411, in the manner
of Johnson. When treating of the utility of the pleasures of imagination
in preserving us from vice, it is observed of those 'who know not how to
be idle and innocent,' that 'their very first step out of business is
into vice or folly;' which Dr. Blair supposed would have been expressed
in _The Rambler_ thus: 'Their very first step out of the regions of
business is into the perturbation of vice, or the vacuity of folly[483].'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, these are not the words I should have used. No, Sir; the
imitators of my style have not hit it. Miss Aikin has done it the best;
for she has imitated the sentiment as well as the diction[484].' I intend,
before this work is concluded[485], to exhibit specimens of imitation of
my friend's style in various modes; some caricaturing or mimicking it,
and some formed upon it, whether intentionally or with a degree of
similarity to it, of which, perhaps, the writers were not conscious.
In Baretti's Review, which he published in Italy, under the title of
_Frusta Letteraria_[486], it is observed, that Dr. Robertson the historian
had formed his style upon that of _Il celebre Samuele Johnson_.
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