r. S. Johnson." Mrs. Anna Williams asserted that he
dictated most of these to Dr. Bathurst, to whom he presented the
profits. The anecdote may well be believed from the usual benevolence of
Johnson and his well-known attachment to that amiable physician, whose
professional knowledge might undoubtedly have enabled him to offer hints
to Johnson in the progress of composition. Thus we may account for the
references to recondite medical writers in No. 39, which so staggered
Boswell and Malone in pronouncing on the genuineness of this paper.
Those who are familiar with Johnson's writings can have little
hesitation, we conceive, in recognising his style, and manner, and
sentiments in those papers which are now published under his name. They
may be considered as a continuation of the Rambler. The same subjects
are discussed; the interests of literature and of literary men, the
emptiness of praise and the vanity of human wishes. The same intimate
knowledge, of the town and its manners is displayed[3]; and occasionally
we are amused with humorous delineation of adventure and of
character[4].

From the greater variety of its subjects, aided, perhaps, by a growing
taste for periodical literature, the sale of the Adventurer was greater
than that of the Rambler on its first appearance. But still there were
those, who "talked of it as a catch-penny performance, carried on by a
set of needy and obscure scribblers[5]." So slowly is a national taste
for letters diffused, and so hardly do works of sterling merit, which
deal not in party-politics, nor exemplify their ethical discussions by
holding out living characters to censure or contempt, win the applause
of those, whose passions leave them no leisure for abstracted truth, and
whom virtue itself cannot please by its naked dignity. But, by such,
Johnson professed, that he had little expectation of his writings being
perused. Keeping then our main object more immediately in view, the
elucidation of Johnson's real character and motives, we cannot but
admire the prompt benevolence, with which he joined Hawkesworth in his
task, and the ready zeal, with which he embraced any opportunity of
promoting the interests of morality and virtue. "To a benevolent
disposition every state of life will afford some opportunities of
contributing to the welfare of mankind," is the characteristic opening
of his first Adventurer. And when we have admired the real excellence of
his heart, we must wonder at th