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." (') [Pr. and Med. p. 20.] But this state (1) It does not appear that Johnson was fully persuaded that there was a middle state: his prayers being only conditional, i. e. if such a state existed. MALONE. This is not an exact view of the matter: 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. 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 (1), 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 Dr. Taylor, has been published since his death, is a performance of uncommon excellence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder. From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentic and artless account of the situation in which he found him recently after his wife's death: "He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, which was in Gough Square. (1) A few months before his death, Johnson honoured her memory by the following epitaph, which was inscribed on her tombstone, in the church of Bromley: Hic conduntur reliquiæ ELIZABETHÆ Antiquâ Jarvisiorum gente, Peatlinga, apud Leicestrienses, ortæ; Obiit Londini, Mense Mart. A.D. MDCCLII. He was busy with the Dictionary. Mr. Shiels, and some others of the gentlemen who had formerly written for him, used to come about him. He had then little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shiels when in distress. The friends who visited him at that time, were chiefly Dr. Bathurst (1), and Mr. Diamond, an apothecary in Cork Street Burlington-gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams gene (1) Dr. Bathurst, though a physician of no inconsiderable merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore, willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: -"The Havannah is taken: a conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it; "Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit."- BoswELL. 'Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Piozzi that he loved "Dear, dear Bathurst, better than he ever loved any human creature;' and it was on him that he bestowed the singular eulogy of being a good hater. "Dear Bathurst," said he, "was a man to my very heart's content; he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig: he was a very good hater!" CROKER. [Mr. Croker inserted in his edition of Boswell, two letters from Bathurst to Johnson, dated Barbadoes, Jan. 13., and Jamaica, March 18. 1757; from which, as he observes, "It would seem that Bathurst left London, and returned to the West Indies some years before the expedition against the Havannah; nor is his name to be found in the list of medical officers who accompanied the army from England; he probably, therefore, joined the expedition in the West Indies." The first of these letters has this passage: "The many acts of friendship and affection you have conferred upon me, so fully convince me of your being interested in my welfare, that even my present stupidity will not prevent my taking a pen in my hand to acquaint you that I am this instant arrived safe at Barbadoes, and I hope I may add, without having forgot all your lessons; and I am confident not without praying most fervently that the Supreme Being will enable me to deserve the approbation and friendship of so great and so good a man: alas! you little know how undeserving I am of the favours I have received from you. May health and happiness for ever attend you. Excuse my dropping my pen, for it is impossible that it should express the gratitude that is due to you, from your most affectionate friend, and most obliged servant, RICHARD BATHURST."] rally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland with him, which would probably have happened, had he lived. There were also Mr. Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland, merchant on Tower-hill, Mrs. Masters (1), the poetess, who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaulay (2); also, Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallowchandler on Snow-hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good woman (3); Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds; Mr. Miller, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne, of Paternoster-row, booksellers; Mr. Strahan, the printer; the Earl of Orrery, Lord Southwell (4), Mr. Garrick." Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and in particular, his humble friend Mr. Robert Levett, an obscure practiser in physic amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes (1) Mary Masters published a small volume of poems about 1738, and, in 1755, " Familiar Letters and Poems," in octavo. She is supposed to have died about 1759.- CROKER. (2) Catherine Sawbridge, sister of Mrs. Alderman Sawbridge, was born in 1733; but it was not till 1760 that she was married to Dr. Macaulay, a physician; so that Barber's account was, in respect to her, incorrect, either in date or name. She was married a second time, in 1778, to a Mr. Graham, with no increase of respectability. She died in 1791. CROKER. [In Wilkes's Letters to his Daughter, there are many particulars of, and allusions to, this eccentric woman. See also Mrs. Carter's Letters to Mrs. Montagu, and Polwhele's Recollections, vol. i. -MARKHAM.] (3) With this good woman, who was introduced to him by Mrs. Masters, he kept up a constant intercourse, and remembered her in his will, by the bequest of a book. See post, Nov. 1783.. CROKER. (4) [Thomas, second Lord Southwell, F. R. S., born 1698, succeeded his father in 1720, and died in 1766.] very small sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs. Williams has told me, his walk was from Houndsditch to Marybone. It appears, from Johnson's diary, that their acquaintance commenced about the year 1746; and such was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians, unless he had Mr. Levett with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr. Levett had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was present. (1) The circle of his friends, indeed, at this time was extensive and various, far beyond what has been generally imagined. (2) To trace his acquaintance (1) [Robert Levett, though an Englishman by birth, became early in life a waiter at a coffee-house in Paris; where the surgeons who frequented it, finding him of an inquisitive turn, and attentive to their conversation, made a purse for him, and gave him some instructions in their art. They afterwards furnished him with the means of other knowledge, by procuring him free admission to such lectures in pharmacy and anatomy as were read by the ablest professors of that period. Where the middle part of his life was spent is uncertain. He resided above twenty years under Johnson's hospitable roof, who never wished him to be regarded as an inferior, or treated him like a dependant. - STEEVENS.] (2) Mr. Murphy, who is, as to this period, better authority than Mr. Boswell, says, "It was late in life before he had the habit of |