Literary Magazine, 1758, (when Johnson had ceased to write in that collection) was urged as an additional proof of deliberate malice. He read the libellous passage with attention, and instantly wrote on the margin: "In the business "of Lauder I was deceived, partly by thinking "the man too frantic to be fraudulent. Of the "poetical scale quoted from the Magazine 1 am "not the author. I fancy it was put in after I "had quitted that work; for I not only did not "write it, but I do not remember it." As a

critic and a scholar, Johnson was willing to receive what numbers, at the time, believed to be true information: when he found that the whole was a forgery, he renounced all connexion with the author.

In March 1752, he felt a severe stroke of affliction in the death of his wife. The last number of the Rambler, as already mentioned, was on the 14th of that month. The loss of Mrs. Johnson was then approaching, and probably was the cause that put an end to those admirable periodical essays. It appears that she died on the 28th of March: in a memorandum, at the foot of the Prayers and Meditations, that is called her Dying Day. She was buried at Bromley, under the care of Dr. Hawkesworth. Johnson placed a Latin inscription on her tomb, in which he celebrated her beauty. With the singularity of his prayers for his deceased wife, from that time to the end of his days, the world is sufficiently acquainted. On Easter-day, 22d April, 1764, his memorandum says: "Thought on "Tetty, poor dear Tetty ; with my eyes full. "Went to Church. After sermon I recom

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"mended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst, "in another. I did it only once, so far as it "might be lawful for me." In a prayer, January 23, 1759, the day on which his mother was buried, he commends, as far as may be lawful, her soul to God, imploring for her whatever is most beneficial to her in her present state. In this habit he persevered to the end of his days. The Rev. Mr. Strahan, the editor of the Prayers and Meditations, observes, "That "Johnson, on some occasions, prays that the "Almighty may have had mercy on his wife "and Mr. Thrale; evidently supposing their "sentence to have been already passed in the "Divine Mind; and by consequence, proving, "that he had no belief in a state of purgatory, "and no reason for praying for the dead that "could impeach the sincerity of his profession "as a Protestant." Mr. Strahan adds, "That, "in praying for the regretted tenants of the grave, Johnson conformed to a practice which "has been retained by many learned members "of the Established Church, though the Li"turgy no longer admits it. If where the tree falleth, there it shall be; if our state, at the "close of life, is to be the measure of our final "sentence, then prayers for the dead, being "visibly fruitless, can be regarded only as the "vain oblations of superstition. But of all su"perstitions this, perhaps, is one of the least “unamiable, and most incident to a good mind. "If our sensations of kindness be intense, those, "whom we have revered and loved, death can"not wholly seclude from our concern. It is

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"true, for the reason just mentioned, such evi"dences of our surviving affection may be

thought ill-judged; but surely they are gene66 rous, and some natural tenderness is due even "to a superstition, which thus originates in piety and benevolence." These sentences, extracted from the Rev. Mr. Strahan's preface, if they are not a full justification, are, at least, a beautiful apology. It will not be improper to add what Johnson himself has said on the subject. Being asked by Mr. Boswell, what he thought of purgatory as believed by the Roman Catholics? His answer was, "It is a very "harmless doctrine. They are of opinion, that "the generality of mankind are neither so ob"stinately wicked as to deserve everlasting "punishment; nor so good as to merit being "admitted into the society of blessed spirits; "and, therefore, that God is graciously pleased "to allow a middle state, where they may be "purified by certain degrees of suffering. You

see there is nothing unreasonable in this; and "if it be once established that there are souls "in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them, 66 as for our brethren of mankind who are yet in "this life." This was Dr. Johnson's guess into futurity; and to guess is the utmost that man can do. Shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.

Mrs. Johnson left a daughter, Lucy Porter, by her first husband. She had contracted a friendship with Mrs. Anne Williams, the daughter of Zachary Williams, a physician of eminence in

* Life of Johnson, vol. i. p. 328. 4to. edition.

South Wales, who had devoted more than thirty years of a long life to the study of the longitude, and was thought to have made great advances towards that important discovery. His letters

to Lord Halifax, and the Lords of the Admiralty, party corrected and partly written by Dr. Johnson, are still extant in the hands of Mr. Nichols.* We there find Dr. Williams, in the eighty-third year of his age, stating, that he had prepared an instrument, which might be called an epitome or miniature of the terraqueous globe, shewing, with the assistance of tables constructed by himself, the variations of the magnetic needle, and ascertaining the longitude for the safety of navigation. It appears that this scheme had been referred to Sir Isaac Newton; but that great philosopher excusing himself on account of his advanced age, all applications were useless till 1751, when the subject was referred, by order of Lord Anson, to Dr. Bradley, the celebrated professor of astronomy. His report was unfavourable,+ though it allows that a considerable progress had been made. Dr. Williams, after all his labour and expense, died in a short time after, a melancholy instance of unrewarded merit. His daughter possessed uncommon talents, and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her conversation agreeable, and even desirable. To relieve and appease melancholy reflections, Johnson took her home to his house in Gough-square. In 1755, Garrick gave her a benefit-play, which produced two hundred pounds.

• See Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. and Dec. 1787. + See Gentleman's Magazine for 1787, p. 1042.

In 1766, she published, by subscription, a quarto volume of Miscellanies, and increased her little stock to three hundred pounds. That fund, with Johnson's protection, supported her through the remainder of her life.

During the two years in which the Rambler was carried on, the Dictionary proceeded by slow degrees. In May 1752, having composed a prayer preparatory to his return from tears and sorrow to the duties of life, he resumed his grand design, and went on with vigour, giving, however, occasional assistance to his friend Dr. Hawkesworth in the Adventurer, which began soon after the Rambler was laid aside. Some of the most valuable essays in that collection were from the pen of Johnson. The Dictionary was completed towards the end of 1754; and, Cave being then no more, it was a mortification to the author of that noble addition to our language, that his old friend did not live to see the triumph of his labours. In May 1755, that great work was published. Johnson was desirous that it should come from one who had obtained academical honours; and for that purpose his friend, the Rev. Thomas Wharton, obtained for him, in the preceding month of February, a diploma for a master's degree from the University of Oxford. Garrick, on the publication of the Dictionary, wrote the following lines;

"Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance, "That one English soldier can beat ten of France. "Would we alter the boast, from the sword to the pen, "Our odds are still greater, still greater our men.

"In the deep mines of science, though Frenchmen may toil, "Can their strength be compar'd to Locke, Newton, or "Boyle?