and perhaps we may talk a life over. I hope we shall be much together; you must now be to me what you were before, and what dear Mr. Allen was, besides. He was taken unexpectedly away, but I think he was a very good man. I have made little progress in recovery. I am very weak and very sleepless; but I live on and hope.' This various mass of correspondence, which I have thus brought together, is valuable, both as an addition to the store which the public already has of Johnson's writings, and as exhibiting a genuine and noble specimen of vigour and vivacity of mind, which neither age nor sickness could impair or diminish. It may be observed, that his writing in every way, whether for the public, or privately to his friends, was by fits and starts; for we see frequently, that many letters are written on the same day. When he had once overcome his aversion to begin, he was, I suppose, desirous to go on, in order to relieve his mind from the uneasy reflection of delaying what he ought to do. While in the country, notwithstanding the accumulation of illness which he endured, his mind did not lose its powers. He translated an Ode of Horace, which is printed in his works, and composed several prayers. I shall insert one of them, which is so wise and energetic, so philosophical and so pious, that I doubt not of its affording consolation to many a sincere Christian, when in a state of mind to which I believe the best are sometimes liable.1 And here I am enabled fully to refute a very unjust reflection, by Sir John Hawkins, both against Dr. Johnson and his faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber; as if both of them had been guilty of culpable neglect towards a person of the name of Heely, whom Sir John chooses to call a relation of Dr. Johnson's. The fact is, that Mr. Heely was not his relation; he had indeed been married to one of his cousins, but she had died without having children, and he had married another woman; so that even the 1 Against inquisitive and perplexing thoughts. O Lord, my maker and protector, who has graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of Thy hands, and consider the course of Thy providence, give me grace always to remember that Thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor Thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be known, teach me by Thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous inquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.'-BOSWELL. slight connection which there once had been by alliance was dissolved. Dr. Johnson, who had shown very great liberality to this man while his first wife was alive, as has appeared in a former part of this work, was humane and charitable enough to continue his bounty to him occasionally; but surely there was no strong call of duty upon him or upon his legatee to do more. The following letter, obligingly communicated to me by Mr. Andrew Strahan, will confirm what I have stated: 'TO MR. HEELY, NO. 5, IN PYE STREET, WESTMINSTER. ASHBOURNE, August 12, 1784. 'SIR,-As necessity obliges you to call so soon again upon me, you should at least have told the smallest sum that will supply your present want you cannot suppose that I have much to spare. Two guineas is as much as you ought to be behind with your creditor.-If you wait on Mr. Strahan, in New Street, Fetter Lane, or in his absence, on Mr. Andrew Strahan, show this, by which they are entreated to advance you two guineas, and to keep this as a voucher.-I am, sir, your humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' Indeed, it is very necessary to keep in mind that Sir John Hawkins has unaccountably viewed Johnson's character and conduct, in almost every particular, with an unhappy prejudice.1 II shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare, Sir John says (p. 444), 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risk he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian, which, he tells us, appeared to belong to Pembroke College, which probably had been considered by Johnson as his own for upwards of fifty years. Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns books borrowed and books lent. In Sir John Hawkins's compilation there are, however, some passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to censure, and to show my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious friend :-There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour that dignity which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a staid man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.' Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and We now behold Johnson for the last time in his native city, for which he ever retained a warm affection, and which, by a sudden apostrophe, under the word Lich, he introduces with reverence, into his immortal work, the English Dictionary: Salve magna parens !11 While here, he felt a revival of all the tenderness of filial affection, an instance of which appeared in his ordering the gravestone and inscription over Elizabeth Blaney to be substantially and carefully renewed. To Mr. Henry White, a young clergyman, with whom he now formed an intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. 'Once, indeed,' said he, 'I was disobedient; I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.' 'I told him,' says Miss Seward, 'in one of my latest visits to him, of a wonderful learned pig which I had seen at Nottingham, and which did all that we have observed exhibited by dogs and horses. The subject amused him. "Then," said he, "the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated. Pig has, it seems, not been wanting to man, but man to pig. We do not allow time for his education; we kill him at a year old." Mr. Henry White, who was present, observed that if this instance had happened in or before Pope's time, he would not have been justified in instancing the swine as the lowest degree of grovelling instinct. Dr. Johnson seemed pleased with the observaunfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues were of a much higher tone than those of the staid, orderly man here described.'