52 JOHNSON. 



and the * Tatler/ and heavy indeed as the whole of the 

 ' Rambler ' proves to every reader, it is impossible to 

 deny that it contains a great profusion of sensible reflec- 

 tion, or to refuse it the praise of having been produced 

 with a facility altogether astonishing, considering it to 

 bear so manifestly the mark of great labour. The 

 papers were always written in the utmost haste ; a part 

 of each being sent to the press, and the rest written 

 while it was printing. Nor did the author almost ever 

 read over what he had written until he saw it in print. 

 We have seen that the * Idler ' was composed in the 

 same hurry. Indeed, Johnson appears to have com- 

 posed so easily, that he could write as fast as he could 

 copy. That he composed with the greatest ease is, 

 however, certain. He told Miss Burney that the ' Lives 

 of the Poets/ which he never considered lives, but only 

 critical prefaces, were printed without his ever reading 

 the manuscript, and that he reserved his corrections till 

 he saw the sheets in print. Accordingly, when he com- 

 plied with her request to have the proof sheets of a life, 

 and she chose that of 'Pope/ she found the margin 

 covered with alterations. He wrote forty-eight printed 

 pages of his 'Life of Savage' in one night, and Mr. Bos- 

 well relates that he wrote twice as much of a translation 

 at one sitting ; but here there must be some mistake, as 

 no man who wrote Johnson's hand could have written 

 nearly so much. Even his verses were made so easily, 

 that he wrote seventy of his ' Vanity of Human Wishes' 

 in one day, and a hundred in another. These things are 

 believed from the testimony of his friends, and only upon 

 that authority. All internal evidence is clearly against 

 his composition being easy any more than it was natural. 



