beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant,' who came into his family about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were aggravated by the melancholy inherent in his constitution; and although he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was, in the little disagreements which sometimes troubled his married state, during which, he owned to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more painful to him than ever, he might very naturally, after her death, be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and offences, the sense of which would give him much uneasiness. Accordingly we find, about a year after her decease, that he thus addressed the Supreme Being: "O LORD, who givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected, in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild instruction." The kindness of his heart, notwithstanding the impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his friends; and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for the following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins: "The apparition of his departed wife was altogether of the terrific kind, and hardly 1 Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in 1750, by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's death, with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, when he took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. 2 Pr. and Med., p. 19. afforded him a hope that she was in a state of happiness.' That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions: "And, O LORD, so far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife; beseeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness." " But this state has not been looked upon with horror, but only as less gracious. 3 He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley in Kent, to which he was probably led by the residence of his friend Hawkesworth at that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never preached, but, having been given to Dr. Taylor, has been published since his death, is a performance of uncommon excellence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder. 1 Life of Johnson, p. 316. 2 Pr. and Med., p. 20. 3 A few months before his death, Johnson caused the following epitaph to be inscribed on her tombstone, in the church of Bromley : Hic conduntur reliquiæ ELIZABETHÆ Antiquâ Jarvisiorum gente, Peatlinge, apud Leicestrienses, ortæ ; Obiit Londini, Mense Mart. A.D. MDCCLII. It is a blue slate slab, at the west end of the central aisle, in good preservation (1881), which it probably owes to its being generally covered with matting.-Editor. From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentic and artless account of the situation in which he found him recently after his wife's death: "He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, which was in Gough Square. He was busy with the 'Dictionary.' Mr. Shields, and some others of the gentlemen who had formerly written for him, used to come about him. He had then little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shields when in distress. The friends who visited him at that time, were chiefly Dr. Bathurst,' and Mr. Diamond, an apothecary in Cork Dr. Bathurst, though a physician of no inconsiderable merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore, willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: "The Havannah is taken a conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it ; 'Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit." There are in Harwood's History of Lichfield, two letters from Bathurst to Johnson, dated Barbadoes, January 13, and Jamaica, March 18, 1757; from which it would seem that Bathurst left London, and returned to the West Indies some years before the expedition against the Havannah (1762); nor is his name to be found in the list of medical officers who accompanied the army from England; he probably, therefore, joined the expedition in the West Indies. The first of these letters runs thus: "The many acts of friendship and affection you have conferred upon me, so fully convince me of your being interested in my welfare, that even my present stupidity will not prevent my taking a pen in my hand to acquaint you that I am this instant arrived safe at Barbadoes, and I hope I may add, without having forgot all your lessons; and I am confident not without praying most fervently that the Supreme Being will enable me to deserve the approbation and friendship of so great and so good a man: alas, you little know how undeserving I am of the favours I have received from you. May health and happiness for ever attend you. Excuse my dropping my pen, for it is impossible that it should express the gratitude that is due to you, from your most affectionate friend, and most obliged servant, RICHARD BATHURST." Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Piozzi (Anecdotes, p. 83), that he loved "dear, dear Bathurst, better than he ever loved any human creature ;" and it was on him that he bestowed the singular eulogy of being a good hater. "Dear Bathurst,” said he, “was a man to my very heart's content; he Street, Burlington Gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams generally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland with him, which would probably have happened, had he lived. There were also Mr. Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland, merchant on Tower-hill, Mrs. Masters,' the poetess, who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaulay; also, Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow-chandler on Snow-hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good woman; Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds; Mr. Millar, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne, of Paternoster-row, booksellers; Mr. Strahan, the printer; the Earl of Orrery, Lord Southwell, Mr. Garrick." 3 Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and in particular, his humble friend Mr. Robert Levett, an obscure practiser in physic amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs. Williams has told me, his walk was from Houndsditch to Marylebone. It appears, from Johnson's diary, that their acquaintance commenced about the year 1746; and such was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians, unless he had Mr. Levett with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and many hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig: he was a very good hater!"-Croker. 1 Mary Masters published a small volume of poems about 1738, and, in 1755, Familiar Letters and Poems, in octavo. She is supposed to have died about 1759.—Croker. " Catherine Macaulay was born in 1733, at Ollantigh, in Kent, the seat of her father, John Sawbridge, Esq. In 1760 she was married to Dr. George Macaulay, a physician of London. Her principal work is the History of England from James I. to the Revolution. 8 vols. 4to., 176377. She died in 1791. Barber's account with respect to her would seem therefore to be incorrect.-Croker. 3 With this good woman, who was introduced to him by Mrs. Masters, he kept up a constant intercourse, and remembered her in his will, by the bequest of a book.-Croker. years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr. Levett had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was present.1 The circle of his friends, indeed, at this time was extensive and various, far beyond what has been generally imagined.2 To trace his acquaintance with each particular person, if it could be done, would be a task, of which the labour would not be repaid by the advantage. But exceptions are to be made; one of which must be a friend so eminent as Sir Joshua Rey ' Robert Levett, though an Englishman by birth, became early in life a waiter at a coffee-house in Paris; where the surgeons who frequented it, finding him of an inquisitive turn, and attentive to their conversation, made a purse for him, and gave him some instructions in their art. They afterwards furnished him with the means of other knowledge, by procuring him free admission to such lectures in pharmacy and anatomy as were read by the ablest professors of that period. Where the middle part of his life was spent is uncertain. He resided about twenty years under Johnson's hospitable roof, who never wished him to be regarded as an inferior, or treated him like a dependent.-From an account attributed by Malone to Steevens. 2 Dr. Harwood favoured me with the following memorandum, in Johnson's writing, made about this time, of certain visits which he was to pay (perhaps on his return from Oxford in 1754); and which, as it contains the names of some of the highest and lowest of his acquaintance, is probably a list of nearly all his friends :: |