Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/86

The last year is added to those of which little use has been made. I tried in the summer to learn Dutch, and was interrupted by an inflammation in my eye. I set out in August on this Journey to Skie. I find my memory uncertain, but hope it is only by a life immethodical and scattered^[1]. Of my body I do not perceive that exercise, or change of air has yet either encreased the strength or activity. My Nights are still disturbed by flatulencies.

My hope is, for resolution I dare no longer call it, to divide my time regularly, and to keep such a journal of my time, as may give me comfort in reviewing it. But when I consider my age, and the broken state of my body, I have great reason to fear lest Death should lay hold upon me, while I am yet only designing to live^[2]. But I have yet hope.

Almighty God, most merciful Father, look down upon me with pity; Thou hast protected me in childhood and youth, support me, Lord, in my declining years. Preserve me from the dangers of sinful presumption. Give me, if it be best for me, stability of purposes, and tranquillity of mind. Let the year which I have now begun, be spent to thy glory, and to the furtherance of my salvation. Take not from me thy holy Spirit, but as Death approaches, prepare me to appear joyfully in thy presence for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try to be content.' Letters, i. 249. See also Life, v. 222, and post, p. 92. He was staying at Dunvegan in Sky with the Laird of Macleod.

1. Four years later he said:—'There must be a diseased mind where there is a failure of memory at seventy. A man's head, Sir, must be morbid if he fails so soon.' Life, iii. 191.
   Macaulay in his fifty-fifth year entered in his journal:—'My memory I often try, and find it as good as ever; and memory is the faculty which it is most easy to bring to decisive tests, and also the faculty which gives way first.' Trevelyan's Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii. 386.
2. 'Those that lie here stretched before us,' said Rasselas, 'the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state, they were perhaps snatched away while they were busy like us in the choice of life.' Rasselas, chap. 48.

1773.