A bowl of roses, plucked by Ophelia from the crimson rambler by the south window, rested in the center of the table.

No man can hide anything long from a woman" Reaching over she jerked a spray of tiny roses from the rambler at the window near which they were standing; tapping the blossoms against her lips, beginning to smile whimsically, she continued: "Why, I can almost read your own thoughts right now!

In the first number of The Rambler, Johnson shews how attractive to an author is the form of publication which he was himself then adopting:'It heightens his alacrity to think in how many places he shall have what he is now writing read with ecstacies to-morrow.'

He added a postscript to his letter, saying: "I've sent you little Miss Nancy's letter, the photograph of her tying up the rambler rose, and the family group; so that you can see exactly what influenced me to write her (and Bill Harmon) that they should be undisturbed in their tenancy, and that their repairs and improvements should be taken in lieu of rent."

Blest he the man that taught the poor to pray, That shed on adverse fate religion's day, That wash'd the clotted tear from sorrow's face, Recall'd the rambler to the heavenly race, Dispell'd the murky clouds of discontent, And read the lore of patience wheresoe'er he went.

City Rambler, or The Playhouse Wedding; a Comedy; acted at the Theatre-Royal.

At the time of instituting the club in Ivy lane, Johnson had projected the Rambler.

" Having invoked the special protection of heaven, and by that act of piety fortified his mind, he began the great work of the Rambler.

In the beginning of 1750, soon after the Rambler was set on foot, Johnson was induced, by the arts of a vile impostor, to lend his assistance, during a temporary delusion, to a fraud not to be paralleled in the annals of literature[o].

The last number of the Rambler, as already mentioned, was on the 14th of that month.

During the two years in which the Rambler was carried on, the Dictionary proceeded by slow degrees.

In May, 1752, having composed a prayer, preparatory to his return from tears and sorrow to the duties of life, he resumed his grand design, and went on with vigour, giving, however, occasional assistance to his friend, Dr. Hawkesworth, in the Adventurer, which began soon after the Rambler was laid aside.

He had said, in the last number of the Rambler, "that, having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of dedication."

Time, however, discovered that he translated from the French, a Rambler, which had been taken from the English, without acknowledgment.

The writer of this narrative has now before him a letter, in Dr. Johnson's handwriting, which shows the distress and melancholy situation of the man, who had written the Rambler, and finished the great work of his Dictionary.

The character of Prospero, in the Rambler, No. 200, was, beyond all question, occasioned by Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china.

The tragedy of Irene is founded on a passage in Knolles's History of the Turks; an author highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122.

The Rambler may be considered, as Johnson's great work.

So it was with the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for two years.

" It is remarkable, that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first assumed in the Rambler.

The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young girl that wants a place, will illustrate this observation.

His moral essays are beautiful; but in that province nothing can exceed the Rambler, though Johnson used to say, that the essay on "the burthens of mankind," (in the Spectator, No. 558,) was the most exquisite he had ever read.

The essays written by Johnson in the Adventurer, may be called a continuation of the Rambler.

The reader, if he pleases, may compare it with another fine paper in the Rambler, No. 54, on the conviction that rushes on the mind at the bed of a dying friend.

[aa] On the subject of voluntary penance, see the Rambler, No. 110.