friends at home. and I have lost our friends; but you have more He is My domestick companion is threattaken from me. She is much missed, for her ac- ened with quisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; tion 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." His fortitude and patience met with severe trials during this year. The stroke of the palsy has been related circumstantially; but he was also afflicted with the gout, and was besides troubled with a complaint which not only was attended with immediate inconvenience, but threatened him with a chirurgical operation, from which most men would shrink. The complaint was a sarcocele, which Johnson bore with uncommon firmness, and was not at all frightened while he looked forward to amputation. He was attended by Mr. Pott and Mr. Cruikshank. I have before me a letter of the 30th of July this year, to Mr. Cruikshank, in which he says, "I am going to put myself into your hands:" and another, accompanying a set of his "Lives of the Poets," in which he says, "I beg your acceptance of these volumes, as an acknowledgement of the great favours which have bestowed on, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' I have in my possession several more letters from him to Mr. Cruikshank, and also to Dr. Mudge at Plymouth, which it would be improper to insert, as they are filled with unpleasing technical details. I shall, however, extract from his letters to Dr. Mudge such passages as shew either a felicity of expression, or the undaunted state of his mind. you an opera. Johnson's "My conviction of your skill, and my belief of maladies your friendship, determine me to entreat your opinion and advice.". "In this state I with great me; "To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. "DEAR SIR, I "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 acknowledgement. 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. In the mean time I have lost a companion,1 to whom 1 Mrs. Anna Williams. Anacreon I have had recourse for domestick amusement for Boswell's thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never copy of Baxter's 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. "London, Sept. 29, 1783." "SAM. JOHNSON." Happily the complaint abated without his being put to the torture of amputation. But we must surely admire the manly resolution which he discovered, while it hung over him. In a letter to the same gentleman he writes, "The gout has within these four days come upon me with a violence which I never experienced before. It made me helpless as an infant.". -And in another, having mentioned Mrs. Williams, he says,- "whose death following that of Levett, has now made my house a solitude. She left her little substance to a charity-school. She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow.' I wrote to him, begging to know the state of his health, and mentioned that "Baxter's Anacreon, which is in the library at Auchinleck, was, I find, collated by my father in 1727, with the MS. belonging to the University of Leyden, and he has made a number of Notes upon it. Would you advise me to publish a new edition of it?" His answer was dated September 30.- -" You should not make your letters such rarities, when you know, or might know, the uniform state of my Siddons A visit health. It is very long since I heard from you; from Mrs. and that I have not answered is a very insufficient reason for the silence of a friend.-Your Anacreon is a very uncommon book; neither London nor Cambridge can supply a copy of that edition. Whether it should be reprinted, you cannot do better than consult Lord Hailes.-Besides my constant and radical disease, I have been for these ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has now remitted. I hope GOD will yet grant me a little longer life, and make me less unfit to appear before him." He this autumn received a visit from the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. He gives this account of it in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale [October 27]: "Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the characters of Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare." Mr. Kemble has favoured me with the following minute of what passed at this visit. "When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself.'. Having placed himself by her, he with great the stage good humour entered upon a consideration of the Johnson's English drama; and, among other enquiries, par- recollecticularly asked her which of Shakspeare's characters tions of she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catharine, in Henry the Eighth, the most natural:-'I think so too, Madam, (said he ;) and whenever you perform it, I will once more hobble out to the theatre myself.' Mrs. Siddons promised she would do herself the honour of acting his favourite part for him; but many circumstances happened to prevent the representation of King Henry the Eighth during the Doctor's life. "In the course of the evening he thus gave his opinion upon the merits of some of the principal performers whom he remembered to have seen upon the stage. 'Mrs. Porter, in the vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive, in the sprightliness of humour, I have never seen equalled. What Clive did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so many things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in nature.-Pritchard, in common life, was a vulgar ideot; she would talk of her gownd; but, when she appeared upon the stage, seemed to be inspired by gentility and understanding. I once talked with Colley Cibber, and thought him ignorant of the principles of his art.Garrick, Madam, was no declaimer; there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could not have spoken To be, or not to be, better than he did; yet he was the only actor I ever saw, whom I could call a master both in tragedy and comedy; though I liked him best in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural expression of it, were his VOL. VI. E |