Very ill again Dr. Johnson grew on the approach of winter; and with equal fear and affection, both father and daughter sought him as often as it was in their power; though by no means as frequently as their zealous attachment, or as his own kind wishes might have prompted. But fullness of affairs, and the distance of his dwelling, impeded such continual intercourse as their mutual regard would otherwise have instigated.
This new failure of health was accompanied by a sorrowing depression of spirits; though unmixt with the smallest deterioration of intellect.
One evening,—the last but one of the sad year 1783,—when Dr. Burney and the Memorialist were with him, and some other not remembered visitors, he took an opportunity during a general discourse in which he did not join, to turn suddenly to the ever-favoured daughter, and, fervently grasping her hand, to say: “The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens!—but I will not terrify myself by talking of them.—Ah!—priez Dieu pour moi!”
Her promise was as solemn as it was sorrowful; but more humble, if possible, than either. That such a man should condescend to make her such a request, amazed, and almost bewildered her: yet, to a mind so devout as that of Dr. Johnson, prayer, even from the most lowly, never seemed presumptuous; and even—where he believed in its sincerity, soothed him—for a passing moment—with an idea that it might be propitious.
This was the only instance in which Dr. Johnson ever addressed her in French. He did not wish so serious an injunction to reach other ears than her own.
But those who imagine that the fear of death, which, at this period, was the prominent feature of the mind of Dr. Johnson; and which excited not more commiseration than wonder in the observers and commentators of the day; was the effect of conscious criminality; or produced by a latent belief that he had sinned more than his fellow sinners, knew not Dr. Johnson! He thought not ill of himself as compared with his human brethren: but he weighed, in the rigid scales of his calculating justice, the great talent which he had received, against the uses of it which he had made — —
And found himself wanting!
Could it be otherwise, to one who had a conscience poignantly alive to a sense of duty, and religiously submissive to the awards of retributive responsibility?
If those, therefore, who ignorantly have marvelled, or who maliciously would triumph at the terror of death in the pious, would sincerely and severely bow down to a similar self-examination, the marvel would subside, and the triumph might perhaps turn to blushes! in considering—not the trembling inferiority, but the sublime humility of this ablest and most dauntless of Men, but humblest and most orthodox of Christians.