This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his superiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the "Paradise Lost." In these he interpolated some fragments of Hog's Latin translation of that poem, alleging that the mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled "An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost." To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface, in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and a Postscript recommending in the most persuasive terms a subscription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus speaks: "It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he sees, he sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal spirit." Surely this is inconsistent with " enmity towards Milton," which Sir John Hawkins imputes to Johnson upon this occasion, adding, "I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve not only of the design, but of the argument; and seemed to exult in a persuasion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the imposture, I am well persuaded; that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson." Is it possible for any man of clear judgment to suppose that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a Postscript to this very "discovery," as he then supposed it, could, at the same time, exult in a persuasion that the great poet's reputation was likely to suffer by it? This is an inconsistency of which 1 Proposals [evidently written by Johnson] for printing the Adamus Exul of Grotius, with a Translation and Notes by William Lauder, A. M." Gent. Mag. 1747, p. 404.MALONE. But is it not extraordinary that Johnson, who had himself meditated a history of modern Latin poetry (see antè, p.), should not have shown his curiosity and love of truth, , at least, comparing Lauder's quotations with the original anthors? It was, we might say, his duty to have done so, before he so far pronounced his judgment as to assist Lauder; and had he attempted but to verify a single quotation, he must have immediately discovered the fraud. COOKER This proposition of an index rerum to a novel will Johnson was incapable; nor can anything more be fairly inferred from the Preface, than that Johnson, who was alike distinguished for ardent curiosity and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were gratified. ' That he was actuated by these motives, and certainly by no unworthy desire todepreciate our great epic poet, is evident from his own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature, "to advance the honour, and distinguish the beauties of Paradise Lost," he says, "Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticism has naturally given occasion, none is more obscure in itself, or more worthy of rational curiogenius in the construction of his work; a view of sity, than a retrospect of the progress of this mighty the fabric, gradually rising, perhaps, from small beginnings, till its foundation rests in the centre, and its turrets sparkle in the skies; to trace back the structure through all its varieties to the simplicity of its first plan; to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own. blast the laurels of Milton? Is this the language of one who wished to JOHNSON TO RICHARDSON. "March 9. 1750-1. "DEAR SIR, Though Clarissa wants no help from external splendour, I was glad to see her improved in her appearance, but more glad to find that she was now got above all fears of prolixity, and confident enough of success to supply whatever had been hitherto suppressed. I never indeed found a hint of any such defalcation, but I regretted it; for though the story is long, every letter is short. "I wish you would add an index rerum3, that when the reader recollects any incident, he may easily find it, which at present he cannot do, unless he knows in which volume it is told; for Clarissa is not a performance to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever; but will be occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged, and the studious; and therefore I beg that this edition, by which I suppose posterity is to abide, may want nothing that can facilitate its use. am, sir, yours, &c. -Rich. Cor. "SAM. JOHNSON." Though Johnson's circumstances were at this appear extraordinary, but Johnson was at this time very anxious to cultivate the favour of Richardson, who lived in an atmosphere of flattery, and Johnson found it necessary to fall into the fashion of the society. Mr. Northcote relates, that Johnson introduced Sir Joshua Reynolds and his sister to Richardson, but hinted to them, at the same time, that if they wished to see the latter in good humour, they must expatiate on the excellences of Clarissa; and Mrs. Piozzi tells us, that when talking of Richardson, he once said, "You think I love flattery-and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow, Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar."- CROKER. time far from being easy', his humane and charitable disposition 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 visiter 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. Prior's Life of Goldsmith, i. 341–347.—Croker, 1846. 