him whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign."

His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which Sir John Hawkins imparts the uneasiness which he expressed on account of offences with which he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious suspicions, as if there had been something of more than ordinary criminality weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as well as from the regard to truth which he inculcated, I am to mention, (with all possible respect and delicacy however,) that his conduct after he came to London, and had associated with Savage and others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a younger man. It was well known, that his amorous inclinations were uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to many of his friends, that he used to take women of the town to taverns, and hear them relate their history.-In short, it must not be concealed, that like many other good and pious men, amongst whom we may place the Apostle Paul, upon his own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever "warring against the law of his mind,”—and that in his combats with them, he was sometimes overcome.1

Here let the profane and licentious pause ;-let them not thoughtlessly say that Johnson was an hypocrite, or that his principles were

See what he said to Mr. Malone, Vol. II., p. 436.

1 Here Mr. Croker makes a vehement onslaught on Boswell, accusing him of "disingenuousness," garbling, and of suppression. "It is quite another thing," he says, "to insinuate oneself into a man's confidence, to follow him for twenty years like his shadow, to note his words and actions like a spy, to ransack his most secret papers, and scrutinize and garble even his conscientious confessions, and then, with all the sinister authority which such a show of friendship must confer, to accuse him of low and filthy guilt, supposed to have been committed a quarter of a century before the informer and his calumniated friend had ever met, and which, consequently, Boswell could only have had from hearsay or from guess, and which all personal testimony and all the documentary evidence seem to disprove. Boswell must have been actuated by some secret motive, or labouring under

a morbid delusion, when he thus regarded these wanton, and, I conscientiously believe, calumnious, slanders on his illus trious friend, as conducive to 'the interest of virtue and religion,' and, above all,' of truth.' I entreat any reader who may at all question the validity of my charges against Boswell, and my defence of Dr. Johnson on this point, to refer to the volume of Prayers and Meditations' itself, which I pledge myself will effectually refute all Boswell's extraordinary imputations." He thus argues that because Johnson accused himself of scrupulousness and other light offences, that these must be the sole matters that troubled his conscience. This is quite fallacious, as Johnson accused himself of both classes of offence. The evidence of Hawkins and Boswell, who had seen his private diaries, is more to be relied on than such speculations as Mr. Croker's.

not firm, because his practice was not uniformly conformable to what he professed.

Let the question be considered independent of moral and religious association; and no man will deny that thousands, in many instances, act against conviction. Is a prodigal, for example, an hypocrite, when he owns he is satisfied that his extravagance will bring him to ruin and misery? We are We are sure he believes it; but immediate inclination, strengthened by indulgence, prevails over that belief in influencing his conduct. Why then shall credit be refused to the sincerity of those who acknowledge their persuasion of moral and religious duty, yet sometimes fail of living as it requires? I heard Dr. Johnson once observe, "There is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one's self." And one who said in his presence, "he had no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose practice was not suitable to them," was thus reprimanded by him :-"Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?" b

But let no man encourage or soothe himself in "presumptuous sin," from knowing that Johnson was sometimes hurried into indulgences which he thought criminal. I have exhibited this circumstance as a shade in so great a character, both from my sacred love of truth, and to shew that he was not so weakly scrupulous as he has been represented by those who imagine that the sins of which a deep sense was upon his mind, were merely such little venial trifles as pouring milk into his tea on Good-Friday. His understanding will be defended by my statement, if his consistency of conduct be in some degree impaired. But what wise man would, for momentary gratifications, deliberately subject himself to suffer such uneasiness as we find was experienced by Johnson in reviewing his conduct as compared with his notion of the ethicks of the gospel? Let the following passages be kept in remembrance :—“O GOD, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was created, and by whose providence I am sustained, look down upon me with tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been created to be finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to add wickedness

'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit. p. 209.

b Ibid. p 374

Cor. et Ad.-To the first note add: "On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, 1783, he makes the following just observation: Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by mere purposes, though they end as they began, by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practise.'

, с

to wickedness." "O LORD, let me not sink into total depravity; look down upon me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin.” —“ Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast continued my life from year to year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of sinful pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness." "Let not my years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, let me become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more obedient to thy laws." "Forgive, O merciful LORD, whatever I have done contrary to thy laws. Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may produce true contrition and effectual repentance; so that when I shall be called into another state, I may be received among the sinners to whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon, for JESUS CHRIST's sake. Amen." e

Such was the distress of mind, such the penitence of Johnson in his hours of privacy, and in his devout approaches to his Maker. His sincerity therefore must appear to every candid mind unquestionable.

