tonished to read the next day the
fine things which the reporter had placed in their mouths, which they had
never uttered.

In 1749 he published his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, an imitation of the
tenth Satire of Juvenal, which was as heartily welcomed as _London_ had
been. It is Juvenal applied to English and European history. It contains
many lines familiar to us all; among them are the following:

Let observation with extended view
Survey mankind from China to Peru.

In speaking of Charles XII., he says:

His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress and a dubious hand;
He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale.

From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show.

In the same year he published his tragedy of _Irene_, which,
notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Garrick, who was now manager of
Drury Lane Theatre, was not successful. As a poet, Johnson was the
perfection of the artificial school; and this very technical perfection
was one of the causes of the reaction which was already beginning to sweep
it away.

RAMBLER AND IDLER.--In 1750 he commenced _The Rambler_, a periodical like
_The Spectator_, of which he wrote nearly all the articles, and which
lived for two years. Solemn, didactic, and sonorous, it lacked the variety
and genial humor which had characterized Addison and Steele. In 1758 he
started _The Idler_, in the same vein, which also ran its respectable
course for two years. In 1759 his mother died, and, in order to defray the
expenses of her funeral, he wrote his story of _Rasselas_ in the evenings
of one week, for two editions of which he received L125. Full of moral
aphorisms and instruction, this "Abyssinian tale" is entirely English in
philosophy and fancy, and has not even the slight illusion of other
Eastern tales in French and English, which were written about the same
time, and which are very similar in form and matter. Of _Rasselas_,
Hazlitt says: "It is the most melancholy and debilitating moral
speculation that was ever put forth."

THE DICTIONARY.--As early as 1747 he had begun to write his English
Dictionary, which, after eight years of incessant and unassisted labor,
appeared in 1755. It was a noble thought, and produced a noble work--a
work which filled an original vacancy. In France, a National Academy had
undertaken a similar work; but this English g