To Mrs. Montagu he wrote:--'Thirty years and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate' (Croker's Boswell, p. 739). Boswell says that 'her departure left a blank in his house' (post, Aug. 1783). 'By her death,' writes Murphy, 'he was left in a state of destitution, with nobody but his black servant to soothe his anxious moments' (Murphy's Johnson, p. 122). Hawkins (Life, p. 558) says that 'she had not only cheered him in his solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which otherwise would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him from domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his house, etc.' 'She had,' as Boswell says (post, Aug. 1783), 'valuable qualities.' 'Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that knew her' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 311). To Langton he wrote:--'I have lost a companion to whom I have had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted' (post, Sept. 29, 1783). 'Her acquisitions,' he wrote to Dr. Burney, 'were many and her curiosity universal; so that she partook of every conversation' (post, Sept. 1783). Murphy (Life p. 72) says:--'She possessed uncommon talents, and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her conversation agreeable, and even desirable.' According to Hawkins (Life, 322-4) 'she had acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and had made great improvements in literature. She was a woman of an enlightened understanding. Johnson in many exigencies found her an able counsellor, and seldom shewed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice.' Perhaps Johnson had her in his thoughts when, writing of Pope's last years and Martha Blount, he said:--'Their acquaintance began early; the life of each was pictured on the other's mind; their conversation therefore was endearing, for when they met there was an immediate coalition of congenial notions.' (Johnson's Works, viii. 304.) Miss Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) writing to Mrs. Carter in 1753, says:--'I was charmed with Mr. Johnson's behaviour to Mrs. Williams, which was like that of a fond father to his daughter. She shewed very good sense, with a great deal of modesty and humility; and so much patience and cheerfulness under her misfortune that it doubled my concern for her' (Mrs. Chapone's Life, p. 73). Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter in 1756:--'My mother the other day fell in love with your friend, Mrs. Williams, whom we met at Mr. Richardson's [where Miss Mulso also had met her], and is particularly charmed with the sweetness of her voice' (Talbot and Carter Corresp. ii. 221). Miss Talbot was a niece of Lord Chancellor Talbot. Hannah More wrote in 1774:--'Mrs. Williams is engaging in her manners; her conversation lively and entertaining' (More's Memoirs, i.49). Boswell, however, more than once complains that she was 'peevish' (post, Oct. 26, 1769 and April 7, 1776). At a time when she was very ill, and had gone into the country to try if she could improve her health, Johnson wrote:--'Age, and sickness, and pride have made her so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay with her by a secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages' (post, July 22, 1777). Malone, in a note on August 2, 1763, says that he thinks she had of her own 'about L35 or L40 a year.' This was in her latter days; Johnson had prevailed on Garrick to give her a benefit and Mrs. Montagu to give her a pension. She used, he adds, to help in the house-work.
[685] March 14. See ante, p. 203, note 1. He had grown weary of his work. In the last Rambler but one he wrote: 'When once our labour has begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the prospect of its end.... He that is himself weary will soon weary the public. Let him therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, who can no longer exert his former activity or attention; let him not endeavour to struggle with censure, or obstinately infest the stage, till a general hiss commands him to depart.'
[686] How successful an imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the following passage in the Carter and Talbot Corresp., ii. 109:--'I discern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen in his hand.'
[687] In the Rambler for Feb. 25 of this year (No. 203) he wrote in the following melancholy strain:--'Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing past to entertain us, and in age we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits which the imagination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the necessity of our own departure; we know that the schemes of man are quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who, like us, shall be driven a while by hope or fear about the surface of the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death.' In Prayers and Meditations, pp.