to discrimination. Not that I suppose we have thus been deprived of any compositions which he had ever intended for the public eye; but from what escaped the flames I judge that many curious circumstances, relating both to himself and other literary characters, have perished. Two very valuable articles, I am sure, we have lost, which were two quarto volumes (1), containing a full, fair, and most particular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and apologising for the liberty I had taken, asked him if I could help it. He placidly answered, “ Why, Sir, I do not think you could have helped it." I said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an inclination to commit theft. It had come into my mind to carry off those two volumes, and never see him more. Upon my inquiring how this would have affected him, Sir," said he, "" I believe I should have gone mad." (2) 66 (1) There can be little doubt that these two quarto volumes were of the same kind as, if they were not actually transcripts of, the various little diaries which fell into the hands of Dr. Strahan and others; the strong expression, that he would have "gone mad" had they been purloined, confirms my belief that Dr. Johnson never could have intended that these diaries should have been published. I am confident that they were given to Dr. Strahan inadvertently, Johnson meaning to give the prayers alone, and I suspect that it was by accident only they escaped destruction on the 1st of December.-C. (2) One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve it from falling into the hands of a person whom he describes so as to make it sufficiently clear who is meant [Mr. George Steevens]: "having strong reasons," said he, "to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the book." Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman During his last illness Johnson experienced the steady and kind attachment of his numerous friends. Mr. Hoole has drawn up a narrative (1) of what passed in the visits which he paid him during that time, from the 10th of November to the 13th of December, the day of his death, inclusive, and has favoured me with a perusal of it, with permission to make extracts, which I have done. Nobody was more attentive to him than Mr. Langton (2), to whom he tenderly said, Te teneam alluded to would act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, "Sir, should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind." Sir John next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, "Bishop Sanderson could not have dictated a better letter. İ could almost say, Melius est sic penituisse quam non errâsse." The agitation into which Johnson was thrown by this incident probably made him hastily burn those precious records, which must ever be regretted. B.-We shall see presently, in Haw kins's Diary (1st and 5th of December), more on the subject: but it is not certain that the volume which Hawkins took was one of these two quartos; and it is certain that a destruction of papers took place a day or two before that event. Johnson had really some reason for "distrusting mankind," when, of two dear friends, he found one half-inclined to commit a theft, and another more than half-committing it. Bishop Sanderson is referred to, because he was an eminent casuist, and treated of cases of conscience.-C. [See JOHNSONIANA, post.] (1) This journal has been since printed at length in the European Magazine for September, 1799. As it could not be introduced in this place without dislocating Mr. Boswell's extracts and wholly deranging his narrative, I have thought it better to reserve it for the Appendix. It will be read with interest. - C.-[See JOHNSONIANA, post.] (2) Mr. Langton survived Johnson several years. He died at Southampton, December 18. 1801, aged sixty-five. - M. moriens deficiente manu. And I think it highly to the honour of Mr. Windham, that his important occupations as an active statesman did not prevent him from paying assiduous respect to the dying sage whom he revered. Mr. Langton informs me, that 66 one day he found Mr. Burke and four or five more friends sitting with Johnson. Mr. Burke said to him, I am afraid, Sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.'- No, Sir,' said Johnson, it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state indeed when your company would not be a delight to me.' Mr. Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, 'My dear Sir, you have always been too good to me.' Immediately afterwards he went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men." The following particulars of his conversation within a few days of his death I give on the authority of Mr. John Nichols : : He said, that the Parliamentary Debates were the only part of his writings which then gave him any compunction but that at the time he wrote them he had no conception he was imposing upon the world, though they were frequently written from very slender materials, and often from none at all, the mere coinage of his own imagination. He never wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. Three columns of the magazine in an hour was no uncommon effort, which was faster than most persons could have transcribed that quantity. "Of his friend Cave he always spoke with great affection. 'Yet,' said he, Cave (who never looked |