acquittal at the throne of mercy. In praying, however, with restriction, for these regretted tenants of the grave, he indeed conformed to a practice, which, though it has been retained by other learned members of our church, her Liturgy no longer admits, and many, who adhere to her communion, avowedly disapprove. That such prayers are, or may be efficacious, they who sincerely offer them must believe. But may not a belief in their efficacy, so far as it prevails, be attended with danger to those who entertain it? May it not incline them to carelessness; and promote a neglect of repentance by inducing a persuasion, that, without it, pardon may be obtained through these vicarious intercessions? Indeed the doctrine (I speak with deference to the great names that have espoused it) seems inconsistent with some principles generally allowed among us. If, where the tree falleth, there it shall be; if, as Protestants maintain, 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 superstitions, 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 during life, death, which removes them from sight, cannot wholly exclude from our concern. The fondness, kindled by intercourse, will still glow from memory, and prompt us to wish, perhaps to pray, that the valued dead, to whose felicity our friendship can no longer minister, may find acceptance with Him, who giveth us, and them, richly all things to enjoy. It is true, for the reason just mentioned, such evidences of our surviving affection may be thought

Our authour informs us, that his prayers for deceased friends were offered up, on several occasions as far as might be lawful for him; and once (p. 601), with Preface of Permission whence it should seem that he had some doubt concerning the lawfulness of such prayers, though it does not appear that he ever discontinued the use of them. It is also observable, that in his reflections on the death of his wife (p. 618), and again of Mr. Thrale (p. 627), he wishes that the Almighty not may have, but may have had, mercy on them; evidently supposing their sentence to have been already passed in the Divine Mind. This supposition, indeed, may seem not very consistent with his recommending them to the Divine Mercy afterwards. It proves, however, that he had no belief in a state of Purgatory, and consequently no reason for praying for the dead, that could impeach the sincerity of his profession as a Protestant.

ill-judged; but surely they are generous; and some natural tenderness is due even to a superstition, which thus originates in piety and benevolence.

We see our authour, in one place* purposing with seriousness to remember his brother's dream; in another,† owning his embarrassment from needless stipulations; and, on many occasions, noting, with a circumstantial minuteness, the process of his religious fasts. But these peculiarities, if they betray some tincture of the propensity already observed, prove, for the most part, the pious tenour of his thoughts. They indicate a mind ardently zealous to please God, and anxious to evince its alacrity in his service, by a scrupulous observance of more than enjoined duties.

But however the soundness of his principles might, in general, be apparent, he seems to have lived with a perpetual conviction that his conduct was defective; lamenting past neglects, forming purposes of future diligence, and constantly acknowledging their failure in the event. It was natural for him, who possessed such powers of usefulness, to consider the waste of his time as a peculiar delinquency; with which, however, he appears to have been far less frequently, and less culpably chargeable, than his own tender sense of duty disposed him to apprehend. That he meritoriously redeemed many days and years from indolence, is evinced by the number and excellence of his works; nor can we doubt that his literary exertions would have been still more frequent, had not morbid melancholy, which, as he informs us, was the infirmity of his life, repressed them. To the prevalence of this infirmity, we may certainly ascribe that anxious fear, which seized him on the approach of his dissolution, and which his friends, who knew his integrity, observed with equal astonishment and But the strength of religion at length prevailed against the frailty of nature; and his foreboding dread of the Divine Justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine Mercy.

concern.

* P. 573.

+ P. 616.

+ P. 611.

He is now gone to await his eternal sentence; and as his life exhibited an illustrious example, so his death suggests an interesting admonition. It concerns us to reflect, that however many may find it impossible to rival his intellectual excellence, yet to imitate his virtues is both possible and necessary to all; that the current of time now hastens to plunge us in that gulph of Death, where we have so lately seen him absorbed, where there is no more place of repentance, and whence, according to our innocence or guilt, we shall rise to an immortality of Bliss or Torment.

GEORGE STRAHAN.

ISLINGTON, August 6, 1785.

ADVERTISEMENT

ΤΟ

THE FOURTH EDITION.

To this Edition is added [at p. 564] a Prayer now in my possession in Dr. Johnson's own hand-writing, in which he expressly supposes that Providence may permit him to enjoy the good effects of his wife's attention and ministration by appearance, impulses, or dreams. It is well known that he admitted the credibility of apparitions: and in his Rasselas,* he maintains it, in the person of Imlac, by the following acute train of reasoning:

"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears."

Cavillers have indeed doubted the credibility of this tale, rejecting it in every instance as the dream of delusion, or the fiction of imposture.

That many tales of apparitions have originated in delusion, and many in imposture, cannot be denied; and the whole question to be considered in this case is, how far we have authority for believing that any are founded in truth or probability.

* Chap. xxxi.

Some have thought all such reported appearances liable to suspicion, because in general they seem called forth by no exigency, and calculated to administer to no end or purpose. This circumstance, so far as it may be observed, will authorize a presumption that they are not the fabrications of imposture; which has always some end, commonly a discoverable end, to promote by its illusions. At any rate, our ignorance of the purpose or end can be no disproof of the fact: and the purposes of Providence, in the events most obvious to our notice, observably often elude our scrutiny.

Still the acknowledged millions of the dead that are seen no more induce a reluctance to believe in the re-appearance of any, however attested. Common incidents, though often not less inexplicable than those which are unusual, become familiar to our observation, and soon cease to excite our wonder. But rare and preternatural occurrences astonish and shock belief by their novelty; and apparitions are by many accounted things so improbable in themselves, as not to be rendered credible by any external testimony. The same charge of insuperable incredibility has been urged against miracles; and in both cases proceeds upon a supposition, evidently erroneous, that the improbable nature of any alleged event is a stronger evidence of its falsity, than the best approved testimony can be of its truth.

It is confessed that extraordinary events, when rumoured, are, till proved, less probable than those that are common; because their occurrence having been less frequent, their existence has been verified in fewer instances by experience. And, upon the same principle, the more remote any reported phænomenon appears to be from what we ordinarily observe in nature, the greater, antecedently to its authentication by evidence, is its improbability.

But improbability arising from rarity of occurrence, or singularity of nature, amounts to no disproof; it is a presumptive reason of doubt, too feeble to withstand the conviction induced by positive and credible testimony; such