therefore, was undoubtedly one of the first Latin scholars in modern times, let us not deny to his fame some additional splendour from Greek.' Johnson's affection for his departed relations seemed to grow warmer as he approached nearer to the time when he might hope to see them again. It probably appeared to him that he should upbraid himself with unkind inattention, were he to leave the world without having paid a tribute of respect to their memory. LETTER 472. TO MR. GREEN, APOTHECARY, At Lichfield. "Dec. 2, 1784. "DEAR SIR,-I have enclosed the epitaph for my father, mother, and brother, to be all engraven on the large size, and laid in the middle aisle in St. Michael's church, which I request the clergyman and churchwardens to permit. "The first care must be to find the exact place of interment, that the stone may protect the bodies. Then let the stone be deep, massy, and hard; and do not let the difference of ten pounds, or more, defeat our purpose. "I have enclosed ten pounds, and Mrs. Porter will pay you ten more, which I gave her for the same purpose. What more is wanted shall be sent; and I beg that all possible haste may be made, for I wish to have it done while I am yet alive. Let me know, dear Sir, that you receive this. I am, &c. LETTER 473. TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, "SAM. JOHNSON." "Dec. 2, 1784. "DEAR MADAM,-I am very ill, and desire your prayers. I have sent Mr. Green the epitaph, and a power to call on you for ten pounds. "I laid this summer a stone over Tetty, in the chapel of Bromley in Kent. The inscription is in Latin, of which this is the English. (Here a translation.) That this is done, I thought it fit that you should know. What care will be taken of us, who can tell? May God pardon and bless us, for Jesus Christ's sake. I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON." 1 In this place Mr. Boswell had introduced extracts from contemporary writers whom he supposed to have imitated Johnson's style, which it has been thought convenient to transpose to the end of the life.-C. 2 A relation of Dr. Johnson. 3 This lady survived Dr. Johnson just thirteen months. She died at Lichfield in her 71st year, January 13, 1786, and bequeathed the principal part of her fortune to the Rev. Mr. Pearson, of Lichfield.-M. 粼 CHAPTER XVIII. 1784. Last Illness, and Death. My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man. Death had always been to him an object of terror; so that, though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at which many have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very much pleased to be told that he looked better. An ingenious member of the Eumelian Club' informs me, that upon one occasion, when he said to him that he saw health returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by the hand and exclaimed, "Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I ever had." His own statement of his views of futurity will appear truly rational; and may, perhaps, impress the unthinking with seriousness. "You know," says he to Mrs. Thrale, "I never thought confidence with respect to futurity any part of the character of a brave, a wise, or a good man. Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wisdom impresses strongly the consciousness of those faults, of which it is, perhaps, itself an aggravation; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and imputing every deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by penitence. "This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave him little atten 1 A club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian [literally, well-ashed], from the Greek Evμɛdias : though it was warmly contended, and even put to a vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of Fraxinean, from the Latin. tion to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign." His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which Sir John Hawkins' imparts the uneasiness which he expressed on account of offences with which he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious suspicions, as if there had been something of more than ordinary criminality weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as well as from the regard to truth which he inculcated, I am to mention (with all possible respect and delicacy, however), that his conduct, after he came to London, and had associated with Savage and others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a younger man. It was well known that his amorous inclinations were uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to many of his friends, that he used to take women of the town to taverns, and hear them relate their history. In short, it must not be concealed, that like many other good and pious men, among whom we may place the apostle Paul upon his own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were warring against the law of his mind," and that in his combats with them, he was sometimes overcome. ever Here let the profane and licentious pause; let them not thoughtlessly say that Johnson was an hypocrite, or that his principles were not firm, because his practice was not uniformly conformable to what he professed. Let the question be considered independent of moral and religious associations; and no man will deny that thousands, in many instances, act against conviction. Is a prodigal, for example, an hypocrite, when he owns he is satisfied that his extravagance will bring him to ruin and misery? We are sure he believes it; but immediate inclination, strengthened by indulgence, prevails over that belief in influencing his conduct. Why then shall credit be refused to the sincerity of those who acknowledge their persuasion of moral and religious duty, yet sometimes fail of living as it requires? I heard Dr. Johnson once observe, "There is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one's self." 2 And one who said in his presence, 1 I am obliged to say, that I can see nothing more strange or dark in Hawkins's expressions than in Mr. Boswell's-nay, than in Dr. Johnson's own.-C. 2 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. On the same subject, in his letter to Krs. Thrale "he had no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose practice was not suitable to them," was thus reprimanded by him :-" Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?" But let no man encourage or soothe himself in "presumptuous sin," from knowing that Johnson was sometimes hurried into indulgences which he thought criminal. I have exhibited this circumstance as a shade in so great a character, both from my sacred love of truth, and to show that he was not so weakly scrupulous as he has been represented by those who imagine that the sins, of which a deep sense was upon his mind, were merely such little venial trifles as pouring milk into his tea on Good-Friday. His understanding will be defended by my statement, if his consistency of conduct be in some degree impaired. But what wise man would, for momentary gratifications, deliberately subject himself to suffer such uneasiness as we find was experienced by Johnson in reviewing his conduct as compared with his notion of the ethics of the Gospel? Let the following passages be kept in remembrance : "O God, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was created, and oy whose providence I am sustained, look down upon me with tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been created to be finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to add wickedness to wickedness." (Pr. and Med. p. 47.) “O Lord, let me not sink into total depravity; look down upon me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin." (p. 68.) "Almighty and most merciful Father, who hath continued my life from year to year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of sinful pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness." (p. 84.) "Let not my years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, let me become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more obedient to thy laws." (p. 120.) "Forgive, O merciful Lord, whatever I have done contrary to thy laws. Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may produce true contrition and effectual repentance: so that when I shall be called into another state, I may. dated November 29, 1783, he makes the following just observation: "Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by mere purposes, though they end as they began, by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practise." be received among the sinners to whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." (p. 130.) Such was the distress of mind, such the penitence of Johnson, in his hours of privacy, and in his devout approaches to his Maker. His sincerity, therefore, must appear to every candid mind unquestionable. It is of essential consequence to keep in view that there was in this excellent man's conduct no false principle of commutation, no deliberate indulgence in sin, in consideration of a counterbalance of duty. His offending and his repenting were distinct and separate :' and when we consider his almost unexampled attention to truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to "cast a stone at him?" Besides, let it never be forgotten that he cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of heart, anything dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own rigid judgments of himself (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he says, “I have corrected no external habits ;" he is obliged to own, "I hope that since my last communion I have advanced, by pious reflections, in my submission to God, and my benevolence to man." (p. 192.) I am conscious that this is the most difficult and dangerous part of my biographical work, and I cannot but be very anxious concerning it. I trust that I have got through it, preserving at once my regard to truth,-to my friend, and to the interests of virtue and religion. Nor can I apprehend that more harm can ensue from the knowledge of the irregularities of Johnson, guarded as I have stated it, than from knowing that Addison and Parnell were intemperate in the use of wine; which he himself, in his Lives of those celebrated writers and pious men has not forborne to record. It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars of Johnson's remaining days, of whom it was now evident that the crisis was fast approaching, when he must "die like men and fall like one of the princes." Yet it will be instructive, as well as gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few circum 1 Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young woman. When she said to him, "I am afraid we have done wrong!" he answered, "Yes, we have done wrong;-for I would not debauch her mind." |
