When Dr. Johnson’s manuscript prayers and meditations were gathered together and published in 1785 by his intimate friend, the Rev. George Strahan, Vicar of Islington, the latter expressed the hope that the Doctor’s sermons, none of which have yet been made public, nor is it known where they are extant,’ might be given to the world. He knew that Johnson had claimed for his writings as a whole that they were composed in such manner as might tend to the promotion of piety, that his Rambler in particular had been to him a kind of pulpit, and that he had turned his thoughts with peculiar earnestness to the study of religious subjects. In conversation and in writing, he had owned to having written many sermons, they were likely to be among his happiest productions, and so his friend appealed to those who might then possess them, not to withhold them but to bring them forth, as their seclusion would be ‘an injurious diminution of their author’s fame, and a retrenchment from the common stock of serious instruction.’

Since Strahan thus pleaded, we have learned more about these sermons; though so little has been written on the subject, that this side of Dr. Johnson’s literary activities may to some readers present all the charms of novelty. Those who know their Boswell will recollect that Johnson was once inclined to become a clergyman; and that the father of his friend Bennet Langton offered him a valuable family living in Lincolnshire, if he should care to take orders. He declined this, from various conscientious motives, and a general feeling of unfitness, but he ever retained a kindness for the clerical calling.