Rambler #23

“The contrariety of criticism. The vanity of objection. An author obliged to depend on his own judgement”

The appropriate amount of advice a writer should solicit from critics and friends; a writer should keep his own counsel; a speaker should select all arguments, not just the best; twists the concept so as not to apply to writers since he has contradicted himself…That every man should regulate his actions by his own conscience, without any regard to the opinion of the rest of the world, is one of the first precepts of moral prudence…It is indeed, quickly discovered, that consultation and compliance can conduce better to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harrass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of writing heterogeneous ideas, digesting the independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions…Some were angry that the Rambler did not, like the Spectator, introduce himself to the acquaintance of the public, by an account of his own birth and studies, an enumeration of his adventures, and a description of his physiognomy. Others soon began to remark that he was a solemn, serious, dictatorial writer, without sprightliness or gaiety, and called out with vehemence for mirth and humour. Another admonished him to have a special eye upon various clubs of this great city and informed him that much of the Spectator’s vivacity was laid out upon such assemblies...When a book is once in the hands of the public, it is considered as permanent and unalterable; and the reader accomodates his mind to the authour's design.

Rambler #24

“The necessity of attending to the duties of common life. The natural character not to be foresaken”

“Rashness preferable to cowardice. Enterprize not to be depressed”

Rashness and cowardice are opposites, their relative merits, presumption and despondency…It is more easy to take away superfluities than to supply defects…Fame is not conferred but as the recompense of labour, and labour, vigorously continued, has not often failed of its own reward… Applause and admiration are by no means to be counted among the necessaries of life…Freedom from pain is, among some philosophers the definition of happiness... False hopes and false terrors are equally to be avoided. Every man who proposes to grow eminent by learning, should carry in his mind, at once, the difficulty of excellance, and the force of industry…To walk with circumspection and steadiness in the right path, at an equal distance between the extreems of errour, ought to be the constant endeavour of every reasonable being; nor can I think those teaching moral wisdom much to be honoured as benefactors to mankind, who are always enlarging upon the difficulty of our duties, and providing rather excuses for vice, than incentives to virtue.

Rambler #26

Rambler # 34

“The uneasiness and disgust of female cowardice. Female fastidiousness and timorous refinement”

Anthea imagines that all delicacy consists in refusing to be pleased.

Rambler #35

“A marriage of prudence, without affection”

A warning against marrying those whom they have no reason to esteem.

Rambler #36

“The reasons why pastorals delight”

Poetry has to do rather with the passions of men, which are uniform, than their customs, which are interchangeable…A pastoral is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes familiar to almost every imagination, and of which all can equally judge whether they are well described…It exhibits a life which we have been accustomed to associate with peace, and leisure and innocence...Pastorals have been drained by imitators who transmit the same images in the same combination from one to another, till he that reads the title of a poem, may guess at the whole series of the composition.

Rambler #37

“The true principals of pastoral poetry”

A pastoral is “a poem in which any action or passion is represented by the effects upon a country life” – Virgil…In pastorals, as in other writings, chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be observed, and purity of manners to be represented; not because the poet is confined to the golden age, but because, having the subject in his own choice, he ought always to consult the interest of virtue…Pastoral has nothing peculiar but its confinement to rural imagery, without which it ceases to be pastoral.

Rambler #38

“The advantages of mediocrity. An Eastern fable”

It has been observed that happiness, as well as virtue, consists in mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme is necessary, even to him who has no other care than to pass through the present state with ease and safety, and that the middle path is the road to security, on either side of which are not only the pitfalls of vice, but the precipices of ruin…"For beautiful women are seldom of any great accomplishments, because they, for the most part, study behavior rather than virtues” – Bacon…It is less a calamity to not possess great powers, than of not using them aright…But it almost always happens, that the man who grows rich changes his notions of poverty, states his wants by some new measure. The power of gratifying appetites increases their demands.

Rambler #39

“The unhappiness of women, whether single or married”

Such is life, that whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find reasons for rejecting than embracing…Nothing is more common than the belief that we are displaying judgement or taste by unwillingness to be pleased...They are placed between Scylla and Charybdis, with no other choice than of dangers equally formidable; and whether they embrace marriage, or determine upon a single life, are exposed, in consequence of their choice, to sickness, misery, and death…The custom of he world seems to have been formed in a kind of conspiracy against them, though it does not appear but they had themselves an equal share in its establishment.

Rambler #40

“The difficulty of giving advice without offending”

They seldom fail of giving proofs of their irascibility, upon the slightest attack of criticism, or the most gentle or modest offer of advice and information…The fondest and firmest friendships dissolve by openness, and sincerity, as interrupt our enjoyment of our own approbation, or recall us to the remembrance of those failings, which we are more willing to indulge than correct…He that hopes for that advantage which is to be gained from unrestrained communication, must sometimes hazard, by unpleasing truths, that friendship which he aspires to merit. The chief rule to be observed in the exercise of this dangerous office, is to preserve it pure from all mixture of interest or vanity, to forbear admonition or reproof when our consciences tell us that they are incited not by the hope of reforming faults, but by the desire of shewing our discernment, or gratifying our pride by the motivation of another.

Rambler #41

“The advantage of memory”

It is much more common for the solitary and the thoughtful to amuse themselves with schemes of the future than reviews of the past. For the future is pleasant and ductile, and will be easily molded by a strong fancy into any form…Man differs from animals in having an exhuberance of understanding to which the objects of present moment are always inadequate…We are forced to have recourse, every moment, to the past and future for supplemental satisfactions…The present is in perpetual motion, leaves as soon as it arrives. We are happy or miserable as we are affected by what we believe has happened or is to come…So few of the hours of life are filled up with objects adequate to the mind of man, and so frequently are we in want of present pleasure or employment, that we are forced to have recourse every moment to the past and future for supplemental satisfactions, and relieve the vacuities of our being, by recollection of former passages, or anticipation of events to come.

Rambler #42

“The misery of a modish lady in solitude”

We are credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine some latent satisfaction in anything which we have not experienced…A thousand and a thousand ladies, who effect to talk with ecstacies of the pleasures of the country, are in reality, longing for the winter, and wishing to be delivered from themselves by company and diversion.

Rambler #43

“The inconvenience of precipitation and confidence. The doctrine of innate ideas”

Petty operations, incessantly continued, in time, surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings…Unshaken perseverance is necessary…The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence…It cannot be denied that every difference in the structure of the mind has its advantages and its wants; and that failures and defects, being inseparable from humanity, however the powers of understanding be extended or contracted, there will on one side or the other always be an avenue to error and miscarriage.

Rambler #44

“Religion and superstition" -  A vision written by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter

Pleasure was not designed the portion of human life. Man was born to mourn and be wretched, and whoever endeavors to oppose it, acts in contradiction to the will of heaven...The weight of life is such that all shrink from recollection, and all wish for an act of forgetfulness, otherwise self-recrimination becomes inescapable.

Rambler #45

“The causes of disagreement in marriage”

Whoever feel great pain, naturally hopes for ease from change of posture...We shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous, the longer it is worn...Converse with almost any man, grown old in his profession, and you will find him regretting that he did not enter into some different course, to which he too late finds his genius better adopted, or in which he discovers that wealth and honor are more easily attained...Every animal revenges his pain upon those who happen to be near, without any nice examination of its cause...The whole endeavor of both parties during the time of courtship, is to hinder themselves from being known, and to disguise their natural temper, and real desires, in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued affection. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but in a mask, and the cheat is managed often on both sides, with so much art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the wedding-night, and that by a strange imposture one has been courted, and another married...A contract begun with fraud has ended in disappointment…Some unite for life to those whom they have only seen by the light of tapers at a ball; when parents make articles for their children, without enquiring after their consent; some worry for heirs to disappoint their brothers, and others throw themselves into the arms they do not love, because they found themselves rejected where they were more solicitous to please; when some marry because their servants cheat them, some because they squander their own money, some because their houses are pestered with company, some because they will live like other people, and some only because they are sick with themselves...Every man recounts the inconveniences of his own station, and thinks those of any other less, because he has not felt them. Thus the married praise the ease and freedom of a single state, and the single fly to marriage from the weariness of solitude.

Rambler #46

“The mischiefs of rural faction”

A young lady of fashion describes the mischief of rural faction…Malice and hatred descend with an inheritance…Impatience with attending where nothing can be learned, and quarreling where there is nothing to contest.

Rambler #47

“The proper means of regulating sorrow”

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. Time is generally observed to wear out sorrow, and its effects might doubtless be accelerated by quickening the succession, and enlarging the variety of objects…Fear urges our flight and desire animates our progress…The miser always imagines that there is a certain sum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every ambitious man, like King Pyrrhus, has an acquisition in his thoughts, that is to terminate his labors, after which he shall pass the rest of his life in ease or gaety, in repose or devotion…Sorrow is properly that state of mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a tormenting and harrassing want of some enjoyment or possession which we have lost, which no endeavor can possibly regain…An attempt to preserve life in a state of neutrality and indifference, is unreasonable and vain...Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is putrefication of stagnant life and is remedied by exercise and motion.

