ing of its substance, or effusion serous or sanguineous.

There is great reason to believe that one of these terminations took place in the case of Pope several years before his death, as it was found to have done in the case of Swift, and more recently in that of Scott. Even when Pope was apparently in the enjoyment of tolerable health, he had evident symptoms of pressure on the brain, or at least of an unequal and imperfect distribution of the blood in that organ. Those symptoms are only noticed by his contemporaries as curious phenomena connected with his habits of life. Spence says he frequently complained of seeing every thing in the room as through a curtain, and on another occasion of seeing false colours on certain objects. At another time, on a sick bed, he asked Dodsley what arm it was that had the appearance of coming out from the wall; and at another period he told Spence, if he had any vanity, he had enough to mortify it a few days before, for he had lost his mind for a whole day. Well might Bolingbroke say," the greatest hero is nothing under a certain state of the nerves; his mind becomes like a fine ring of bells, jangled and out of tune!"

The debility of his constitution in his latter years rendered his existence burthensome to himself

and others; his irritability increased with his infirmities, and the peevishness of disease was aggravated by the unkindness and unfeeling conduct of the woman who had been his companion and attendant for many years. The frequent expression of his weariness of life hardly deserves the suspicion of affection which Johnson entertained of its sincerity. Surely there must have been no little inherent melancholy in the temperament of a man, who in Johnson's own words, "by no merriment either of others or his own, was ever seen excited to laughter."

For five years previous to his decease he had been afflicted with asthma; his constitution was completely shattered, and at length dropsy, the common attendant on long sufferings and extreme debility, made its appearance. He was for some time delirious, but a day or two before his death he became collected. He was asked whether a Catholic priest should not be called to him: he replied, "I do not think it is essential, but it will be very right, and I thank you for putting me in mind of it.". The calm self-possession, the dignity, and the decorum of his reply, well became the last moments of a Christian philosopher; the forms of his religion had no hold on his affections, but that was no reason why its duties should be neglected, or why the feelings of those who believed in the

efficacy of its forms should be outraged. Death at length happily terminated the sufferings of a life which was a long disease, for such was the career of Pope, from his cradle to the tomb, in which he was deposited in his fifty-sixth

year.

Whatever were his infirmities, however great their influence on his temper or his conduct, it appears that neither his irascibility, nor his capriciousness, had ever estranged a real friend. His biographer, who has spared none of his ́ failings, has admitted this fact. The cause of his defects was too obvious to those who were familiar with him, to be overlooked; they knew that ill-health had an unfavourable influence on his character, and that knowledge was sufficient to shield his errors from inconsiderate censure, and uncharitable severity.

CHAPTER XVI.

JOHNSON.

"THERE are many invisible circumstances," says the author of the Rambler, "which, whether we read as inquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than public occurrences. All the plans and enterprises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world, than that part of his personal character which represents him as careful of his health, and negligent of his life.”

There are three peculiarities in Johnson's character which every one is aware of, his irascibility, his superstition, and his fear of death; but there are very many acquainted with these singular inconsistencies of so great a mind, who are ignorant, or at least unobservant, of that malady under which he laboured, from manhood to the close of life, the symptoms of which disease are invariably those very moral infirmities of temper and judgment, which were his well known defects.

Few, indeed, are ignorant that he was subject to great depression of spirits, amounting almost to despair, but generally speaking, the precise nature of his disorder, and the extent of its influence over the mental faculties, are very little considered.

There are a train of symptoms belonging to a particular disease described by Cullen, and amongst them it is worth while to consider whether the anomalies that have been alluded to in the character of Johnson are to be discovered. The following are Cullen's terms:

"A disposition to seriousness, sadness, and timidity as to all future events, an apprehension of the worst and most unhappy state of them, and, therefore, often on slight grounds, an apprehension of great evil. Such persons are particularly attentive to the state of their own health, to every the smallest change of feeling in their bodies; and from any unusual sensation, perhaps of the slightest kind, they apprehend great danger and even death itself. In respect to these feelings and fears, there is commonly the most obstinate belief and persuasion." It is needless to say, the disease that is spoken of is hypochondria. Whether Johnson was its victim, or whether the defects in his character were original imperfections and infirmities, natural to his disposition, remains to be shown in the following pages.