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He said, 'he would not sit at table, where a lobster that had been roasted alive was one of the dishes '.' His charities were many; only not so extensive as his pity, for that was universal. An evening club, for three nights in every week, was contrived to amuse him, in Essex Street, founded, according to his own words, ' in frequency and parsimony2;' to which he gave a set of rules, as Ben Jonson did his leges convivales at the Devil Tavern 3_— Johnson asked one of his executors, a few days before his death (which, according to his will, he expected every day *) 'where do you intend to bury me?' He answered, 'in Westminsterabbey.' Then,' continued he, 'place a stone over my grave (probably to notify the spot) that my remains may not be disturbed 5.' Who will come forth with an inscription for him in the Poets' corner? Who should have thought that Garrick and Johnson would have their last sleep together?? It were to be wished he could have written his own epitaph with propriety. None of the lapidary inscriptions by Dr. Freind have more merit

I For his kindness to his cat Hodge see Life, iv. 197, and for the advice he gave to Boswell about old horses unfit for work, ib. iv. 250.

2 'We meet thrice a week, and he who misses forfeits two-pence.' Ib. iv. 254. In the Rules the forfeit is three-pence.

3 Ben Jonson wrote Leges Convivales that were ' engraven in marble over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that being his Club Room.' Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, vii. 291.

4 'I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament.' Life, iv. 402.

5 Ante, ii. 133; Life, iv. 419. For his care that his parents' grave should be protected by a stone deep, massy, and hard' see ib. iv. 393.

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• His monument with an inscription by Parr was placed in St. Paul's. Ib. iv. 423.

7 'Within a few feet of Johnson lies (by one of those singular coincidences in which the Abbey abounds) his deadly enemy, James Macpherson.' Stanley's Westminster Abbey, p. 298.

8 Warburton in a note on
'Sepulchral Lies, our holy walls
to grace,'

(Dunciad, i. 43), says:This is a just satire on the flatteries and falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches in epitaphs; which occasioned the following epigram :—

"Freind! in your epitaphs I'm
griev'd

So very much is said:
One half will never be believ'd,

The other never read."'
'The epigram here inserted (adds
Warton) alludes to the too long, and
sometimes fulsome epitaphs written
by Dr. Freind in pure Latinity, indeed,
but full of antitheses.' Warton's
Pope's Works, ed. 1822, v. 84.

than

than what Johnson wrote on Thrale', on Goldsmith 2, and Mrs. Salusbury 3. By the way, one of these was criticised, by some men of learning and taste, from the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and conveyed to him in a round robin. Maty, in his Review 5, praises his Latin epitaphs very highly. This son of study and of indigence died worth above seventeen hundred pounds Milton died worth fifteen hundred'. His legacy to his black servant, Frank, is noble and exemplary. Milton left in his hand-writing the titles of some future subjects for his pen9: so did Johnson 1o.

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Johnson died by a quiet and silent expiration, to use his own words on Milton: and his funeral was splendidly and numerously attended ". The friends of the Doctor were happy on his easy departure, for they apprehended he might have died hard. At the end of this sketch, it may be hinted (sooner might have been prepossession) that Johnson told this writer, for he saw he always had his eye and his ear upon him, that at some time or other he might be called upon to assist a posthumous account of him 12.

A hint was given to our author, a few years ago, by this Rhapsodist, to write his own life, lest somebody should write it for him. He has reason to believe, he has left a manuscript biography behind him 13. His executors, all honourable men, will

I

2

13

Ante, i. 238; Life, iv. 85, n. 1.

Life, iii. 82.

3 Ante, i. 236;

Life, ii. 263.

4 Life, iii. 83. Round robin is not in Johnson's Dictionary.

5 The New Review by Henry Maty, April, 1784. Ante, i. 237.

" He left more than £2,000. The bequest to Frank Barber Hawkins estimated at a sum little short of £1,500. The proceeds of his house at Lichfield, which sold for £235, were divided among his relations. He left besides in legacies £300 in money, and £500 in the three per cents., worth about £280.

7 Johnson's Works, vii. 114. 8 Ante, ii. 126.

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sit in judgment upon his papers'. Thuanus, Buchanan, Huetius, and others, have been their own historians.

