self a Lichfield man, and a physician of some note, was the author of several scientific works, some of which were published by Michael Johnson.

From Lichfield, Johnson went on to Birmingham, to pass a short time with his old schoolfellow Hector, who wrote to Boswell that their chief delight had been in recalling the events of early days. On his way home, he stopped a short time at Oxford, where he was again the guest of Dr. Adams, and he finally returned to Bolt Court on November 17th. While he was away he had kept up an active correspondence with his friends, and there are letters from him to Dr. Burney, Hoole, Bennet Langton, Windham, Reynolds, and Tom Davies the bookseller. During his absence, Edmund Allen, his intimate friend, and neighbour at Bolt Court, had died, and Johnson wrote to John Nichols, the antiquary: "I hope we shall be much together. You must now be to me what you were before, and what dear Mr. Allen was besides."

Boswell was all this time "silent and sullen." He had been foolish enough to take offence at a very sensible admonition that Johnson had written to him in the previous July, advising him to write "like a man," and "to leave off affecting discontent, and indulging the vanity of complaint." Two days after this letter was sent, Johnson, with great kindness, wrote again, begging it might not be taken amiss, but, for more than three months, he waited in vain for a reply. Boswell's childish vanity was wounded by a few words of merited reproof from his "revered friend," now in his 76th year, and who was fast sinking into the grave.

By the time Johnson arrived in London, both the

dropsy and asthma had made rapid progress, and his nights were sleepless and without rest. Nothing, however, could exceed the kindness of his friends, who were unremitting in their attentions. Fanny Burney paid, what was to be, her farewell visit on November 25th, and had a long conversation with him alone. She called a second time, but he was too ill to receive her. Bennet Langton took a room in Fleet Street, close by, and tended him with almost filial affection. Windham, then at the outset of his distinguished career, forgot for a time the cares and excitement of party to watch by the side of his dying friend. "God bless you, dear Windham," said Johnson, the day before his death, and added a wish that they "might share some humble portion of that happiness which God vouchsafes to repentant sinners." It was the last time that Windham ever heard the sound of his voice. Edmund Burke too was sometimes there, and on one occasion expressed his fears that Johnson might find the numbers oppressive. "No, sir," he said, "it is not so, and I must be in a wretched state indeed when your company would not be a delight to me." Dr. Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby were in constant attendance, and did everything that unwearied patience and great skill could suggest to alleviate his sufferings, but refused to receive any reward for their services.

At the end of November, he made his will, and arranged for the payment of some trifling debts. He wrote an affectionate letter to his step-daughter, Lucy Porter, and asked for her prayers.

for him now but to prepare to die.

Nothing was left Though a stranger

to fear, in the presence of mere bodily danger, he had

never concealed his dread at the thoughts of death. He was, formerly, often heard to mutter to himself the lines from Shakespeare

"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod."

"No rational man," he once said, "could die without uneasy apprehension." But when his last hour came, all feelings of alarm and mistrust had disappeared, and he expressed his perfect faith in the merits and propitiation of his Redeemer. His intellect was perfectly clear to the last, and only a few days before his death, when the doctors disapproved of some remedy, which he had tried without their sanction, he repeated Swift's lines, from the "Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift."

"The doctors, tender of their fame,

Wisely on him lay all the blame;
We must confess his case was nice;

But he could never take advice.

Had he been rul'd, for aught appears,

He might have liv'd these twenty years."

Mr. Windham's servant, who sat up with him during his last night, declared that "no man could appear more collected, more devout, or less terrified at the thoughts of the approaching minute." At the interval of each hour, they assisted him to sit up in bed, and move his legs, which were in much pain, and he urgently addressed himself to fervent prayer. In the morning, he was still

"Measure for Measure," act ii. scene 1.

able to give his blessing to Miss Morris, the sister of the beautiful girl, who sat to Reynolds for the well-known picture of Hope nursing Love. When she came into the room, he turned himself in his bed, and said, “God bless you, my dear." They were the last words he ever spoke. In the afternoon he became drowsy, and when the doctors came for their usual visit, he was in a kind of doze, and spoke to no one. In the evening, at about a quarter past seven, he passed away without pain or uneasiness on the 13th of December, 1784, in his 76th year. His last moments were so peaceful that Mrs. Desmoulins and Francis Barber, who were in the same room, scarcely knew the exact hour of his death.

He was buried on Monday, December 20th, in Westminster Abbey, almost at the foot of the Shakespeare monument, and close to the remains of his old pupil, David Garrick. The service was performed by his schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, and, among the pall-bearers, were Burke, Windham, and Bennet Langton. Over his grave, according to his request, was placed a plain stone, with this inscription,

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.,

Obiit xiii. die Decembris

Anno Domini

M,DCC.LXXXIV.

Etatis suæ LXXV.

CHAPTER IX.

OHNSON'S character, though it contained many contradictions, is not difficult to understand. Its salient points were manliness, generosity, high courage, humanity, and a strict adherence to truth. He was singularly straightforward and upright in every action of his life. He hated meanness, and had a profound contempt for the suspicions of busybodies, who occupied themselves in watching their neighbour's affairs. "Those who look on the ground," he once said, "cannot avoid seeing dirt." His fervid piety was undoubted, but he was not entirely free from superstition. His belief in spirits and apparitions, however, has been greatly exaggerated. He thought that the universal traditions of supernatural agencies, which have prevailed in all ages, were an interesting subject of inquiry; and he argued that a total denial of their possibility would imply an opinion, adverse to the existence of the soul between death and the last day. From his profound veneration for the Church of England, he was intolerant of dissent, which appeared to him a sign of presumption and folly; but in discussing religion, as an abstract question, he, sometimes, expressed opinions which would almost be