LETTER 173. Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, on the death of her Husband. DEAREST MADAM, Of your injunctions to pray for you and write to you, I hope to leave neither unobserved; and I hope to find you willing, in a short time, to alleviate your trouble, by some other exercise of mind. I am not without my part of the calamity. No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. But let us remember that we are in the hands of Him, who knows when to give and when to take away; who will look upon us with mercy, through all our variations of existence, and who invites us to call on him in the day of trouble. Call upon him in this great revolution of life, and call with confidence. You will then find comfort for the past, and support for the future. He that has given you happiness in marriage to a degree of which, without personal knowledge I should have thought the description fabulous, can give you another mode of happiness as a mother; and at last the happiness of losing all temporal cares in thoughts of an eternity in Heaven. I do not exhort you to reason yourself into tranquillity. We must first pray, and then labor; first implore the blessing of God, and those means which he puts into our hands. Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for useless regret. We read the will to-day; but I will not fill my first letter with any other account than that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I am satisfied; and that the other executors, more used to consider property than I, commended it for wisdom and equity. Yet why should I not tell you, that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate expenses, and two thousand pounds a year, with both the houses, and all the goods? Let us pray for one another, that the time, whether long or short, that shall yet be granted us, may be well spent ; and that when this life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a better may begin which shall never end. I am, dearest madam, Yours, &c.. LETTER 174. Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery, describing the melancholy situa~ tion of Dean Swift. MY LORD, The easy manner in which you reproach me, for not acquainting you with the poor dean's situation, lays a fresh obligation upon me; yet, mean as an excuse is for a fault I shall attempt one to your lordship, and only for this reason, that you may not think me capable of neglecting any thing you could command me. I told you in my last letter the dean's understanding was quite gone, and I feared the further particulars would only shock the tenderness of your nature, and the melancholy scene make your heart ache, as it has often done mine. I was the last person whom he knew, and when that part of his memory failed, he was so outrageous at seeing any body, that I was forced to leave him, nor could he rest for a night or two after seeing any person; so that all the attendance which I could pay him, was calling twice a week to inquire after his health, and to observe that proper care was taken of him, and durst only look at him while his back was towards me, fearing to discompose him. He walked ten hours a day, and would not eat or drink if his servant stayed in the room. His meat was served up ready cut, and sometimes it would lie an hour on the table before he would touch it, and then eat it walking. About six weeks ago, in one night's time, his left eye swelled as large as an egg, and the lid, Mr. Nicholls, his surgeon, thought would mortify, and many large biles appeared upon his arms and body. The torture he was in is not to be described. Five persons could scarce hold him for a week from tearing out his own eyes; and, for near a month, he did not sleep two hours in twenty four; yet a moderate appetite continued, and what is more to be wondered at, the last day of his illness he knew me perfectly well, took me by the hand, called me by name, and showed the same pleasure as usual in seeing me. I asked him if he would give me a dinner? He said, to be sure, my old friend. Thus he continued that day, and he knew the doctor and surgeon, and all his family so well, that Mr. Nicholls thought it possible to call for what he wanted, and bear some of his old friends to amuse him. But alas! this pleasure to me was but of short duration; for the next day or two it was all over, and proved to be only pain that had roused him. He is now free from torture; his eye almost well, very quiet, and begins to sleep, but cannot, without great difficulty, be prevailed on to walk a turn about his room; and yet, in this way, the physicians think he may hold out for some time. I am, my lord, Your lordship's most obedient LETTER 175. Dr. Johnson to the Honorable Mr. Wyndham, on his (Dr. Johnson's) recovery from illness. The tenderness with which you have been pleased to treat me, through my long illness, neither health nor sickness can, I hope, make me forget; and you are not to suppose, after we parted you were no longer in my mind. But what can a sick man say, but that he is sick? His thoughts are necessarily concentred in himself; he neither receives nor can give delight; his inquiries are after alleviations of pain, and his efforts are to catch some momentary comfort. Though I-am now in the neighborhood of the Peak, you must expect no account of its wonders, of its hills, its waters, its caverns, or it mines; but I will tell you, dear sir, what I hope you will not hear with less satisfaction that, for about a week past, my asthma has been less afflictive. Yours, &c. SIR, LETTER 176. Dr. Dodd to the King; written by Dr. Johnson. May it not offend your majesty, that the most miserable of men applies himself to your clemency, as his last hope, and his last refuge; that your mercy is most earnestly and humbly implored by a clergyman, whom your laws and judges have condemned to the horror and ignominy of a public execution. I confess the crime, and own the enormity of its consequences, and the danger of its example. Nor have I the confidence to petition for impunity; but humbly hope,, that public security may be established, without the spectacle of a clergyman dragged through the streets to a death of infamy, amidst the derision of the profligate and the profane; and that justice may be satisfied with irrevocable exile, perpetual disgrace, and hopeless penury. My life, sir, has not been useless to mankind; I have benefited many. But my offences against God are numberless, and I have but little time for repentance. Preserve me, sir, by your prerogative of mercy, from the necessity of appearing unprepared at that tribunal before which kings and subjects must stand at last together. Permit me to hide my guilt in some obscure corner of a foreign country, where, if I can ever attain confidence to hope that my prayers will be heard, they shall be poured with all the fervor of gratitude for the life and happiness of your majesty. I am, sir, Your majesty's, &c. LETTER 177. Dr. Johnson to the Right Honorable Charles Jenkinson, now Earl of Liverpool. SIR, Since the conviction and condemnation of Dr. Dodd, I have had, by the intervention of a friend, some intercourse with him, and I am sure I shall lose nothing in your opinion by tenderness or commisseration. Whatever be the crime, it is not easy to have any knowledge of the delin quent without a wish that his life may be spared ;' at least when no life has been taken away by him. I will, there |