MRS. WILLIAMS "MAKING HASTE TO DIE." 409

between clamour and silence, between general conversation and self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making haste to die: I know not if she will ever more come out of her chamber."

And again, on the 26th :

"Mrs. Williams fancies now and then that she grows better; but her vital powers appear to be slowly burning out. Nobody thinks, however, that she will very soon be quite wasted, and as she suffers me to be of very little use to her, I have determined to pass some time with Mr. Bowles, near Salisbury, and have taken a place for Thursday.

"Some benefit may be perhaps received from change of air, some from change of company, and some from mere change of place. It is not easy to grow well in a chamber where one has long been sick, and where everything seen, and every person speaking, revives and impresses images of pain. Though it be true that no man can run away from himself, yet he may escape from many causes of useless uneasiness. That the mind is its own place, is the boast of a fallen angel that had learned to lie. External locality has great effects, at least upon all embodied beings. I hope this little journey will afford me at least some suspense of melancholy."

On the day appointed, he took his proposed journey to Mr. Bowles's, and, immediately on his arrival there, wrote to Dr. Brocklesby the following letter:

"Without appearing to want a just sense of your kind attention, I cannot omit to give an account of the day which seemed to appear in some sort perilous. I rose at five, and went out at six; and, having reached Salisbury about nine, went forward a few miles in my friend's chariot. I was no more wearied with the journey, though it was a high-hung, rough coach, than I should have been forty years ago. We shall now see what air will do. The country

410

MRS. WILLIAMS'S DEATH.

is all a plain and the house in which I am, so far as I can judge from my windows, for I write before I have left my chamber, is sufficiently pleasant.

"Be so kind as to continue your attention to Mrs. Williams; it is great consolation to the well, and still greater to the sick, that they find themselves not neglected; and I know that you will be desirous of giving comfort, even where you have no great hope of giving help.

"Since I wrote the former part of the letter, I find that by the course of the post I cannot send it before the thirty-first.

"I am, &c.,

"SAM. JOHNSON.”

While here, he received the news of Mrs. Williams's death; an event of which he shortly afterwards wrote to Mrs. Thrale in these few and simple words-every word like the print of a tear:"Poor Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with prudence, and she bore with fortitude. She has left me.

Thou thy weary task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.”

ALONE.

411

CHAPTER XLII.

A DESOLATED HOME-NEW CLUB FOUNDED "A PIOUS NEGOTIATION -ANOTHER FAREWELL.

(1783-1784.)

On his return from Heale, Johnson wrote to Dr. Burney :- "I came home on the 18th of September, at noon, to a very disconsolate house. You and I have lost our friends; but you have more friends at home. My domestic companion is taken from me. She is much missed, for her acquisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; so that she partook of every conversation. I am not well enough to go much out; and to sit, and eat, or fast alone, is very wearisome. I always mean to send my compliments to all the ladies."

The paralysis had been got over but he was now suffering severely from the gout and another complaint which threatened to require a surgical operation.

"DEAR SIR,

66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.

"London, Sept. 29, 1783.

"You may very reasonably charge me with insensibility of your kindness and that of Lady Rothes, since I have suffered so much time to pass without paying any acknowledgment. I now, at last, return my thanks; and why I did it not sooner I ought to tell you. I went into Wiltshire as soon as I well could, and was there much employed in palliating my own malady. Disease produces much selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease; and lets most other things go as chance shall dispose of them.

412 "WE THAT ARE LEFT MUST CLING CLOSER."

In the meantime 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; and now return to a habitation vacant and desolate. I carry about a very troublesome and dangerous complaint which admits no cure but by the chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers.

"I am, &c.,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

After all, however, "the chirurgical knife" was not called into requisition; the trouble having abated without amputation.

"TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.

"DEAR MADAM,

"Bolt Court, Fleet Street, Nov. 10, 1783.

"The death of poor Mr. Porter, of which your maid has sent an account, must have very much surprised you. The death of a friend is almost always unexpected: we do not love to think of it, and therefore are not prepared for its coming. He was, I think, a religious man, and therefore that his end was happy.

"Death has likewise visited my mournful habitation. Last month died Mrs. Williams, who had been to me for thirty years in the place of a sister: her knowledge was great, and her conversation pleasing. I now live in cheerless solitude.

"My two last years have passed under the pressure of successive diseases. I have lately had the gout with some severity. But I wonderfully escaped the operation which I mentioned, and am upon the whole restored to health beyond my own expectation.

"As we daily see our friends die round us, we that are left must cling closer, and, if we can do nothing more, at least pray for one another; and remember, that as others die we must die too, and prepare ourselves diligently for the last great trial. "I am, Madam,

"Yours affectionately,

"SAM. JOHNSON.”

A NOBLE OFFER OF HELP.

413

Το say that distress tries friends is trite, but it is not therefore unnecessary to record that Johnson's friends, one and all, nobly stood the test. The Honourable Gerard Hamilton, for example, sent to Dr. Brocklesby inquiring whether this long illness had brought his patient into pecuniary difficulties, and offering to supply whatever might be needed. This generous offer was

acknowledged in the following letter:

"TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.

“November 19, 1783.

"DEAR SIR, "Your kind inquiries after my affairs, and your generous offers, have been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby. I return thanks with great sincerity, having lived long enough to know what gratitude is due to your friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, in no want. Sickness is, by the generosity of my physicians, of little expense to me. But if any unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear Sir, how cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality.

"I am, Sir,

"Your most obedient and most humble Servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

Johnson was only sad when he could not help it he was not like philosopher Jacques, who thought himself a fine fellow simply because he was always moping. Even in the midst of those dismal days the social element in the Doctor was constantly getting the better of all his sorrows. He passionately loved his kind; and, in order to secure for himself company on three evenings every week, he instituted, about this time, a Club at the Essex Head, in Essex Street, then kept by one Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. This letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds will give all the account of the Club which we here require :