was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and, after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house.1 1 Mrs. Williams was a person extremely interesting. She had uncommon firmness of mind, a boundless curiosity, retentive memory, and strong judgment. She had various powers of pleasing. Her personal afflictions and slender fortune she seemed to forget, when she had the power of doing an act of kindness: she was social, cheerful, and active, in a state of body that was truly deplorable. Her regard to Dr. John son was formed with such strength of judgment and firm esteem, that her voice never hesitated when she repeated his maxims, or recited his good deeds; though upon many other occasions her want of sight led her to make so much use of her ear, as to affect her speech. Mrs. Williams was blind before she was acquainted with Dr. Johnson. She had many resources, though none very great. With the Miss Wilkinsons she generally passed a part of the year, and received from them presents, and from the first who died, a legacy of clothes and money. The last of them, Mrs. Jane, left her an annual rent; but from the blundering manner of the will, I fear she never reaped the benefit of it. The lady left money to erect a hospital for ancient maids: but the number she had allotted being too great for the donation, the Doctor (Johnson) said, it would be better to expunge the word maintain, and put in to starve such a number of old maids. They asked him what name should be given it he replied, "Let it be called JENNY'S WHIM." [The name of a well-known tavern near Chelsea in former days.] Lady Phillips made her a small annual allowance, and some other Welsh ladies, to all of whom she was related. Mrs. Montague, on the death of Mr. Montague, settled upon her (by deed) ten pounds per annum. As near as I can calculate, Mrs. Williams had about thirty-five or forty pounds a year. The furniture she used [in her apartment in Dr. Johnson's house] was her own; her expenses were small, tea and bread and butter being at least half of her nourishment. Sometimes she had a servant or charwoman to do the ruder offices of the house; but she was herself active and industrious. I have frequently seen her at work. Upon remarking one day her facility in moving about the house, searching into drawers, and finding books, without the help of sight, "Believe me (said she), persons who cannot do these common offices without sight, did but little while they enjoyed that blessing." Scanty circumstances bad health, and blindness, are surely a sufficient apology for her being In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his "Dictionary." The last paper of his "Rambler was published March 2,1 this year: after which there was a cessation for some time of any exertion of his talents as an essayist. But, in the same year, Dr. Hawkesworth, who was his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his style, and then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical paper, entitled, The Adventurer,' in connection with other gentlemen, one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend Dr. Bathurst; and, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his conversation, most of his friends having been so assisted in the course of their works. 66 2 That there should be a suspension of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752, will not seem strange, when it is considered that soon after closing his " Rambler," be suffered a loss which, there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepest distress. For on the 17th of March, O.S., his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins3 should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed), and to assert, that if it was not the case, “it sometimes impatient: her natural disposition was good, friendly, and humane.-Lady Knight's Recollections (European Review for October, 1799). I see her now-a pale, shrunken old lady, dressed in scarlet, made in the handsome French fashion of the time (1775), with a lace cap, with two stiffened projecting wings on the temples, and a black lace hood over it. Her temper has been recorded as marked with Welsh fire, and this might be excited by some of the meaner inmates of the upper floors [of Dr. Johnson's house]; but her gentle kindness to me I never shall forget, or think consistent with a bad temper. I know nobody from whose discourse there was a better chance of deriving high ideas of moral rectitude.-Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 152.-Croker. 1 A mistake: the date of the last Rambler was Saturday, March 14, N.S., or March 3, O.S.-Editor. 2 The curiosity of the reader is to a small degree gratified by the last paper, which assigns to their author, Dr. Joseph Warton, such as have a certain signature, and leaves to Dr. Hawkesworth himself the praise of such as are without any. To the information there given I add that the papers marked A, which are said to have come from a source that soon failed, were supplied by Dr. Bathurst, and those distinguished by the letter T by Johnson. Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 293.-Croker. 3 Life of Johnson, p. 313. was a lesson he had learned by rote," I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself. and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language. The following very solemn and affecting prayer1 was found after Dr. Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Barber, who delivered it to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, Vicar of Islington, who at my earnest request has obligingly favoured me with a copy of it, which he and I compared with the original. I present it to the world as an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of my illustrious friend, which, though some, whose hard minds I never shall envy, may attack as superstitious, will, I am sure, endear him more to numbers of good men, I have an additional, and that a personal motive for presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained and am fond to indulge. "April 26, 1752, being after 12 at Night of the 25th. “O Lord! Governor of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed spirits, if thou hast ordained the souls of the dead to minister to the living, and appointed my departed wife to have the care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams, or in any other manner agreeable to thy government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." What actually followed upon this most interesting piece 1 This prayer, published among the additions received after the second edition was printed, was introduced into the text in the third edition.Editor. but I, of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; whom it has pleased God to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams. That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his " Prayers and Meditations," published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan. as well as from other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind. "March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." 66 April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the meantime I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows: "Eheu! "Eliz. Johnson, After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant, and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter; but she having declined to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning ring for his old master, and presented it to his wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it. The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his "Irene," we find the following fervent and tender speech of Demetrius, adressed to his Aspasia : "From those bright regions of eternal day, Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, In pleasing visions and assuasive dreams, O! soothe my soul, and teach me how to lose thee." I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who, before her marriage, lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a high opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much altered for the worse. The dreadful shock of separation took place in the night; and he immediately despatched a letter to his friend, the Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told me, expressed grief in the strongest manner he had ever read; so that it is much to be regretted it has not been preserved. The letter was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his house in the cloisters, Westminster, about three in the morning; and as it signified an earnest desire to see him, he got up, and went to Johnson as soon as he was dressed, and found him in tears and in extreme agitation. After being a little while together, Johnson requested him to join with him in prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did Dr. Taylor; and thus by means of that piety which was ever his primary object, his troubled mind was, in some degree. soothed and composed. The next day he wrote as follows: |