His excurfion to Afhbourn was lefs beneficial than he hoped it would be: his diforders began to return, and he wanted company and amusement. During his ftay there, he compofed fundry prayers, adapted to the state of his body and mind; and tranflated from Horace, lib. IV. the ode, Diffugêre nives, redeunt, jam gramina campis,' in the words following:

The fnow, diffolv'd, no more is feen;
‹ The fields and woods, behold, are green;
The changing year renews the plain;
The rivers know their banks again;
The sprightly nymph and naked grace
The mazy dance together trace:
The changing year's fucceffive plan,
• Proclaims mortality to Man.

Rough winter's blasts to spring give way;
Spring yields to fummer's fovereign ray;
Then fummer finks in autumn's reign;
And winter chills the world again;
Her loffes foon the moon fupplies,
But wretched Man, when once he lies
• Where Priam and his fons are laid,
Is nought but afhes and a fhade.

Who knows if Jove, who counts our score,
Will roufe us in a morning more?

• What with your friend you nobly share,
• At least you refcue from your heir.

Not you, Torquatus, boaft of Rome,
• When Minos once has fix'd your doom,
'Or eloquence, or fplendid birth,

Or virtue fhall replace on earth:

• Hippolytus

The chains of hell that hold his friend.'

Nov. 1784.

In his return to London, he stopped at Lichfield, and from thence wrote to me feveral letters, that served but to prepare me for meeting him in a worse ftate of health than I had ever feen him in. The concluding paragraph of the last of them is as follows: I am relapfing into the dropfy very fast, and shall make fuch hafte to town that it will be useless to write to me; but when I come, let me have the ⚫ benefit of your advice, and the confolation of your company.' [dated Nov. 7, 1784.] After about a fortnight's ftay there, he took his leave of that city, and of Mrs. Porter, whom he never afterwards faw, and arrived in town on the fixteenth day of November.

After the declaration he had made of his intention to provide for his fervant Frank, and before his going into the country, I had frequently preffed him to make a will, and had gone fo far as to make a draft of one, with blanks for the names of the executors and refiduary legatee, and directing in what manner it was to be executed and attefted; but he was exceedingly averfe to this business; and, while he was in Derbyshire, I repeated my folicitations, for this purpose, by letters. When he arrived in town he had done nothing in it, and, to what I formerly faid, I now added, that he had never mentioned to me the difpofal of the refidue of his eftate, which,

after

after the purchase of an annuity for Frank, I found would be fomething confiderable, and that he would do well to bequeath it to his relations. His answer was, I care not what becomes of the refidue.'—— A few days after, it appeared that he had executed the draft, the blanks remaining, with all the folemnities of a real will. I could get him no farther, and thus, for fome time, the matter refted.

He had fcarce arrived in town, before it was found to be too true, that he was relapling into a dropfy; and farther, that he was at times grievously afflicted with an afthma. Under an apprehenfion that his end was approaching, he enquired of Dr. Brocklesby, with greať earneftnefs indeed, how long he might probably live, but could obtain no other than unfatisfactory answers: and, at the fame time, if I remember right, under a feeming great preffure of mind, he thus addreffed him, in the words of Shakespeare:

Canft thou not minifter to a mind difeas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted forrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with fome fweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanfe the full bofom of that perilous ftuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?'-

MACBETH.

To which the door, who was nearly as well red in the above author as himself, readily replied,

Muft minifter unto himself.’

Upon which Johnfon exclaimed- Well applied :that's more than poetically true.'

He had, from the month of July in this year, marked the progrefs of his diseases, in a journal which he intitled Egri Ephemeris,' noting therein his many fleepless nights by the words, Nox infomnis. This he often contemplated, and, finding very little ground for hope that he had much longer to live, he fet himfelf to prepare for his diffolution, and betook himself to private prayer and the reading of Erafmus on the New Testament, Dr. Clarke's fermons, and fuch other books as had a tendency to calm and comfort him.

In this ftate of his body and mind, he seemed to be very anxious in the discharge of two offices that he had hitherto neglected to perform: one was, the communicating to the world the names of the perfons concerned in the compilation of the Univerfal Hiftory; the other was, the refcuing from oblivion the memory of his father and mother, and also, of his brother: the former of these he difcharged, by delivering to Mr. Nichols the printer, in my presence, a paper containing the information above-mentioned, and directions to depofit it in the British mufeum. The other, by compofing a memorial of his deceafed parents and his brother, intended for their tomb-ftone, which, whether it was ever infcribed thereon or not, is extant in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1785. The note afcertaining the names of the compilers of the Univerfal History, is inferted in the Magazine for the preceding month. The monumental infcription is as follows:

H. S. E.

MICHAEL JOHNSON,

Vir impavidus, conftans, animofus, periculorum immemor, laborum patientiffimus; fiduciâ chriftianâ,

fortis, fervidufque, pater-familias apprimè ftrenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adverfis diu conflictatus, nec fibi nec fuis defuerit: lingua fic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures, vel pias, vel caftas læfiffet, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam exprefferit.

Natus Cubleiæ, in agro Derbienfi, anno MDCLVI. obiit MDCCXXXI.

Appofita eft SA r a, conjux,

Antiqua FOR DORUM gente oriunda; quam domi fedulam, foris paucis notam; nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii fubtilitate præcellentem; aliis multum, fibi parum indulgentem: Æternitati femper attentam, omne fere virtutis nomen commendavit.

Nata Nortoniæ Regis, in agro Varvicenfi, anno MDCLXIX; obiit MDCCLIX.

Cum NATHANAELE illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires, et animi, et corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem piâ morte finivit.

He would alfo have written, in Latin verfe, an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to the task of original poetic compofition in that language.

Nevertheless, he fucceeded in an attempt to render into Latin metre, from the Greek Anthologia, fundry of the epigrams therein contained, that had been omitted by other tranflators, alledging as a reafon, which he had found in Fabricius, that Henry Stephens, Buchanan, Grotius, and others, had paid a like tribute to literature.

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