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Oxford English Classics.
DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
THE RAMBLER.
VOL. I.
TALBOYS AND WHEELER, PRINTERS, OXFORD.
THE
WORKS
OF
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
IN NINE VOLUMES.
VOLUME THE SECOND.
OXFORD:
PUBLISHED BY TALBOYS AND WHEELER;
AND W. PICKERING, LONDON.
MDCCCXXV.
PREFATORY NOTICE
An attentive consideration of the period at which any work of moralinstruction has appeared, and of the admonitions appropriate to the stateof those times, is highly necessary for a correct estimate of the meritsof the writer. For to quote the judicious remarks of one of our earlierEssayists 1, "there is a sort of craft attending vice and absurdity;and when hunted out of society in one shape, they seldom want addressto reinsinuate themselves in another: hence the modes of licence varyalmost as often as those of dress, and consequently require continualobservation to detect and explode them anew." The days in which theRambler first undertook to reprove and admonish his country, may besaid to have well required a moralist of their own. For the modes offashionable life, and the marked distinction between the capital andthe country, which drew forth the satire, and presented scope for theadmonitions of the Spectator and the Tatler, were then fast giving placeto other follies, and to characters that had not hitherto subsisted. Thecrowd of writers 2, whatever might be their individual merit, who offeredtheir labours to the public, between the close of the Spectator and theappearance of the Rambler, had contributed, in a most decided manner,towards the diffusion of a taste for literary information. It was nolonger a coterie of wits at Button's, or at[vi] Will's, who, engrossing allacquaintance with Belles Lettres, pronounced with a haughty and exclusivespirit on every production for the stage or the closet; but it was areading public to whom writers now began to make appeal for censureor applause. That education which the present day beholds so widelyspread had then commenced its progress; and perhaps it is not too boldto say, that Johnson almost foresaw the course that it would run. He sawa public already prepared for weightier discussions than could have beenunderstood the century before. In addition to a more general education,the improved intercourse between the remotest parts of the country andthe metropolis made all acquainted with the dissipation and manners,which, during the publication of the Spectator, w