ACCOUNT OF THE LAST MOMENTS OF THE CELEBRATED DR. JOHNSON.
He arrived in London on the 16th of November, and next day sent to Dr. Burney, the following note:
“Mr. Johnson, who came home last night, send his respects to dear Dr. Burney, and all the dear Burneys, little and great.”
Soon after his return to the metropolis, both the asthma and dropsy became more violent and distressful. He had for some time kept a journal in Latin, of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he had used, under the title of “Aegri Ephemeris,” which he began on the 6th of July, but continued it no longer then the 8th of November; finding, probably, that it was a mournful and unavailing register.
Dr. Herberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren, and Dr. Butter, physicians, generously attended him, without accepting of any fees, as did Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; and all that could be done, from professional skill and ability, was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He himself, indeed, having on account of his very bad constitution, been perpetually applying himself to medical enquiries, united his own efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him, might be drawn off, by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too tenderly.
About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby paid him his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, “I have been as a dying man all night.” He then emphatically broke out, in the words of Shakspeare,
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d?
“Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?
“Raze out the written troubles of the brain?
“And with some sweet oblivious antidote,
“Cleanse the full bosom of that perilous stuff,
“Which weighs upon the heart.”
To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered from the same great poet,
“——————therein the patient
“Must minister unto himself.”
Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application.
On another day after this, when talking on the same subject of prayer, Dr. Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,
“Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano,”
and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly over, he happened in the line
“Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat,”
to pronounce “supremum,” for “extremum;” at which Johnson’s critical ear infirmly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit of the grammarian.
Having no near relations, it had been for some time Johnson’s intention to make a liberal provision for his faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber, whom he had all along treated truly as an humble friend. Having asked Dr. Brocklesby what would be a proper annuity to bequeath to a favourite servant, and being answered that it must depend on the circumstances of the master; and that in the case of a nobleman fifty pounds a-year was considered as an adequate reward for many years faithful service. “Then,” said Johnson, “shall I be nobilissimus, for I mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a-year, and I desire you to tell him so.” It is strange, however, to think, that Johnson was not free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so that he delayed it from time to time; and had it not been for Sir John Hawkins’s repeatedly urging it, it is probable that his kind resolution would not have been fulfilled.
Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the mind of the dying Johnson, his characteristical manner shewed itself on different occasions.
A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to sit up with him. Being asked next morning how he liked his attendant, his answer was, “Not at all, Sir. The fellow is an idiot; he is as awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.”
(To be concluded in our next.)
For sources, see the end of the final segment (page [76]).
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.