'DEAR SIR,--That which is appointed to all men is now coming upon you.Outward circumstances,the eyes and the thoughts of men,are below the notice of an immortal being about to stand the trial for eternity,before the Supreme Judge of heaven and earth.Be comforted:your crime,morally or religiously considered,has no very deep dye of turpitude.It corrupted no man's principles;it attacked no man's life.It involved only a temporary and reparable injury.Of this,and of all other sins,you are earnestly to repent;and may GOD,who knoweth our frailty,and desireth not our death,accept your repentance,for the sake of his SON JESUS CHRISTour Lord.
'In requital of those well-intended offices which you are pleased so emphatically to acknowledge,let me beg that you make in your devotions one petition for my eternal welfare.I am,dear Sir,your affectionate servant,'June 26,1777.'
'SAM.JOHNSON.'
Under the copy of this letter I found written,in Johnson's own hand,'Next day,June 27,he was executed.'
Tuesday,September 16,Dr.Johnson having mentioned to me the extraordinary size and price of some cattle reared by Dr.Taylor,Irode out with our host,surveyed his farm,and was shown one cow which he had sold for a hundred and twenty guineas,and another for which he had been offered a hundred and thirty.Taylor thus described to me his old schoolfellow and friend,Johnson:'He is a man of a very clear head,great power of words,and a very gay imagination;but there is no disputing with him.He will not hear you,and having a louder voice than you,must roar you down.'
In the evening,the Reverend Mr.Seward,of Lichfield,who was passing through Ashbourne in his way home,drank tea with us.
Johnson described him thus:--'Sir,his ambition is to be a fine talker;so he goes to Buxton,and such places,where he may find companies to listen to him.And,Sir,he is a valetudinarian,one of those who are always mending themselves.I do not know a more disagreeable character than a valetudinarian,who thinks he may do any thing that is for his ease,and indulges himself in the grossest freedoms:Sir,he brings himself to the state of a hog in a stye.'
Dr.Taylor's nose happening to bleed,he said,it was because he had omitted to have himself blooded four days after a quarter of a year's interval.Dr.Johnson,who was a great dabbler in physick,disapproved much of periodical bleeding.'For (said he,)you accustom yourself to an evacuation which Nature cannot perform of herself,and therefore she cannot help you,should you,from forgetfulness or any other cause,omit it;so you may be suddenly suffocated.You may accustom yourself to other periodical evacuations,because should you omit them,Nature can supply the omission;but Nature cannot open a vein to blood you.'--'I do not like to take an emetick,(said Taylor,)for fear of breaking some small vessels.'--'Poh!(said Johnson,)if you have so many things that will break,you had better break your neck at once,and there's an end on't.You will break no small vessels:'(blowing with high derision.)The horrour of death which I had always observed in Dr.Johnson,appeared strong to-night.I ventured to tell him,that I had been,for moments in my life,not afraid of death;therefore I could suppose another man in that state of mind for a considerable space of time.He said,'he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.'He added,that it had been observed,that scarce any man dies in publick,but with apparent resolution;from that desire of praise which never quits us.I said,Dr.Dodd seemed to be willing to die,and full of hopes of happiness.'Sir,(said he,)Dr.Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have lived.The better a man is,the more afraid he is of death,having a clearer view of infinite purity.'He owned,that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation,was mysterious;and said,'Ah!we must wait till we are in another state of being,to have many things explained to us.'Even the powerful mind of Johnson seemed foiled by futurity.
On Wednesday,September 17,Dr.Butter,physician at Derby,drank tea with us;and it was settled that Dr.Johnson and I should go on Friday and dine with him.Johnson said,'I'm glad of this.'He seemed weary of the uniformity of life at Dr.Taylor's.
Talking of biography,I said,in writing a life,a man's peculiarities should be mentioned,because they mark his character.
JOHNSON.'Sir,there is no doubt as to peculiarities:the question is,whether a man's vices should be mentioned;for instance,whether it should be mentioned that Addison and Parnell drank too freely:for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this;so that more ill may be done by the example,than good by telling the whole truth.'Here was an instance of his varying from himself in talk;for when Lord Hailes and he sat one morning calmly conversing in my house at Edinburgh,I well remember that Dr.Johnson maintained,that 'If a man is to write APanegyrick,he may keep vices out of sight;but if he professes to write A Life,he must represent it really as it was:'and when Iobjected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess,he said,that 'it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking,when it was seen,that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it.'And in the Hebrides he maintained,as appears from my Journal,that a man's intimate friend should mention his faults,if he writes his life.
