must not feed vice, and we should take care lest we be imposed on; but still, we should be especially heedful how we become the executioners of distress and want upon any man, though he be as evil as he is needy: nay, we must positively seek to do him good. "Happy I," exclaims a sound divine, "if I may so cheaply bestow a double life of body and of soul." Alas, and alas! there is much the very reverse of this passing daily and hourly in the world; and too many, if not hardened, yet become tied and bound by too strong a chain to their sins.

The same kind of ill-feeling is apparent, too often, among religious disputants, there is no charity bestowed on an antagonist. Bishop Sanderson has an admirable Sermon* on the want of charity in Papists and Puritans towards Church-of-England men,-" as if," he says of the latter, "all but themselves were scarce to be owned either as brethren, or professors, or Christians, or saints, or godly men:" all which names they appro"all priate to themselves!

*

Sanderson's Sermons, p. 63, preached in 1633.

CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUED INSTANCES.

IN prosecuting the great work of his English Dictionary, Dr. Johnson employed six amanuenses, and "to all these painful labourers," says Boswell, "he showed a never-ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it." For Sheils, who died of a consumption, "he had much tenderness;" but of his kindness to Macbean we have the fullest account. For him Johnson wrote a preface to a work on ancient Geography: and very many years afterwards obtained admission for him as a poor brother into the Charter-house, by an application to Lord Thurlow; and here we find him again writing to the Rev. Dr. Vyse, as he had before done in the case of De Groot, the nephew, or grandson, of Grotius. He states that he is one of his old friends, a man of great learning, and "being a modest scholar, will escape embarrassment" (in attending before the Archbishop), "if you are so kind as to introduce him, by which you will do a kindness to a man of great merit," &c. Nearly four years after this deed of charity, he writes, "A message came to me yesterday to tell me that Macbean is dead, after three days of illness. He was one of those who, as Swift says, stood

as a screen between me and death. He has, I hope, made a good exchange. He was very pious: he was very innocent: he did no ill: and of doing good a continual tenour of distress allowed him few opportunities. he was very highly esteemed in the Charter-house." Macbean was indeed poor, for after being several years librarian to the Duke of Argyle, he was left without a shilling it is gratifying to observe that Johnson lost not sight of him after he had entered this welcome asylum. The screen between me and death must allude to his being the oldest surviving friend of Dr. Johnson's -and Johnson died in the same year. The death of each friend of our early years must be a memento mori to us, but when it comes to the last remaining one, the fact which the warning serves to remind us of must be nigh at hand. Would that Johnson could have, at this time, spoken in the language of Cicero, when, on lamenting the death of Scipio, he found other consolation than in the remembrance of his beloved friend's virtues! "Were I totally deprived," he says, "of these soothing reflections, my age, however, would afford me great consolation: as I cannot, by the common course of nature, long be separated from him."

Johnson's charity commenced with his earliest years of manhood, and only ceased with his death. Boyse, the poet, one of his very early companions, was assisted by him. On one occasion Johnson collected a sum to redeem his friend's clothes from the hands of the pawnbroker; and "the sum," said Johnson, " was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration." His very last words on his death-bed

were those of kindness and blessing to one of his fellowmortals.

One of the most extraordinary and continued acts of kindness in Dr. Johnson's life, was that which opened his house as a residence to several persons of indigent circumstances. Let us first tell the case of Mrs. Williams. She was the daughter of a Welsh physician, and excited the compassion of Dr. Johnson, on coming to London to have an operation performed on her eyes. He took her into his house for the greater convenience in this performance, and, on its failure, (for she became totally blind,) he never desired, so long as he was in possession of a house, that she should depart from under its roof. Sir John Hawkins, Lady Knight, Miss Hawkins, and Boswell, all speak highly of her talent and pleasing conversation; and so great was her judgment, that the former asserts, "Johnson, in many exigencies, found her an able counsellor, and seldom showed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice." In return, however, the knight asserts, she received inestimable advantages from her intercourse with Johnson. He himself says of her, "Her curiosity was universal, her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of misery with steady fortitude." Hannah More, in describing a visit to Dr. Johnson's house,* after saying, "Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion?"-observes, "Mrs. Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively

• Memoirs, vol. i. p. 49.

and entertaining." With all this praise in her favour, we must be sorry to find Chalmers speaking of her temper as being "far from pleasant," and of her "fretful and peevish manner," under the roof of one by whom she was "protected and cheered by every act of kindness and tenderness which he could have showed to the nearest relation."*

She was poor, and mainly supported by the voluntary contributions of others. Dr. Johnson obtained for her pecuniary aid from Mrs. Montague (a lady whom he solicited also on behalf of a Mrs. Ogle, Davies, a bankrupt bookseller, &c.); from Garrick also he asked a benefit-night at the theatre, and was eager in disposing of the tickets-(from this she derived 2007.); and he greatly assisted her in some literary undertakings; Sir John Hawkins stating, that by her quarto volume of "Miscellanies," to which Dr. Johnson was known to contribute much from his pen, she increased her little fund to three hundred pounds. Lady Knight thinks, that, ultimately, she possessed an annual income of about thirty-five or forty pounds a-year. This, which was partly obtained by Johnson's exertions on her behalf, was greatly aided by his unceasing kindness to her throughout her free abode in his house; and we can perceive that his magnanimous spirit prompted him to treat her with as much politeness and humane consideration, as though she had been a lady of the first quality and wealth.

* Alexander Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xix. pp. 59— 64. Johnson himself afterwards proves the truth of Chalmers's statement.

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