9 o
��Prayers and Meditations.
��again prayed the prayer, I then prayed the collects, and again my own prayer by memory. I left out a clause. I then re ceived, I hope with earnestness, and while others received sat down, but thinking that posture, though usual, improper I rose and stood. I prayed again in the pew but with what prayer I have forgotten.
When I used the occasional prayer at the altar, I added a general purpose
To avoid Idleness.
I gave two shillings, to the plate.
Before I went I used, I think, my prayer and endeavoured to calm my mind. After my return I used it again, and the collect for the day. Lord have mercy upon me.
I have for some nights called Francis to prayers, and last night discoursed with him on the sacrament.
��1764, 1770 ("friends living and dead"), 1773, 1777, 1778 [ante, pp. 24, 29, 54, 65, 80, 85], in his Prayers and Meditations.
'On Easter Day, April 4, 1779, occurs the phrase under discussion : "At the altar I commended my $." But on Easter Day, 1781, friends, as I have formerly done." Strahan notes "sic MS." [Post, p. 98.]
- There can be no doubt, then, that
< means " dead friends," and very little that < stands for (piXoi.
'Now we know from Galen (Kiihn's edition, XVII. i. 527) that in the case-book of a physician the letters v and 6 stood for vyi'eia and Oava-ros respectively : eVi Se 177 reAeu- 777 TOIS p.ev <rcadcl<riv u irpoaryeypanTai, rf/v vyieiav arjp-atvov, rols ' airodavovfri
TO 6, KOt TOVTO 8rj\OVOTl TOV 6aVO.TOV
cvdetKvvpevov. And Forcellini quotes Rufinus, Invect. in Hieron., ii. 36, to show that in the muster-roll of a Roman army the letter 6 was affixed
��to the names of soldiers who were dead : " quod tale esset quale si quis accepto breviculo in quo militum no- mina continentur nitatur inspicere quanti ex militibus supersint, quanti in bello ceciderint, et requirens qui inspicere missus et propriam notam . . . ad uniuscuiusque defuncti nomen adscribat, et propria rursus nota [sc. v = vivit] superstitem signet." "Hinc etiam in vet. lapi- dibus," continues the lexicographer, " illud videre est ap. Marin. Frat. Arv. p. 610." Thus, with the Ro mans, as well as with the Greeks, & was a symbol, meaning " dead," or " died," or " is dead," and as such Johnson, I think, used it. In a word, it exactly corresponds to the cross (t) which is sometimes used in Ger man books.
' Finally, Johnson may have learnt the symbol from Casaubon's note on Persius, iv. 13, "Nigrum vitio prae- figere theta," where the passage from Rufinus is quoted. H. ].'
See ante, p. 76.
��EASTER
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