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:

"Eheu!
Eliz. Johnson,
Nupta Jul. 9°. 1736,
Mortua, eheu!

Mart. 17°. 17521."

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, addressed to his Aspasia:

"From those bright regions of eternal day,
Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints,
Array'd in purer light, look down on me!
In pleasing visions and assuasive dreams,
O! soothe my soul, and teach me how to lose thee."
I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Des-
moulins, who, before her marriage, lived

for sometime with Mrs. Johnson at Hamp-
stead, 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;
[and when Mrs. Piozzi asked him Piozzi,
if he ever disputed with his wife p. 112-15.
(that lady having heard that he had
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
their best friends, slaves to their own be-
ladies do, till they become troublesome to
soms, and only sigh for the hour of sweep-
ing their husbands out of the house as dirt
and useless lumber: a clean floor is so com-
fortable, 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 Mrs.
Piozzi heard him blame her for a fault ma-
ny 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 de-
pendence 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. I had, however (said he, laugh-
ing), the wit to get her daughter on my
side always before we began the dispute 3."]

Piozzi,

tion; 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 his fondness for her, especially when it is But all this is perfectly compatible with express meaning." Mrs. Piozzi also says, remembered that he had a high opinion of though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken her understanding, and that the impressions church-of-England man; and I think, or at which her beauty, real or imaginary, had least I once did think, that a letter written by him originally made upon his fancy, being conto Mr. Barnard, the king's librarian, when he tinued by habit, had not been effaced, though was in Italy collecting books, contained some she herself was doubtless much altered for very particular advice to his friend to be on his the worse. [Garrick told Mr. guard against the seductions of the church of Thrale, however, that she was a p. 113-14. Rome." And, finally-which may perhaps he little painted puppet, of no value thought more likely to express his real sentiments at all, and quite disguised with affectation, than even a more formal assertion-when it was full of odd airs of rural elegance; and he proposed (see post, 30th April, 1773), that mon- made out some comical scenes, by mimickuments of eminent men should in future be erect-ing her in a dialogue he pretended to have ed 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."-ED.] [1 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 thirty years later, does he mention her age, which was at her death sixty-three.—ED.]

2 [Offended perhaps, and not unreasonably, that she was not mentioned in Johnson's will.ED.]

overheard. Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Piozzi 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. Å picture found of her at Lichfield was very

3 [This must have referred to some circumstances of early life, for it does not appear that Miss Porter ever resided with Dr. and Mrs. Johnson after they left Edial in 1787.—Ed.]

pretty, and her daughter, Mrs. Lucy Por- | a fortnight after the dismal event.
ter, said it was like. The intelligence
Mrs. Piozzi gained of her from Mr. Levett
was only perpetual illness and perpetual
opium 1.]

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 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. Accordingly we find, about a year after her decease, that he thus addressed the Supreme Being:

The dreadful shock of separation took place in the night; and Dr. Johnson immediately despatched a letter to his friend, the Rev. 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 2. The letter was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his house in the Cloysters, Westminster, about three in the morning; and as it signified an earnest desire to see him, he got up, and "O Lord, who givest the grace of repentwent to Johnson as soon as he was dressed, ance, and hearest the prayers of the peniand found him in tears and in extreme agi- tent, grant that by true contrition I may tation. After being a little while together, obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, Johnson requested him to join with him in and of all duties neglected, in my union prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did with the wife whom thou hast taken from Dr. Taylor; and thus by means of that pie-me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient ty which was ever his primary object, his troubled mind was, in some degree, soothed and composed.

The next day he wrote as follows:

"TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR. "DEAR SIR,-Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My distress is great.

"Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter, and bring a note in writing with you.

Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. I am, dear sir, &c.

"March 18, 1752."

"SAM. JOHNSON.

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 3, who came into his family about

1 [Levett did not know Mrs. Johnson till the year 1746, when she was fiftyseven or eight years of age, and in very ill health.-Ed.]

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 by some person, previously to this paper's being sent to the publisher of that miscellany, to give a colour to this deception.-MALONE. [The date is 1752-the year of Mrs. Johnson's decease.-ED.]

exhortation, and mild instruction."

Hawk. p. 316.

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 terrifick 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 5 after death, previous to the time at which departed souls Rev. Mr. Jackson's school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The colonel by his will left him his freeenter into Johnson's service, in which he contindom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should ued 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 connexion was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend.-BoswELL.

See his beautiful and affecting Rambler, No. 54.-MALONE.

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 3 Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and lawful," or "as far as may be permitted, I was brought to England in 1750 by colonel Ba- recommend," &c.; but it is also to be observed thurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, that he sometimes prays that "the Almighty may Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the | have had mercy on the departed, as if he be

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are finally received to eternal felicity, ap- | French and Italian languages, and had made pears, I think, unquestionably from his de

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 1," 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.

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. In return, she received from his conversation the advantages of religious and moral improvement, which she cultivated so, as in a great measShe was a woman of an enlightened under- ure to smooth the constitutional asperity of standing; plain, as it is called, in her person, her temper. When these particulars are and easily provoked to anger, but possess-known, this intimacy, which began with ing, nevertheless, some excellent moral qual- compassion, and terminated in a friendship ities, among which no one was more con- that subsisted till death dissolved it, will be spicuous than her desire to promote the wel- easily accounted for. fare 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

[Mrs. Chapone, in one of her ED. letters, gives an interesting account of her meeting Johnson and Miss Williams at Richardson's country-house near Fulham, about this time.

