"When talking of a regular edition of his own works, he said that he had power (from the booksellers) to print such an edition, if his health admitted it; but had no power to assign over any edition, unless he could add notes, and so alter them as to make them new works; which his state of health forbade him to think of. 'I may possibly live,' said he, ‘or rather breathe, three days, or perhaps three weeks; but find myself daily and gradually weaker.' "He said at another time, three or four days only before his death, speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a chirurgical operation, 'I would give one of these legs for a year more of life, I mean of comfortable life, not such as that which I now suffer; and lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlessness. 'I used formerly,' he added, ' when sleepless in bed, to read like a Turk.' "Whilst confined by his last illness, it was his regular practice to have the church service read to him by some attentive and friendly divine. The Rev. Mr. Hoole performed this kind office in my presence for the last time, when, by his own desire, no more than the Litany was read; in which his responses were in the deep and sonorous voice which Mr. Boswell has occasionally noticed, and with the most profound devotion that can be imagined. His hearing not being quite perfect, he, more than once interrupted Mr. Hoole with, 'Louder, my dear Sir, louder, 1 entreat you, or you pray in vain !'--and, when the service was ended, he, with great earnestness, turned round to an excellent lady who was present, saying, 'I thank you, Madam, very heartily, for your kindness in joining me in this solemn exercise. Live well, I conjure you; and you will not feel the compunctiou at the last which I now feel.' So truly humble were the thoughts which this great and good man entertained of his own approaches to religious perfection. "He was earnestly invited to publish a volume of‘Devotional Exercises; but this (though he listened to the proposal with much complacency, and a large sum of money was offered for it) he declined, from motives of the sincerest modesty. "He seriously entertained the thought of translating' Thuanus.' He often talked to me on the subject; and once, in particular, when I was rather wishing that he would favour the world, and gratify his sovereign, by a Life of Spenser (which he said that he would readily have done had he been able to obtain any new materials for the purpose), he added, 'I have been thinking again, Sir, of 'Thuanus'; it would not be the laborious task which you have supposed it. I should have no trouble but that of dictation, which would be performed as speedily as an amanuensis could write.'" 1 It is to the mutual credit of Johnson and divines of different communions, that although he was a steady Church of England man, there was, nevertheless, much agreeable intercourse between him and them. Let me particularly name the late Mr. La Trobe and Mr. Hutton, On the same undoubted authority I give a few articles which should have been inserted in chronological order, but which, now that they are before me, I should be sorry to omit: 66 Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was Samuel Boyse, well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money to redeem his friend's clothes, which in two days after were pawned again. 'The sum,' said Johnson,' was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration.' "Speaking one day of a person* for whom he had a real friendship, but in whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that Kelly was so fond of displaying on his sideboard the plate which he possessed, that he added to it his spurs. For my part,' said he,' I never was master of a pair of spurs but once; and they are now at the bottom of the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell's servant, they were dropped from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky.' The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock having been introduced to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed himself in a letter to that gentleman : "How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing me to Dr. Johnson! Tantum vidi Virgilium. But to have seen him, and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his expressions. Speaking of Dr. P[riestley] (whose writings, I saw, he estimated at a low rate), he said, 'You have proved him as deficient in probity as he is in learning.' I called him an Index Scholar;' but he was not willing to allow him a claim even to that merit. He said, 'that he borrowed from those who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had been answered by others.' I often think of our short, but precious visit, to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an era in my life." Hugh Kelly, the dramatic author, who died in Gough Square in 1777, æt. 38.-Croker. of the Moravian profession. His intimacy with the English Benedictines at Paris has been mentioned; and as an additional proof of the charity in which he lived with good men of the Romish church, I am happy in this opportunity of recording his friendship with the Rev. Thomas Hussey, D.D., his Catholic Majesty's chaplain of embassy at the court of London, that very respectable man, eminent not only for his powerful eloquence as a preacher, but for his various abilities and acquisitions. Nay, though Johnson loved a Presbyterian the least of all, this did not prevent his having a long and uninterrupted social connection with the Rev. Dr. James Fordyce, who, since his death, hath gratefully celebrated him in a warm strain of devotional composition. Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the dying Johnson, his characteristical manner showed itself on different occasions. When Dr. Warren, in his usual style, hoped that he was better, his answer was, "No Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I advance towards death." 66 A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to sit up with him. Being asked next morning how he liked his attendant, his answer was, Not at all, Sir; the fellow's an idiot; he is as awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse." Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support him, he thanked him for his kindness, and said, "That will do-all that a pillow can do." He repeated with great spirit a poem, consisting of several stanzas, in four lines, in alternate rhyme, which he said he had composed some years before, on occasion of a rich, extravagant young gentleman's coming of age: saying he had never repeated it but once since he composed it, and had given but one copy of it. That copy was given to Sir John Lade-the posthumous son of the fourth baronet by Mr. Thrale's sister. He entered cagerly into all the follies of the day; was a remarkable whip; and married a woman of the town.-Croker. See Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, August 8th, 1780, vol. ii., p. 175. "You have heard in the papers how [Lade] is come to age. I have enclosed a short song of congratulation, which you must not show to Mrs. Thrale, now Piozzi, who has published it in a book which she entitles "British Synonymy," but which is truly a collection of entertaining remarks and stories, no matter whether accurate or not. Being a piece of exquisite satire, conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, and in a manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's writings I shall here' insert it. "Long-expected one-and-twenty, "Loosen'd from the minor's tether, "Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, "All that prey on vice and folly “Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, Call the jockey, call the pander, Bid them come and take their fill. “When the bonny blade carouses, any body. It is odd that it should come into any body's head. I hope you will read it with candour; it is, I believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of writing, and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness.”—Malone. 1 In the Third Edition, vol. iv., pp. 441-2.-Editor. "Should the guardian friend or mother Scorn their counsels, scorn their pother, As he opened a note which his servant brought to him, he said, "An odd thought strikes me :-we shall receive no letters in the grave." He requested three things of Sir Joshua Reynolds :-To forgive him thirty pounds which he had borrowed of him; -to read the Bible;-and never to use his pencil on a Sunday. Sir Joshua readily acquiesced. Indeed he showed the greatest anxiety for the religious improvement of his friends, to whom he discoursed of its infinite consequence. He begged of Mr. Hoole to think of what he had said, and to commit it to writing; and, upon being afterwards assured that this was done, pressed his hands, and in an earnest tone thanked him. Dr. Brocklesby having attended him with the utmost assiduity and kindness as his physician and friend, he was peculiarly desirous that this gentleman should not entertain any loose speculative notions, but be confirmed in the truths of Christianity, and insisted on his writing down in his presence, as nearly as he could collect it, the import of what passed on the subject; and Dr. Brocklesby having complied with the request, he made him sign the paper, and urged him to keep it in his own custody as long as he lived. Johnson, with that native fortitude which, amidst all his bodily distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could recover. "Give me," said he, "a direct answer." The doctor, having first asked him if he could bear the whole truth, which way soever it might lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, he could not recover without a miracle, Then," said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded." In this resolution he persevered, and, at the same time, used only the weakest kinds of sustenance. Being pressed 66 |