What actually followed upon this most interesting 1752. piece of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; Etat. but 1, whom it has pleased GOD to afflict in a similar 43. manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams. That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind. "March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." 66 April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows: "Eheu ! "Eliz. Johnson, "Mart. 17° 1752." After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant, and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter; but she having declined to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning ring for his old master, and presented it to his wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it. The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been 1752. in his contemplation many years before. In his IRENE, "From those bright regions of eternal day, "O! sooth my soul, and teach me how to lose thee." I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who, before her marriage, lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expence, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a high opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much altered for the worse. The dreadful shock of separation took place in the night; and he immediately dispatched a letter to his friend, the Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told me, expressed grief in the strongest manner he had ever read; so that it is much to be regretted it has not been preserved. The letter was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his house in the Cloysters, Westminster, about three in the morning; and as it signified an earnest desire to see him, he got up, and went to Johnson as soon as he was dressed, and found him in tears and in extreme agitation. After being a little while together, Johnson requested him to join with him in prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did Dr. Taylor; and [In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of "The Idler." A fictitious date, March 17, 1751, O. S. was added by some person, previously to this paper's being sent to the publisher of that miscellany, to give a colour to this deception. M.] thus by means of that piety which was ever his primary 1752. object, his troubled mind was, in some degree, soothed Etat. and composed. The next day he wrote as follows: 66 TO THE REVEREND DR. TAYLOR. 66 DEAR SIR, "LET me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. 66 My distress is great. Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter, and bring a note in writing with you. "Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. "March 18, 1752. "I am, dear Sir, &c, That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant,' who came into his family about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were aggravated by the mel ancholy inherent in his constitution; and although he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was, in the little disagreements which sometimes troubled his married state, during which, he owned to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more painful to him than ever, he might very naturally, after her death, be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and offences, the sense of which would give 1 Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's death, with the exception of two intervals ; in one of which, upon some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might have the advantage of some learning. So early, and so lasting a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. 43. 1752. him much uneasiness. Accordingly we find, about Etat, a year after her decease, that he thus addressed the 43. Supreme Being: "O LORD, who givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected, in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild instruction." The kindness of his heart, notwithstanding the impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his friends; and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for the following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins: "The apparition of his departed wife was altogether of the terrifick kind, and hardly afforded him a hope that she was in a state of happiness." That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions: "And, O LORD, So far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife; beseeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiBut this state has not been looked upon with horrour, but only as less gracious. ness." s He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley in Kent, to which he was proba 4 [It does not appear that Johnson was fully persuaded that there was a middle state; his prayers being only conditional, i. e. if such a state existed. M.] 6 "[A few months before his death, Johnson honoured her memory by the following epitaph, which was inscribed on her tomb-stone, in the church of Bromley : Hic conduntur reliquiæ ELIZABETHÆ Antiqua Jarvisiorum gente, Uxoris, primis nuptiis, HENRICI PORTER, Etat. bly led by the residence of his friend Hawkesworth at 1752. that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never preached, but having been 43. given to Dr. Taylor, has been published since his death, is a performance of uncommon excellence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder. 66 From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentick and artless account of the situation in which he found him recently after his wife's death: "He "was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, which was in Gough-square. He "was busy with the Dictionary. Mr. Shiels, and "some others of the gentlemen who had formerly writ"ten for him, used to come about him. He had then "little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. "Shiels when in distress. The friends who visited "him at that time, were chiefly Dr. Bathurst, and "Mr. Diamond, an apothecary in Cork-street, Burlington-gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams gen"erally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland with him, which would probably "have happened, had he lived. There were also Mr. "Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland, merchant on "Tower-hill, Mrs. Masters, the poetess, who lived with "Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaul"ay; also, Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow-chandler on 66 66 Dr. Bathurst, though a physician of no inconsiderable merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore, willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: "The Havannah is taken;-a conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it. "Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit." |