The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [683]
‘At ten o’clock in the morning, he parted from Cawston, saying, “You should not detain Mr. Windham’s servant: – I thank you; bear my remembrance to your master.” Cawston says, that no man could appear more collected, more devout, or less terrified at the thoughts of the approaching minute.
‘This account, which is so much more agreeable than, and somewhat different from, yours, has given us the satisfaction of thinking that that great man died as he lived, full of resignation, strengthened in faith, and joyful in hope.’
A few days before his death, he had asked Sir John Hawkins, as one of his executors, where he should be buried; and on being answered, ‘Doubtless, in Westminster-Abbey,’ seemed to feel a satisfaction, very natural to a Poet; and indeed, in my opinion, very natural to every man of any imagination, who has no family sepulchre in which he can be laid with his fathers. Accordingly, upon Monday, December 20, his remains were deposited in that noble and renowned edifice; and over his grave was placed a large blue flag-stone, with this inscription: –
‘SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
Obiit xiii die Decembris,
Anno Domini
M.DCC.LXXXIV.
Ætatis sucb LXXV.’1287
His funeral was attended by a respectable number of his friends, particularly such of the members of the LITERARY CLUB as were then in town; and was also honoured with the presence of several of the Reverend Chapter of Westminster. Mr. Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Windham, Mr. Langton, Sir Charles Bunbury, and Mr. Colman, bore his pall. His school-fellow, Dr. Taylor, performed the mournful office of reading the burial service.
I trust, I shall not be accused of affectation, when I declare, that I find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a ‘Guide, Philosopher, and Friend.’a1289 I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend,b which he uttered with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied compositions: – ‘He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best: – there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.’
As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life,c so no writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary honours after his death. A sermon upon that event was preached in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend Mr. Agutter, of Magdalen College.a The Lives, the Memoirs, the Essays, both in prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would make many volumes. The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider as part of his consequence, upon the principle which he himself so well knew and asserted. Many who trembled at his presence, were forward in assault, when they no longer apprehended danger. When one of his little pragmatical foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual bold animation, ‘Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may kick at him.’
A monument for him, in Westminster-Abbey, was resolved upon soon after his death, and was supported by a most respectable contribution; but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s having come to a resolution of admitting monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a cenotaph should be erected to his memory: and in the cathedral of his native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be erected. To compose