between death and the end of the world is a ftate of imperfect bliss; the church, therefore, concludes he, might believe her prayers for good people would improve their condition, and raise the satisfactions of this period.

No one will fay that these are mean authorities, or object to the practice of thus recommending the dead, as an innovation, excepting those perfons who reject all tradition in matters of religion. Bucer was one that did, and, therefore, being confulted in the revifal of king Edward's firft liturgy, he argued, that there being noexprefs warrant in Scripture for the practice, prayer for the dead was finful; and, accordingly, the words contended for were omitted in the second.

This tract was, with great acuteness, and no lefs learning, anfwered by another nonjuring divine, in one intituled No fufficient reasons for restoring fome prayers and directions of king Edward the fixth's liturgy.' A reply was given to it, and the controyerfy was carried on to a great length; the refult of it was, a fchifm among the nonjurors; thofe, for reftoring the prayers, compiled anew communion-office; others, who were against widening the breach with the national church, chofe to abide by the prefent form; and this diverfity of fentiments and practice was, as John. fon once told me, the ruin of the nonjuring caufe,

In the ftudy of this controverfy, which I have reafon to think interefted Johnfon very deeply, he feems to have taken part with Dr. Brett and the feparatifts his followers, whofe conduct is accounted for and vindicated, in the differtation on liturgies abovementioned.

Such

Such as are difpofed to charge Johnson with weaknefs and fuperftition, and are fo weak as to infinuate that, because he recommended his deceased wife and friends to the divine mercy, (though with the qualifying words, fo far as it may be lawful') he must have been popifhly affected, or a believer in the doctrine of purgatory, may hence learn to be lefs fevere in their cenfures, and lament their ignorance of ecclefiaftical history, which would have taught them, that the prac tice prevailed long before popery was established, or purgatory thought of; and that, though it may not upon the whole be defenfible, there is more to be faid for it, than many of the enemies to his memory are able to answer *.

And to thofe of his friends, who think that, for the fake of his reputation, the prayers and meditations, in which these sentiments have appeared, fhould have been fuppreffed, it ought furely to be an anfwer, that they were put into the hands of the reverend divine, who, to my knowledge, attended him with great affection and affiduity through his laft illness, with an express charge to commit them to the prefs, and who, if he had forborne this friendly office, had deprived a charitable and laudable institution of a benefit, which the performance of it was intended to confer.

With a view to improve the leifure he now enjoyed, and feemingly determined to reform thofe habits of indolence, which, in the former part of his life, he had

Johnfon in his early years affociated with this fect of nonju rors, and from them, probably, imbibed many of his religious and political principles.

G g 2

contracted,

contracted, he removed from the Temple into a houfe in Johnson's court, Fleet-ftreet, and invited thither his friend Mrs. Williams. An upper room, which had the advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study, and furnished with books, chosen with fo little regard to editions or their external appearance, as fhewed they were intended for use, and that he difdained the oftentation of learning. Here he was in a fituation and circumftances that enabled him to enjoy the vifits of his friends, and to receive them in a manner fuitable to the rank and condition of many of them. many of them. A filver ftandish, and fome ufeful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from fome who most efteemed him, together with furniture that would not have difgraced a better dwelling, banished thofe appearances of fqualid indigence, which, in his lefs happy days, difgufted thofe who came to fee him.

In one of his diaries he noted down a refolution to take a feat in the church; this he might poffibly do about the time of this his removal. The church he frequented was that of St, Clement Danes, which, though not his parish-church, he preferred to that of the Temple, which I recommended to him, as being free from noife, and, in other refpects, more commodious. His only reafon was, that in the former he was best known. He was not conftant in his attendance on divine worship; but, from an opinion peculiar to himself, and which he once intimated tọ me, feemed to wait for fome fecret impulfe as a motive to it.

I could

I could never collect from his difcourfe, that he was drawn to public worship by the charms of pul pit eloquence, or any affection for popular preachers, who, in general, are the worft; nor can I form any judgment of the value he fet on it, having never been prefent with him at church but once, and that at a time, when, in compliment to him, as it may be fuppofed, the preacher gave us a fermon, that red like a Saturday's Rambler *, and was, by many, foon difcovered to have been caft in the fame mould, or, in other words, of Johnfon's compofing; but he feemed to think it a duty to accept in good part the endeavours of all public inftructors, however meanly qua lified for the office, and ever to forbear exercifing his critical talents on the effufions of men inferior in learning and abilities to himself. Probably he, on fuch occafions, recollected the quaint diftich of Herbert:

The worst have fomething good; where all want • sense,

• God takes the text and preacheth patience.'

Or he might have red, among the effays of the Meffieurs of Port-Royal, one that teaches us how to profit by bad preaching.

The Sundays which he paffed at home were, nevertheless, spent in private exercises of devotion †,

and

*The Ramblers published on Saturdays were generally on reli. gious or moral fubjects.

+ He was accustomed on thefe days to read the Scriptures, and particularly the Greek Teftament, with the paraphrafe of Erafmus.

and fanctified by acts of charity of a fingular kind on that day he accepted of no invitation abroad, but gave a dinner to fuch of his poor friends as might elfe have gone without one.

He had little now to conflict with but what he called his morbid melancholy, which, though oppreffive, had its intermiffions, and left him the free exercife of all his faculties, and the power of enjoying the converfation of his numerous friends and vifitants. Thefe reliefs he owed in a great measure to the use of opium, which, as I have elsewhere mentioned, he was accustomed to take in large quantities, the effect whereof was generally fuch an exhilaration of his fpirits as he fometimes fufpected for intoxication.

I am now about to mention a remarkable era of his life, diftinguished by a connexion that, for many years, was a fource of great fatisfaction and comfort to him. It was a friendship, contracted, as his diary imports, in 1765, with Mr. Thrale, a brewer, in Southwark, who, though a follower of a trade, which in other countries is lightly thought of, yet as in this it implies great opulence, and the power of conducing in various ways to the interefts of the community, ranked as a gentleman. He had received the benefit of an univerfity education, and was a reprefentative in parliament, as his father had been, for the above-mentioned borough; and in every view of his character, could not but be deemed a valuable addi

Very late in his life he formed a refolution to read the Bible through, which he confeffed to me he had never done; at the fame time lamenting, that he had fo long neglected to perufe, what he called the