much-loved friend, Dr. Bathurst; and, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his conversation, most of his friends having been so assisted in the course of their works.

That there should be a suspension of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752, will not seem strange, when it is considered that soon after closing his Rambler, he suffered a loss which, there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepest distress. For on the 17th of March O. S. his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed), and to assert, that if it was not the case, "it was a lesson he had learned by rote," I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language.

The following very solemn and affecting prayer was found after Dr. Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Barber, who delivered it to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, Vicar of Islington, who at my earnest request has obligingly favoured me with a copy of it, which he and I compared with

the original. I present it to the world as an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of my illustrious friend, which, though some, whose hard minds I never shall envy, may attack as superstitious, will I am sure endear him more to numbers of good .men. I have an additional, and that a personal motive for presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained and am fond to indulge.

"April 26. 1752, being after 12 at Night of the 25th.

"O Lord! Governor of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed spirits, if thou hast ordained the souls of the dead to minister to the living, and appointed my departed wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams, or in any other manner agree.. able to thy government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased GOD to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams. (1)

That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was

(1) [Mr. Boswell's wife died in June, 1790; his Life of Johnson was first published in April, 1791.]

unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his Prayers and Meditations (1), published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind.

"March 28. 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful.”

CC April 23. 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." (2)

(1) The originals of this publication are now deposited in Pembroke College. It is to be observed, that they consist of a few little memorandum books, and a great number of separate scraps of paper, and bear no marks of having been arranged or intended for publication by Dr. Johnson. Each prayer is on a separate piece of paper, generally a sheet (but sometimes a fragment) of note paper. The memoranda and observations are generally in little books of a few leaves sewed together. This subject will be referred to hereafter; but it is even now important that the reader should recollect that Mr. Strahan's publication was not prepared by Dr. Johnson himself, but formed by the reverend gentleman out of the loose materials above mentioned. — - CROKER.

(2) Miss Seward, with equal truth and taste, thus expresses herself concerning these and similar passages: "Those pharisaic meditations, with their popish prayers for old Tetty's soul; their contrite parade about lying in bed on a morning; drinking creamed tea on a fast day; snoring at sermons; and having omitted to ponder well Bel and the Dragon, and Tobit and his Dog." And in another letter she does not scruple to say, that Mr. Boswell confessed to her his idea that Johnson was Roman Catholic in his heart." Miss Seward's credit is by this time so low that it is hardly necessary to observe how improbable

a

Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows:

After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant, and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's

it is that Mr. Boswell could have made any such ovnfession. Dr. Johnson thought charitably of the Roman Catholics, and defended their religion from the coarse language of our political tests, which call it impious and idolatrous (post, Oct. 26. 1769); but he strenuously disclaimed all participation in the doctrines of that church (see post, May 3. 1773; April 5. 1776; Oct. 10. 1779; June 3. 1784). Mrs. Piozzi says, "Though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken Church-of-England man; and I think, or at least I once did think, that a letter written by him to Mr. Barnard, the king's librarian, when he was 11. Italy collecting books, contained some very particular advice to his friend to be on his guard against the seductions of the Church of Rome." And finally-which may perhaps be thought more likely to express his real sentiments than even a more formal assertion-when it was proposed (see post, April 30. 1773), that monuments of eminent men should in future be erected in St. Paul's, and when some one in conversation suggested to begin with Pope, Johnson observed, "Why, sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first.". CROKER.

(1) It seems as if Dr. Johnson had been a little ashamed of the disproportion between his age and that of his wife, for neither in this inscription nor that over her grave, written thirty years later, does he mention her age, which was at her death sixtythree. CROKER.

daughter; but she having declined (1) to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning ring for his old master, and presented it to his wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it.

The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his IRENE, we find the following fervent and tender speech of Demetrius, addressed to his Aspasia :

"From those bright regions of eternal day, Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, Array'd in purer light, look down on me!

In pleasing visions and assuasive dreams,

O sooth my soul, and teach me how to lose thee."

I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, 'who, before her marriage, lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife. (2) But all this is perfectly

(1) Offended perhaps, and not unreasonably, that she was not mentioned in Johnson's will. — CROKER.

(2) I asked him, if he ever disputed with his wife (I had heard that he loved her passionately). "Perpetually," said he : "my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber: a clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the