he had fo eloquently enumerated in his Vanity of Human Wishes.

On the 17th of June 1783, he was afflicted with a paralytic ftroke, which deprived him of fpeech; from which, however, he gradually recovered; fo that in July he was able to make a vifit to Mr. Langton, at Rochefter; and made little excurfions, as eafily as at any time of his life.

In September, while he was on a vifit at Heale, the feat of Mr. Bowles, in Wiltshire, he loft Mrs. Williams, whofe death he lamented with all the tenderness which a long connection naturally inspires. This was another fhock to a mind like his, ever agitated with the dread of his own diffolution.

Befides the palfy, he was all this year afflicted with the gout, as well as with a farcocele, which he bore with uncommon firmnefs.

In December, he fought a weak refuge from anxiety, in the inftitution of a week

ly club, at the Effex Head, in Effex Street,

then kept by an old fervant of Mr. Thrale's; but the amusement which he promised himself from this inftitution, was but of fhort duration.

In the beginning of the year 1784, he was feized with a fpafmodic asthma, which was foon accompanied by fome degree of dropfy. From the latter of these complaints, however, he was greatly relieved by a courfe of medicine,

The interval of convalefcence, which he enjoyed during the fummer, induced him to express a wish to vifit Italy. Upon this fubject, however, his wishes had been anticipated by the anxiety of his friends to preferve his health. His penfion not being deemed by them adequate to support the expence of the journey, application was made to the minifter, by Mr. Bofwell and Sir Joshua Reynolds, unknown to Johnson, through Lord Chancellor Thurlow, for an

augmentation of it, by 2001. The application was unsuccessful; but the Chancellor, in the handsomest manner, offered to let him have 500l. from his own purse, under the appellation of a loan, but with the intention of conferring it as a prefent. It is also to be recorded to the honour of Dr. Brocklefby, that he offered to contribute 100l. per annum, during his refidence abroad. Johnson, however, declined both thefe offers, with a gratitude and dignity of sentiment, rifing almost to an equal elevation with the generofity of Lord Thurlow, and Dr. Brocklesby; and, indeed, he was now approaching faft to a state in which money could be of no avail.

In the beginning of July, he fet out on a vifit to Dr. Taylor, at Afhbourn in Derbyfhire, where his complaints appear to have met with but little alleviation. From Derbyshire he proceeded to Litchfield, to take a last view of his native city. After leaving Litchfield, he vifited Birmingham and

Oxford, and arrived in London on the 16th

of November.

The fine and firm feelings of friendship which occupied fo large a portion of Johnfon's heart, were eminently difplayed, in the many tender interviews which took place between him and his friends in the country, during his excurfion into the North: an excurfion which feems to have been undertaken rather from a sense of his approaching diffolution, and a warm wish to bid those he loved a last and long farewel, than from any rational hope that air and exercife would restore him to his former health and vigour.

Soon after his return to London, both the asthma and dropfy became more violent and diftressful. Eternity prefented to his imagination an awful profpect, and with as much virtue as in general is the lot of man, he fhuddered at the approach of his diffolution. He felt ftrong perturbations of mind.

His friends endeavoured all in their power to awaken the comfortable reflections of a life well spent. They prayed with him ; and Johnfon poured out occafionally the warmeft effufions of piety and devotion.

He had for fome time kept a journal in Latin of the ftate of his illness, and the remedies which he ufed, under the title of Egri Ephemeris, which he began on the 6th July, but continued it no longer than the 8th November, finding, perhaps, that it was a mournful and unavailing register.

His attention to the caufe of literature was evinced, among other circumstances, by his communicating to Mr. Nichols a lift of the original authors of "The Univerfal History," mentioning their feveral fhares in that work. It has, according to his direction, been depofited in the British Mufeum," and is printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1784. His integrity was evinced, by paying a small debt

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