Slike strani
PDF
ePub

left a lasting memorial of his worth in verses, of which the following are the most striking:

Well try'd through many a varying year,
See Levett to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,

Of every friendless name, the friend.

In misery's darkest caverns known,
His ready help was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan
And lonely want retired to die.

No summons mock'd by chill delay,
No petty gains disdain'd by pride:
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supply'd.

His virtues walk'd their narrow round
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the eternal Master found
His single talent well employ'd.

The blind Miss Williams, a lady, according to Johnson, "of universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge" had lived for many years under his roof, and apparently acted as his housekeeper. She died in 1783, and the old man felt the loneliness of age.

Mr. Thrale had died in 1781, and no death, Johnson wrote, since the death of his wife, had ever oppressed him so much. It was destined, as his prophetic soul probably told him, to effect a complete change in his life. The widow, who was greatly her husband's junior and still in the prime of life, sighed for an affection which she had not found in the wealthy brewer. She fell in love with Piozzi, an Italian musician, and after

[graphic][merged small]

From a painting at one time in the possession of Archdeacon Cambridge.

suffering much from opposition, married him and spent the rest of her life in Italy. The loss of the familiar companion and of the pleasant home which had sheltered him for nearly twenty years was a painful blow to Johnson. Piozzi was a true gentleman, and proved an affectionate husband; but he was a "fiddler " and a Roman Catholic. Mrs. Thrale had daughters growing into womanhood, and in the eyes of the world such a marriage would be deemed degrading. Degrading Johnson thought it, and personal feelings added weight to his anger. Mrs. Thrale wrote a friendly letter to her old monitor, and received an outrageous reply:

Madam,

If I interpret your letter rightly you are ignominiously married. If it is yet undone let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion God forgive your wickedness. If you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and served you--I who have long thought you the first of womankind-entreat that before your fate is irrevocable I may once more see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours, SAM. JOHNSON.

Johnson's anger is inexcusable, or would be if we did not remember that he was suffering not only from the loss of a happy home and of his dearest friend, but from old age and disease. He had but six months to live, and no doubt hoped that the affectionate nurse who had cared for him so long and tenderly would soothe his dying hours. After a visit to some old friends in Lichfield, Birmingham and Oxford, he went back to Bolt Court to die, November 16, 1784. It does not appear that he had any female attendant; and of a man who sat up with him one night he said, "Sir, the fellow's an idiot; he's as awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse." In his last hours he was visited by Langton and Windham, Reynolds and Burke; and one day when four or five friends sat round his bed, Burke said: "I am afraid, sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you." "No sir," said Johnson, "it is not so, and I must be in a wretched state indeed when your company would not be a delight to me." "My dear sir," replied Burke in a tremulous voice, "you have always been too good to me." When the doctor told him that in his opinion he could not recover, "Then," said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, not even my opiates, for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded." Fanny Burney, "the dearest of all ladies," when he was too ill to see her, sat weeping on the staircase. There had been a long and affectionate farewell visit on the 25th November, when he asked for her prayers and was touchingly affectionate, and on December 13th he died. "He has made a chasm," said Gerard Hamilton, "which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Let us go to the next best. There is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."

« PrejšnjaNaprej »