declared, that to prolong it only for one year, but not for the comfortless sensations he had lately felt, he would suffer the amputation of a limb x . He was willing to endure positive pain for possible pleasure. But he had no expectation that nature could last much longer. And therefore, for his last week, he undoubtedly abandoned every hope of his recovery or duration, and committed his soul to God. Whether he felt the instant stroke of death, and met the king of terrors face to face, cannot be known : for ' death and the sun cannot be looked upon,' says Rochefoucault 2 . But the writer of this has reason to imagine^ that when he thought he had made his peace with his Maker, he had nothing to fear 3 . He has talked of submitting to a violent death, in a good cause, without apprehensions. On one of the last visits from his surgeon, who on performing the puncture on his legs, had assured him that he was better, he declared, ' he felt himself not so, and that he did not desire to be treated like a woman or a child, for that he had made up his mind V He had travelled through the vale of this world for more than seventy-five years. It probably was a wilderness to him for more than half his time. But he was in the possession of rest and comfort and plenty, for the last twenty years 5 . Yet the blessings of fortune and reputation could not compensate to him the want of health, which pursued him through his pilgrimage on earth. Post equitem sedet atra cura.
( For when we mount the flying steed, Sits gloomy Care behind 6 .'
1 Life, iv. 409 ; ante, ii. 132. rence of this, because I believe it has
2 ' Le soleil ni la mort ne se peu- been frequently practised on myself.' vent regarder fixement.' Maximes, Life, iv. 306.
xxvi. 5 It was in 1762 that his pension
3 Ante, ii. 203. was given him, and in 1765 that his
4 ' I deny (said Johnson) the law- friendship with the Thrales began, fulness of telling a lie to a sick man His ' rest and comfort ' were greatly for fear of alarming him. You have marred by Mr. Thrale's death in no business with consequences; you 1781, and by the estrangement from are to tell the truth. Besides, you Mrs. Thrale which soon followed, are not sure what effect your telling His feeling of solitude was increased him that he is in danger may have. by the death of Levett in 1782, and It may bring his distemper to a of Miss Williams in 1783.
crisis, and that may cure him. Of 6 'And when he mounts,' &c. all lying, I have the greatest abhor- FRANCIS. HORACE, Odes, iii. i, 36. VOL. II. Z Of
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