392 Essay on
��Having invoked the special protection of Heaven, and by that act of piety fortified his mind, he began the great work of the Rambler. The first number was published on Tuesday, March the aoth, 1750; and from that time was continued regularly every Tuesday and Saturday for the space of two years, when it was finally closed on Saturday, March 14, 1752*. As it began with motives of piety, so it appears, that the same religious spirit glowed with unabating ardour to the last. His conclusion is :
- The Essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute
my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no [blame or praise of] man shall diminish or augment. I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.' The whole number of Essays amounted to two hundred and eight 2 . Addison's, in the Spectator, are more in number, but not half in point of quantity 3 . Addison was not bound to publish on stated days ; he could watch the ebb and flow of his genius, and send his paper to the press when his own taste was satisfied. Johnson's case was very different. He wrote singly and alone. In the whole progress of the work he did not receive more than ten essays. This was a scanty contribution. For the rest, the author has described his situation : ' He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day, will often bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languish ing with disease : he will labour on a barren topic, till it is too late to change it ; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his
ment, &C., Book II. Introduction. 3 Addison wrote about 240 Spec-
Milton's Works, ed. 1806, i. 122. tators, of about 1 1 2 lines to a num-
Quoted in Johnson's Life of Milton, her. In ninety-two weeks he wrote,
Works, vii. 78. roughly speaking, 26,680 lines, or
1 Life, i. 203, n. I. 292 lines a week. Johnson wrote
2 Of these, four whole numbers 203 Ramblers in 103 weeks, which, at hands. Ib. i. 203. lines, or 329 a week.
thoughts
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