��perverse opposition, petty contentions, and mutual complaints. Her superfluous attention to such accounts of the foreign politics as are transmitted to us by the daily prints and her willingness to talk on subjects he could not endure, began the aversion ; and when, by the peculiarity of his style, she found out that he teized her by writing in the newspapers concerning battles and plots which had no existence, only to feed her with new accounts of the division of Poland perhaps, or the disputes between the states of Russia and Turkey, she was exceedingly angry to be sure, and scarcely I think forgave the offence till the domestic distresses of the year 1772 I reconciled them to and taught them the true value of each other ; excellent as they both were, far beyond the excellence of any other man and woman I ever yet saw. As her conduct too extorted his truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all his tenderness 2 ; nor was the sight of beauty, scarce to be subdued by disease 3 , and wit, flashing through the apprehension of evil, a scene which Dr. Johnson could see with out sensibility. He acknowledged himself improved by her piety, and astonished at her fortitude, and hung over her bed with the affection of a parent, and the reverence of a son 4 . Nor did it give me less pleasure to see her sweet mind cleared of all its latent prejudices, and left at liberty to admire and applaud that force of thought and versatility of genius, that comprehen sive soul and benevolent heart which attracted and commanded veneration from all, but inspired peculiar sensations of delight mixed with reverence in those who, like her, had the opportunity to observe these qualities, stimulated by gratitude, and actuated
��1 See post, in Sir B. Brookby's that year. Ib. i. 192, n. 3.
Anecdotes, for Johnson's fabrication 2 Baretti, in a MS. Note on Piozzi
of a battle between the Russians and Letters, i. 81, says that 'Johnson
Turks. The first mention in the could not much bear Mrs. Salus-
Gentlemarfs Magazine of the divi- bury, nor Mrs. Salusbury him,
sion of Poland is in the number for when they first knew each other.
July, 1772, p. 337, by which time But her cancer moved his compas-
Mrs. Salusbury had been at least sion, and made them friends.'
a year dangerously ill. Letters, i. 3 It must have been a good deal
172, 1 80. 'The domestic distresses subdued by age, for she was sixty-
of 1772' were money difficulties six when she died,
caused by the commercial panic of 4 Ante, p. 66,
by
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