-BOSWELL. tion, while the person who made it proceeded to remark, that great torture must have been employed, ere the indocility of the animal could have been subdued.-" Certainly," said the Doctor; "but (turning to me) how old is your pig?" I told him three years old. "Then," said he, "the pig has no cause to complain; he would have been killed the first year if he had not been educated, and protracted existence is a good recompense for very considerable degrees of torture. As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. Thrale was no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed that he would naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his beloved wife's daughter, and end his life where he began it. But there was in him an animated and lofty spirit ;' and however complicated diseases might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Catonis.? Such, was his intellectual ardour even at this time, that he said to one friend, 'Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance;' and to another when talking of his illness, I will be conquered; I will not eapitulate.' And such was his love of London, so high a relish had he of its magnificent extent, and variety of intellectual entertainment, that he languished when absent from it, his mind having become quite luxurious from the long habit of enjoying the metropolis; and therefore, although at Lichfield surrounded with friends who loved and revered him, and for whom he had a very sincere affection, he still found that such conversation as London affords could be found nowhere else. These feelings, joined probably to some flattering hopes of aid from the eminent physicians and surgeons in London, who kindly and generously attended him without accepting fees, made him resolve to return to the capital. From Lichfield he came to Birmingham, where he passed a few days with his worthy old school was very solicitous with me to recollect some of our most early transactions, and transmit them to him, for I perceived nothing gave him greater pleasure than calling to mind those days of our innocence. I complied with his request, and he The following circumstance, mutually to the fellow, Mr. Hector, who thus writes to me: 'He honour of Johnson and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Rev. Dr. Vyse, from the town-clerk:-'Mr. Simpson has now before him a record of the respect and veneration which the corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the corner house in the Market Place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad Market Street, stood upon waste land of the corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August 1767, at a common hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as town-clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion; which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor ⚫ died possessed of this property.'-BOSWELL. 1 Mr. Burke suggested to me, as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his Cato Major, says of Appius: 'Intentum enim animum, tanquam arcum, habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti;' repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the same passage: 'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitæ spiritum vindicat jus suum.'-BOSWELL. 2 Atrocem animum Catonis' are Horace's words, and it may be doubted whether atrox is used by any other original writer in the same sense. Stubborn is perhaps the most correct translation of this epithet.-MALONE. Dr. Adams had not then received accurate information on this subject; for it has since appeared that various prayers had been composed by him at different periods, which, intermingled with pious resolutions and some short notes of his life, were entitled by him Prayers and Meditations, and have, in pursuance of his earnest requisition, in the hopes of doing good, been only received them a few days before his death. I have transcribed for your inspection exactly the minutes I wrote to him.' This paper having been found in his repositories after his death, Sir John Hawkins has inserted it entire, and I have made occasional use of it and other communications from Mr. Hector,' in the course of this work. I have both visited and corresponded with him since Dr. Johnson's death, and by my in-published, with a judicious well-written preface, quiries concerning a great variety of particulars have obtained additional information. I followed the same mode with the Reverend Dr. Taylor, in whose presence I wrote down a good deal of what he could tell; and he, at my request, signed his name to give it authenticity. It is very rare to find any person who is able to give a distinct account of the life even of one whom he has known intimately, without questions being put to them. My friend Dr. Kippis has told me, that on this account it is a practice with him to draw out a biographical catechism. Johnson then proceeded to Oxford, where he was again kindly received by Dr. Adams, who was pleased to give the following account in one of his letters (Feb. 17th, 1785): 'His last visit was, I believe, to my house, which he left after a stay of four or five days. We had much serious talk together, for which I ought to be the better as long as I live. You will remember some discourse which we had in the summer upon the subject of prayer, and the difficulty of this sort of composition. He reminded me of this, and of my having wished him to try his hand, and to give us a specimen of the style and manner that he approved. He added, that he was now in a right frame of mind, and as he could not possibly employ his time better, he would in earnest set about it. But I find upon inquiry, that no papers of this sort were left behind him, except a few short ejaculatory forms suitable to his present situation.' by the Rev. Mr. Strahan, to whom he delivered He arrived in London on the 16th of November, and next day sent to Dr. Burney the following note which I insert as the last token of his remembrance of that ingenious and amiable man, and as another of the many proofs of the tenderness and benignity of his heart : 'Mr. Johnson, who came home last night, sends his respects to dear Dr. Burney, and all the dear Burneys, little and great.' TO MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM. 