belonging to the prince's court, came to me to enquire his name, in order to do him service; and also brought a list of seven gentlemen to be served with the Rambler. As I was not at liberty, an inference was drawn, that I was desirous to keep to myself so excellent a writer. Soon after, Mr. Doddington sent a letter directed to the Rambler, inviting him to his house, when he should be disposed to enlarge his acquaintance. In a subsequent number a kind of excuse was made, with a hint that a good writer might not appear to advantage in conversation.

"I have had letters of approbation from Dr. Young, Dr. Hartley, Dr. Sharpe, Miss C, &c. &c. most of them, like you, setting them in a rank equal, and some superior, to the Spectators, (of which I have not read many for the reasons which you assign;) but, notwithstanding such recommendation, whether the price of two-pence, or the unfavourable season of their first publication, hinders the demand, no boast can be made of it."

These letters clearly evince that the uncommon merit of the Rambler was very soon appreciated by men of taste and genius. Dr. Young, it is said, was particularly struck with the serious papers; and in his copy of the Rambler, which was inspected by Mr. Boswell, numerous passages

were marked by single and double folds as indicative of different degrees of excellence.

Johnson was highly gratified by the minute attention of Young, and not less so by the applause of one who was peculiarly dear to him. "John→ son told me," says Mr. Boswell," with an amiable fondness, that Mrs. Johnson, in whose judgment and taste he had great confidence, said to him, after a few numbers of the Rambler had come out, I thought very well of you before; but I did not imagine you could have written any thing equal to this.' Distant praise, from whatever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife, whom a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to come home to his bosom ; and being so near, its effect is most sensible and permanent."

The passage alluded to by Cave, as an apology for the non-acceptance of Mr. Doddington's invitation, is one of the most eloquent in the Rambler, and was probably written under the conscious sense of that exterior roughness and dictatorial manner which too often rendered his conversation painfully oppressive. "A transition from an author's book," he remarks, "to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, Life, vol. 1, p. 178.

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.*

The slow progress of the Rambler toward the possession of that fame which it ultimately acquired, affected not our author, however, in a pecuniary light. He had entered into a contract with a bookseller of great worth and liberality, a Mr. John Payne, of Paternoster-Row, who had agreed to give him two guineas for each paper as it appeared, and to admit him to a share of the profits arising from the sale of the collected work. He received regularly, therefore, four guineas a week for two years; an engagement that enabled him to live comfortably, and which, if not productive of much present advantage, was eventually a most lucrative bargain, to the publisher.

During the appearance of the Rambler in single numbers, Mr. James Elphinstone, a friend to Johnson, and who happened then to be in Edinburgh, undertook to publish them in that

* Rambler, No. 14.

metropolis almost immediately after issuing from the London press. They were neatly printed in duodecimo, and sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright, and the other booksellers. Of this Edinburgh Rambler, which is now before me, and which was first circulated in single papers, and afterwards collected into eight small volumes, there were two editions; and on the last page of the sixth number of the first edition is the following advertisement, which was continued on several of the subsequent numbers.

To be continued on Tuesdays and Fridays. Printed for the AUTHOR: Sold by W. Gordon, and C. Wright, at their shops in the Parliamentclose, price one penny; and regularly delivered to subscribers in town, or sent to the country by post."

The second edition, one volume of which is likewise in my possession, came out in 1752. To both editions are annexed, at the close of each volume, versions of the mottos by Mr. Elphinstone. I have been the more particular with regard to this Scotch edition, as it is remarkably scarce, is a literal transcript from the first folio, and will be subsequently referred to,

Upon the completion of the folio copies, the Rambler was almost immediately re-printed in

London, in six volumes duodecimo, 1752, and again in four volumes octavo. It has since passed through more than twenty editions, ten of which, independent of those which were surreptitiously published in Scotland, Ireland, and America, were circulated in the author's life-time. So great a favourite, indeed, has this work be come with the public, that Mr. Boswell, in the year 1791, asserts, upon good grounds, that its sale had then far exceeded that of any other periodical papers since the reign of Queen Anne.* It may be worth while, in this place, to remark, that many of the translations of the mottos in the London editions of the Rambler, were from the pen of Johnson, and are very happily executed. To Mr. James Elphinstone, and to a Mr. F. Lewis, he was indebted for the remainder.t

After a few editions had passed the press, the Rambler was accommodated with an Index compiled by the Rev. Mr. Flexman, a gentleman of whom, as we may collect from a curious anecdote preserved by Mr. Boswell, Johnson appears to have entertained no very favourable opinion. "Johnson would sometimes," he remarks," found his dislike upon very slender circumstances. Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a dissenting minister, with some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters, the doctor replied, Let me hear no more of him, sir; that is the fellow who made the index to my Ramblers, and set down the name of Milton thus: Milton, Mr. John." Boswell's Life, vol. 4, p. 340. t Vol. 1, p. 194.