JOHNSON. 



205 



i.-nv-. In 1776, he wrote nothing for the public. In that 

 -' year he removed from Johnson's Court to a larger house 



> -"~,^' in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, with a garden, which he 

 took delight in watering. A room on the ground floor 

 was assigned to Miss Williams, and the whole of the 

 two pair of stairs' floors was made a repository for his 

 book*, consisting of about 500O volumes. Here, in the 

 interval of his residence at Streatham, he sat every 

 morning receiving visits, and sometimes gave not inele- 

 gant dinners. Chemistry afforded him some amuse* 

 ment, and he had an apparatus for the study of it in 

 his house. He had also a laboratory at Streatham, and 

 diverted himself with drawing essences and colouring 

 liquors for Mrs. Thrale. His but literary undertaking 

 was in consequence of a request from the London 

 bookseller*, who had engaged in an edition of the works 

 of the principal English poets, and wished to prefix to 

 each a biographical and critical preface from his hand. 

 Dr. Johnson executed this task with all the spirit and 

 vigour of his best day*. The publication of hi- 

 ef the Potto began in 1779, and was completed in 1781. 

 In a separate form, they compose four volumes octavo, 

 and have made a valuable addition to I'.nplUh biogra- 

 phy and criticism. The style of this performance i* 

 comparatively free from the stiffness and turgidity of 

 his earlier compositions. 



This was the but of Johnson's literary labours ; and, 

 though completed when he was in his seventy- first year, 

 shews, that his faculties were in as vigorous a state as 

 ever. In the year 17M, he lost his valuable friend 

 Thrale. Dr. Johnson's friends were in hopes that Mr. 

 Thrale might have made a liberal provision for him for 

 hn life; which as he (Mr. Thrale) left no son, and a 

 very large fortune, it would have been highly to his 

 honour to have done: but he bequeathed him only 

 200, which was the legacy left to each of his execu- 

 tor'. With Thrale, many of the comforts of Johnson's 

 life might be said to expire. In the course of 1782 be 

 complains, that he passed the summer at Mreatham, 

 bat there was no Thrale. His visit* to that place be- 

 came IMS and less frequent, and, in the following year, 

 entirely ceased. He kept up, however, a friendly cor- 

 responclence with the widow of his friend, till she in- 

 formed him of her intention to marry Mr. I'iozzi, an 

 Italian music-master. Johnson, as the executor of hrr 

 husband, thought himself bound, in duty to the memo- 

 ry of Thrale, and the welfare of his children, to remon- 

 strate with her on the intended step. Mrs. Piozii's an- 

 swer contained an indignant vindication of her conduct 

 and of her fame, and bade a final adieu to her adviser, 

 until he shouM have altered his opinion of the mm of 

 her choio charms of I)r. Johnson's lriendhip 



tlie lady thus candidly expresses herself in her Anrc- 

 dotti : Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his 

 talents, delight in h conversation, and habitual endu- 

 ranee of a yoke my husband first put upon me, made 

 me go on so long with Mr Johnson ; but the perpe- 

 tual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in 

 the first rears of our friendship, and irksome in the last, 

 nor would I pretend to support it without help when 

 my co adjutor was no more." 



Thus excluded from the most agreeable dwelling in 

 which he had ever been domesticated, he was compelled 

 to return to his own house, to spend cheerless hours 

 amnng the object* of his bounty, hen increasing age 

 and infirmities had made their company more ul noxious 

 than when he left them; and the v>cicty of which he 

 had recently been deprived, rendered him comparative- 

 ly \rtt pMi> nt to endure it. From thi- time the narra- 

 tive of his life U little more than a recital of the pres- 



sures of melancholy and disease, and of numberless 

 excursions taken to calm his anxiety, and soothe his , 

 apprehensions of the terrors of death, by flying, as it 

 were, from himself. His health began to decline more 

 visibly from the month of June 1783, when he had a 

 paralytic stroke ; and although he recovered so far as 

 to be able to take another journey to Litchfield and 

 Oxford towards the close of the year, symptoms of a 

 dropsy indicated the probability of his dissolution not 

 being remote. Some relief, however, having been ad- 

 ministered, he rejoined the society of his friends ; and, 

 with a mind still curious, intelligent, and aciive, re- 

 newed his attention to the concerns of literature, and 

 tried his faculties by Latin translations from the Greek 

 poets. During his absence, his friends endeavoured to 

 procure some addition to his pension, that he might be 

 enabled to try the genial effects of a warmer climate in 

 the south of Europe. Application was accordingly 

 made to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who applied to- 

 the Treasury for this purpose, but without success. 

 His lordship, however, evinced his regard for our au- 

 thor, by offering to advance the sum of i' 500 for this 

 object ; an offer which Johnson declined, with the iuo-t 

 dignified expressions of gratitude. Dr. Urocklesby also 

 made a similar offer ; nor were there wanting others 

 who would have liberally supplied him for his cunti- 

 nental tour. But these offers were not accepted, and 

 his strength was becoming unequal to the effort of a 

 journey. The dropsy and asthma were making hasty 

 approaches. No man seems ever to have had the in- 

 stinctive horror at the prospect of dissolution more 

 strongly impressed on his mind than Johnson. Unfor- 

 tunately for himself, he had a smattering of medical 

 science, and imagining that the dropsical collection of 

 water which oppressed h : m might be drawn off by ma. 

 king incisions in the calves of his legs, he said to the 

 surgeon who was making alight scarifications in hu 

 swollen leg*, " deeper, deeper. I want length of life, 

 and you are afraid of giving me j>ain, which I do not 

 value ;" and he afterwards, with his own hand, had 

 punctures made for this purpose. Devotion, however, 

 is said at last to have come to the support and pacification 

 of his mind. He died on the I .".th of December, in the 

 evenly- fifth year of his age. His remains, attended 

 by a respectable concourse of friends, were interred in 

 Westminster Abbey, and a monumental statue hu been 

 ince placed to his memory in St. Paul's Cathedral. 

 He left his property, a few legacies exceptcd, to a faith- 

 ful black servant, who had long lived with him. A short 

 time before his dissolution he had burnt large masses of 

 paper, and, among others, two Urge quarto volumes, 

 containing a full and moot particular account of his life. 

 The IOM of which might be a subject < f regret, if the bio- 

 graphical accounts were not so numerous and authentic. 

 Johnson was at his death, and had been for Borne time 

 before it, the most conspicuous character in English li- 

 terature. He had less of the pure quality of genius 

 than (ildniith, but he had more energy in the ex- 

 pression of his prose style, and a more imposing air of 

 consequence in giving weight to his opinions. He was 

 no* so truly eloquent as Burke, but he devoted himself 

 more to literature. He was less learned than \\~arl >ur- 

 ton, but more popular from his choice of vibjects. and 

 superior to that scholar in richness of fancy. There 

 was no contemporary prose writi-r whose ztyle wa 

 more poetical : there was no poet who combined with 

 the talent for poetry a command of prose so valuable 

 and strong ; yet his poetry is marked by precision of 

 thought, and not by exquisite feeling, and his prose is 

 far from being chaste or idiomatic. It abounds with 



Johnwm, 

 Samuel. 