66

It is of essential consequence to keep in view, that there was in this excellent man's conduct no false principle of commutation, no deliberate indulgence in sin, in consideration of a counterbalance of duty. His offending, and his repenting, were distinct and separate: 1 and when we consider his almost unexampled attention to truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to cast a stone" at him? Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of heart, any thing dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he says, "I have corrected no external habits;" he is obliged to own, “I hope that since my last communion I have advanced by pious. reflections in my submission to GOD, and my benevolence to man." g

I am conscious that this is the most difficult and dangerous part of my biographical work, and I cannot but be very anxious concerning it. I trust that I have got through it, preserving at once my regard to truth-to my friend-and to the interests of virtue and

"Prayers and Meditations," p. 47.

c Ibid. 84.

d Ibid. 120.

e Ibid. p. 130.

b Ibid. p. 68. Dr. Johnson related, with an earnestness of approbation, a story of a gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young woman. When she said to him, "I am afraid we have done wrong!" he answered, "Yes, we have done wrong-for I would not debauch her mind."

g" Prayers and Meditations," p. 192.

religion. Nor can I apprehend that more harm can ensue from the knowledge of the irregularity of Johnson, guarded as I have stated it, than from knowing that Addison and Parnell were intemperate in the use of wine; which Johnson himself, in his Lives of those celebrated writers, and pious men, has not forborne to record.

It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars of Johnson's remaining days, of whom it was now evident, that the crisis was fast approaching, when he must "die like men, and fall like one of the Princes." Yet it will be instructive, as well as gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few circumstances, on the authenticity of which they may perfectly rely, as I have been at the utmost pains to obtain them from the best authority.

Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren, and Dr. Butter, physicians, generously attended him, without accepting of any fees, as did Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; and all that could be done from professional skill and ability was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He himself, indeed, having on account of his very bad constitution been perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him, might be drawn off, by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too tenderly.a

About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby

This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought it necessary to do.' It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of relief indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution.

"At eleven the same evening Mr. Langton came to me, and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body. The fact was, that conceiving himself to be full of water, he had done that, which he had often solicited his medical assistants to do, made two or three incisions in his lower limbs, vainly hoping for some relief from the flux that might follow.

"Early the next morning, Frank came to me; and, being desirous of knowing all the particulars of this transaction, I interrogated him very strictly concerning it, and received fro n him answers to the following effect :

"That, at eight in the morning of the preceding day, upon going into the bedchamber, his master, being in bed, ordered him to open a cabinet, and give him a drawer in it; that he did so, and that out of it his master took a case of lancets, and choosing one of them, would have conveyed it into the bed, which Frank, and a young man that sat up with him, seeing, they seized his hand, and intreated him not to do a rash action : he said he would not; but drawing his hand under the bed-clothes, they saw his arm move. Upon this they turned down the clothes, and saw a great effusion of blood, which soon stopped.That soon after, he got at a pair of

paid him his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, "I have been as a dying man all night." He then emphatically broke out, in the words of Shakspeare,

"Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseas'd?

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?

And with some sweet oblivious antidote,

Cleanse the full bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart."

To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered from the same great

Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application.

On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr. Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,

"Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano,"

and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly over he happened in the line.

'Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat,”

to pronounce supremum for extremum; at which Johnson's critical ear instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical effect of such a lapse, he showed himself as full as ever of the spirit of the grammarian.

Having no near relations, it had been for some time Johnson's intention to make a liberal provision for his faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as particularly under his

scissars that lay in a drawer by him, and plunged them deep in the calf of each leg-That immediately they sent for Mr. Cruikshank, and the apothecary, and they, or one of them, dressed the wounds -That he then fell into that dozing which carried him off.-That it was conjectured he lost eight or ten ounces of blood; and that this effusion brought on the dozing, though his pulse continued firm till three o'clock.

"That this act was not done to hasten his end, but to discharge the water that he conceived to be in him, I have not the least doubt. A dropsy was his disease; VOL. III.

he looked upon himself as a bloated carcase; and, to attain the power of easy respiration, would have undergone any degree of temporary pain. He dreaded neither punctures nor incisions, and, indeed, defied the trochar and the lancet: he had often reproached his physicians and surgeons with cowardice; and, when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his leg, he cried out-'Deeper, deeper ;-I will abide the consequence: you are afraid of your reputation, but that is nothing to me.' To those about him, he said, - 'You all pretend to love me, but you do not love me so well as I myself do.""

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