manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's
writings. After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a wild
spendthrift he _consoles_ him with this reflection:--

"You may hang or drown at last."'

[1257] Sir John.

[1258]'"Les morts n'ecrivent point," says Madame de Maintenon.' Hannah
More's _Memoirs_, i. 233. The note that Johnson received 'was,' says Mr.
Hoole, 'from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a present of some
pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner that seemed as if he
thought it ill-timed, "too much of this," or some such expression.'
Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844.

[1259] Sir Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given
him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a
considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some
person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to
exact such a promise.' Croker's _Corres_. ii. 34. 'Reynolds used to say
that "the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle
day will never make a painter."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 119. 'Dr.
Johnson,' said Lord Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to
request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's
_Eldon_, i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm
partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the Church;
"No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its buttresses; but
certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it."'
_Ib_. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vii. 716)
says:--Lord Eldon was never present at public worship in London from one
year's end to the other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough
that he attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke,
"as if there were no God in town.'"

[1260] Reynolds records:--'During his last illness, when all hope was at
an end, he appeared to be quieter and more resigned. His approaching
dissolution was always present to his mind. A few days before he died,
Mr. Langton and myself only present, he said he had been a great sinner,
but he hoped he had given no bad example to his friends; that he had
some consolation in reflecting that he had never denied Christ, and
repeated the text, "Whoever denies me, &c." [_St. Matthew_ x. 33.] We
were both very ready to assure him that we were conscious that we were
better and wiser from his life an