'LONDON, Nov. 17, 1784. 'DEAR SIR,-I did not reach Oxford until Friday morning, and then I sent Francis to see the balloon fly, but could not go myself. I stayed at Oxford till Tuesday, and then came in the common vehicle easily to London. I am as I was, and having seen Dr. Brocklesby, am to ply the squills; but whatever be their 1 It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the efficacy, this world must soon pass away. publication of this work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgment:-'I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and longcontinued entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnson has afforded me, and others of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a Sprig of Myrtle, has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his Poems. -BOSWELL. This early and worthy friend of Johnson died at Birmingham, September 2, 1794.-MALONE. 2 This amiable and excellent man survived Dr. Johnson about four years, having died in January 1789, at the age of eighty-two, at Gloucester, where a monument is erected to his memory. A very just character of Dr. Adams may also be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1789, vol. lix. p. 214.-His only daughter was married, in July 1788, to B. Hyatt, Esq. of Painswick, in Gloucestershire.— MALONE. Let us think seriously on our duty. I send my kindest respects to dear Mrs. Careless: let me have the prayers of both. We have all lived long, and must soon part. GOD have mercy on us, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.-I am, etc., 'SAM. JOHNSON.' His correspondence with me, after his letter on the subject of my settling in London, shall now, so far as is proper, be produced in one series. July 26, he wrote to me from Ashbourne :'On the 14th I came to Lichfield, and found everybody glad enough to see me. On the 20th I came hither, and found a house halfbuilt, of very uncomfortable appearance; but my own room has not been altered. That a man worn with diseases, in his seventy-second or third year, should condemn part of his remaining life to pass among ruins and rubbish, and that no inconsiderable part, appears to me very strange. I know that your kindness makes you impatient to know the state of my health, in which I cannot boast of much improvement. I came through the journey without much inconvenience, but when I attempt self-motion I find my legs weak, and my breath very short; this day I have been much disordered. I have no company; the Doctor' is busy in his fields, and goes to bed at nine, and his whole system is so different from mine, that we seem formed for different elements; I have, therefore, all my amusements to seek within myself.' Having written to him in bad spirits, a letter filled with dejection and fretfulness, and at the same time expressing anxious apprehensions concerning him, on account of a dream which had disturbed me, his answer was chiefly in terms of reproach, for a supposed charge of 'affecting discontent, and indulging the vanity of complaint.' It, however, proceeded 'Write to me often, and write like a man. I consider your fidelity and tenderness as a great part of the comforts which are yet left me, and sincerely wish we could be nearer to each other. . . . . My dear friend, life is very short and very uncertain; let us spend it as well as we can. My worthy neighbour, Allen, is dead. Love me as well as you can. Pay my respects to dear Mrs. Boswell. Nothing ailed me at that time; let your superstition at last have an end.' Feeling very soon, that the manner in which he had written might hurt me, he two days afterwards, July 28, wrote to me again, giving me an account of his sufferings; after which he thus proceeds : 'Before this letter, you will have had one which I hope you will not take amiss; for it contains only truth, and that truth kindly intended. Spartam quam nactus es orna; make the most and best of your lot, and compare yourself not with the few that are above you, but with the multitudes which are below you. Go steadily forwards with lawful business or honest diversions. "Be (as Temple says of the Dutchman) well when you are not ill, and pleased when you are not angry." This may seem but an ill return for your tenderness; but I mean it well, for I love you with great ardour and sincerity. Pay my respects to dear Mrs. Boswell, and teach the young ones to love me.' I unfortunately was so much indisposed during a considerable part of the year, that it was not, or at least I thought it was not, in my power to write to my illustrious friend as formerly, or without expressing such complaints as offended him. Having conjured him not to do me the injustice of charging me with affecta 1 The Rev. Dr. Taylor.-BoswELL. tion, I was with much regret long silent. His last letter to me then came, and affected me very tenderly. me. 'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'LICHFIELD, Nov. 5, 1784. 'DEAR SIR,-I have this summer sometimes amended, and sometimes relapsed, but upon the whole, have lost ground very much. My legs are extremely weak, and my breath very short, and the water is now increasing upon In this uncomfortable state your letters used to relieve; what is the reason that I have them no longer? Are you sick, or are you sullen? Whatever be the reason, if it be less than necessity, drive it away; and of the short life that we have, make the best use for yourself and for your friends. sometimes afraid that your omission to write has some real cause, and shall be glad to know that you are pot sick, and that nothing ill has befallen dear Mrs. Boswell, or any of your family.