talize his name, and has fecured that rational esteem which party or partiality could not procure, and which even the injudicious zeal of his friends has not been able to leffen.

From the close of his laft great work, the malady that perfecuted him through life, came upon him with redoubled force. His conftitution declined fast, and the fabric of his mind feemed to be tottering. The contemplation of his approaching end was conftantly before his eyes; and the prospect of death, he declared, was terrible.

On the 4th of May 1781, he loft his valuable friend Thrale, who appointed him one of his executors, with a legacy of 2001. "I felt," he faid, "almoft the laft flutter of his pulfe, and looked for the last time upon the face that, for fifteen years, had

never been turned upon fpect and benignity."

me but with re

Of his departed

friend he has given a true character in a Latin Epitaph, to be feen in the church of

Streatham.

With Thrale, many of the comforts of Johnson's life may be faid to have expired. In the course of 1782, he complains that he paffed the fummer at Streatham, but there was no Thrale." In the fame year, he received another fhock. He was fuddenly deprived of his old domeftic companion Levett, and paid a tribute to his memory in an affecting and characteristic Elegy.

The fucceffive loffes of those acquaintances whom kindness had rendered dear, or habit made neceffary to him, reminded Johnson of his own mortality.

After the death of Thrale, his vifits to Streatham, where he no longer looked upon himself as a welcome gueft, became less and lefs frequent; and on the 5th of April 1783, he took his final leave of Mrs. Thrale,

to whom, for near twenty years, he was under the higheft obligations.

"The original reafon of our connection," fays Mrs. Piozzi, in her lively and entertaining" Anecdotes," his particularly difordered health and fpirits, had been long at an end. Veneration for his virtues, reverence for his talents, delight in his converfation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for fixteen or feventeen years, made me go on fo long with Mr. Johnfon; but the perpetual confinement, I will own to have been terrifying in the firft years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; nor would I pretend to fupport it without help, when my coadjutor was no more.”

A friendly correfpondence continued, however, between Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, without interruption, till the fummer following, when she retired to Bath, and in

formed him, that fhe was going to difpofe of herself in marriage to Signior Piozzi, an Italian music master. Johnson, in his relation of executor to her husband, as alfo in gratitude to his memory, was under an obligation to promote the welfare of his family. He endeavoured, therefore, by prudent counfels and friendly admonition, to prevent that which he thought one of the greatest evils which could befal the children of his friend, the alienation of the affections of their mother. "The anfwer to his friendly monition," fays Sir John Hawkins, "I have feen; it is written from Bath, and contains an indignant vindication, as well of her conduct as her fame, an inhibition of Johnfon from following her to Bath, and a farewel, concluding, "Till you have changed your opinion of let us converfe no more." In his laft letter, 8th July 1784, directed to Mrs. Piozzi, who then had announced her mar

riage to him, he fays, "I breathe out one figh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least fincere." He gives her his best advice, and adds, "the tears ftand in my eyes."

Excluded from the dwelling and family of his friend, he was compelled to return to his own houfe, to fpend cheerless hours among the objects of his bounty, when increafing age and infirmities had made their company more obnoxious than when he left them, and the fociety of which he had been recently deprived, rendered him, by comparison, lefs patient to endure it.

From this time, the narrative of his life is little more than a recital of the preffures of melancholy and disease, and of numberlefs excurfions, taken to calm his anxiety, and foothe his apprehenfions of the terrors of death, by flying, as it were, from himfelf. He was now doomed to feel all those calamities incident to length of days, which