pleases my superstition,' he tells
Temple, 'which you know is not small, and being not of the gloomy but
the grand species is an enjoyment.' When his uncle John died, we learn
he was 'a good scholar and affectionate relative, but had no conduct.
And, do you know, he was not confined to one woman; he had a strange
kind of religion, but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not
already, in heaven!' He comforts himself constantly over life being a
mere state of purification, and looks forward to a condition of events
in which 'a man can soap his own beard and enjoy whatever is to be had
in this transitory state of things.' He is for ever questioning Johnson
upon purgatory, 'having much curiosity to know his notions on that
point.' One of the last authentic glimpses of Boswell is his being found
in the company of Wilberforce, going west, with a nightcap in his
pocket, on some visit to a friend such as Miss Hawkins says he was but
too fond of doing,--'away to the west as the sun went down'--doubtful of
future punishment, but resolute in maintaining the depravity of man. It
would almost appear as if Bozzy had read himself into Butler's doctrine
that our present life is a state of probation for a future one, but had
forgotten the qualification 'that our future interest is now depending
on ourselves.'

The very influence of Johnson himself may have affected the weaker mind
of Boswell injuriously. Both suffered from hypochondria, though that of
the latter was far distant from the affliction of Johnson whom Dr Adams
found 'in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and
restlessly walking from room to room.' Temple maintained that the effect
of Johnson's company had been of a depressing nature to his friend, and
Sir Wm. Forbes believed that some slight tincture of superstition had
been contracted from his companionship with the sage. The 'cloudy
darkness,' as he himself calls it, of his mind, the weakness and the
confusion of moral principles manifest enough in the Temple
correspondence, are better revealed in the conversation with Johnson at
Squire Dilly's, 'where there is always abundance of excellent fare and
hearty welcome.' 'Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the
felicity of human nature, many experience,--in fine weather,--at the
country-house of a friend,--consoled and elevated by pious exercises, I
expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my "guide, philosopher,
and friend;" My