'DEAR SIR,--I have had,indeed,a very heavy blow;but GOD,who yet spares my life,I humbly hope will spare my understanding,and restore my speech.As I am not at all helpless,I want no particular assistance,but am strongly affected by Mrs.Davies's tenderness;and when I think she can do me good,shall be very glad to call upon her.I had ordered friends to be shut out;but one or two have found the way in;and if you come you shall be admitted:
for I know not whom I can see,that will bring more amusement on his tongue,or more kindness in his heart.I am,&c.
'June 18,1783.'
'SAM.JOHNSON.'
It gives me great pleasure to preserve such a memorial of Johnson's regard for Mr.Davies,to whom I was indebted for my introduction to him.He indeed loved Davies cordially,of which I shall give the following little evidence.One day when he had treated him with too much asperity,Tom,who was not without pride and spirit,went off in a passion;but he had hardly reached home when Frank,who had been sent after him,delivered this note:--'Come,come,dear Davies,I am always sorry when we quarrel;send me word that we are friends.'
Such was the general vigour of his constitution,that he recovered from this alarming and severe attack with wonderful quickness;so that in July he was able to make a visit to Mr.Langton at Rochester,where he passed about a fortnight,and made little excursions as easily as at any time of his life.In August he went as far as the neighbourhood of Salisbury,to Heale,the seat of William Bowles,Esq.,a gentleman whom I have heard him praise for exemplary religious order in his family.In his diary I find a short but honourable mention of this visit:--'August 28,I came to Heale without fatigue.30,I am entertained quite to my mind.'
While he was here he had a letter from Dr.Brocklesby,acquainting him of the death of Mrs.Williams,which affected him a good deal.
Though for several years her temper had not been complacent,she had valuable qualities,and her departure left a blank in his house.Upon this occasion he,according to his habitual course of piety,composed a prayer.
I shall here insert a few particulars concerning him,with which Ihave been favoured by one of his friends.
'He spoke often in praise of French literature."The French are excellent in this,(he would say,)they have a book on every subject."From what he had seen of them he denied them the praise of superiour politeness,and mentioned,with very visible disgust,the custom they have of spitting on the floors of their apartments.
"This,(said the Doctor),is as gross a thing as can well be done;and one wonders how any man,or set of men,can persist in so offensive a practice for a whole day together;one should expect that the first effort towards civilization would remove it even among savages."'Chymistry was always an interesting pursuit with Dr.Johnson.
Whilst he was in Wiltshire,he attended some experiments that were made by a physician at Salisbury,on the new kinds of air.In the course of the experiments frequent mention being made of Dr.
Priestley,Dr.Johnson knit his brows,and in a stern manner inquired,"Why do we hear so much of Dr.Priestley?"He was very properly answered,"Sir,because we are indebted to him for these important discoveries."On this Dr.Johnson appeared well content;and replied,"Well,well,I believe we are;and let every man have the honour he has merited."'
'A friend was one day,about two years before his death,struck with some instance of Dr.Johnson's great candour."Well,Sir,(said he,)I will always say that you are a very candid man.""Will you,(replied the Doctor,)I doubt then you will be very singular.But,indeed,Sir,(continued he,)I look upon myself to be a man very much misunderstood.I am not an uncandid,nor am I a severe man.I sometimes say more than I mean,in jest;and people are apt to believe me serious:however,I am more candid than I was when I was younger.As I know more of mankind I expect less of them,and am ready now to call a man A GOOD MAN,upon easier terms than I was formerly."'
On his return from Heale he wrote to Dr.Burney:--'I came home on the 18th at noon to a very disconsolate house.You and I have lost our friends;but you have more friends at home.My domestick 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.Ialways 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.
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.
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:--'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.'