Rambler #48

“The miseries of an inferior constitution”

Every terrestrial advantage is chiefly valuable, as it furnishes abilities for the exercise of virtue…The distinctions which set one man so much above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber…Those who do not feel pain, seldom think that it is felt…Those who lose their health in an irregular and impetuous pursuit of literary accomplishments are yet less to be excused; for they ought to know that the body is not forced beyond its strength, but with the loss of more vigour than is proportionate to the effect produced. They whose endeavor is mental excellance, will learn perhaps too late, how much it is endangered by diseases of the body, and find that knowledge may easily be lost in the starts of melancholy, the flights of impatience, and the peevishness of decrepitude...Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Rambler #49

“A disquisition upon the value of fame”

Avarice, vanity, ambition, etc. – are conditions which arise from the comparison of our condition with that of others…It is evident that fame, considered merely as the immortality of a name, is not less likely to be the reward of bad actions than of good…Upon an attentive and impartial review of the argument, it will appear that the loss of fame is to be regulated, rather than extinguished; and that men should be taught not to be wholly careless about their memory, but to endeavor that they may be remembered chiefly for their virtues, since no other reputation will be able to transmit any pleasure beyond the grave...The first motives of human actions are those appetites which providence has given to man in common with the rest of the inhabitants of the earth, but when we come to consider anything more immediate, all is conjecture.

Rambler #50

“A virtuous old age always reverenced”

I have always thought it the business of those who turn their speculation upon the living world, to commend the virtues, as well as to expose the faults of their contemporaries, and to confute a false as well as to support a just accusation…It has always been the practice of those who are desirous to believe themselves made venerable by length of time, to censure the new comers into life…Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence...The general story of mankind will, evince that lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed…”You’ve had your share of mirth, of meat and drink: Tis time to quit the scene – t’is time to think." -  Elphinston

Rambler #51

“The employments of a housewife in the country”

A letter: I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness and diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this sober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the employments of those who look with contempt on the pleasures and diversions of polite life, and employ all their powers of censure and invective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly, of dress, visits, and conversation.

Rambler #52

“The contemplation of the vanities of others, a remedy for grief”

The common voice of the multitudes, uninstructed by precept and unprejudiced by authority, in questions that relate to the heart of man, is, in my opinion, more decisive than the learning of Linsius…We are rich or poor, great or little, in proportion to the number that excel us, or fall beneath us…It is pleasing to look from the shore upon the tumult of a storm, and to see a ship struggling with the billows; it is pleasing, not because the pain of another can give us delight, but because we have a stronger impression of the happiness of safety.

Rambler #55

“The gay widow’s impatience on the growth of her daughter. The history of Miss May-Pole”

Shows in an odious light, a man whose practice it 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 dulled with a quiet oblivion.

Rambler #56

“The necessity of complaisance. The Rambler’s grief for offending his correspondents”

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency…The greater part of those who set mankind at defiance by hourly irritation give up the sweets of kindness, for the sake of peevishness, petulance, or gloom; and alienate the world by neglect of the common forms of civility, and breach of the established laws of conversation…Who would be hated without profit?…It is common for soft and fearful tempers to give themselves up implicitly to the direction of the bold, the turbulent, and the overbearing; of those whom they do not believe wiser or better than themselves; to recede from the best designs where opposition must be encountered, and to fall off from virtue for fear of censure…Even though no regard be had to the external consequences of contrariety and dispute, it must be painful to a worthy mind to put others in pain, and there will be danger lest the kindest nature may be vitiated by too long a custom of debate and contest.

Rambler #57

“Sententious rules of frugality”

The bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced…A penny saved is two-pence got…Let no man anticipate uncertain profit...Riches cannot be within the reach of great numbers, because to be rich is to possess more than is commonly placed in a single hand; and, if many could obtain the sum which now makes a man wealthy, the name of wealth must then be transferred to still greater accumulations. But I am not certain that it is equally impossible to exempt the lower classes of mankind from poverty; because, though, whatever be the wealth of the community, some will always have least, and he that has less than any other is comparatively poor; yet I do not see any coactive necessity that many should be without the indispensible conveniences of life; but am sometimes inclined to imagine, that, casual calamities excepted, there might, by universal prudence, be procured an universal exemption from want; and that he who should happen to have least, might, notwithstanding, have enough.  

Rambler #60

“On biography – the dignity and usefulness”

Stresses the importance of our identification with the subject of biography, our interest in personal rather than public life, and our hunger for those anecdotal details which give excellence to biography...If we owe regard to the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue and to truth…We are prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure…It is frequently objected to relations of particular lives, that they are not distinguished by any striking or wonderful vicissitudes. But this notion arises from false measures of excellence and dignity, and must be eradicated by considering, that in the esteem of uncorrupted reason, what is of most use, is of most value…All joy or sorrow for the pains or pleasures of others is produced by placing ourselves in imagination for the time being in their condition, that our passions are more strongly moved if the parallel circumstances, and kindred images are those to which we may readily conform our minds, and that these circumstances are to be found more frequently in biography than in any other form of writing...No species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition...There has rarely passed a life of which judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful...There is such an Uniformity in the Life of Man, if it be considered apart from adventitious and separable Decorations and Disguises, that there is scarce any Possibility of Good or Ill, but is common to Humankind...The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies and display minute details of daily life...The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand fortunes in the business of a day, and complicate innumerable incidents in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private life. 

Rambler #61

“A Londoner’s visit to the country”

Rambler #62

“A young ladies impatience to see London”

Parents had retired from the world and did not permit the Lady writing this letter, addressed to the Rambler, despite all of her abilities, to visit London.

Rambler #63

“Inconstancy not always weakness”

No man is pleased with his present state, which proves equally unsatisfactory, says Horace, whether fallen upon by chance or chosen with deliberation; we are always disgusted with some circumstance or other of our situation, and imagine the condition of others more abundent in blessings, or less exposed to calamities…To take a view of once distinct and comprehensive human life, with all its intricacies of combination, and varieties of connexion, is beyond the power of mortal intelligences. We snatch a glimpse, we discern a point, and regulate every favourite prejudice, every innate desire, is busy to deceive us…The traveller that resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hours of daylight in looking for smoother ground, and shorter passages…He that steadily endeavours, at excellance, in whatever employment, will more benefit mankind than he that hesitates in choosing his part till he is called to the performance.

Rambler #64

“The requisites to true friendship”

So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship, and so many accidents must concur to its use and continuance, that the greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its place as they can, with interest and dependance…Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority of one is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.

Rambler #65

“Obidah and the hermit, an Eastern story”

A man who returns late in life to receive honors in his native country, and meets with mortification instead of respect. This was considered by Johnson to be a masterpiece in the science of life and manners... Happiness is lost when ease is consulted…Petty curiosity led him from trifle to trifle…Though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, begin thy journey and thy life.

Rambler #66

“Passion not to be eradicated. The views of women ill directed”

Johnson seems to ridicule his own Vanity of Human Wishes…How few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue? How void of reason are our hopes and fears? – Dryden…It is natural for every man uninstructed, to murmur at his condition, because, in the general felicity of life, he feels this own miseries, without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species…Little minds torture the breast on which they seize, infest those that are placed within the reach of their influence, destroy private quiet and private virtue, and undermine insensibly the happiness of the world.

Rambler # 67

“The garden of hope, a dream”

Distinguishes reasonable from fanciful hopes…In this essay flight is one of the means by which people attempt to ascend to the throne of hope…Hope begins with the first power of comparing our actual with our possible state, and attend us through every stage and period, always urging us forward to new acquisitions, and holding out some distant blessing to our view, promising us either relief from pain or increase of happiness…Hope is necessary in every condition. It promises what it seldom gives… Hope, the daughter of desire.

Rambler #68

“Every man chiefly happy or miserable at home. Opinions of servants not to be despised”

Rambler #69

“The miseries and prejudices of old age”

Nothing could be added to the curse of age, but that it should be extended beyond its natural limits…. One generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other and the notions of the old and young never can unite…Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man…The notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity, and texture which can never unite. The spirits of youth sublimed by health, and volatilized by passion, soon leave behind them the phlegmatic sediment of weariness and deliberation...So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrarity of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Rambler #70

“Different men virtuous in different degrees. The vicious not always abandoned”

Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught…Hesiod divides mankind into three orders of intellect. The first phase belongs to him that can by his own powers discern what is right and fit and penetrate to the remoter motives of action. The second is claimed by him that is willing to hear instruction, and can perceive right and wrong when they are shewn him by another; but he that has neither acuteness nor docility, who can neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch without use or value. The same division may be made of men, with regard to their virtue…It may be particularly observed of women, that they are for the most part good or bad, as they fall among those who practise vice or virtue; and that neither education nor reason gives them much security against the influence of example.

Rambler #71

“No man believes that his own life will be short”

Life trifled away in preparation to do what never can be done, if it be left unattempted till all the requisites which imagination can suggest are gathered together. Where our design terminates only in our own satisfaction, the mistake is of no great importance; for the pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment …The shortness of life is generally forgotten…And he believes that he is marked out to reach the outmost verge of human existence, and so thousands and thousands fall into the grave…We act as if life were without end, though we see and confess its uncertainty and shortness… The duties of life are commensurate to its duration, and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow...He that has already trifled away those months and years, in which he should have laboured, must remember that he has now only a part of that of which the whole is little; and that since the few moments remaining are to be considered the last days of Heaven, not one to be lost. 

Rambler #72

“The necessity of good humour”

Good humour may be defined a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition…A state between gayety and unconcern…It is well known that the most certain way to give any man pleasure, is to persuade him that you receive pleasure from him…I have a wife whose wit confirmed her conquest, but now serves no other purpose than to justify perverseness…Many have not sufficiently considered how much of human life passes in little incidents, cursory conversation, slight business, and casual amusements…No man is more dangerous than he that with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves safe with such a companion when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.

