of body gained no increase, and the water gradually encroached upon him again.

While he was struggling with a difficult respiration, and drooping with languor and debility, he composed several Prayers adapted to his circumstances, in a strain of humble, penetential piety; and translated a serious Ode from Horace (Lib. iv. Ode vii.) on the changes of nature, and the vicissitudes of the seasons, in the anticipation of the approach of his own inevitable dissolution.

During his stay at Ashbourne, Mr David Barclay, the friend of Mr Scott, the amiable poet of Amwell, knowing that he respected his deceased friend ; and judging that some

An elegant paraphrastie translation of this Ode is printed among Hamilton's Poems, "Works of the British Poets," vol. ix. p. 421.

+ Grandson of the Apologist of the Quakers.

He died on the 12th December 1783, in the 54th year of his of his age. See the Life of Scott, « Works of the British Poets," vol. xi. p. 717-28.

anecdotes of so deserving a character ought to be handed down to posterity, requested him to write an Account of his Life, to be prefixed to a posthumous volume of "Essays," then in the press, for which he would endeavour to furnish materials. To this application, Johnson, ever ready to pay attention to the calls of friendship and benevolence, returned, Sept. 16th, the following answer.

"As I have made some advances towards recovery, and loved Mr Scott, I am willing to do justice to his memory. You will be pleased to get what account you can of his life, with dates; and when I return we will contrive how our materials can be best employed." *

The miserable state of his health, declining from this time, almost daily, having prevented him from undertaking the biography of Mr Scott, and frustrated the kind intentions of Mr Barclay, the task of recording the particulars of his life devolved on his friend Mr Hoole, which he performed with equal truth and tenderness.

Scott's Critical Essays," &c. 8vo. 1785.

Having protracted his stay at Ashbourne beyond two months, without obtaining the alleviation of his complaints which his wishes persuaded him to expect, he grew weary of solitude, and, on the 27th of September, removed to Lichfield, a place of more society and amusement, but otherwise of less convenience.

As he had now very faint hopes of recovery, it might have been supposed that he would naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his step-daughter, Miss Porter, surrounded by friends who loved and revered him, and for whom he had a very sin cere affection, and ended his life where he drew his first breath; but he still found that such conversation as London affords, could be found no where else. "The town," he said to Dr Brocklesby, "is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid farewel; and there are my amusements."

* Boswell's Life, &c. vol. iv. p. 177.

He lingered in Lichfield, in a languid condition, till the beginning of November, when he took a last view of his native city, and came to Birmingham, where he passed a few days with his old school-fellow Mr Hector, and his sister Mrs Careless, the object of his early affection and constant attachment. He then proceeded to Oxford, which he left after four days, and arrived in London on the 16th of November, after an absence of four months.

The fine and firm feelings of friendship which occupied so large a portion of Johnson's heart, were eminently displayed in the affectionate correspondence which he maintained, and the many tender interviews which took place between him and his friends, during his excursion into Derbyshire and Staffordshire; an excursion which seems to have been undertaken, rather from a sense of his approaching dissolution, and a warm wish to bid those he loved a last and long farewel,

*This early and worthy friend of Johnson died at Birmingham, Sept. 2. 1794.

than from any rational hope that air and exercise would restore him to his former health and vigour.

Soon after he came home, both the asthma and dropsy, which never left him, became more violent and distressful. Contemplating a constitution broken by sickness and age, and finding very little ground for hope that he had much longer to live, he prepared to meet the doom, from which there is no exemption to man, with firmness and resignation. Eternity presented to his imaginanation an awful prospect; and with as much virtue as, in general, is the lot of man, he shuddered at the approach of his dissolution. He felt strong perturbations of mind. His friends endeavoured all in their power to awaken the comfortable reflections of a life well spent, and calm the fears of the approaching trial. They prayed fervently with him; and he poured out occasionally the warmest effusions of piety and devotion.

From the 6th of July he had kept a journal of the state of his illness, and the remedies