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tive; "then," says he, "I will take no more opium, and give up my physicians."

At last he said, "if I am worse, I cannot go, if I am better I need not go, but if I continue neither better nor worse, I am as well where I am." The writer of this sketch could wish to have committed to memory or paper all the wise and sensible things that dropped from his lips. If the one could have been Xenophon, the other was a Socrates. His benevolence to mankind

was known to all who knew him. Though so declared a friend to the Church of England and even a friend to the Convocation, it assuredly was not in his wish to persecute for speculative notions. He used to say he had no quarrel with any order of men, unless they disbelieved in revelation and a future state. He would indeed have sided with Sacheverell against Daniel Burgess, if he thought the Church was in danger. His hand and his heart were always open to charity. The objects under

his own roof were only a few of the subjects for relief. He was at the head of subscription in cases of distress. His guinea, as he said of another man of a bountiful disposition, was always ready. He wrote an exhortation to public bounty. He drew up a paper to recommend the French prisoners, in the last war but one, to the English benevolence; which was of service. He implored the hand of benevolence for others, even when he almost seemed a proper object of it himself.

Like his hero Savage, while in company with him, he is supposed to have formerly strolled about the streets almost houseless, and as if he was obliged to go without the cheerful meal of the day, or to wander about for one, as is reported of Homer. If this were true, it is no wonder if he was an unknown, or uninquired after for a long time:

"Slow rises worth by poverty depressed."

When once distinguished, as he observes of Ascham, he gained admirers. He was fitted by nature for a critic. His "Lives of the Poets" (like all his biographical pieces) are well written. He gives us the pulp without the husks. He has told their personal history very well. But every thing is not new. Perhaps what Mr. Steevens helped him to, has increased the number of the best anecdotes. But his criticisms of their works are of the most worth, and the greatest novelty. His perspicacity was very extraordinary.

He was able to take measure of every

intellectual object, and to see all round it. If he chose to plume himself as an author, he might on account of the gift of intuition,

"The brightest feather in the eagle's wing."

He has been censured for want of taste or good nature in what he says of Prior, Gray, Lyttleton, Hammond, and others, and to have praised some pieces that nobody thought highly of. It was a fault in our critic too often to take occasion to show himself superior to his subject, and also to trample upon it. There is no talking about taste. Perhaps Johnson, who spoke from his last feelings, forgot those of his youth. The love verses of Waller and others have no charms for old age. Even Prior's "Henry and Emma," which pleased the old and surly Dennis, had no charms for him. Of Gray he always spoke as he wrote, and called his poetry artificial. If word and thought go together the odes of Gray were not to the satisfaction of our critic. But what composition can stand this sharp-sighted critic? He made some fresh observations on Milton, by placing him in a new point of view and if he has shown more of his excellencies than Addison does, he accompanies them with more defects. He took no critic from the shelf, neither Aristotle, Bossu, nor Boileau. He hardly liked to quote, much more to steal. He drew his judgments from the principles of human nature, of which the “Rambler" is full, before the "Elements of Criticism," by Lord Kames, made their appearance.

It may be inserted here, that Johnson, soon after his coming to London, had thought of writing a History of the revival of Learning. The booksellers had other service to offer him. But he never undertook it. The proprietors of the "Universal History" wished him to take any part in that voluminous work. But he declined their offer. His last employers wanted him to undertake the life of Spenser. But he said Warton had left little or nothing for him to do. A system of morals next was proposed. But perhaps he chose to promise nothing more. He thought, as, like the running horse in Horace, he had done his best, he should give up the race and the chase. His dependent Levett died suddenly under his roof. He preserved his name from oblivion, by writing an epitaph for him, which shows that his poetical fire was not extinguished, and is so appropriate, that it could belong to no other person in the world. Johnson said,

