At the beginning of June he had sufficiently rallied his strength to set out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse, there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as there had ever been.
Several of his friends were now anxious that he should escape the rigour of an English winter by repairing to Italy, a measure which his physicians recommended, not very earnestly indeed, and more I think in compliance with his known wishes, than in expectation of much benefit to his health. It was thought requisite, however, that some addition should previously be made to his income, in order to his maintaining an appearance somewhat suitable to the character which he had established throughout Europe by his writings. For this purpose, Boswell addressed an application to the Ministry, through Lord Thurlow, who was then Chancellor. After some accidental delay, and some unsuccessful negotiation on the part of Lord Thurlow, who was well disposed to befriend him, during which time Johnson was again buoyed up with the prospect of visiting Italy, an answer was returned which left him no reason to expect from Government any further assistance than that which he was then receiving in the pension already granted him. This refusal the Chancellor accompanied with a munificent offer of supply out of his own purse, which he endeavoured to convey in such a manner as should least alarm the independent spirit of Johnson. "It would be a reflection on us all, (said Thurlow,) if such a man should perish for want of the means to take care of his health." The abilities of Thurlow had always been held in high estimation by Johnson, who had been heard to say of him, "I would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet with him, I should wish to know a day before." One day, while this scheme was pending, Johnson being at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was overcome by the tenderness of his friends, and by the near view, as he thought, of this long-hoped Italian tour being effected, and exclaimed with much emotion, "God bless you all;" and then, after a short silence, again repeating the words in a form yet more solemn, was no longer able to command his feelings, but hurried away to regain his composure in solitude.
After all these efforts, Johnson was fated to disappointment; and the authors of his disappointment have incurred the sentence denounced on them by the humanity of Thurlow. In this, Dr. Brocklesby, the physician, has no share; for by him a noble offer of £100 a year was made to Johnson during his life.
In the meantime he had paid the summer visit, which had now become almost an annual one to his daughter-in-law, at Lichfield, from whence he made an excursion to Dr. Taylor's, at Ashbourne, and to Chatsworth, still labouring under his asthma, but willing to believe that as Floyer, the celebrated physician of his native city, had been allowed to pant on till near ninety, so he might also yet pant on a little longer. Whilst he was on this journey, he translated an ode of Horace, and composed several prayers. As he passed through Birmingham and Oxford, he once more hailed his old schoolfellow Hector, and his fellow collegian, Adams. It is delightful to see early intimacies thus enduring through all the accidents of life, local attachments unsevered by time, and the old age and childhood of man bound together by these natural charities. The same willow tree which Johnson had known when a boy, was still his favourite, and still flourishing in the meadow, near Lichfield. Hector (whom I can remember several years after, a man of erect form, and grave deportment) still met him with the same, or perhaps more cordiality than in their first days; and the virtues of Adams, which he had seen opening in their early promise, had now grown up to full maturity. To London he returned, only to prove that death was not the terrible thing which he had fancied it. He arrived there on the 15th of November. In little more than a fortnight after, when Dr. Brocklesby (with whom three other eminent physicians, and a chirurgeon, were in the habit of attending him gratuitously) was paying him a morning visit, he said that he had been as a dying man all night, and then with much emphasis repeated the words of Macbeth:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
To which Brocklesby promptly returned the answer, which is made by the doctor in that play,
—Therein the patient
Must minister unto himself.
He now committed to the flames a large mass of papers, among which were two 4to. volumes, containing a particular account of his life, from his earliest recollections.
His few remaining days were occasionally cheered by the presence of such men as have been collected about a death-bed in few ages and countries of the world—Langton, Reynolds, Windham, and Burke. Of these, none was more attentive to him than Mr. Langton, of whom he had been heard to say, I could almost wish "anima mea sit cum Langtono," and whom he now addressed in the tender words of Tibullus,
Te teneam moriens deficiente manu.