's Journal, 3rd edit. p.
240.

[2] Five of these, Nos. 39, 67, 74, 81, and 128, which Sir John Hawkins
omitted to arrange among the writings of Johnson, are given in this
edition.

[3] See particularly the Letters of Misagargyrus.

[4] The description in No. 84, of the incidents of a stage-coach
journey, so often imitated by succeeding writers, but, perhaps,
never surpassed, will exemplify the above remark.

[5] See Lounger, No. 30.

[6] "I have heard, he means to occasionally throw some papers into the
Daily Advertiser; but he has not begun yet, as he is in great
affliction, I fear, poor man, for the loss of his wife."--Letter
from Miss Talbot to Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Johnson died March 17, 1752.

[7] See the Preface to Shakespeare.

[8] Owen Feltham's Resolves.

[9] Indian Observer, No. 1, 1793. See likewise Adventurers, Nos. 120,
126, 128.

PREFATORY NOTICE

TO

THE IDLER.

The Idler may be ranked among the best attempts which have been made to
render our common newspapers the medium of rational amusement; and it
maintained its ground in this character longer than any of the papers
which have been brought forward by Colman and others on the same
plan[1]. Dr. Johnson first inserted this production in the Universal
Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, April 15, 1758, four years after he had
desisted from his labours as an essayist. It would seem probable, that
Newbery, the publisher of the Chronicle, projected it as a vehicle for
Johnson's essays, since it ceased to appear when its pages were no
longer enlivened by the humour of the Idler.

It is well known, that Johnson was not "built of the press and pen[2]"
when he composed the Rambler; but his sphere of observation had been
much enlarged since its publication, and his more ample means no longer
suffered his genius to be "limited by the narrow conversation, to which
men in want are inevitably condemned[3]." "The sublime philosophy of the
Rambler cannot properly be said to have portrayed the manners of the
times; it has seldom touched on subjects so transient and fugitive, but
has displayed the more fixed and invariable operations of the human
heart[4]." But the Idler breathes more of a worldly spirit, and savours
less of the closet than Johnson's earlier essays; and, accordingly, we
find delineated in its diversified pages the manners and characters of
the day in amusing variety and contrast.

Written professedly