endeavoured to make it believed, that he was a mere moralift, and that, when writing on religious fubjects, he accommodated himself to the notions of the vulgar: and alfo, because a certain female fceptic, of his acquaintance, was once heard to fay, that fhe was fure Dr. Johnson was too great a philofopher to be a believer. From this digreffion, which I mean as an introduction to certain particulars of his behaviour in his laft illness, hereafter related, I proceed to the future events of his life. In the year 1781, death put an end to the friendship that, for fome years, had fubfifted between him and Mr. Thrale, but gave birth to a relation that feemed to be but a continuation of it, viz. that of an executor, the duties of which office involved in it the management of an immenfe trade, the difpofal of a large fortune, and the interests of children rifing to maturity. For the trouble it might create him, Mr. Thrale bequeathed to him, as he did to each of his other executors, a legacy of two hundred pounds. Dr. Johnson was not enough a man of the world to be capable alone of fo important a truft. Indeed, it required, for the execution of it, fomewhat like a board, a kind of standing council, adapted, by the feveral qualifications of the individuals that compofed it, to all emergencies. Mr. Thrale wifely forefaw this, and affociated with Johnson three other perfons, men of great experience in bufinefs, and of approved worth and integrity. It was eafy to fee, as Johnfon was unskilled in both money and commercial transactions, that Mr. Thrale's view, in conftituting him one of his executors, could only be, that, by his philofophical prudence Nn 2 prudence and fagacity, of which himfelf had, in fome inftances, found the benefit*, he might give a general direction to the motions of fo vast a machine as they had to conduct. Perhaps he might alfo think, that the celebrity of Johnfon's character would give a luftre to that conftellation, in which he had thought proper to place him. This may be called vanity, but it feems to be of the fame kind with that which induced Mr. Pope to appoint Mr. Murray, now carl of Mansfield, one of the executors of his will. No fooner had this trust devolved on him, than he applied to me for advice. He had never been an executor before, and was at a lofs in the steps to be taken. I told him the firft was proving the will, a term that he understood not. I explained it to him, as alfo the oath that would be tendered to him, faithfully to execute it, to adminifter the teftator's effects according to law, and to render a true account thereof when required. I told him that in this act he would be joined by the other executors, whom, as they were all men of bufinefs, he would do well to follow. * A few years before Mr. Thrale's death, an emulation arcfe among the brewers to exceed each other in the magnitude of their veffels for keeping beer to a certain age, probably taking the hint from the great tun at Heidelburg. One of that trade, I think it was Mr. Whitbread, had made one that would hold fome thoufand barrels, the thought whereof troubled Mr. Thrale, and made him repeat, from Plutarch, a faying of Themistocles, The trophies of Miltiades hinder my fleeping;' Johnfon, by fober reasoning, quieted him, and prevented his expending a large fum on what could be productive of no real benefit to him or his trade. Johnfon had all his life long been used to lead, to direct, and inftruct, and did not much relish the thoughts of following men, who, in all the fituations he could conceive, would have looked up to him he therefore, as he afterwards confeffed to me, began to form theories and vifionary projects, adapted as well to the continuation and extenfion of the trade, which, be it remembered, was brewing, as the difpofal of it; but in this, as he also acknowledged, he found himself at a loss. The other executors, after reflecting on the difficulty of conducting fo large an undertaking, the difagreeableness of an office that would render them, in effect, tax-gatherers, as all of that trade are, and place them in a fituation between the public and the revenue, determined to make fale of the whole, and blew up Johnfon's fchemes for their commencing brewers, into the air. In the carrying this refolution into act, the executors had a great difficulty to encounter: Mr. Thrale's trade had been improving for two generations, and was become of fuch an enormous magnitude, as nothing but an aggregate of feveral fortunes was equal to; a circumftance, which could not but affect the intrinsic value of the object, and increafe the difficulty of finding purchafers of things indivifible expofed to fale, an eftimate may be formed, till their value rifes to a certain amount; but, after that, a confiderable abatement from their intrinfic worth must be made, to meet the circumftance of a paucity of purchasers. This was the cafe in the fale of Pitt's diamond, which, in the ratio by which jewels are valued, was computed to be worth 225,000 1. but, because Nn3 only only a very few perfons were able to purchase it, was fold to the laft king of France for little more than 67,000l. This difficulty, great as it was, Mr. Thrale's executors found the way to furmount: they commenced a negociation with fome perfons of worth and character, which, being conducted on both fides with fairness and candour, terminated in a conveyance of the trade, with all its appendages, for which the confideration was, an hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Of this arduous tranfaction, Johnson was little more than a fpectator, and, when called upon to ratify it, he readily acquiefced. There only remained for him to do juftice to the memory of him, whom he could not but confider as both his friend and benefactor, and this he did, by an exercise of his talent, in the following monumental infcription: Hic conditur quod reliquum eft Ut quam brevem effet habiturus prefcire videretur ; In fenatu, regi, patriæque, Vulgi obftrepentis contemptor animofus : Conciliis, Conciliis, auctoritate, muneribus adfuit. Confortes tumuli habet Rodolphum patrem, Præripuit, Domus felix et opulenta, quam erexit Et vicibus rerum humanarum perfpectis, The death of Mr. Thrale diffolved the friendship between him and Johnson; but it abated not in the latter, that care for the interefts of those whom his friend had left behind him, which he thought himself bound to cherish, as a living principle of gratitude. The favours he had received from Mr. Thrale, were to be repaid by the exercife of kind offices towards his relict and her children, and these, circumstanced as Johnson was, could only be prudent councils, friendly admonition to the one, and preceptive inftruction to the others, both which he was ever ready to interpofe. Nevertheless, it was obferved by myself, and other of Johnson's friends, that, foon after the decease of Mr. Thrale, his vifits to Streatham be |