-I am, sir, yours, etc., I am SAM. JOHNSON.' Yet it was not a little painful to me to find, that in a paragraph of this letter, which I have omitted, he still persevered in arraigning me as before, which was strange in him, who had so much experience of what I suffered. I, however, wrote to him two as kind letters as I could; the last of which came too late to be read by him, for his illness increased more rapidly upon him than I had apprehended; but I had the consolation of being informed that he spoke of me on his death-bed with affection, and I look forward with humble hope of renewing our friendship in a better world. I now relieve the readers of this work from any further personal notice of its author; who, if he should be thought to have obtruded himself too much upon their attention, requests them to consider the peculiar plan of his biographical undertaking. Soon after Johnson's return to the metro polis, both the asthma and dropsy became more violent and distressful. He had for some time kept a journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he used, under the title of Egri Ephemeris, which he began on the 6th of July, but continued it no longer than the 8th of November; finding, I suppose, that it was a mournful and unavailing register. It is in my possession, and is written with great care and accuracy. Still his love of literature did not fail.1 A 1 It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following very few days before his death he transmitted to his friend Mr. John Nichols, a list of the catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty : 'DIVINITY. 'A small book of precepts and directions for piety: the hint taken from the directions in Morton's exercise. 'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE IN GENERAL. 'History of Criticism, as it relates to judging of authors, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authors, ancient and modern. "Translation of the History of Herodian. 'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, etc. 'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present; with notes explanatory of customs, etc., and reference to Boccace, and other authors from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary. 'Aristotle's Rhetoric, a translation of it into English. 'A collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authors. 'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical. 'Roscommon's Poems, with notes. 'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct. "History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets. "History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner. 'Aristotle's Ethics, an English translation of them, with notes. 'Geographical Dictionary, from the French. 'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. This is done by Norris. 'A book of Letters, upon all kind of subjects. 'Claudian, a new edition of his works, cum notis variorum, in the manner of Burman. Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them. 'Tully's De Naturâ Deorum, a translation of those books. 'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated. 'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated. 'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different countries. 'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes. 'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of preference or degradation. 'A Collection of Letters from English authors, with a preface giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful. authors of the Universal History, mentioning their several shares in that work. It has, ac 'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. March,-52. 'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10,-53. From Elian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. 28,-53. Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of Countries. 'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology. "Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of learning, directions for editions commentaries, etc. 'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyère, collected out of ancient authors, particularly the Greek, with Apophthegms. 'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and Latin authors. Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in imitation of Plutarch. 'Judgment of the learned upon English authors. 'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue. 'Considerations upon the present state of London. 'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observa tions. 'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and modes of speech. 'Minutiæ Literariæ, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, emendations, notes. 'History of the Constitution. 'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers. 'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes. 'POETRY AND WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 'Hymn to Ignorance. "The Palace of Sloth-a vision. Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several times quoted : 'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view, His mind expansive to the object grew. With various stores of erudition fraught, The lively image, the deep-searching thought, Slept in repose ;-but when the moment press'd, The bright ideas stood at once confess'd; Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, And o'er the letter'd world diffused a blaze: As womb'd with fire the cloud electric flies, And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise: Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.' We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production of Johnson's pen. He owned to me that he had written about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknow ledge them. Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it would be oblig 'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages.ingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which there Jan. 6,--53. should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes |