p. 407.
[1158] Life of Johnson, p. 7.
[1159] It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnson has afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 16, note 1.
[1160] The editor of the Biographia Britannica. Ante, iii. 174.
[1161] On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'We are all under the sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he said, nowhere so happy.' Pemb. Coll. MSS.
[1162] See ante, p. 293.
[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. Coll. MSS. shew (ante, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least fell into other hands (ante, ii. 476). There are other apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a letter to the Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay (Poetical Review, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. Strahan:--
'Let priestly S--h--n in a godly fit The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], Who ancient miracles sustained so well, To recent wonders may deny his aid, Nor own a pious brother of the trade.'
[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's Essay on Miracles.
[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:--'I should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." "Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:--'How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the most energetic, said:--"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 327. See ante, iii. 367, note 4.
[1165] Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. Ante, ii. 459.
[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL.
[1167] See ante, ii. 474, and iii. 180.
[1168] 'Reliquum est, [Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].' Cicero, Epistolae ad Atticum, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.' Erasmus, Adagiorum Chiliades, ed. 1559, p. 485.
[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' Temple's Works, ed. 1757, i.