2

The memory of some people, says Mably very lately, 'is their understanding 3. This may be thought, by some readers, to be the case in point. Whatever anecdotes were furnished by memory, this pen did not choose to part with to any compiler. His little bit of gold he has worked into as much gold-leaf as he could. T. T.

[The following anecdote, with some others, was given by Tyers in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1785, p. 85. The rest, so far as they were of any value, I have incorporated in my notes.]

Dr. Johnson had a large, but not a splendid library*, near 5,000 volumes. Many authors, not in hostility with him, presented him with their works. But his study did not contain half his books. He possessed the chair that belonged to the

ticular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection.' Life, iv. 405. One of these volumes Hawkins carried off, but was forced to bring back. Ante, i. 127; ii. 129.

I His executors were Hawkins, Reynolds, and William Scott (Lord Stowell). Life, iv. 402, n. 2.

2

Prescott wrote in 1841:- -'Have read for the tenth time Mably sur l'Étude de l'Histoire, full of admirable reflections and hints. Pity that his love of the ancients made him high gravel-blind to the merits of the moderns.' Ticknor's Life of Prescott, Boston, 1864, p. 91, n. 6.

3 Tyers probably did not know that he had been described by Johnson in The Idler, No. 48, under the name of Tom Restless; "a circumstance," says Mr. Nichols, "pointed out to me by Dr. Johnson himself." Lit. Anec. viii. 81. 'When Tom Restless rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be

reasoners, as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head, is so near to nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till, hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to say a little himself; and as every great genius relaxes himself among his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so wisely.'

4'His library, though by no means handsome in its appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie for £247 9s. Life, iv. 402, n. 2. See also ib. i. 188, n. 3, 435.

My friend, Mr. Edward J. Leveson, the Scribe of the Johnson Club, reprinted a facsimile of the sale catalogue of Dr. Johnson's Library for the meeting of the Johnson Club at Oxford, June 11, 1892.

Ciceronian

Ciceronian Dr. King of Oxford, which was given him by his friend Vansittart 1. It answers the purposes of reading and writing, by night or by day; and is as valuable in all respects as the chair of Ariosto, as delineated in the preface to Hoole's liberal translation of that poet. Since the rounding of this period intelligence is brought that this literary chair is purchased by Mr. Hoole. Relicks are venerable things, and are only not to be worshipped. On the reading-chair of Mr. Speaker Onslow a part of this historical sketch was written 2.

' Johnson wrote from Oxford in 1759-'I have proposed to Vansittart climbing over the wall; but he has refused me. And I have clapped my hands till they are sore at Dr. King's speech.' Life, i.

348. For Dr. King see ib. i. 279, n. 5.

2

Speaker Onslow's copy of Johnson's Dictionary is the one I have used in writing my notes on Boswell and Johnson.

NARRATIVE

OF THE LAST WEEK OF JOHNSON'S LIFE

BY THE

RIGHT HON. WILLIAM WINDHAM

[FROM the Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham, I vol. 8vo. 1866, p. 28.

For other extracts from this Diary see Letters, ii. 439.]

TUESDAY, December 7th. Ten minutes past two, P.M.

After waiting some short time in the adjoining room, I was admitted to Dr. Johnson' in his bedchamber, where, after placing me next him on the chair, he sitting in his usual place on the east side of the room (and I on his right hand), he put into my hands two small volumes (an edition of the New Testament), as he afterwards told me, saying, 'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.'. He then proceeded to observe that I was entering upon a life which would lead me deeply into all the business of the world2;

1 Life, iv. 407, 411, 415.

2 In the Coalition Ministry of 1783 Windham had been Chief Secretary for Ireland. Ib. iv. 200.

'Windham was a man of a very high order, spoiled by faults apparently small. For the sake of a new subtlety or a forcible phrase he was content to utter what loaded him with permanent unpopularity; his logical propensity led him always

to extreme consequences.' Mackintosh's Life, ii. 59. He eagerly opposed the establishment of parochial schools, the abolition of the slave trade, and the bills for preventing wanton cruelty to animals, and for the abolition of capital punishment for petty thefts. Romilly's Life, ii. 216, 288. 'I remember with delight,' wrote Parr, 'those happier days when his refinements, instead of being

that

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