The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [678]
It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars of Johnson’s remaining days, of whom it was now evident, that the crisis was fast approaching, when he must ‘die like men, and fall like one of the Princes.,1268 Yet it will be instructive, as well as gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few circumstances, on the authenticity of which they may perfectly rely, as I have been at the utmost pains to obtain an accurate account of his last illness, from the best authority.
Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren, and Dr. Butter, physicians, generously attended him, without accepting of any fees, as did Mr. Cruik-shank, surgeon; and all that could be done from professional skill and ability, was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He himself, indeed, having, on account of his very bad constitution, been perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him might be drawn off by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too tenderly.a
About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby paid him his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, I have been as a dying man all night.’ He then emphatically broke out, in the words of Shakspeare: –
‘Can’st thou not minister to a mind diseas’d;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?’1269
To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great poet: –
‘––––therein the patient
Must minister to himself.’1270
Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application.
On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr. Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal, –
‘Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano,’1271
and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly over, he happened, in the line,
‘Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat,’1272
to pronounce supremum for extremum;1273 at which Johnson’s critical ear instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit of the grammarian.
Having no near relations, it had been for some time Johnson’s intention to make a liberal provision for his faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as particularly under his protection, and whom he had all along treated truly as an humble friend. Having asked Dr. Brocklesby what would be a proper annuity to bequeath to a favourite servant, and being answered that it must depend on the circumstances of the master; and, that in the case of a nobleman, fifty pounds a year was considered as an adequate reward for many years’ faithful service; ‘Then, (said Johnson,) shall I be nobilissimus,1274 for I mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to tell him so.’ It is strange, however, to think, that Johnson was not free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so that he delayed it from time to time; and had it not been for Sir John Hawkins’s repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his kind resolution would not have been fulfilled. After making one, which, as Sir John Hawkins informs us, extended no further than the promised annuity, Johnson’s final disposition of his property