Johnson included quotes and ideas in his publication from Renaissance humanists such as Desiderius Erasmus and René Descartes.
It was especially targeted to the middle-class audience that were increasingly marrying into aristocratic families in order to create socio-economic alliances, but did not possess the social and intellectual tools to integrate into those higher social circles which required great understanding of subjects, as listed above in the Description.
This desire to "join both profit and delight" streams throughout the publications, and is particularly resonant of Classical literary design.
The latter was a periodical published from 1711 to 1712 by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, popular for its light treatment of elevated subjects by "enliven[ing] morality with wit."
In his biography of Johnson, James Boswell quotes one contemporary review of The Rambler by Bonnell Thornton and George Colman, "May the publick favours crown his merits, and may not the English, under the auspicious reign of George the Second, neglect a man, who, had he lived in the first century, would have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus.