BOYSE. 193 left off drinking all fermented liquors, except now and then a glass of wine to support his spirits, and that he took very moderately. After his death I endeavoured all I could to get him decently buried, by soliciting those dissenters who were the friends of him and his father, but to no purpose; for only Dr.Grosvenor, in Hoxton-square, a dissenting teacher, offered to join towards it. He had quite tired out those friends in his life-time; and the general answer that I received was, “That such a con- tribution was of no service to him, for it was a matter of no importance how or where he was buried." As I found nothing could be done, our last resource was an appli- cation to the parish; nor was it without some difficulty, occasioned by the malice of his landlady, that we at last got him interred on the Saturday after he died. Three more of Mr, Johnson's amanuenses, and myself, attended the corpse to the grave. Such was the miserable end of poor Sam, who was obliged to be buried in the same charitable manner with his first wife; a burial, of which he had often mentioned his abhorrence." Although there is too much reason to believe that no part of Boyse's character has been misrepresented in the preceding narrative, he must not be deprived of the evi- dence which Mr. Nichols's correspondent has advanced in his favour. He assures us that he knew him from the year 1782 to the time of his death; and that he never saw any thing in his wife's conduct that deserved censure; that he was a man of learning; and when in company with those by whom he was not awed, an entertaining companion; but so irregular and inconsistent in his con- duct, that it appeared as if he had been actuated by two different souls on different occasions. These last accounts are in some degree conirmed by the writer of his life in Cibber's collection, who says that while Boyse was in his last illness, he had no notion of his approaching end, nor " did he expect it until it was almost past the thinking of." His mind, indeed, was often religiously disposed; he VOL.
