CHAPTER XVIII.

JOHNSON CONTINUED.

JOHNSON's disorder (if we may be allowed the expression) had three phases, the character of each of which distinghished a particular period of his career, or rather predominated at a particular period, for it cannot be said that the hues of each were not occasionally blended. At twenty, however, his despondency was of a religious kind: about forty-five "his melancholy was at its meridian," and then had the shape of a fierce irritability, venting itself in irascibility of temper, and fits of capricious arrogance.

At the full period of "three-score years and ten," the leading symptom of his hypochondria was "the apprehension of death, and every day appeared to aggravate his terrors of the grave." This was "the black dog" that worried him to the last moment. Metastasio, we are told, never permitted the word death to be pronounced in his presence; and Johnson was so agitated by having the subject spoken of in his hearing, that on one

occasion he insulted Boswell for introducing the topic; and in the words of the latter, he had put "his head into the lion's mouth a great many times with comparative safety, but at last had it bitten off."

"For many years before his death," says Arthur Murphy, "so terrible was the prospect of death, that when he was not disposed to enter into the conversation that was going forward, whoever sat near his chair might hear him repeating those lines of Shakspeare—`

"To die and go we know not where."

He acknowledged to Boswell he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him; and even at the age of sixty-nine he says he had made no approaches to a state in which he could look upon death without terror.

At seventy-five, we find him writing to his friends to consult all the eminent physicians of their acquaintance of his case. To his kind and excellent physician, Dr. Brocklesby, he writes, “I am loathe to think that I grow worse, but cannot prove to my own partiality that I grow much better. Pray be so kind as to have me in your thoughts, and mention my case to others as you have opportunity." Boswell, at the same time, in Scotland, was employed in consulting the most

eminent physicians of that country for him. In his last illness, when a friend of his told him he was glad to see him looking better, Johnson seized him by the hand, and exclaimed, “You are one of the kindest friends I ever had." It is curious to observe with what sophistry he sometimes endeavoured to persuade himself and others of the salutary nature of his excessive terrors on this head: he tells one friend that it is only the best men who tremble at the thoughts of futurity, because they are the most aware of the purity of that place which they hope to reach. To another, he writes that he never thought confidence with respect to futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wise, or a good man. His executor, Sir John Hawkins, who lets no opportunity pass to blacken his character, speaks of his fear of death in terms which imply sore crime of extraordinary magnitude weighing on his heart; it was with difficulty, he says, he could persuade him to execute a will, apparently as if he feared his doing so would hasten his dissolution. Three or four days before his death, he declared he would give one of his legs for a year more of life. When the Rev. Mr. Sastres called upon him, Johnson stretched forth his hand, and exclaimed in a melancholy tone, "Jam moriturus!" But the ruling passion of his disease was still VOL. 1. 15. ཙ

strong in death; for at his own suggestion, when his surgeon was making slight incisions in his legs. with the idea of relieving his dropsical disorder, Johnson cried out, "Deeper, deeper; I want length of life, and you are afraid of giving me pain, which I do not value."

"On the very last day of his existence," says Murphy, "the desire of life returned with all its former vehemence; he still imagined that by puncturing his legs relief might be obtained. At eight in the morning he tried the experiment, but no water followed." If Johnson's fear of death were not the effect of disease, it would be impossible to contemplate his conduct either in sickness or in sorrow, in his closet or on his death-bed, without feelings of absolute disgust. What other sentiment could be entertained

"For him who crawls enamoured of decay,

Clings to his couch, and sickens years away,"

and shudders at the breath of every word which reminds him of the grave? The bravest man that ever lived may not encounter death without fear, nor the best Christian envisage eternity with unconcern; but there is a difference between the feeling of either, and the slavish terrors of a coward in extremity. There is a distinction, moreover, which is still more worthy of observation— the wide distinction between the fear of death that

springs from an inherent baseness of disposition, and that apprehension of it which arises from the depressing influence of a disease. Who can

doubt that Johnson's morbid feelings on this point were occasioned by hypochondria? and what medical man, at least, is not aware that the fear of death is as inseparable a companion of hypochondria as preternatural heat is a symptom of fever?

We have now a few observations to make on the subject of Johnson's superstition; and we preface them with an observation of Melancthon, which deserves the attention of all literary men. "Melancholy," (says this amiable man, who had been himself its victim, ("is so frequent and troublesome a disease, that it is necessary for every body to know its accidents, and a dangerous thing to be ignorant of them." One of these "accidents" is to confound the ideas of possible occurrences with those of probable events-a disposition to embody the phantoms of imagination, to clothe visions of enthuthiasm in forms cognizable to the senses, and familiar to the sight; in short, to give to "airy nothings a local habitation and a name."

This disposition was the secret of Rousseau's phantom that scarcely ever quitted him for a day; of Luther's demons, with whom he communed in