These were the last words I ever heard him speak. I hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, and more affected than I had been on any former occasion.' It was at a later hour in this same night that Johnson 'scarified himself in three places. On Mr. Desmoulins making a difficulty of giving him the lancet he said, "Don't you, if you have any scruples; but I will compel Frank," and on Mr. Desmoulins attempting to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to restrain his hands, he grew very outrageous, so much so as to call Frank "scoundrel" and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he would stab him.' Ib. p. 32.
[1263] Mr. Strahan, mentioning 'the anxious fear', which seized Johnson, says, that 'his friends who knew his integrity observed it with equal astonishment and concern.' He adds that 'his foreboding dread of the Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine mercy.' Pr. and Med. preface, p. xv.
[1264] The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford:--'The Doctor's prejudices were the strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke's name in his Dictionary. This, however, wore off. At some distance of time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is called his Prayers and Meditations, that he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in reading Clarke's Sermons. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 398.
[1265] The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has inserted it in Prayers and Meditations, p. 216. BOSWELL.
[1266] See ante, iii. 433.
[1267] The counterpart of Johnson's end and of one striking part of his character may be found in Mr. Fearing in The Pilgrim's Progress, part ii. '"Mr. Fearing was," said Honesty, "a very zealous man. Difficulty, lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his interest in that celestial country." "I dare believe," Greatheart replied, "that, as the proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever yet could shake off with ease."' See ante, ii. 298, note 4.
[1268] Her sister's likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by Reynolds. Northcote's Reynolds, i. 185.
[1269] The following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the very chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by his feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a friendship. The letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton's family believe it was intended for Mr. Boswell.
'MY DEAR SIR,--After many conflicting hopes and fears respecting the event of this heavy return of illness which has assailed our honoured friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from Lichfield, about four days ago the appearances grew more and more awful, and this afternoon at eight o'clock, when I arrived at his house to see how he should be going on, I was acquainted at the door, that about three quarters of an hour before, he breathed his last. I am now writing in the room where his venerable remains exhibit a spectacle, the interesting solemnity of which, difficult as it would be in any sort to find terms to express, so to you, my dear Sir, whose own sensations will paint it so strongly, it would be of all men the most superfluous to attempt to--.'--CROKER. The interruption of the note was perhaps due to a discovery made by Langton. Hawkins says, 'at eleven, the evening of Johnson's death, Mr. Langton came to me, and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body.' Hawkins's Life, p. 590. To the dying man, 'on the last day of his existence on this side the grave the desire of life,' to use Murphy's words (Life, p. 135), 'had returned with all its former vehemence.' In the hope of drawing off the dropsical water he gave himself these wounds (see ante, p. 399). He lost a good deal of blood, and no doubt hastened his end. Langton must have suspected that Johnson intentionally shortened his life.
[1270] Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham. BOSWELL.
[1271] Sir Joshua Reynolds and Paoli were among the mourners. Among the Nichols papers in the British Museum is preserved an invitation card to the funeral.
[1272] Dr. Burney wrote to the Rev. T. Twining on Christmas Day, 1784:--'The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey lay all the blame on Sir John Hawkins for suffering Johnson to be so unworthily interred. The Knight's first inquiry at the Abbey in giving orders, as the most acting executor, was--"What would be the difference in the expense between a public and private funeral?" and was told only a few pounds to the prebendaries, and about ninety pairs of gloves to the choir and attendants; and he then determined that, "as Dr.