that the remark of appropriation was just criticism : his friend was induced to pronounce, that he would not have so good an epitaph written for himself. Pope has nothing to equal it in his sepulchral poetry. When he dined with Mr. Wilkes, at a private table in the city, their mutual altercations were forgot, at least for that day. Johnson did not remember the sharpness of a paper against his description or definition of an alphabetical point animadverted upon in his dictionary by that man of acuteness; who, in his turn, forgot the severity of a pamphlet of Johnson. All was, during this meal, a reciprocation of wit and good humour. During the annual contest in the city, Johnson confessed, that Wilkes would make a very good Chamberlain. When Johnson (who had said that he would as soon dine with Jack Ketch as with Jack Wilkes) could sit at the same table with this patriot, it may be concluded he did not write his animosities in marble.—Johnson was famous for saying what are called good things. Mr. Boswell, who listened to him for so many years, has probably remembered many. He mentioned many of them to Paoli, who paid him the last tribute of a visit to his grave. If Johnson had had as good eyes as Boswell he might have seen more trees in Scotland, perhaps, than he mentions.

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This is not the record-office for his sayings: but a few must be recollected here. For Plutarch has not thought it beneath his dignity to relate some things of this sort, of some of his heroes. Pray Dr. Johnson" (said somebody) "is the master of the mansion at Streatham a man of much conversation, or is he only wise and silent? "He strikes," says Johnson, once hour, and I suppose strikes right." Mr. Thrale left him a legacy, and made him an executor. It came to Johnson's ears, that the great bookseller in the Strand, on receiving the last manuscript sheet of his Dictionary, had said, "Give Johnson his money, for I thank God I have done with him." The philologer took care that he should receive his compliments, and be informed, “he was extremely glad he returned thanks to God for any thing." Well known is the rude reproof he gave to a talker, who asserted, that every individual in Scotland had literature. (By the by, modern statesmen do not wish that every one in the King's dominions should be able to write and read.) “ The general learning of the Scotch nation" (said he, in a bad humour) "resembles the condition of a ship's crew, condemned to short allowance of provisions; every one has a mouthful, and nobody a belly full." Of this

His

enough. His size has been described to be large: his mind and person both on a large scale. His face and features are happily preserved by Reynolds and by Nollekens. His elocution was energetic, and, in the words of a great scholar in the north, who' did not like him, he spoke in the Lincolnshire dialect. articulation became worse, by some dental losses. was silent on that account, nor unwilling to talk. said of him, that he was overtaken with liquor, a declaration Bishop Hoadly makes of himself. But he owned that he drank Lions, and the fiercest of the

But he never

It never was

his bottle at a certain time of life.
wild creation, drink nothing but water. Like Solomon, who tried
so many things for curiosity and delight, he renounced strong
liquors, (strong liquors, according to Fenton, of all kinds, were
the aversion of Milton); and he might have said, as that King is
made to do by Prior,

"I drank, I lik'd it not, 'twas rage, 'twas noise,
An airy scene of transitory joys."

He

His temper was not naturally smooth, but seldom boiled over. It was worth while to find out the mollia tempora fandi. The words nugarum contemptor fell often from him, in a reverie. When asked about them, he said, he appropriated them from a preface of Dr. Hody. He was desirous of seeing every thing that was extraordinary in art or nature; and to resemble his Imlac in his moral romance of "Rasselas." It was the fault of fortune that he did not animadvert on every thing at home and abroad. had been upon the salt-water, and observed something of a sealife of the uniformity of the scene, and of the sickness and turbulence belonging to that element, he had felt enough. He had seen a little of the military life and discipline, by having passed whole days and night in the camp, and in the tents, at Warley Common. He was able to make himself entertaining in his description of what he had seen. A spark was enough to illuminate him. The Giant and the Corsican Fairy were objects of attention to him. The riding-horses in Astley's amphitheatre (no new public amusement, for Homer alludes to it) he went to see; and on the fireworks of Torée he wrote a Latin poem.

The study of humanity, as was injuriously said of the great Bentley, had not made him inhuman. He never wantonly brandished his formidable weapon. He meant to keep his

enemies off. He did not mean, as in the advice of Radcliffe to Mead, to "bully the world, lest the world should bully him." He seemed to be a man of great clemency to all subordinate beings. 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 parsimony; " to which he gave a set of rules, as Ben Jonson did his leges convivales at the Devil TavernJohnson 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." 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 than what Johnson wrote on Thrale, on Goldsmith, and Mrs. Salusbury. 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," 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 pen: so did Johnson.

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.

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

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