The picture of the old man in his last illness, surrounded by the friends whom he had cherished so faithfully, and who now delighted to testify their respect and affection for him, and brighten his lingering days with every attention, has little of the customary horror of a death-bed. It is strange indeed that he who had always been subject to such a dread of dying should have found it possible to meet the hour of dissolution with such composure. His old friend Sir Joshua Reynolds comes in to bid him farewell, and Johnson makes three requests of him,—to forgive him thirty pounds which he had borrowed from him, to read the Bible, and never to use his pencil on a Sunday. Good petitions, which Sir Joshua readily granted, although we cannot help fearing that he occasionally forgot the last.
“Tell me,” says the sick man to his physician, “can I possibly recover? Give me a direct answer.” Being hard pressed, Dr. Brocklesby confesses that in his opinion recovery is out of the question. “Then,” says Johnson, “I will take no more physick, not even my opiates: for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.”
And so with kind and thoughtful words to his servant, and a “God bless you, my dear” to the young daughter of a friend who stood lingering at the door of his room, this sturdy old believer went out to meet the God whom he had tried so honestly to serve. His life was an amazing victory over poverty, sickness, and sin. Greatness alone could not have insured, nor could perseverance alone have commanded, three of his good fortunes in this world: that Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his portrait; that Boswell wrote his biography; and that His Wife said of him that “he was the most sensible man she had ever met.”