2 Before the calamity of total deprivation of sight befell Mrs. Williams, she, with the assistance of her father, had acquired a knowledge of the French and Italian languages, and had made great improvements in literature, which, together with the exercise of her needle, at which she was very dexterous, as well after the loss of her sight as before, contributed to support her under her affliction, till a time when it was thought by her friends that relief might be obtained from the hand of an operating surgeon. At the request of Dr. Johnson, I went with her to a friend of mine, Mr. Samuel Sharp, senior surgeon of Guy's Hospital, who before had given me to understand that he would couch her gratis if the cataract was ripe; but upon making the experiment it was found otherwise, and that the crystalline humour was not sufficiently inspissated for the needle to take effect. She had been almost a constant companion of Mrs. Johnson for some time before her decease, but had never resided in the house; afterwards, for the convenience of performing the intended operation, Johnson took her home; and, upon the failure of that, kept her as the partner of his dwelling till he removed into chambers. Afterward, in 1766, upon his taking a house in Johnson's Court, in Fleet Street, he invited her thither, aud in that, and his last house, in Bolt Court, she successively dwelt for the remainder of her life. The loss of her sight made but a small abatement of her cheerfulness, and was scarce any interruption of her studies. With the assistance of two female friends, she translated from the French of Père La Bletrie "the Life of the Emperor Julian," and, in 1766, she published, by subscription, a quarto volume of Miscellanies, in prose and verse, and thereby increased her little fund to three hundred pounds, which, being prudently invested, yielded an income that, under such protection as she experienced from Dr. Johnson, was sufficient for her support. She was a woman of an enlightened understanding; plain, as it is called, in her person, and easily provoked to anger, but possessing, nevertheless, some excellent moral qualities, among which no one was more conspicuous than her desire to promote the welfare and happiness of others, and of this she gave a signal proof, by her solicitude in favour of an institution for the maintenance and education of poor deserted females in the parish of St. Sepulchre, London, supported by the voluntary contributions of ladies; and, as the foundation-stone of a fund for its future subsistence, she bequeathed to it the whole of the little which she had been able to accumulate. To the endowments and qualities here ascribed to her, may be added a larger share of experimental prudence than is the lot of most of her sex. Johnson, in many exigences, found her an able counsellor, and seldom showed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice. return, she received from his conversation the advantages of religious and moral improvement, which she cultivated so, as In in a great measure to smooth the constitutional asperity of her temper. When these particulars are known, this intimacy, which began with compassion, and terminated in a friendship that subsisted till death dissolved it, will be easily accounted for. — Hawkins, p. 322. 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. Johnson 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 sometimes impatient: her natural disposition was good, friendly, and humane."- Lady Knight. (Antè, p. 24.) I see her nowa 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. See post, sub November, 1766. — CROKER. 3 Here the author's memory failed him, for, according to the account given in a former page (see p. 63.), we should here read March 17.; but, in truth, as has been already observed, the Rambler closed on Saturday the fourteenth of March; at which time Mrs. Johnson was near her end, for she died on the following Tuesday, March 17. Had the concluding paper of that work been written on the day of her death, it would have been still more extraordinary than it is, considering the extreme grief into which the author was plunged by that event. The melancholy cast of that con 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,' 1 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. 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, he 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 Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed 2), and to assert, that if it was not the case, "it 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 prayer was found after Dr. Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Barber, who de livered it to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan3, Vicar of Islington, who at my cluding essay is sufficiently accounted for by the situation of Mrs. Johnson at the time it was written; and her death three days afterwards put an end to the paper. - MALONE. Mr. Malone seems also to have fallen into some errors, from not adverting to the change of style. Johnson, at this period, used the old style; so that Mr. Boswell may have copied from some MS. note the date of the 2d of March as that on which the last Rambler was written, though it was published next day, viz. the 3d, O. S., or 14th, N. S.; and as Mrs. Johnson's death was on the 17th, O. S., or 28th, N. S., the Rambler was concluded a fortnight before that event; and was concluded because, as Dr. Johnson expressly says in the last number, *having supported it for two years, and multiplied his essays to six volumes, he determined to desist." It died therefore a natural death, though it is very likely that the loss of Mrs. Johnson would have stopped it, had it not been already terminated. CROKER. The last paper of the Adventurer assigns to Dr. J. Warton such as have the signature Z, and leaves the rest to Hawkesworth himself. Hawkins adds that the papers marked A, which are said to have come from a source that Roon failed, were supplied by Dr. Bathurst, and those distinguished by the letter T (the first of which is dated 3rd March, 1753,) by Johnson, who received two guineas for every number that he wrote; a rate of payment which he had before adjusted in his stipulation for the Rambler, and was probably the measure of reward to his fellow-labourers. Hawkins. But see post, p. 80. n. 5. more on this subject. — CROKER. * Johnson himself has in his Dictionary given to the word “dissembled” the same meaning in which it is here used by 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 have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good to the living, and appointed my departed wife to 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 of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased GOD occasioned it, have certain experience of beto afflict in a similar manner to that which nignant 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 Hawkins. He adds, however, very justly, that such a use of it is erroneous. CROKER. 3 George, afterwards D.D., second son of Johnson's friend, Andrew Strahan, M.P. and King's Printer. He died May 1824, aged 80. 4 Mr. Boswell's wife died in June, 1790; his Life of Johnson was first published in April, 1791. See the letter to Mr. Elphinston on a similar loss, antè, p. 66. n. 1.- CROKER. 5 The originals of this publication are now deposited in Pembroke College. It is to be observed, that they consist of a few little memorandum books, and a great number of separate scraps of paper, and bear no marks of having been arranged or intended for publication by Dr. Johnson. Each prayer is on a separate piece of paper, generally a sheet-but sometimes a fragment-of note paper. The memoranda and observations are generally in little books of a few leaves sewed together. This subject will be referred to hereafter; (sub November and December, 1784); but it is even now important that the reader should recollect that Mr. Strahan's publication was not foreseen nor prepared by Dr. Johnson himself, but patched up by the reverend gentleman out of the loose materials above mentioned, and published by him, as I conceive, most unwarrantably.-C., 1831. The publication has done no harm; on the contrary, though it has on a few points given rise to criticism, misrepresentation, and sneer, (see next note,) it, on the whole, raises Johnson's character for piety and charity; but it was in the first instance a breach of confidence towards Johnson, and it assumed towards the public a character of authority which it did not possess.- CROKER, 1846. in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." "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 mean time I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." 1 Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her 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: 1 Miss Seward, with equal truth and taste, thus expresses herself concerning these and similar passages:-"Those pharisaic meditations, with their popish prayers for old Tetty's soul; their contrite parade about lying in bed on a morning; drinking creamed tea on a fast day; snoring at sermons; and having omitted to ponder well Bel and the Dragon and Tobit and his Dog." And in another letter she does not scruple to say, that Mr. Boswell confessed to her his idea that Johnson was " a Roman Catholic in his heart." Miss Seward's credit is by this time so low that it is hardly necessary to observe how improbable it is that Mr. Boswell could have made any such confession. Dr. Johnson thought charitably of the Roman Catholics, and defended their religion from the coarse language of our political tests, which call it impious and idolatrous (post, Oct. 26. 1769); but he strenuously disclaimed all participation in the doctrines of that church (see post, May 3. 1773 April 5, 1776; October 10. 1779; June 3, 1784). Lady Knight (antè, p. 24.) (the mother of Miss Cornelia Knight, author of "Marcus Flaminius," wrote from Rome to Mrs. Hoole,: -" Dr. Johnson's political principles ran high, both in church and state: he wished power to the king and to the heads of the church, as the laws of England have established: but I know he disliked absolute power: and I am very sure of his disapprobation of the doctrines of the Church of Rome; because about three weeks before we came abroad, he said to my Cornelia, "You are going where the ostentatious pomp of church ceremonies attracts the imagination; but if they want to persuade you to change, you must remember, that by increasing your faith, you may be persuaded to become Turk.' If these were not the words, I have kept up to the express meaning." Mrs. Piozzi says, "Though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken Church-of-England man; and I think, or at least I once did think, that a letter written by him to Mr. Barnard, the king's librarian, when he was in Italy col lecting books, contained some very particular advice to his friend to be on his guard against the seductions of the Church of Rome." And finally which may perhaps be thought more likely to express his real sentiments than even a more formal assertion-when it was proposed (see post, April 30. 1773), that monuments of eminent men should in future be erected in St. Paul's, and when some one in conversation suggested to begin with Pope, Johnson observed, "Why, sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first." -CROKER. 2 It seems as if Dr. Johnson had been a little ashamed of the disproportion between his age and that of his wife, for neither in this inscription nor that over her grave, written 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, addressed to his Aspasia : "From those bright regions of eternal day, Array'd in purer light, look down on me! 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.5 The thirty years later, does he mention her age, which was at her death sixty-three.. -CROKER. 3 Offended perhaps, and not unreasonably, that she was not mentioned in Johnson's will. C., 1831. It has been observed to me, that neither had she in her will, made before Johnson's death, remembered him- but she could hardly have thought of Johnson's outliving her. - CROKER, 1846. 4" I asked him," says Mrs. Piozzi, "if he ever disputed with his wife (I had heard that he loved her passionately). 