Rambler #73

“The lingering expectation of an heir”

Complaint quickly tires, however elegant, or however just…The mind can be corrupted with an inveterate disease of wishing…In all the perplexities or vexations which want of money brought upon us, it was our constant practice to have recourse to futurity.

Rambler #74

“Peevishness equally wretched and offensive. The character of Tetricia”

Men seldom give pleasure where they are not pleased themselves; it is necessary, therefore, to cultivate an habitual alacrity, and chearfulness, that in whatever state we may be placed by providence, whether we are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or afford protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact…Peevishness is employed by insolence in exacting homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to endure the least obstruction of her wishes…Those who have long lived in solitude indeed naturally contract this unsocial quality, because having long had only themselve to please, they do not readily depart from their own inclinations…Let no man rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof of understanding…Peevishness is often the child of vanity, and nursling of ignorance…It sometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness, or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding, and teaches the mind to discern faults with unhappy penetration. Knowledge and genius are often enemies of quiet, by suggesting ideas of excellance which men and the performances of men cannot attain.

Rambler #75

Rambler #78

“The power of novelty. Mortality too familiar to raise apprehensions”

The remembrance of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and settled principal, always operating, though not always perceived…Men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they advance in age…The great incentive to virtue is the reflection that we must die…The neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack...Influence exerted by an eminent personage is likened to one of the remote stars, of which light reaches us but not the heat...An incessant call for variety, and restless pursuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpossessed...No man can at pleasure obtund or invigorate his senses, prolong the agency of any impulse, or continue the presence of any image traced upon the eye, or any sound infused upon the ear.

Rambler #79

“A suspicious man justly suspected”

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him he deceived, but of the diminuition of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society…Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness…It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust…Historians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind, when they relate without censure those stratagems of war by which the virtues of an enemy are engaged in his destruction.

Rambler #80

“Vanity necessary to happiness. A winter scene”

Justifies a severe winter by pointing out that change of seasons benefit man…We should soon grow uneasy of uniformity, find our thoughts languish for want of other subjects, call on heaven for our wanted round of seasons, and think ourselves liberally recompensed for the inconveniencies of summer and winter, by new perceptions of the calmness and mildness of the intermediate variations…As providence has made the human soul an active being, always impatient for novelty, and struggling for something yet unenjoyed with unwearied progression, the world seems to have been eminently adopted to this disposition of mind: it is formed to raise expectations by constant vicissitudes, and to obviate satiety by perpetual change...A man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a confused remembrance of agitated passions, and clamorous altercations.

Rambler #81

Rambler #82

“The virtuoso’s account of his rarities”

For you know that there are men, with whom, when they have once settled a notion in their heads, it is very little purpose to dispute.

Rambler #83

“The virtuoso’s curiosity justified”

Between men of different studies and professions, may be observed a constant reciprocation of reproaches…No man can perform so little or not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitudes that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavored to be useful…If what appears little be universally despised, nothing greater can be attained, for all that is great was at first little, and rose to its present bulk by gradual accessions, and accumulated labors…To mean understanding, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill-suited with the capacity of Newton.

Rambler #84

“A young ladies impatience of control”

A wish from a Miss of sixteen that the Rambler would state the time when young ladies may judge for themselves, which she is certain he cannot but think ought to begin before sixteen; and if he is inclined to delay it longer, will have very little regard for his opinion.

Rambler #85

“The mischiefs of total idleness”

The old and peripatetic principal that nature abhors a vacuum may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace anything, however absurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object…He that has not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries can spare from their own affairs, conceives all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines everyone that approaches him to be an enemy or a follower, an admirer or a spy…How much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body…Description of melancholy and madness – autobiographical?…almost every occupation, however inconvenient or formidable is happier and safer than a life of sloth…to be idle is to be vitious.

Rambler #86

“The dangers of succeeding a great author.  An introduction to criticism on Milton’s versification"

It is indeed, always dangerous to be placed in a state of unavoidable comparison, with excellance, and the danger is still greater when that excellance is consecrated by death; when envy and interest cease to act against it, and those passions by which it was at first vilified and opposed, now stand in its defense…There are in every age, new errours to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. False taste is always busy to mislead those that are entering upon the regions of learning...The burthen of government is increased upon princes by the virtues of their immediate predecessors. The same is true in the intellectual and literary world.

Rambler #87

“The reasons why advice is generally ineffectual”

There are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain…That few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice, has been generally observed…Advice as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or judicious…Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate enquiry whether it is right…We see that volumes may be perused, and perused with attention, to little effect; and that maxims of prudence, or principals of virtue may be treasured in the memory without influencing the conduct of the numbers that pass their lives among books, very few read to be made wiser or better, apply general reproof of vice to themselves, or try their own manners by axioms of justice. They purpose either to consume those hours for which they can find no other amusement; to gain or preserve that respect which learning has always obtained; or to gratify their curiosity with knowledge, which, like treasures buried and forgotten, is of no use to others or themselves.

Rambler #88

“A criticism on Milton’s versification"

There is no reputation for genius to be gained writing on things, which, however necessary, have littler splendour to shew”- Quintilian

Rambler #89

“The luxury of vain imagination”

Rambler # 90

“The pause in English poetry adjusted”

The loose sparkles of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and the gay contention for paradoxical positions rectify opinions…It is very difficult to write on the minute parts of literature without failing to please or instruct...An essay on the problems of criticizing Milton...He has performed all our language would permit.

Rambler #91

“The conduct of patronage, an allegory”

Those who solicited patronage without success, generally withdraw from publick notice, and either divert their attention to meaner employments, or endeavour to supply their deficiencies by closer application…Hope is a steady friend of the disappointed…Patronage learned to procure reverence by ceremonies and formalities, and, instead of admitting petitioners to immediate audience, ordered the ante-chamber to be erected, called the Hall of Expectation. This hall was crowded with a promiscuous throng, pressing forward with the utmost eagerness of desire, and agitated with all the anxieties of competition…The Sciences after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace of Patronage, and having long wandered over the world in grief and distress were led to the cottage of independence, the daughter of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support themselves in dignity and quiet.

Rambler #92

“The accommodation of sound to sense often chimerical”

Criticism reduces those regions of literature under the dominion of science, which have hitherto known only the anarchy of ignorance, the caprice of fancy, and the tyranny of prescription…Boileau justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and have been admired through all the changes, which the mind of man has suffered from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary customs, have a better claim to our regard than any modern can boast, because the long continuance of their reputation proves that they are adequate to our facilities , and agreeable to nature…Beauty is relative and comparative…It is the task of criticism to establish principals; to improve opinion into knowledge.

Rambler #93

“The prejudices and caprices of criticism”

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities…Criticks, like all the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest…The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellance are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive…The duty of criticism is neither to depreciate, nor dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover; or promulgate the determinations of truth, whatever she shall dictate…He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom everyone has a right to attack…There are in every age, new errours to be rectify’d, and new prejudices to be opposed. False taste is always busy to mislead those that are entering upon the regions of learning.

Rambler #94

“An inquiry how far Milton has accomodated the sound to the sense”

The resemblance of poetick numbers, to the subject which they mention or describe, may be considered as general or particular; as consisting in the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised in the sound of some emphatical or descriptive words, or in the cadence and harmony of single verses…Milton seems only to have regarded this species of embellishment so far as not to reject it when it came unsought; which would often happen to a mind so vigorous, employed upon a subject so various and extensive.

Rambler #95

“The history of Pertinax, the sceptic”

We naturally love the arts in which we believe ourselves to excel…Such is the hazard of repressing the first perceptions of truth, of spreading for diversion the snares of sophistry, and engaging reason against its own determinations.

Rambler #96

Rambler #97

“Advice to unmarried ladies”

Written by Samuel Richardson…This was the only Rambler to enjoy large sales, approaching 5oo copies…Clarissa is the first book in the world for the knowledge it displays of the human heart…Tom Jones, a vicious book…Attendance of a young woman at church…Courting and meeting at church in the Spectator’s day compared to the present fashionable folly...The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications...Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.

Rambler #98

“The necessity of cultivating politeness”

Life passes for the most part, in petty transactions; our hours glide away in trifling amusements and slight gratifications; and very seldom emerges any occasion that can call forth great virtue or great abilities…As some are not richer for the extent of their possessions, others are not wiser for the multitude of their ideas…Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss. Its influence upon the manners is constant and uniform, so that, like an equal motion, it escapes perception…Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient without the supplemental laws of good breeding…It is scarcely possible to find any man who does not frequently indulge his own pride by forcing others into comparison with himself, when he knows the advantage is on his side, without considering that unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas is a species of oppression; and that it is little more than criminal to deprive another of some real advantages, than to interrupt that forgetfulness of its absence which is the next happiness to actual possession.

Rambler #99

“The pleasures of private friendship. The necessity of similar dispositions”

To love all men is our duty but to love all equally is impossible…Discord generally operates in little things; it is inflamed by contrariety of taste, more often than of principles…That friendship may at once be fond and lasting, it has been already observed in these papers, that a conformity of inclinations is necessary. No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation…Benevolence is always strongest which arises from participation of the same pleasures, since we are naturally most willing to revive in our minds, the memory of persons, with whom the idea of enjoyment is connected.

Rambler #100

“Modish pleasures”

Written by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the only person to have written two essays for Johnson, her second attempt to add a cheerful note to the Rambler…As very many well-disposed persons, by the unavoidable necessity of their affairs, are so unfortunate as to be totally buried in the country, where they labour under the most deplorable ignorance of what is transacting among the polite part of mankind, I cannot help thinking, that, as a publick writer, you should take the case of these truly compassionable objects under your consideration and should furnish accounts of the employments of the people of the world.

Rambler #101

“A proper audience necessary to wit”

Invention is not wholly at the command of its possessor: that all expectations lessen surprize, yet some surprize is necessary to gaiety, and that those who wish to partake of the pleasure of wit must contribute to its production, since the mind stagnates without external ventilation, and that effervescence of the fancy, which flashes into transport, can be raised only by the infusion of dissimilar ideas.

Rambler #102

“The voyage of life”

The vessels, in which we had embarked, being confessedly unequal to the turbulence of the stream of life, were visibly impaired in the course of the voyage; so that every passenger was certain, that how long so ever he might, by favorable accident, or by incessant vigilence, be preserved, he must sink at last…They all had the art of concealing their danger from themselves…And generally entertained themselves by playing with Hope, who was the constant associate of the voyage of life…Yet all that Hope ventured to promise, even to those whom she favored most, was, not that they should escape, but that they should sink last; and with this promise every one was satisfied…There were artists who professed to repair the breaches and stop the leaks of the vessels…Nor was it found that the artists themselves continued afloat longer than those who had least of their assistance…Gaze not idly upon others when thou thyself are sinking.

Rambler #103

“The prevalence of curiosity. The character of Nugaculis”

Rambler #105

“The universal register, a dream”

A universal register, an office, in which every man may lodge an account of his superfluities and wants, of whatever he desires to purchase or sell…A place where every exhuberance may be discharged, and every deficiency supplied; where every lawful passion may find its gratifications, and every honest curiosity receive satisfaction, where all conditions of humanity may hope to find relief, pleasure and accommodation…What is the end of patronage, but the pleasure of reading dedications, holding multitudes in suspense, and enjoying their hopes, their fears, and their anxiety, flattering them to assiduity, and, at last, dismissing them for impatience?

Rambler #106

Rambler #107

“Prosperantia’s hopes of a year of confusion. The misery of prostitutes”

The second of the two letters in this Rambler was written by Mr. Joseph Simpson, a young lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn…To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilence and severity are properly employed.

Rambler #108

“Life sufficient to all purposes, if well employed”

The proverbial oracles of our parsimonious ancestors have informed us, that the fatal waste of fortune is by small expenses, by the profusion of sums too little singly to alarm our caution, and which we never suffer ourselves to consider together…The disposition to defer every important design to a time of leisure, and a state of settled uniformity, proceeds generally from a false estimate of human powers…Time was his estate...Of extensive surfaces we can only take a survey as the parts succeed one another; and atoms we cannot perceive, till they are united into masses.

Rambler #109

“The education of a fop”

They that encourage folly in the boy, have no right to punish it in the man…Though they lavish their first fondness upon pertness and gaiety, soon transfer their regard to other qualities, and ungratefully abandon their adorers to dream out their last years in stupidity and contempt.

Rambler #110

“Repentance stated and explained. Retirement and abstinence”

What better can we do, than prostrate fall

Before him reverent, and there confess

Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears

Wat’ring the ground, and with our sighs the air

Frequently, sent from hearts contrite, in sign

Of sorrow unfeign’d, and humiliation meek - Paradise Lost

Rambler #112

“Too much nicety not to be indulged. The character of Eriphile”

A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight; and has no part in the general gratifications of mankind…There will always be a wide interval between practical and ideal excellance…The folly of suffering perturbation and uneasiness from causes unworthy of our notice…The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and the least…The perceptions as well as the senses may be improved to our own disquiet, and we may, by diligent cultivation of the powers of dislike, raise in time an artificial fastidiousness which shall fill the imagination with phantoms of turpitude...They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence, and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.

Rambler #113

“The history of Hymenaeus’s courtship.”

A sober man like thee to change his life!

What fury wou’d possess thee with a wife? -  Dryden

I know not whether it is always a proof of innocence to treat censure with contempt. We owe so much reverence to the wisdom of mankind, as justly to wish, that our own opinion of our merit may be ratified by the concurrence of other suffrages; and since guilt and infamy must have the same effect on intelligences unable to pierce beyond external appearance, and influenced often rather by example than precept, we are obliged to refute a false charge, lest we should countenance the crime which we have never committed. To turn away from an accusation with supercilious silence, is equally in the power of him that is hardened by villany, and inspirited by innocence.

Rambler #114

“The necessity of proportioning punishment to crimes”

The barbarity of criminal law…The lawgiver enforces those laws with severity that are most in danger of violation…If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood, but when, by the least act of cruelty no new danger is incurred, and greater security may be obtained, upon what principal shall we bid them forbear?…Nothing is more inequitable than that one man should suffer for the crimes of another, for crimes which he has neither prompted nor permitted, which he could neither foresee nor prevent…Surely, that man must be confessedly robbed, who is compelled by whatever means, to pay the debts which he does not owe, nor can I look with equal hatred on him, who, at the hazard of his life, holds out his pistol and demands my purse, as on him who plunders under shelter of the law, and, by detaining my sons or my friend in prison, extorts from me the price of their liberty…The very frequency and caprice of its occurrence (death sentence) keeps it from being an effective deterrent...We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

Rambler #115

“The sequel of Hymenaeus’s courtship”

Some faults, tho’ small, intolerable grow – Dryden…You must have observed in the world a species of mortals who employ themselves in promoting matrimony, and without any visible motive of interest or vanity, without any discoverable impulse of malice or benevolence, without any reason, but that they want objects of attention and topicks of conversation, are incessantly busy in procuring wives and husbands. They fill the ears of every single man and woman with some convenient match; and when they are informed of your age and fortune, offer a partner for life with the same readiness, and the same indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits his customer with a coat.

Rambler #116

“The young trader’s attempt at politeness”

Going to London to learn a trade but looked down upon by others with less money.

Rambler #117

“The advantages of living in garret. A jest”

Rambler #119

“Tranquilla’s account of her lovers, opposed to Hymenaeus”

Without hope there can be no caution…That the world is over-run with vice cannot be denied…It is indeed natural for injury to provoke anger…Soon gained upon my eye at an age when the sight is very little over-ruled by the understanding…Johnson considered himself one of “those who undertake to iniate the young and ignorant in the knowledge of life.”

Rambler #120

“The history of Alamoulin, the son of Nouradin”

Thy has suffered thy reason to be deluded by idle hope and fallacious appearance…The doctrine of human malevolence, though a true one, is not a useful one, and ought not to be published to the world.

Rambler #121

“The dangers of imitation. The impropriety of imitating Spenser”

There are many, who instead of endeavoring by books and meditation to form their own opinions, content themselves with a secondary knowledge, which a convenient bench in a coffee house can supply…It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious, and severe…I am now too old to be much pained by hasty censure…Ajax, the haughty chief, the unlettered soldier, of unshaken courage, of immovable constancy, but without the power of recommending his own virtues by eloquence, or by enforcing his assertions by any other argument than the sword, had no way of making his anger known but by gloomy sullenness and dumb ferocity…Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value, but because it has been forgotten…The hereditary stock of human knowledge is the collective labour of a thousand intellects...In science, which, being fixed and limited, admits of no other variety than such as arises from new methods of distribution, or new arts of illustration, the necessity of following the traces of our predecessors is indisputably evident, but there appears no reason why imagination should be subject to the same restraint. The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must either follow or meet one another, but in the boundless regions of possibility, which fiction claims for her dominion, there are surely a thousand recesses unexplored, a thousand flowers unplucked, a thousand fountains unexhausted, combinations of imagery yet unobserved, and races of ideal inhabitants not hitherto described.

Rambler #122

“A criticism of English historians”

Nothing is more subject to mistake and disappointment than anticipated judgement concerning the easiness or difficulty of an undertaking, whether we form our opinion from the performance of others, or from abstracted contemplation of the thing to be attempted…Whatever is done skillfully appears to be done with ease…Some have doubted, whether an Englishman can stop at that mediocrity of stile, or confine his mind to that even tenour of imagination, which narrative requires...Most historians write chronological memorials, which necessity may sometimes require to be consulted, but which fright away curiosity, and disgust delicacy.

Rambler #123

“The young trader turned gentleman”

Appropriate amount of advice a writer should solicit from critics and friends (Johnson’s position is one of obstinate self-sufficiency)…Learn to repress that ambition, which could never be gratified; and, instead of wasting more of life in vain endeavours after accomplishments, which, if not early acquired, no endeavours can obtain, confine care to those higher excellancies which are in every man’s power and through cannot enchant affection by elegance and ease, hope to secure esteem by honesty and truth...A shining dress, like a mighty weapon, has no force in itself, but owes all its efficacy to him that wears it.

Rambler #124

“The ladies’ misery in a summer retirement”

It would seem impossible to a solitary specialist that a human being can want employment. To be born in ignorance with a capacity of knowledge, and to be placed in the midst of a world filled with variety, perpetually pressing upon the senses and irritating curiosity, is surely a sufficient security against the languishment of inattention. Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects; and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation…The mind will never be vacant, which is frequently recalled by stated duties to meditations on eternal interests; nor can any hour be long, which is spent in obtaining some new qualification of celestial happiness.

Rambler #125

“The difficulty of defining comedy. Tragic and comic sentiments”

Nature of literary criticism…Definitions are dangerous... Imagination is a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint…But though, perhaps, it cannot be pretended that the present age has added much to the force and efficacy of the drama, it has at least been able to escape many faults, which either ignorance had overlooked, or indulgence had licensed. The later tragedies, indeed, have faults of another kind, perhaps more destructive to delight, though less open to censure. That perpetual tumour of phrase with which every thought is now expressed by every personage, the paucity of adventures which regularity admits, and the unvaried equality of flowing dialogue, has taken away from our present writers almost all that dominion over the passions which was the boast of their predecessors. Yet they may at least claim this commendation, that they avoid gross faults, and that if they cannot often move terrour or pity, they are always careful not to provoke laughter.

Rambler #126

“The universality of cowardice. The impropriety of extorting praise. The impertinance of an astronomer”

Three female voices, including "Generosa" provides a sharp criticism of male condescension toward female intelligence...The world seems to have formed a universal conspiracy against our understandings; our questions are supposed not to expect answers, our arguments are confuted with a jest, and we are treated like beings who transgress the limits of our nature whenever we aspire to seriousness or improvement...Sands form the mountain, moments make the year…For why should life be hazarded without prospect of honour or advantage?…To be always afraid of losing life, is indeed, scarcely, to enjoy a life that can deserve the care of preservation. He that indulges idle fears will never be at rest…No man should be denied the privilege of silence, or tortured to false declarations.

Rambler #127

“Diligence too soon relaxed. Necessity of perseverance”

Considers the unsuspected impediments that can be counted on by the experienced to threaten and delay great undertakings…Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled…The advance of the human mind toward any laudable pursuit, may be compared to the progress of a body driven by a blow: the initial force may be strong, but it is perpetually decreasing, and weariness and negligence begin to prevail by silent encroachments…Succeeding years thy early fame destroy; Thou, who began’st a man, wilt end a boy – Ovid…It is not only common to find the difficulty of an enterprise greater, but the profit less, than hope had pictured it…A man cut off from the prospect of that part to which his address and fortitude had been employed to steer him, often abandons himself to chance and to the wind, and glides careless and idle down the current of life, without resolution to make another effort, till he is swallowed up by the gulph of mortality. Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its lustre darkened by envy and malignity.

Rambler #128

“Anxiety is universal. The unhappiness of a wit and a fine lady”

For not the brave, or wise, or great,

E’er yet had happiness compleat;

Nor Peleus, grandson of the sky,

Nor Cadmus, scap’d the shafts of pain,

Though favor’d by the pow’rs on high,

With ev’ry bliss that man can gain -  Pindar

Such is the state of every age, every sex, and every condition: all have their cares, either from nature or from folly: and whoever therefore finds himself inclined to envy another, should remember that he knows not the real condition which he desires to obtain, but is certain that by indulging a vicious passion, he must lessen that happiness which he thinks already too sparingly bestowed…Experience will soon discover how easily those are disgusted who have been made nice by plenty, and tender by indulgence. It is impossible to supply wants as fast as idle imagination may be able to form them, or to remove all conveniencies by which elegance refined into impatience may be offended...The gloom of calamity is often cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort...As in the works of nature the bog is frequently covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in barren crags.

Rambler #129

“The folly of cowardice and inactivity”

Reflections that may drive away despair cannot be wanting to him who considers how much life is now advanced beyond the state of naked undiscipline and unrestricted nature…To add much can indeed be the lot of few, but to add something, however little, everyone may hope…It is not without true judgement that they often warn their readers against enquiries into futurity, and solitude about events which be hid in causes yet inactive, and which time has not brought forward into the view of reason…An idle and thoughtless resignation to chance, without any struggle against calamity, or endeavour after advantage, is indeed below the dignity of a reasonable human being, in whose power providence has put a great part even of his present happiness; but it shews an equal ignorance of our proper sphere, to harrass our thoughts with conjectives about things not yet in being. How can we regulate events, of which we yet know not whether they will ever happen? And why should we think, with painful anxiety, about that on which our thoughts can have no influence?

Rambler #130

“The history of beauty”

We must distinguish those evils which are imposed by providence, from those to which we ourselves give the power of hurting us…There are other joys than the praise of fools…Every class and order of mankind have joys and sorrows of their own; we all feel hourly pain and pleasure from events which pass unheeded before other eyes.

Rambler #131

“Desire of gain, the general passion”

How few desires can be formed which riches do not assist in gratifying…While riches are so necessary to present convenience, and so much more easily obtained by crimes than virtues, the mind can only be secured from yielding to continued impulse of covetousness by the preponderation of unchangeable and eternal motives. Good will turn the intellectual balance, when weighed only against reputation; but will be light and ineffectual when the opposite scale is charged with justice, veracity and piety…There is scarcely any sentiment in which, amidst the innumerable varieties of inclination that nature or accident have scattered in the world, we find greater numbers concurring than in the wish for riches; a wish indeed so prevalent that it may be considered as universal and transcendental, as the desire in which all other desires are included, and of which the various purposes which actuate mankind are only subordinate species and different modifications.

Rambler #132

“The difficulty of educating a young nobleman”

The narrative of a feckless tutor frustrated by the folly of his noble pupil…The anxiety of irresolution…There is no temper more unpropitious to interest than desultary application and unlimited inquiry, by which the desires are held in a perpetual equipoise, and the mind fluctuates between different purposes without determination.

Rambler #133

“The miseries of beauty defaced”

The calamitous vulnerability of a young woman who has never thought or heard of any other excellance than beauty...Idleness exposed me to melancholy, and life began to languish in motionless indifference…Misery and shame are nearly allied…We must distinguish those evils which are imposed by Providence, from those to which we ourselves give the power of hurting us…There are other charms than those of beauty, and other joys than the praise of fools.

Rambler #134

“Idleness an anxious and miserable state"

According to Mrs. Thrale this was hastily composed in Sir Joshua Reynold’s parlour, while the boy waited to carry it to the printer. Exposes ironic distance between schemes, dreams of study and actualities…Ironic confessions of irresolution…Active prosecution of whatever man desires to perform…He that has abilities to conceive perfection, will not be easily content without it; and since perfection cannot be reached, he may neglect the chance of doing anything in the hope of impossible excellance…Who knows if Heav’n, with ever-bounteous pow’r, Shall add tomorrow to the present hour? – Francis…Multitudes who have trifled till diligence is vain; who can by no degree of activity or resolution recover the opportunities which have slipped away; and who are condemned by their own carelessness to hopeless calamity and barren sorrow…The folly of allowing ourselves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped, is one of the general weaknesses…We readily believe that another day will bring some support or advantage which we now want, and are easily persuaded that the moment of necessity which we desire never to arrive, is at a great distance form us…To act is far easier than to suffer…Who sacrifice future advantage to present inclination…Idleness can never secure tranquility…The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform…It is true that no diligence can ascertain success…When evils cannot be avoided, it is wise to contract the interval of expectation; to meet mischiefs which will overtake us if we fly; and suffer only their real malignity without the conflicts of doubt and anguish of anticipation.

Rambler #135

“The folly of annual retreats into the country”

Man is an imitative being – Aristotle…Pleasure of which the essence is choice…The greater number of man, follow the track which others have beaten without any curiosity after new discoveries, or ambition of trusting themselves to their own conduct. And, of those who break the ranks and disorder the uniformity of the march, most return in a short time from their deviation, and prefer the equal and steady satisfaction of security before the frolicks of caprice and the honour of adventure…Very few have abilities requisite for the discovery of abstruse truth…Most will feel, or say that they feel, the gratification which others have taught them to expect…Many of the fugitives (to the country) may have heard of men whose continual wish was for the quiet of retirement, who watched every opportunity to steal away from observation, to forsake the crowd, and delight themselves with the society of solitude. There is indeed scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy…Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

Rambler #136

“The meanness and mischiefs of indiscriminate dedication”

Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell – Pope…To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice, is to destroy the distribution of good and evil…It is necessary that wickedness, even when it is not safe to censure it, be denied applause, and that goodness be commended only in proportion to its degree. To encourage merit with praise is the great business of literature.

Rambler #137

“The necessity of literary courage”

Formidable tasks, overwhelming in their magnitude, can be accomplished if they are undertaken in small parts. Divide and conquor is in principal equally just in science (learning) as in policy…It’s the proper ambition of heroes in literature to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by discovery and conquoring new regions of the intellectual world…Wonder is the effect of ignorance…The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time…Books can never teach the use of books - Bacon…The student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life…The most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continual accumulations of single propositions…It were to be wished that they who devote their lives to study would at once believe nothing too great for their attainment, and consider nothing as too little for their regard…The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated.

Rambler #138

“Original characters to be found in the country. The character of Mrs. Busy”

In cities, and yet more in courts, the minute discriminations which distinguish one from another are for the most part effaced, the peculiarities of temper and opinion are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bodies and uneven surfaces lose their points and asperities by frequent attrition against one another, and approach by degrees to uniform rotundity. The prevalence of fashion, the influence of example, the desire of applause, and the dread of censure, obstruct the natural tendencies of the mind, and check the fancy in its first efforts to break forth into experiments of caprice…No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments, and tender officiousness.

Rambler #139

“Criticism of Samson Agonistes”

Johnson first accepts a critical cliché based on Aristotle. He discusses and ends with reasons against it but does not go back to alter his first view…It is always proof of extensive thought and accurate circumspection, to promote various purposes by the same act…a poetical work must always be structured in accordance with the unchanging law of poetical architecture, solid as well as beautiful, so that nothing stand single or independent, so that it may be taken away without injuring the rest; but that from the foundation to the pinnacles one part rests firm upon another.

Rambler #140

“Criticism of Samson Agonistes – continued”

It is common to desire the end without enduring the means – Bacon…He that attempts to show, however, modestly, the failures of a celebrated writer, shall surely irritate his admirers, and incur the imputation of envy, captiousness, and malignity…An examination of the sentiments of Milton’s tragedy…Impropriety of thoughts to general character of the poem.

Rambler #141

“The danger of attempting wit in conversation. The character of Papilius”

Politicians have long observed, that the greatest events may be often traced back to slender causes…Whoever shall review his life will generally find, that the whole tenor of his conduct has been determined by some accident of no apparent moment, or by a combination of inconsiderable circumstances...I gleaned jests at home from obsolete farces.

Rambler #142

“An account of Squire Bluster”

Brutality of country squires over tenants and neighbors…As we were unwilling to travel without improvement, we turned often from the direct road to please ourselves with the view of nature or of art; we examined every wild mountain and medicinal spring, criticised every edifice, contemplated every ruin, and compared every scene of action, with narratives of historians...Sir Wolstan Dixie is thought to be Squire Bluster.

Rambler #143

“The criterions of plagiarism”

Descriptions are definitions of a more lax and fanciful kind…Many subjects fall under the consideration of an author, which being limited by nature can admit only of slight and accidental diversities. All definitions of the same thing must nearly be the same…Johnson presents pairs of classical and modern authors exhibiting a genealogy of sentiments.

Rambler #144

“The difficulty in raising reputation. Various species of detractors”

The persecutors of merit may be distinguished into Roarers, Whisperers, and Moderators…Everyone is please with imagining that he knows something not yet commonly divulged…The first appearance of excellance unites multitudes against it; unexpected opposition rests up on every side; the celebrated and the obscure join in the confederacy; subtlity furnishes arms to impudence, and invention leads on credulity…The hazards of those that aspire to eminence, would be much diminished if they had none but acknowledged rivals to encounter…Discussion of the arts by which the envious, the idle, the peevish, and the thoughtless, obstruct that worth which they cannot equal, and, by artifices thus easy, sordid, and detestable, is industry defeated, beauty blasted, and genius depressed.

Rambler #145

“Petty writers not to be despised”

Sympathy for the pathetic, anonymous hacks of literature, for the “abridger, compiler, and translator” – a lexicographer is a “harmless drudge”…It is allowed that vocations and employments of least dignity, are of the most apparent use…Work, however necessary, which is carried on only by muscular strength and manual dexterity, is not of equal esteem, in the consideration of rational beings, with the tasks that exercise the intellectual powers, and require the active vigour of imagination, or the gradual and laborious investigation of reason...The manufacturers of literature can at least provide every society with a description of itself...If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.

Rambler #146

“An account of an authour travelling in quest of his own character. The uncertainty of fame”

By arts of voluntary delusion every man endeavours to conceal his own unimportance from himself…The comic anticipation of an authour on publication day…Riches cannot easily be denied to them who have something of greater value to offer in exchange; he whose fortune is endangered by litigation, will not refuse to augment the wealth of the lawyer; he whose days are darkened by languor, or whose nerves are excruciated by pain, is compelled to pay tribute to the science of healing. But praise may be always omitted with inconvenience…It seems not to be sufficiently considered how little reason can be admitted in the world...When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness he has put it into the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it.

Rambler #147

“The courtier’s esteem of assurance”

Little things grow great by continued accumulation…Many young persons are harrassed by those to whom age has given nothing but the assurance which they perpetually recommend as the supply of every defect, and the ornament of every excellance…He whose stupidity has armed him against the shafts of ridicule, will always act and speak with greater audacity, than they whose sensibility represses their ardour, and who dare never let their confidence outgrow their abilities.

Rambler #148

“On the tyranny of parents”

Johnson blames misery at the door of the family…Anticipates modern psychiatry…To have voluntarily become to any being the occasion of its existence, produces an obligation to make that existence happy…The government of a family is naturally monarchial – Aristotle…Equally dangerous and equally detestable (as the perversion of legal authority) are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority.

Rambler #149

“Benefits not always entitled to gratitude”

Insolence always propagates itself…I would willingly be told, whether he that exacts servility, can with justice at the same time expect affection?…In proportion as guilt is more enormous, it ought to be ascertained by stronger evidence.

Rambler #150

“Adversity useful to the acquisition of knowledge”

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last…Such is the delight of mental superiority that none on whom nature or study have conferred it would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss…Curiosity perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties…To escape misfortune is to want instruction, and that to live at ease is to live in ignorance…Truth is scarcely to be heard but by those from whom it can serve no interest to conceal …As no man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it, the experience of calamity is necessary to a just sense of better fortune; for the good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harrass him if he does not know how much he escapes…The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of the darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades….The teacher gains few proselytes by the instruction which his own behavior contradicts, and young men miss the benefit of counsel, because they are not very ready to believe that those who fall below them in practice, can much excel them in theory. Thus the progress of knowledge is retarded, the world is kept long in the same state, and every new race is to gain the prudence of their predecessors by committing and redressing the same miscarriages…As the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety by more rapid flights, and bolder excursions.

Rambler #151

“The climacteries of the mind”

Rambler #153

“The treatment incurred by loss of fortune”

The fickle crowd with fortune comes and goes; Wealth still finds followers, and misfortune foes…He that has an unwelcome message to deliver, may give proof of some tenderness and delicacy, by a ceremonial introduction, and gradual discovery, because the mind, upon which the weight of sorrow is to fall, gains time for the collection of its powers; but nothing is more absurd than to delay the communication of pleasure, to torment curiosity by impatience, and to deride hope by anticipation…There is a class of mortals who think understanding impaired with fortune, exalt themselves to the dignity of advice, and, whenever happen to meet, presume to prescribe conduct, regulate economy, and direct pursuits…Such is the power of wealth, that it commands the ear of greatness and the eye of beauty, gives spirit to the dull, and authority to the timorous, and leaves him from whom it departs, without virtue, and without understanding, the sport of caprice, the scoff of insolence, the slave of meanness, and the pupil of ignorance.

Rambler #154

“Learning vs. Invention”

Ethics of study…No man ever yet became great by imitation…Vanity, readily listens to the voice of idleness, and soothes the slumber of life with continual dreams of excellance and greatness…To the strongest and quickest mind it is far easier to learn than to invent…The mental disease of the present generation, is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity...Whatever hopes for the veneration of mankind must have invention in the design or the execution; either the effect itself must be new or the means by which it is produced. That which hopes to resist the blast of malignity, and stand firm against the attacks of time, must contain in itself some original principal or growth.

Rambler #155

“Usefulness of advice. Danger of habits. On self-indulgence”

We are secretly conscious of defects and vices which we hope to conceal from the public eye and please ourselves with innumerable impostures, by which, in reality, no body is deceived…Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present…Advice is offensive because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desire to conceal. For this reason advice is commonly ineffectual…Advice has no force to supress vanity...Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind, it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others...We all know our own state if we could be induced to consider it.

Rambler #156

“Nature of literary criticism. Rules of writing”

It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom, or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view by needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact…The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature…The studies of mankind, all at least which, not being subject to rigorous demonstration, admit the influence of fancy and caprice, are perpetually tending to error and confusion. The systems of learning therefore must be sometimes reviewed, complications analised into principles, and knowledge disentangled from opinion…The design of tragedy is to instruct by moving the passions.

Rambler #157

“Scholar’s complaint of his own bashfulness”

We seldom value rightly what we have never known the misery of wanting…Shame above any other passion, propagates itself…There are not many situations more incessantly uneasy than that in which a man is placed who is watching for an opportunity to speak, without courage to take it when it is offered, and who, though he resolves to give a specimen of his abilities, always finds some reason or other for delaying it to the next minute. Ashamed of silence, yet could find nothing to say of elegance or importance equal to his wishes.

Rambler #158

“Rules of writing drawn from examples. Those examples often mistakes”

Criticism though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity; and, since the revival of polite literature, the favourite study of European scholars, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of science…As vices never promote happiness, though when overpowered by more active and numerous virtues, they cannot  totally destroy it; so confusion and irregularity produce no beauty, though they cannot always obstruct the brightness of genius and learning. To proceed from one truth to another, and connect distant propositions by regular consequences, is the great prerogative of man.

Rambler #159

“The nature and remedies for bashfulness”

Few can review the days of their youth without recollecting temptation, which shame, rather than virtue, enabled them to resist…It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability, and the fears of miscarriage, which hinders our first attempts, is gradually dissipated as our skill advances towards certainty of success. That bashfulness, therefore, which prevents disgrace, that short and temporary shame which secures us from the danger of lasting reproach, cannot be properly counted among our misfortunes… Bashfulness, however it man incommode for a moment, scarcely ever produces evil of a long continuance. Its mischiefs soon pass off without remembrance. It may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse…Few have repented of having forborne to speak…To excite opposition, and inflame malevolence, is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength...No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

Rambler #160

“On choosing friends”

Every man might in the multitudes that swarm about him, find some kindred mind with which he could unite in confidence and friendship; yet we see many struggling single about the world, unhappy for want of an associate, and pining with the necessity of confining their sentiments to their own bosoms…Every man knows some whom he cannot induce himself to trust, though he has no reason to suspect that they would betray him; those to whom he cannot complain, though he never observed them to want compassion; those in whose presence he can never be gay, though excited by invitations to mirth and freedom; and those from whom he cannot be content to receive instruction, though they never insulted his ignorance by contempt or ostentation…To raise esteem we must benefit others, to procure love we must please them…Aristotle observes that old men do not readily form friendships, because they are not easily susceptible of pleasure.

Rambler #161

“Landlady’s chronicle – the garret”

The mind is prompted to study and inquire rather by the uneasiness of ignorance, than the hope of profit…How small to others, but how great to me! – Ovid…Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.

Rambler #162

“Old men in danger of falling into pupillage. Conduct of Thrasybulus”

The openness to flattery is the common disgrace of declining life. Desirous of peace, and fearful of pain, the old man seldom enquires after any other qualities in those whom he caresses, than quickness in conjecturing his desire, activity in supplying his wants, dexterity in intercepting complaints before they approach near enough to disturb him, flexibility to his present humour, submission to hasty petulance, and attention to wearisome narrations…He never doubted but to be convinced, nor attempted opposition but to flatter with the pleasure of victory…There is no state more contrary to the dignity of wisdom than perpetual and unlimited dependence, in which the understanding lies useless, and every notion is received from external impulse. Reason is the great distinction of human nature, the faculty by which we approach to some degree of association with celestial intelligence…Every man considers a necessity of compliance with any will but his own, as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness.

Rambler #163

“The mischiefs of following a patron”

Bow to no patron’s insolence; rely on no frail hopes, in freedom live and die – F. Lewis…Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with diminution of possession…Punishment in the infernal region was perhaps originally suggested to some poet by the conduct of his patron, by the daily contemplation of splendor which he never must partake, by fruitless attempts to catch at interdicted happiness, and by the sudden evanescence of his reward, when he thought his labours almost at an end.

Rambler #164

“Praise universally desired. Failings often imitated”

Rambler #165

“The impotence of wealth. Visit of Serotina to the place of his nativity”

Truth finds an easy entrance into the mind when she is introduced by desire, and attended by pleasure…We shall always feel more pain from our wants than pleasure from our enjoyments…He that indulges hope will always be disappointed…Merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded...The stream of life, if it is not ruffled by obstruction, will grow putrid by stagnation.

Rambler #166

“Favour not easily gained by the poor”

To want the favour of others is often sufficient to hinder us from obtaining it…Poverty contrives to produce contempt, and still obstruct the claims of kindred and virtue…Few have strength of reason to over-rule the perceptions of sense; and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long against the first impression: he therefore who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latent excellancies, or essential qualities…A request made with diffidence and timidity is easily denied, because the petitioner himself seems to doubt its fitness…Kindness is generally reciprocal…The same actions performed by different hands produce different effects, and instead of rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the performances by the man.

Rambler #167

“The marriage of Hymenaeus and Tranquilla”

It is not common to envy those with whom we cannot easily be placed in comparison…As there are advantages to be enjoyed in marriage, there are inconveniencies likewise to be endured…The time of listlessness and satiety, of peevishness and discontent, must come at last, in which we shall be driven for relief to shows and recreations, that the uniformity of life must be sometimes diversified, and the vacuities of conversation sometimes supplied.

Rambler #168

“Poetry debased by mean impressions. Example from Shakespeare”

The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public…Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement, but the artifice of embellishment, and the powers of attraction, can be gained only by general converse…Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard.

Rambler #169

“Labor necessary for excellance”

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity (a direct contradiction to Johnson’s methods)…It has often been enquired, why, notwithstanding the advances of later ages in science, and the assistance which the infusion of so many new ideas has given us, we still fall below the antients in the art of composition. Some part of their superiority may be justly ascribed to the graces of their language from which the most polished of the present European tongues, are nothing more than barbarous degenerations.

Rambler #170

“History of Misella debauched by her relation”

A wretch takes advantage of the familiarity he enjoyed as relation, and the submission which he exacted as a benefactor, to complete the ruin of an orphan, whom his own promises had made indigent, whom his indulgence had melted, and his authority subdued...Powerful and socially protected male predators are retiles whom their own servants would have despised...The ugliness of male codes compounded by inequalities in age and class are exposed.

Rambler #171

“Misella’s description of the life of a prostitute”

Plea for sympathy for the lot of prostitutes and a scheme for their rehabilitation…Relation contrives to perpetuate his gratification and fit the young woman to his purpose by complete and radical corruption…Nothing would more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just description of the condition into which the wanton plunges herself.

Rambler #172

“The effect of sudden riches upon the manners”

Nothing has been longer observed, than that a change of fortune causes a change in manners…To them, whose rise we could not hinder, we solace ourselves by prognosticating the fall…We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exhhorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit…Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence. To gain sooner than others that which all pursue with the same ardour, and to which all imagine themselves entitled, will be forever a crime. When those who started with us in the race of life, leave us so far behind, that we have little hope to overtake them, we revenge our disappointment by remarks on the arts of supplantation by which they gained the advantage or on the folly and arrogance by which they possess it…It is generally agreed that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation, and expanded by the sunshine of felicity, more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom into goodness.

Rambler #173

“Unreasonable fears of pedantry”

Any action or posture long continued, will distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas. It is easy to guess the trade of a citizen by his knees, his fingers, or his shoulders; and there are few among men of the more liberal professions, whose minds do not carry the brand of their calling, or whose conversation does not quickly discover to what class of the community they belong…Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation of learning. To this error the student is sometimes betrayed, by the natural recurrence of the mind to its common employment by the pleasure which every man receives from the recollection of pleasing images, and the desire of dwelling upon topicks, on which he knows himself able to speak with justness. But because we are seldom so prejudiced in favour of each other as to search out for palliations, this failure of politeness is imputed always to vanity; and the harmless collegiate, who, perhaps intended entertainment and instruction, or at worst only spoke without sufficient reflection upon the character of his hearers, is censored as arrogant or overbearing, and eager to extend his renown, in contempt of the convenience of society, and the laws of conversation.

Rambler #174

“The mischiefs of unbounded raillery. History of Dicaleulus”

The laws of social benevolence require, that every man should endeavour to assist others by his experience…The successful wit depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions…Every man has some favorite topick of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.

Rambler #175

“The majority are wicked”

What are all the records of history, but narratives of successive villanies, of treasons and usurptations, massacres and wars?…We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principals of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered…Credulity is the common failing of unexperienced virtue…Numerous are the dangers to which the converse of mankind exposes us, and which can be avoided only by prudent distrust…None of the axioms of wisdom which recommended the ancient sages to veneration, seems to have required less extent of knowledge or perspicacity of penetration than the remark that the majority is wicked…To youth, therefore, it should be carefully inculcated, that to enter the road of life without caution or reserve, in expectation of general fidelity and justice, is to launch on the wide ocean without the instruments of steerage, and to hope that every wind will be prosperous, and that every coast will afford a harbour.

Rambler #176

“Directions to authors attacked by critics. The various degrees of critical perspicacity”

There are many vexations, accidents and uneasy situations which raise little comparison for the sufferer, and which no man but those whom they immediately distress, can regard with seriousness…The eye of the intellect like that of the body, is not equally perfect in all, nor equally adapted to all objects; the end of criticism is to supply its defects; rules are the instruments of mental vision, which may indeed assist our faculties when properly used, but produce confusion and obscurity by unskillful application. The diversion of baiting an Authour has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teizing other animals, because for the most part he comes voluntarily to the stake...Abandon his defence, and even when he can irrefragably refute all objections, to suffer tamely the exultations of his antagonist.

Rambler #177

“An account of a club of antiquaries”

Johnson reverses his views at the end of this essay…A mockery of meaningless and pointless collections…He who does his best, however little, is always to be distinguished from him who does nothing…It is natural to feel grief or indignation where any thing necessary or useful is wantonly wasted; or negligently destroyed…Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles…Whatever busies the mind without corrupting it, has at least this use, that it rescues the day from idleness, and he that is never idle will not often be vicious.

Rambler #178

“Many advantages not to be enjoyed together”

The reigning error of mankind is that we are not content with the conditions on which the goods of life are granted…Many of the blessings universally desired, are very frequently wanted, because most men, when they should labour, content themselves to complain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest, than improve their condition by vigour and resolution…Of two objects tempting at a distance on contrary sides it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and dilatory projects, they may both be lost, but can never be both gained. It is therefore, necessary to compare them, and when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason directs us to reject…The future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forebearance of some immediate gratification.

Rambler #179

“The awkward merriment of the student”

Against affectation…Praise is seldom paid with willingness even to incontestable merit…He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than improvement, that authority and seriousness were rather feared than loved…Laughter, he knew, was a token of alacrity, and, therefore, whatever he said, or heard, he was careful not to fail in that great duty of a wit…Every man, says Tully, has two characters; one which he partakes with all mankind, and by which he is distinguished from brute animals; another which discriminates him from the rest of his species, and impresses on him a manner and temper peculiar to himself.

Rambler #180

“The study of life not to be neglected for the study of books”

Envy, curiosity, and the sense of imperfection of our present state, inclines us to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of others above their real value…The learned might generally support their dignity with more success, if they suffered not themselves to be mislead by the desire of superfluous attainments…If instead of wandering after meteors of philosophy which fill the world with splendour for a while, and then sink and are forgotten, the candidates of learning fixed their eyes upon the permanent lustre of moral and religious truth, they would find a more certain direction to happiness…The circle of knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent intellect...Withdraw the mind from idle speculations about the heavens and direct attention instead to knowledge of oneself and duties. Yet it is only from the various essays of experimental industry that any advancement of knowledge can be expected.

