c size, the task seemed fitted for
the powers of so strong a man; and although he says he dismissed it at
last with "frigid tranquillity," he had no doubt felt its influence
during the time to be at once that of a protecting guardian and of an
inspiring genius. In 1749, he published his "Vanity of Human Wishes,"
for which he received the sum of fifteen guineas,--a miserable
recompense for a poem which Byron pronounces "sublime," and which is
as true as it is magnificent in thought, and terse in language. In the
same year, Garrick had "Irene" acted, but it was "damned" the first
night, although it dragged on heavily for eight nights more. When the
author was asked how he felt at its ill-success, he replied, "Like the
Monument!" How different from Addison, walking restlessly, and
perspiring with anxiety behind the scenes, while the fate of "Cato"
was hanging in the balance!

In 1750 he began his "Rambler," and carried it on with only tolerable
success till 1752. The world has long ago made up its mind on the
merits and defects of this periodical, its masculine thought and
energetic diction, alternating with disguised common-place and (as he
would have said himself) "turgescent tameness"--its critical and
fictitious papers, often so rich in fancy, and felicitous in
expression, mixed with others which exhibit "bulk without spirit
vast," and are chiefly remarkable for their bold, bad innovations on
that English tongue of which the author was piling up the standard
Dictionary. Many have dwelt severely on Johnson's inequalities,
without attending to their cause; that was unquestionably the "body of
death" which hung so heavily upon his system, and rendered writing at
times a positive torment. Let his fastidious critics remember that he
never spent a single day, of which he could say that he was entirely
well, and free from pain, and that his spirits were often so
depressed, that he was more than once seen on his knees, praying God
to preserve his understanding.

A great calamity now visited his household. This was the death of his
wife. She expired on the 17th of March 1752. She had been married to
him sixteen years; and notwithstanding the difference of age, and
other causes of disagreement, he seems to have loved her with
sincerity, and to have lamented her death with deep and long-continued
sorrow. He relaxed not, however, an instant in his literary labours,
continued the preparation of his Dictionary, and contributed a f