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formity, if they were to be analysed with a minute and anxious curiosity. The private conversation of Johnson, the caprice of momentary ill-humour, the weakness of disease, the common infirmities of human nature, have been presented to the public without those alleviating circumstances which probably attended them. And where is the man that has not foibles, weaknesses, follies, and defects of some kind? And where is the man that has greater virtues, greater abilities, more useful labours, to put into the opposite scale against his defects than Johnson? Time, however, will place him, notwithstanding all his errors and infirmities, high in the ranks of fame. Posterity will forgive his roughness of manner, his apparent superstition, and his prejudices; and will remember his Dictionary, his moral writings, his biography, his manly vigour of thought, his piety, and his charity. They will make allowances for morbid melancholy; for a life, a great part of which was spent in extreme indigence and labour, and the rest, by a sudden transition, in the midst of affluence, flattery, obsequiousness, submission, and universal renown.

684. Knox on "Johnson's Prayers and Meditations.'

Every one had heard that Dr. Johnson was devout; few entertained an adequate idea of his warmth and scrupulous regularity in the offices of devotion, till the publication of his Prayers and Meditations. They exhibit him in a light in which he has seldom appeared to his readers. He usually puts on a garb of dignity and command. His Rambler is written in the style of authority. His Prefaces to the Poets are dictatorial. The reader is easily induced to believe that pride is a striking feature in his character. But he no sooner opens the book of Prayers and Meditations, than he sees him in a state of true humility: no affectation in the style: no words of unusual occurrence: every expression is such as is well adapted to a frail mortal,

however improved by art or favoured by nature, when he approaches the mercy-seat of the Almighty. The reader is thus, in some degree, gratified by observing a man, who had always appeared to him as a superior mortal, and exempt from human infirmities, feeling and acknowledging with all humility the common weaknesses of all human creatures.

685. Fordyce on the Death and Character of
Dr. Johnson. (1)

It hath pleased thee, Almighty Disposer, to number with the silent dead a man of renown, a master in Israel, who had "the tongue of the learned,” and worshipped thee with fervour "in the land of the living. His was "the pen of a ready writer." His was the happy power of communicating truth with clearness, and inculcating virtue with energy; of clothing the gravest counsels in the attractive garb of entertainment, and adding dignity to the most obvious maxims of prudence. To him it was given to expose with just discrimination the follies of a frivolous age, and with honest zeal to reprobate its vices.

This shining light raised up by thee, "the Father of lights," for the honour of thy name, and the benefit of many, thou hast lately seen fit to remove. But blessed

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be thy Providence for continuing him so long. Blessed be thy Spirit that enriched him with those eminent gifts, and enabled him to render them useful. In his presence the infidel was awed, the profane stood corrected, and the mouth of the swearer was stopped. his discourse the majesty of genius impressed the attentive and unprejudiced with a reverence for wisdom; the virtuous and the pious were encouraged by the approbation of superior discernment; and truths, that

(1) [From "Addresses to the Deity," by James Fordyce, D.D., 12mo. 1785.]

had lost the allurement of novelty, recovered their influence, from the native but peculiar force with which they were proposed.

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But what is man," O Lord? or who among the sons of men can plead innocence before the Thrice Holy? When trouble and anguish came upon thy aged servant, when "his sleep went from him," when in solemn recollection he "communed with his own heart upon his bed," and examined himself in the view of his last and great account, he saw wherein he had offended. Then it was, that I heard him condemn, with holy self-abasement, the pride of understanding by which he had often trespassed against the laws of courteous demeanour, and forgotten the fallible condition of his nature. Then it was, that I heard him, with ingenuous freedom, commend the virtues of forbearance and moderation in matters of belief, as more conformable to reason, and to the Gospel of thy Son, than he had long conceived. How deep was the contrition which then penetrated his soul, in the remembrance of his sins, and caused him to feel more strongly, what indeed he had ever acknowledged, that no extent of intellect, and no eminence of fame, can arm an awakened and reflecting mind against the fear of thy displeasure! Let it be known that this man, after considering the uncertainty of life, after studying the sanctity of thy law, after discovering more clearly the utter insufficiency of human attainments, and contemplating with ardent solicitude the stupendous and unspeakable importance of salvation, did with all the humility of faith cast himself on thine infinite mercy through Jesus Christ. But for the confirmation of the true believer, and to overthrow the delusive pretences and vain expectations of hypocrisy, let it be known, also, that while he rested only on this foundation, he was unalterably assured it would support none but the penitent and upright, the devout and benevolent.

Whatever esteem or gratitude he deserved from his countrymen, for his diligence and skill in furthering the knowledge of their native tongue, in which they may study the Revelation of thy Will, and find withal so many treasures of useful truth and solid learning; little, alas! would that, or his other labours and abilities, have availed him in the dread concluding hour, if in his lifetime he had abused them to thy dishonour, or neglected to secure thine acceptance by what is better than all knowledge, sagacity, or eloquence; by veneration for thee, and charity to mankind.

Father of spirits! if men without principle or feeling should exult, and say that his anxiety in the prospect of his latter end arose from the weakness and depression of disease; I record it to the honour of thy service, that never were his faculties more vigorous or animated, never were his views more raised, or his words more emphatical, than in those moments when the consideration of thine immaculate purity, and of the all-deciding trial, had full possession of his soul. Nor didst thou leave him to hopeless despondence. He knew in whom he trusted; and thou gavest him to enjoy the recollection of having long cherished an habitual reverence for thy Divine Majesty, and improved the talents he received at thy hand for the interests of truth, and the enforcement of duty, "in the midst of an evil and crooked generation." To thy goodness, O God, did he thankfully ascribe it, that he had never sought the praise of the rich by flattery, or of the licentious by imitating their manners, and prostituting his faculties to embolden vice or varnish profaneness.

But if this man boasted not that he was righteous, if he relied not on any virtue which he had practised, if he earnestly supplicated forgiveness through the merits of his Saviour alone, and left behind him in his latest deed an open testimony of his repentance and his faith; where shall the ungodly and the presumptuous appear?

Will they lift up their heads with joy in the day of judgment? Will they challenge a reward at thy just tribunal? Merciful Creator deliver them from their pride and impenitence. Show them the greatness of their error, and lead them from themselves to the Redeemer of the world for the remission of their sins.

Let not such as were strangers to the piety and benevolence of thy departed servant, censure too severely the partial or prejudiced opinions that sometimes contracted and unhappily obscured a mind otherwise comprehensive and enlightened. Teach them, O Lord, more charitable allowance for mistakes hastily imbibed in the days of youth, and afterwards from the power of early prepossession, without consciousness of evil, fondly retained and vehemently defended. It may be that in him they were permitted by thy unerring Providence, to manifest more clearly the frailty of the wisest men, and to raise our minds from the defective patterns of excellence here below, to thyself, the only standard of perfection.

Whatever gifts adorned him were alone to be regarded as emanations from thee," from whom cometh down every good gift," every rational endowment, and exalted conception. But, O thou great sun of souls! can I believe, that those emanations are extinguished in the dust? Can I believe, that he whose writings I have perused with delight and improvement, is himself perished in the gulf of annihilation? Abhorred be the impious and unnatural thought! When his mortal part, worn with watching and study, broken by suffering and age, yielded at last to the stroke that conquers the young, the prosperous, and the strong; with what ecstasy would his never-dying spirit fly away, and kindle and flame as it approached nearer to thee, the fountain of light and intellectual being! With what friendly transports would the illuminated and holy inhabitants of heaven receive to their sublime society, a mind like his,

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