'Perpetually," ," said he "my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber: a clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling." On another occasion I have heard him blame her for a fault many people have, of setting the miseries of their neighbours, half unintentionally, half wantonly, before their eyes, showing them the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. He said, "She would lament the dependence of pupilage to a young heir, &c., and once told a waterman who rowed her along the Thames in a wherry, that he was no happier than a galley-slave, one being chained to the oar by authority, the other by want. She read comedy better than any body he ever heard (he said); in tragedy she mouthed too much." Garrick, however, told Mr. Thrale that she was a little painted puppet of no value at all, and quite disguised with affectation, full of odd airs of rural elegance; and he made out some comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue he pretended to have overheard. Mr. Johnson has told me that her hair was eminently beautiful, quite blonde like that of a baby; but that she fretted about the colour, and was always desirous to dye it black, which he very judiciously hindered her from doing. The picture I found of her at Lichfield was very pretty, and her daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, said it was like. The intelligence I gained of her from old Levett, was only perpetual illness and perpetual opium."-Piozzi. But Levett only knew her in her last years, and in very bad health. Croker. 5 In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1794, p. 100., was printed a letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife: but it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of "The Idler," on the death of a friend. A fictitious date, March 17. 1751, O. S., was added to give a colour to this deception.- MALONE. 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: That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant', who came into his family about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were aggravated by the melancholy inherent in his constitution, and although he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was, in the little disagreements which sometimes troubled his married 1 Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in 1750, by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's schooi, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's death, with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. - BOSWELL. Hawkins says that "the uses for which Francis was intended to serve Johnson were not very apparent, for Diogenes himself never wanted a servant less than he seemed to do. The great bushy wig which, throughout his life, he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture which it had contracted and been suffered to retain, was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge; and little of the dust that had once settled on his outer garments was ever known to have been disturbed by the brush." But he adds, that "the produce of the Rambler, the pay he was receiving for the Adventurer, and the fruits of his other literary labours, had now exalted him to such a state of comparative affluence as in his judgment made a man-servant Becessary." This is a mistake. Boswell states on evi state, during which, he owned to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more painful to him than ever, he might very naturally, after her death, be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and offences, the sense of which would give him much uneasiness.2 Accordingly we find, about a year after her decease, that he thus addressed the Supreme Being:-"O LORD, who givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected, in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild instruction." [Pr. and Med. p. 19.] The kindness of his heart, notwithstanding the impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his friends; and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for the following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins:- "The apparition of his departed wife was altogether of the terrific kind, and hardly afforded him a hope that she was in a state of happiness." That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions: :- -"And, O LORD, so far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife; beseeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness."3 [Pr. and Med. p. 20.] But this state has not been looked upon with horror, but only as less gracious. He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley in Kent, to which he was probably led by the residence of his friend Hawkesworth at that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never preached, but, having been given to dence which (however improbable the fact) it is hard to resist, that Johnson resigned to Dr. Bathurst all the profits of the Adventurer, two guineas a paper, for about thirty papers; and all other accounts lead to a belief, that about this period Johnson was in extreme distress. It is there fore more probable that he was induced to take the Negro by charity and his love of Dr. Bathurst.-C., 1831. The Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3. 1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos Street, pressing Johnson to pay £2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had endorsed, "Proof of Dr. Johnson's wretched circumstances in 1751."- CROKER, 1846. 2 See his beautiful and affecting Rambler, No. 54.MALONE. This was written two years before Mrs. Johnson's death.CROKER. 3 It does not appear that Johnson was fully persuaded that there was a middle state: his prayers being only conditionat, i. e. if such a state existed. -MALONE. This is not a correct statement of the case: the condition was, that it should be lawful to him so to intercede; and in all his prayers of this nature he scrupulously introduces the humble limitation of "as far as it is lawful," or "as far as may be permitted, I recommend," &c.; but it is also to be observed, that he sometimes prays that the Almighty may have had mercy" on the departed, as if he believed the sentence to have been already pronounced. - CROKER. 4 A few months before his death, Johnson honoured her |