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faults, of which it is itself perhaps an aggravation ; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and imputing every deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting on the crime supplied by penitence. This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign.

191. "

Dying with a Grace."

Write to me no more about dying with a grace! When you feel what I have felt in approaching eternity, in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no revocation, you will know the folly my wish is, that you may know it sooner. The distance between the grave and the remotest point of human longevity, is but very little; and of that little no path is certain. You knew all this, and I thought that I knew it too; but I know it now with a new conviction. May that new conviction not be vain!

192. "Irene." "Cato." "Fair Penitent." Dr. Johnson was no complainer of ill. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to " Irene," which, however, was a violent favourite with him; and much was he offended when, having asked me once, "What single scene afforded me most pleasure of all our tragic drama," I, little thinking of his play's existence, named, perhaps with hasty impropriety," the dialogue between Syphax and Juba, in Addison's 'Cato."'" Nay, nay,” replied he, "if you are for declamation, I hope my two ladies have the better of them all." This piece, however, lay dormant many years, shelfed (in the manager's

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phrase) from the time Mr. Peter Garrick presented it first on Fleetwood's table, to the hour when his brother David obtained due influence on the theatre, on which it crawled through nine nights, supported by cordials, but never obtained popular applause. I asked him then to name a better scene; he pitched on that between Horatio and Lothario, in Rowe's "Fair Penitent;" but Mr. Murphy showed him afterwards that it was borrowed from Massinger, and had not the merit of originality.

193. Profession of an Actor.-Garrick.-Mrs. Siddons. It is well known that Johnson despised the profession of an actor. When Garrick was talked of as candidate for admission into the Literary Club, many years ago, "If he does apply," says the Doctor to Mr. Thrale, "I'll blackball him." "Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your friend, your companion, blackball him!" "Why, Sir, I love my little David dearly; better than all or any of his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours

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Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player.

In spite of this ill-founded contempt, he persuaded himself to treat Mrs. Siddons with great politeness; and said, when she called on him at Bolt Court, and Frank could not immediately provide her with a chair, "You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be got."

194. Johnson's last Illness and Death.

Dr. Johnson was once angry with his friend Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne, for recommending to him a degree of temperance, by which alone his life could have been saved, and recommending it in his own unaltered phrase too, with praiseworthy intentions to impress it more forcibly. This quarrel, however, if quarrel it might be called, which was mere sullenness on one side, and sorrow on the other, soon healed of itself, mutual

reproaches having never been permitted to widen the breach, and supply, as is the common practice among coarser disputants, the original and perhaps almost forgotten cause of dispute. After some weeks, Johnson sent to request the sight of his old companion, whose feeble health held him away for some weeks more, and who, when he came, urged that feebleness as an excuse for appearing no sooner at the call of friendship in distress; but Johnson, who was then, as he expressed it, not sick but dying, told him a story of a lady, who many years before lay expiring in such tortures as that cruel disease, a cancer, naturally produces, and begged the conversation of her earliest intimate to soothe the incredible sufferings of her body, and relieve the approaching terrors of her mind: but what was the friend's apology for absence? Oh, my dear," said she," I have really been so plagued and so pained of late by a nasty whitlow, that indeed it was quite impossible for me till to-day to attend my Lucy's call." I think this was not more than two days before his dissolution.

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Some Lichfield friends fancied that he had half a mind to die where he was born, but that the hope of being buried in Westminster Abbey overpowered the inclination; but Mr. Johnson loved London, and many people then in London, whom I doubt not he sincerely wished to see again, particularly Mr. Sastres, for whose person some of his letters manifest a strong affection, and of whose talents I have often heard him speak with great esteem. That gentleman has told me, that his fears of death ended with his hope of recovery, and that the latter days of his life passed in calm resignation to God's will, and a firm trust in his mercy.

He burned many letters in the last week, I am told; and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of tears, when the paper they were written on was all consumed. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy

look upon their ashes, which he took up and examined, to see if a word was still legible. Nobody has ever mentioned what became of Miss Aston's letters, though he once told me himself, they should be the last papers he would destroy, and added these lines with a very faltering voice:

"Then from his closing eye thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more."

195. Rape of the Lock.

Dr. Johnson says of Pope, "He has a few double rhymes; but always, I think, unsuccessfully, except once in the Rape of the Lock."

"The meeting points the fatal lock dissever

From the fair head for ever and for ever,”.

was the couplet Johnson meant, for I asked him.

196. Streatham Gallery.

The following is a list of the prices which the Streatham collection of portraits, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, brought at auction in May, 1816:

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(1) [Dr. Johnson's-infinitely the finest of these portraits, as a work of art, and second not even to Mr. Burke's as an object of national interest-passed, at Mr. Watson Taylor's sale, into the hands of Sir Robert Peel.]

PART II.

ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS OF JOHNSON, SELECTED FROM HAWKINS. (1)

197. Portable Books.

DR. JOHNSON used to say, that no man read long together with a folio on his table.

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Books," said he, "that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all." He would "such books form the mass of general and easy say, reading." He was a great friend to books like the French "Esprits d'un tel;" for example, "Beauties of Watts," &c. &c.: "at which,” said he, a man will often look and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size, and of a more erudite appearance.

198. Conversation.

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He had a great opinion of the knowledge procured by conversation with intelligent and ingenious persons. His first question concerning such as had that character was ever, "What is his conversation?"

(1) [Sir John Hawkins published, in 1787, his Life of Johnson; and, in the same year, superintended an edition of the Doctor's Works, in eleven volumes octavo. From these publications the present selection has been made.]

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