"" MRS. CHAPONE TO MISS CARTER.
“10th July, 1752.

Chap. Works, vol. i.

p. 72.

"Lady Phillips made her a small annual allowance, and some other Welsh ladies, to all of "We had a visit, whilst at North whom she was related. Mrs. Montagu, on the end, from your friend Mr. Johnson death of Mr. Montagu, settled upon her (by deed) and poor Mrs. Williams. I was ten pounds per annum.-As near as I can calcu- charmed with his behaviour to her, late, Mrs. Williams had about thirty-five or forty which was like that of a fond father to his pounds a year. The furniture she used [in her daughter. She seemed much pleased with her apartment in Dr. Johnson's house] was her own; visit; showed very good sense, with a great her expenses were small, tea and bread and but-deal of modesty and humility; and so much ter being at least half of her nourishment. Sometimes she had a servant or char-woman 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."-MALONE.

patience and cheerfulness under her misfortune, that it doubled my concern for her. Mr. Johnson was very communicative and entertaining, and did me the honour to adI had dress most of his discourse to me. the assurance to dispute with him on the subject of human malignity, and wondered to hear a man, who, by his actions, shows so much benevolence, maintain that the human heart is naturally malevolent, and that all the benevolence we see in the few who are good is acquired by reason and religion. You may believe I entirely disagreed with him, being, as you know, fully persuaded that benevolence, or the love of our fellowcreatures, is as much a part of our natures as self-love; and that it cannot be suppressed or extinguished without great violence from the force of other passions. I told him, I suspected him of these bad notions from recorded as marked with Welsh fire, and this some of his Ramblers, and had accused him might be excited by some of the meaner inmates of the upper floors [of Dr. Johnson's house]; but to you; but that you had persuaded me I had mistaken his sense. To which he anher gentle kindness to me I never shall forget, or think consistent with a bad temper. I know swered, that if he had betrayed such sentinobody from whose discourse there was a better ments in the Ramblers, it was without dechance of deriving high ideas of moral rectitude." sign; for that he believed that the doctrine -Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 152. of human malevolence, though a true one, ED.] is not a useful one, and ought not to be pubSee it mentioned in Nichols's Life of Bowyer.lished to the world. Is there any truth that

[The following description of Mrs. Williams (at a later date) may be here introduced: "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

p. 322, 327.

Burlington-gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams generally 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, the poetess, who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaulay 5; also, Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow-chandler, on Snow-hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good woman 6; Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds; Mr. Miller, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Boquet, Mr. Payne, of Paternoster-row, booksellers; Mr. Strahan, the printer; the Earl of Orrery7, Lord Southwell, Mr. Garrick."

would not be useful, or that should not be | Diamond, an apothecary in Cork-street, known?"] [By some papers, in the hands of Hawk. Sir John Hawkins, it seems that, notwithstanding Johnson was paid for writing the Rambler, he had a remaining interest in the copy-right of that paper, which about this time he sold. The produce thereof, the pay he was receiving for his papers in the Adventurer 1, 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 necessary. Soon after the decease of Mrs. Johnson, the father of Dr. Bathurst arrived in England, from Jamaica, and brought with him a negroservant, a native of that island, whom he caused to be baptized, and named Francis Barber, and sent for instruction to Burton-upon-Tees, in Yorkshire. Upon the decease of Captain Bathurst (for so he was called), Francis went to live with his son, who willingly parted with him to Johnson. The uses for which he was intended to serve this his last master 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.]

From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentick 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. 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 3 when in distress. The friends who visited him at that time were chiefly Dr. Bathurst, and Mr.

[Mr. Boswell states on evidence, which (however improbable the fact) it is hard to resist, that Johnson resigned to Dr. Bathurst some, if not all, the profits of the Adventurer, which at most were two guineas a paper for about thirty papers. -ED.]

[This is hardly consistent with all the other accounts, which lead to a belief that Johnson was, from the death of his wife in 1752, to the time of his pension in 1762, in very narrow circumstances. He most probably was induced to take the negro by charity and his love for Dr. Bathurst. --ED.]

3

[See ante, p. 75.-ED.]

Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and in particular, his humble friend Mr. Robert Levet, an obscure practiser in physick amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes 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,

[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.-ED.]

5

[Catharine Sawbridge, sister of Mrs. Alderman Sawbridge, was born in 1733; but it was not till 1760 that she was married to Dr. Macauly, 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 She died in 1791.-ED.] Mr. Graham, with no increase of respectability.

6 [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.— ED.]

7 [John Boyle, born in 1707; educated first under the private tuition of Fenton the poet, and afterwards, at Westminster school and Christ Church College, Oxford; succeeded his father as fifth Earl of Orrery in 1737; D. C. L. of Oxford in 1743; F. R. S. in 1750; and, on the death of his cousin, 1753, fifth Earl of Corke. He published several works, but the only original one of any note is his Life of Swift, written with great professions of friendship, but in fact with considerable severity towards the dean. Lord Orrery's acquaintance may have tended to increase Johnson's aversion to Swift. Lord Orrery's estate was much encumbered, and his circumstances were consequently embarrassed. Mr. Tyers intimates (Biog. Sk. p. 7.) that, if it had been in his power, Lord Orrery would have afforded Johnson pecuniary assistance.-ED.]

[Thomas, second Lord Southwell, F. R. S., born 1698, succeeded his father in 1720, and died 1766.-ED.]