ALONE. 411 CHAPTER XLII. A DESOLATED HOME-NEW CLUB FOUNDED-" A PIOUS NEGOTIATION "ANOTHER FAREWELL. (1783-1784.) On his return from Heale, Johnson wrote to Dr. Burney :- " I came home on the 18th of September, at noon, to a very disconsolate house. You and I have lost our friends; but you have more friends at home. My domestic companion is taken from She is much missed, for her acquisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; so that she partook of every conversation. I am not well enough to go much out; and to sit, and eat, or fast alone, is very wearisome. I always mean to send my com me. pliments to all the ladies." The paralysis had been got over: but he was now suffering severely from the gout and another complaint which threatened to require a surgical operation. 66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. "DEAR SIR, "London, Sept. 29, 1783. "You may very reasonably charge me with insensibility of your kindness and that of Lady Rothes, since I have suffered so much time to pass without paying any acknowledgment. I now, at last, return my thanks; and why I did it not sooner I ought to tell you. I went into Wiltshire as soon as I well could, and was there much employed in palliating my own malady. Disease produces much selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease; and lets most other things go as chance shall dispose of them. 412 “WE THAT ARE LEFT MUST CLING CLOSER.” In the meantime I have lost a companion, to whom I have had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted; and now return to a habitation vacant and desolate. I carry about a very troublesome and dangerous complaint which admits no cure but by the chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers. "I am, &c., "SAM. JOHNSON." After all, however, "the chirurgical knife" was not called into requisition; the trouble having abated without amputation. "TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. "DEAR MADAM, "Bolt Court, Fleet Street, Nov. 10, 1783. "The death of poor Mr. Porter, of which your maid has sent an account, must have very much surprised you. The death of a friend is almost always unexpected: we do not love to think of it, and therefore are not prepared for its coming. He was, I think, a religious man, and therefore that his end was happy. "Death has likewise visited my mournful habitation. Last month died Mrs. Williams, who had been to me for thirty years in the place of a sister: her knowledge was great, and her conversation pleasing. I now live in cheerless solitude. "My two last years have passed under the pressure of successive diseases. I have lately had the gout with some severity. But I wonderfully escaped the operation which I mentioned, and am upon the whole restored to health beyond my own expectation. "As we daily see our friends die round us, we that are left must cling closer, and, if we can do nothing more, at least pray for one another; and remember, that as others die we must die too, and prepare ourselves diligently for the last great trial. “I am, Madam, "Yours affectionately, "SAM. JOHNSON." A NOBLE OFFER OF HELP. 413 To say that distress tries friends is trite, but it is not therefore unnecessary to record that Johnson's friends, one and all, nobly stood the test. The Honourable Gerard Hamilton, for example, sent to Dr. Brocklesby inquiring whether this long illness had brought his patient into pecuniary difficulties, and offering to supply whatever might be needed. This generous offer was acknowledged in the following letter: "TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. "DEAR SIR, "November 19, 1783. "Your kind inquiries after my affairs, and your generous offers, have been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby. I return thanks with great sincerity, having lived long enough to know what gratitude is due to your friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, in no want. Sickness is, by the generosity of my physicians, of little expense to me. But if any unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear Sir, how cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality. "I am, Sir, "Your most obedient and most humble Servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." Johnson was only sad when he could not help it: he was not like philosopher Jacques, who thought himself a fine fellow simply because he was always moping. Even in the midst of those dismal days the social element in the Doctor was constantly getting the better of all his sorrows. He passionately loved his kind; and, in order to secure for himself company on three evenings every week, he instituted, about this time, a Club at the Essex Head, in Essex Street, then kept by one Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. This letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds will give all the account of the Club which we here require : JOHNSON'S SOCIALITY. 414 "DEAR SIR, "Dec. 4, 1783. "It is inconvenient to me to come out; I should else have waited on you with an account of a little evening Club which we are establishing in Essex-street, in the Strand, and of which you are desired to be one. It will be held at the Essex Head, now kept by an old servant of Thrale's. The company is numerous, and, as you will see by the list, miscellaneous. The terms are lax, and the expenses light. Mr. Barry was adopted by Dr. Brocklesby, who joined with me in forming the plan. We meet thrice a week, and he who misses forfeits threepence. "If you are willing to become a member, draw a line under your name. Return the list. We meet for the first time on Monday at eight. "I am, &c., "SAM. JOHNSON." Johnson, in his Dictionary, has defined a Club to be "an assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions." The conditions of this new Club the Doctor himself drew up, heading them with a quotation from Milton :— "To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench But, although he had the pleasure of founding this association of "good fellows," he was not permitted to enjoy many of their meetings. About the middle of December he was seized with a spasmodic asthma of such violence that he was confined to the house for months after, and in great pain-being obliged sometimes to sit up all night in his chair, a recumbent position rendering respiration almost impossible. This trouble was further complicated by a dropsy that accompanied it. The winter also was severe; his household solitude intense; and not even the visits of his friends, which he never discouraged in his worst hours, could dispel the cloud of sad memories that arose with every look at the empty chairs of his two dead companions, who had gone and left him alone. "DEATH, MY DEAR, IS VERY DREADFUL" 415 66 TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. “MY DEAREST Love, "Feb. 23, 1784. "I have been extremely ill of an asthma and dropsy, but received, by the mercy of GOD, sudden and unexpected relief last Thursday, by the discharge of twenty pints of water. Whether I shall continue free, or shall fill again, cannot be told. Pray for me. "Death, my dear, is very dreadful: let us think nothing worth our care but how to prepare for it; what we know amiss in ourselves let us make haste to amend, and put our trust in the mercy of GOD, and the intercession of our SAVIOUR. "I am, dear Madam, "Your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." "TO THE REV. DR, TAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE. "DEAR SIR, "London, Easter Monday, "What can be the reason that I hear nothing from you? I hope nothing disables you from writing. What I have seen, and what I have felt, gives me reason to fear everything. Do not omit giving me the comfort of knowing, that after all my losses I have yet a friend left. "I want every comfort. My life is very solitary and very cheerless. Though it has pleased GOD wonderfully to deliver me from the dropsy, I am yet very weak, and have not passed the door since the 13th of December. I hope for some help from warm weather, which will surely come in time. "I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church yesterday: I therefore received the holy sacrament at home, in the room where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before her death. O, my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and |