENNINGTON; a work replete with valuable opinions and remarks on subjects connected with the literary periods of her long life.

Such was the whole of the assistance our author received in the progress of this work, although, with the usual licence of ESSAYISTS, he speaks in his tenth paper, " of the number of correspondents increasing upon him every day." Sir JOHN HAWKINS informs us that "he forbore to solicit assistance, and few presumed to offer it." That he forbore to solicit assistance may be readily believed, but it cannot be doubted that he would have been glad to receive it; and it is evident that he thankfully accepted what he thought worthy of insertion. Every man who has undertaken a work of this description will feel the distress of his situ ation, and know by experience that he "who condemns himself to compose on a stated day, will often bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease; he will labour on a barren topick, till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing law of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce*." Yet in perusing the RAMBLER, who can discover the obstructions so feelingly lamented in this passage -the dissipated attention-the embarrassed

RAMBLER, last paper.

memory-or the distracted mind? That the author's morbid melancholy gave a certain tinge to his sentiments may be frequently discovered, but as compositions, we can discover in them no defects that are not common to those who though writing at ease write rapidly, and without revision. This remark, however, applies only to what is not now before the publick, the first edition, of these papers, and will be more amply illustrated hereafter.

The RAMBLER made its way very slowly into the world. All scholars, all men of taste, saw its excellence at once, and crowded round the author to solicit his friendship, and relieve his anxieties. It procured him a multitude of friends and admirers among men distinguished for rank as well as genius; and, if the expression be pardonable, it constituted an ample and perpetual apology for that rugged and uncourtly manner which sometimes rendered his conversation formidable, and to those who Mooked from the book to the man, presented a contrast that would no doubt frequently excite amazement. The difference, however, between an author and his writings, and the folly of expecting that the graces of style and of manners should be inseparable, are illustrated by himself in a comparison perhaps one of the most striking in the English language. "A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples, and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence

of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke*."

overcome.

Such, indeed, was his fate when viewed with common eyes, when visited by those who said they admired, but could not love him; and who did not discover that the love which is fixed upon superficial accomplishments, in preference to vigour of mind and imagination, was not that which Dr. JOHNSON would court. Still, it must be confessed, there were at first many prejudices against the RAMBLER to be The style was new; it appeared harsh, involved, and perplexed: it required more than a transitory inspection to be understood; it did not suit those who run as they read, and who seldom return to a book if the hour which it helped to dissipate can be dissipated by more active pleasures. When reprinted in volumes, however, the sale gradually increased: it was recommended by the friends of religion and literature, as a book by which a man might be taught to think; and the author lived to see ten large editions printed in England, besides those which were clandestinely printed in other parts of Great Britain, in Ireland, and in America. Since his death at least ten more may be added to this number.

Of the characters described in the RAMBLER, some were not altogether fictitious. Prospero,

*RAMBLER, No. 14.