DEATH OF LEVETT. 389 That is a sad letter: the Doctor's pilgrimage to the scenes of his youth has not made him feel himself younger. The shadows are lengthening towards the close of a long day. “SIR, "TO DR. LAWRENCE. "January 17, 1782. "Our old friend Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently cheerful, died this morning. The man who lay in the same room, hearing an uncommon noise, got up and tried to make him speak, but without effect. He then called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, who, though when he came he thought him dead, opened a vein, but could draw no blood. So has ended the long life of a very useful and very blameless man. "I am, Sir, "Your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." "January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the churchyard of Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday 17, about seven in the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and faithful friend; I have known him from about 46. Commendavi. May God have mercy on him. May He have mercy on me.” "Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blast or slow decline Well try'd through many a varying year, Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills affection's eye, Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind, Thy praise to merit unrefined. When fainting Nature call'd for aid, The power of art without the show. In Misery's darkest caverns known, No summons mock'd by chill delay, His virtues walk'd their narrow round, The busy day, the peaceful night, His frame was firm, his powers were bright, Then, with no throbs of fiery pain, And freed his soul the nearest way." A sweeter tribute never was paid to the memory of a man. Wordsworth is right: strong and deep feeling makes us all poets; and Johnson's feeling, when he wrote these verses, was both strong and deep-beyond expression in aught but song. Yet, in the midst of all this sorrow-which is very real, and this sense of loneliness-which is profound, we come upon the following serio-comic entry in one of the Doctor's diaries of this year : "Jan. 20. and gave The ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis, thanks." Johnson's was a big heart; there was room in it at any one moment for many feelings which most people can only accommodate at separate times. LETTERS TO LUCY PORTER. 391 66 TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. "DEAR MADAM, "London, March 2, 1782. "I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome time with my breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a cold, of which I could not get the violence abated, till I had been let blood three times. I have not, however, been so bad but that I could have written, and am sorry that I neglected it. "My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams and Desmoulins and myself are very sickly : Frank is not well; and poor Levett died in his bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not one minute passed between health and death; so uncertain are human things. Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your scenes are more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, therefore, keep ourselves as easy as we can; though the loss of friends will be felt, and poor Levett had been a faithful adherent for thirty years. "Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to mend that and my other faults. Let me have your prayers. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and the whole company of my friends. "I am, my dear, "Your most humble servant, TO THE SAME. "SAM. JOHNSON." "DEAR MADAM, "Bolt Court, Fleet Street, March 19, 1782. "My last was but a dull letter, and I know not that this will be much more cheerful; I am, however, willing to write, because you are desirous to hear from me. "My disorder has now begun its ninth week, for it is not yet over. I was last Thursday blooded for the fourth time, and have since found myself much relieved, but I am very tender, and easily hurt; so that since we parted I have had but little comfort, 392 ANOTHER SAD LETTER. but I hope that the spring will recover me, and that in the summer I shall see Lichfield again; for I will not delay my visit another year to the end of autumn. "I have, by advertising, found poor Mr. Levett's brothers in Yorkshire, who will take the little he has left: it is but little, yet it will be welcome, for I believe they are of very low condition. "To be sick, and see nothing but sickness and death, is but a gloomy state; but I hope better times, even in this world, will come, and whatever this world may withhold or give, we shall be happy in a better state. Pray for me, my dear Lucy. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and my old friend Hetty Bailey, and to all the Lichfield ladies. "I am, dear Madam, "Yours affectionately, "SAM. JOHNSON." On the same day on which the above letter was written the following found its way into the Doctor's "Prayers and Meditations": "Poor Lawrence has almost lost the sense of hearing; and I have lost the conversation of a learned, intelligent, and communicative companion, and a friend whom long familiarity has much endeared. Lawrence is one of the best men whom I have known. 'Nostrum omnium, miserere Deus." Sorrow only drew this man closer to his kind; as all sorrow does which is not selfish despair. Johnson was one of the most intensely human men that ever lived—a social being in every sense “TO CAPTAIN LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER. "DEAR SIR, "Bolt Court, Fleet Street, March 20, 1782. "It is now long since we saw one another; and, whatever has been the reason, neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be, taken finally away, he that travels on alone will wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do not forget me; you see that I MEMORIES OF THE DEAD. 393 do not forget you. It is pleasing, in the silence of solitude, to think that there is one at least, however distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is yet hope of seeing again. "Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or tenderness; for such another friend the general course of human things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a weakly body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge of winter. The season was dreary; I was sickly, and found the friends sickly whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my dear old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom, as he used to tell me, I owe your acquaintance, died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed. There passed not, I believe, a minute between health and death. At night, as, at Mrs. Thrale's, I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon earnestness, that however I might alter my code of life, or whithersoever I might remove, I would endeavour to retain Levett about me. In the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued him, I now wish that I had valued him more. "I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, from which, at the expense of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now recovering. "You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see George fond of his book, and the pretty Misses airy and lively, with my own little Jenny equal to the best; and in whatever can contribute to your quiet or pleasure, you have Lady Rothes ready to concur. May whatever you enjoy of good be increased, and whatever you suffer of evil be diminished. "I am, dear Sir, your humble servant, "SAM, JOHNSON." |