Rambler #181

“The history of an adventurer in lotteries”

The meer gift of luck is below the care of a wise man…Miscarriage naturally produces diffidence…Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate futurity, and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind of casual adventure, since his grief must always be proportionate to his hope.

Rambler #182

“The history of Leviculus, the fortune-hunter”

Comic self exposure of an energetic man who has brought disaster on himself by his silliness and egotism…We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered us…From the hope of enjoying affluence by methods more compendious than those of labour, and more generally practicable than those of genius, proceeds the common inclination to experiment and hazard.

Rambler #183

“Interest vs. Envy”

Let it be constantly remembered that whoever envies another, confesses his superiority, and let those be reformed by their pride who have lost their virtue…The frequency of envy makes it so familiar, that it escapes our notice…The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many, for that which only few can possess…Interest can diffuse itself but to a narrow compass. The number is never large of those who can hope to fill the posts of degraded power, catch fragments of shattered fortune, or suceed to the honours of depreciated beauty. But the empire of envy has no limits…Interest is seldom pursued but at some hazard. Envy may act without some expense or danger.

Rambler #184

“On chance”

“The prohibition of revenge justifiable by reason”

The meanness of regulating our conduct by the opinions of men…No vicious dispositions of the mind more obstinately resist both the counsels of philosophy and the injunction of religion than those which are complicated with an opinion (of one’s own)…All pride is abject and mean. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind…Nothing can be great which is not right…A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Rambler #186

“A Greenland history”

One of the great arts of escaping superfluous uneasiness, is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps unattainable by mortals…Of the happiness and misery of our present state, part arises from our sensations, and part from our opinions; part is distributed by nature, and part is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves. Positive pleasures we cannot always obtain, and positive pain we often cannot remove…But the negative infelicity which proceeds not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence of enjoyments will always yield to the remedies of reason.

Rambler #187

“The history of Anningait and Ajut concluded”

Love conquors all - Dryden…A Greenland love story.

Rambler #188

“Favour often gained with little assistance from understanding”

Few are more frequently envied than those who have the power of forcing attention wherever they come, whose entrance is considered as a promise of felicity, and whose departure is lamented…The pleasure which men are able to give in conversation, holds no stated proportion to their knowledge or virtue…Few spend their time with much satisfaction under the eye of uncontestable superiority…Narratives are for the most part heard without envy, because they are not supposed to imply any intellectual qualities above the average rate. It frequently happens that they who attempt this method of ingratiating themselves, please only at the first interview; and for want of new supplies of intelligence, wear out their stories by continued repetition.

Rambler #189

“The mischiefs of falsehood. The character of Turpicula”

We are almost all naturally modest and timorous, but fear and shame are uneasy sensations, and whosoever helps to remove them is received with kindness…The world scarcely affords opportunities of making any observation more frequently, than on false claims to commendation. Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep…If the multitudes who struggle in vain for distinction, and display their own merits only to feel more acutely the sting of neglect, a great part are wholly innocent of deceit, and are betrayed, by infatuation and credulity, to that scorn with which that universal love of praise incites us all to drive feeble competitors out of our way.

Rambler #190

“The history of Aborizad, the son of Morad”

A Near Eastern morality tale…A French magazine, without advertising, translated this tale which was the one Arthur Murphy translated back into English; called on by Johnson to explain, they became life long friends…Rather afraid to die, than desirous to live…Learned the vanity of those labours that wish to be rewarded by human benevolence; I shall henceforth do good and avoid evil, without respect to the opinion of men; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of that being whom alone we are sure to please by endeavouring to please him.

Rambler #191

“The busy life of a young lady”

Social activities and preparations for them occupy all of the available hours in the day...The emptiness and danger of middle-class social conventions fpr females are exposed.

Rambler #192

“Love unsuccessful without riches”

Every man boasted the antiquity of his family, resolved to support the dignity of his birth, and lived in splendour and plenty at the expense of his heir…Who has joined the artifices of age to the allurements of youth.

Rambler #193

“The author’s art of praising himself”

Whatever is universally devised, will be sought by industry and artifice, by merit and crimes, by means good or bad, rational and absurd, according to the prevalence of virtue or vice, of wisdom or folly…Praise is so pleasing to the mind of man, that it is the original motive of almost all our actions…A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and not, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them... Every man pants for the highest eminence...Every other enjoyment malice may destroy, every other panegyric envy may withhold, but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums...Hunger is never delicate, they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.

Rambler #194

“A young nobleman’s progress in politeness”

A tutors account of the follies of his pupil…Vanity keeps every man important in his own eyes…Solitude and study are apt to impress on the most courtly genius, reserve and timidity…The pain of miscarriage is naturally proportionate to the desire of excellance…Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other, an effusion of wit therefore presupposes an accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose new assemblages.

Rambler #195

“A young nobleman’s introduction to the knowledge of the town”

Favours of every kind are doubled when they are speedily conferred…He that long delays a story, and suffers his auditor to torment himself with expectation, will seldom be able to recompense the uneasiness, or equal the hope which he suffers to be raised.

Rambler #196

“Human opinions mutable. The hopes of youth fallacious”

Among other pleasing errors of young minds, is the opinion of their own importance…The revolution of sentiments occasions a perpetual contrast between the old and young…The disproportion will always be great between expectation and enjoyment, between new possessions and satiety…Hope will predominate in every mind, till it has been suppressed by frequent disappointments…He who has seen only the superfluities of life believes every thing to be what it appears, and rarely suspects that external splendor conceals any latent sorrow or vexation…the condition of humanity admits no pure and unmingled happiness. Consider praise and censure a transient breath…In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age to act without any measure but interest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue…Such is the condition of life, that something is always wanting to happiness…Whoever reviews the state of his own mind from the dawn of manhood to its decline, and considers what he pursued or dreaded, slighted or esteemed, at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character.

Rambler #197

“The history of a legacy-hunter”

Insatiable wish for riches…Avarice instilled by parents.

Rambler #198

“The legacy-hunter’s history concluded”

Loss of every other passion in the desire for money…Ingratiating oneself to obtain a legacy…Spending in flattery and attendance those years in which he might have qualified to place himself above fear or hope.

Rambler #199

“The virtue of Rabbi Abraham’s magnet” - Proves unfaithfulness – a satire

To trust is easier and safer than to examine…The highest praise of art is to imitate nature…To defraud any man of his due praise is unworthy of a philosopher.

Rambler #200

“Unpoliteness not always the effect of pride”

Exposes the behavior of Prospero (considered to be David Garrick)…Ends with the observation that behavior issues from folly and stupidity rather that outright malice…Nothing generally endears men so much as participation of dangers and misfortunes…A friend should not be hated for little faults – Pythagoras…Men are often innocent of the pain which their vanity produces, and insult others when they have no worse purpose than to please themselves…He that too much refines his delicacy will always endanger his quiet…Whatever be the motive to insult, it is always best to overlook it, for folly scarcely can deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Rambler #201

“The importance of punctuality”

He that shall inquire after virtue with ardour and attention, will seldom find a man by whose example or sentiments he may not be improved – Cujacius…He who is solicitous for his own improvement, must select from every tribe of mortals their characteristical virtues, and constellate in himself the scattered graces which shine single in other men…The chief praise to which a trader aspires is that of punctuality, or an exact and rigorous observance of commercial engagements; nor is there any vice of which he so much dreads, as of negligence and instability…Negligence is first admitted in small affairs, and strengthened by petty indulgence.

Rambler #202

“The different acceptions of poverty. Cynics and monks not poor”

Riches are no value in themselves, their use is discovered only in that which they procure…Among those who have endeavoured to promote learning and rectify judgement, it has long been customary to complain of the abuse of words, which are often admitted to signify things so different, that, instead of assisting the understanding as vehicles of knowledge, they produce error, dissention, and perplexity, because what is affirmed in one sense, is received in another.

Rambler #203

“Admiration of the cynic. Alexander’s visit to Diogenes”

The pleasures of life to be sought in propects of futurity…Future fame is uncertain…The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiency by recollection or anticipation…There are few higher gratifications than that of reflection on surmounted evils…Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the time to come…Reputation is a meteor which blazes a while and disappears forever…Beyond this termination of our material existence we are therefore, obliged to extend our hopes.

Rambler #204

“Seged: A fable”

A history of 10 days of Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia…His attempt to banish misery from his entourage by force of edict…Why are riches collected but to secure happiness?

Rambler #205

“Seged, continued”

No man may presume to say, “This day shall be a day of happiness.”

Rambler #206

“Admiration of the cynic”

The art of living at the cost of others…Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness…Against gulosity.

Rambler #207

“The folly of continuing too long on the stage”

Johnson quotes a Greek on marriage – Its two days of happiness are the first and last…Author tires by the end of his chore and so is not up to par…Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present…Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is conceiving measures for a new undertaking…The vanity of speculation…We proceed because we have begun…We never find ourselves so desirous to finish, as in the latter part of our work…We are most sensible of last impressions (contradicts a Rambler on first impressions)…To faint or loiter, when only the last efforts are required, is to steer the ship through the tempests, and abandon it to the winds in sight of land...The toil with which performance struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continued resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify.

Rambler #208

“The Ramblers last words”

Purpose and achievement...A mask confers the right of acting and speaking with less restraint, even when the writer happens to be known…His intentions to desist…The reasons of this resolution it is of little importance to declare, since justification is unnecessary when no objection is made…Time puts an end to all human pleasures and sorrows…The supplications of an author never yet reprieved. He has labored to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms...It is observable, that either by nature or by habit, our faculties are fitted to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by division, and little things by by accumulation.