It was his custom to observe certain days with a pious abstraction viz., New Year's Day, the day of his wife's death, Good Friday, Easter Day, and his own birthday. He this year says, "I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. O God, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my resolutions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." Such a tenderness of conscience, such a fervent desire of improvement, will rarely be found. It is, surely, not decent in those who are hardened in indifference to spiritual improvement, to treat this pious anxiety of Johnson with contempt. About this time he was afflicted with a very severe return of the hypochondriac disorder, which was ever lurking about him. He was so ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of company, to be entirely averse to society, the most fatal symptom of that malady. Dr. Adams told me, that, as an old friend, he was admitted to visit him, and that he found him in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and restlessly walking from room to room. He then used this emphatical expression of the misery which he felt: "I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits." Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly overheard.' His friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says, "That Davies hath a very pretty wife;" when Dr. Johnson muttered "lead us not into temptation "— It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, when Johnson retired to a window or corner of the room, by perceiving his lips in motion, and hearing a murmur without audible articulation, that he was praying; but this used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, "You, my dear, are the cause of this." He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion. A strange instance of something of this nature, even when on horseback, happened when he was in the Isle of Sky. Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good way about, rather than cross a particular alley in Leicester Fields; but this Sir Joshua imputed to his having had some disagreeable recollection associated with it. was not always the case, for I was once, perhaps unperceived by him, writing at a table, so near the place of his retreat, that I heard him repeating some lines in an ode of Horace, over and over again, as if by iteration to exercise the organs of speech, and fix the ode in his memory: "Audiet cives accuisse ferrum Quo graves Persa melius perirent, It was during the American war.-Burney. 1 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit., p. 316. 2 His conduct at Mr. Bankes's, see antè, p. 108, seems something of the same kind. Dr. Fisher, Master of the Charter House, told me, that in walking on the quadrangle of University College, he would not step on the juncture of the stones, but carefully on the centre: but this is a trick which many persons have when sauntering on any kind of tessellation. Dr. Fisher adds, that he would sometimes take a phial to the college pump, That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, and made very observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention, that, while talking, or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving a halfwhistle, sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly, under his breath, too, too, too: all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally, when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale. This, I suppose, was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a contemptuous and alternately fill and empty it, without any object that Dr. Fisher could discern. "Mr. Sheridan,” says Mr. Whyte, "at one time lived in Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, which ranges with the south side of Covent Garden, so that the prospect lies open the whole way, free of interruption. We were standing together at the drawing-room window, expecting Johnson, who was to dine there. Mr. Sheridan asked me, could I see the length of the Garden? No, Sir.' [Mr. Whyte was short-sighted.] Take out your opera-glass, Johnson is coming; you may know him by his gait.' I perceived him at a good distance, working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each side the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in fashion, to prevent the annoyance of carriages. Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe, he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them when he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it might appear, was his constant practice; but why or wherefore he could not inform me."-Whyte, Miscellanea Nova, p. 49.-Croker. mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly like chaff before the wind. I am fully aware how very obvious an occasion I here give for the sneering jocularity of such as have no relish of an exact likeness; which to render complete, he who draws it must not disdain the slightest strokes. But if witlings should be inclined to attack this account, let them have the candour to quote what I have offered in my defence. He was for some time in the summer at Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, on a visit to the Rev. Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore. Whatever dissatisfaction he felt at what he considered as a slow progress in intellectual improvement, we find that his heart was tender, and his affections warm, as appears from the following very kind letter: "DEAR SIR, TO JOSHUA REYNOLDS, ESQ., In Leicester Fields, London. "I did not hear of your sickness till I heard likewise of your recovery, and therefore escape that part of your pain, which every man must feel, to whom you are known as you are known to me. "Having had no particular account of your disorder, I know not in what state it has left you. If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you; for I know not how I can so effectually promote my own pleasure as by pleasing you, or my own interest as by preserving you, in whom, if I should lose you, I should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend. "Pray, let me hear of you from yourself, or from dear Miss Reynolds. Make my compliments to Mr. Mudge. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." "At the Rev. Mr. Percy's, at Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, (by Castle Ashby,) Aug. 19, 1764." 1 He spent parts of the months of June, July, and August with me, accompanied by his friend Mrs. Williams, whom Mrs. Percy found a very agreeable companion.-Percy. 2 Sir Joshua's sister, for whom Johnson had a particular affection, and Early in the year 1765 he paid a short visit to the University of Cambridge, with his friend Mr. Beauclerk. There is a lively picturesque account of his behaviour on this visit in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for March, 1785, being an extract of a letter from the late Dr. John Sharp. The two following sentences are very characteristical :—“ He drank his large potations of tea with me, interrupted by many an indignant contradiction, and many a noble sentiment." "Several persons got into his company the last evening at Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great; stripped poor Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, and drank her in two bumpers." The strictness of his self-examination, and scrupulous Christian humility, appear in his pious meditation on Easter-day this year. "I purpose again to partake of the blessed sacrament; yet when I consider how vainly I have hitherto resolved, at this annual commemoration of my Saviour's death, to regulate my life by his laws, I am almost afraid to renew my resolutions." The concluding words are very remarkable, and show that he laboured under a severe depression of spirits. "Since the last Easter I have reformed no evil habit; my time has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how the days pass over me. Good Lord, deliver me!" " 2 No man was more gratefully sensible of any kindness done to him than Johnson. There is a little circumstance in his diary this year, which shows him in a very amiable light. to whom he wrote many letters which I have seen, and which I am sorry her too nice delicacy will not permit to be published. [Note introduced in the second edition, vol. i., p. 451.] Those letters were communicated by Mr. J. F. Palmer, the grand-nephew of Sir Joshua and Miss Reynolds, to Mr. Croker, and will be given in the Appendices to this and the other volumes of this edition.-Editor. 1 Dr. John Sharp, grandson of Sharp, Archbishop of York, and son of the Archdeacon of Durham, in which preferment he succeeded his father. He was a member of Trinity College, Cambridge. He died in 1792, aged sixty-nine.-Croker. 2 Prayers and Meditations, p. 55. |