massy,
and hard; and do not let the difference of ten pounds, or more, defeat
our purpose.

'I have enclosed ten pounds, and Mrs. Porter will pay you ten more,
which I gave her for the same purpose. What more is wanted shall be
sent; and I beg that all possible haste may be made, for I wish to have
it done while I am yet alive. Let me know, dear Sir, that you
receive this.

'I am, Sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Dec. 2, 1784.'

'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.

'DEAR MADAM,

'I am very ill, and desire your prayers. I have sent Mr. Green the
Epitaph, and a power to call on you for ten pounds.

'I laid this summer a stone over Tetty, in the chapel of Bromley, in
Kent[1198]. The inscription is in Latin, of which this is the English.
[Here a translation.]

'That this is done, I thought it fit that you should know. What care
will be taken of us, who can tell? May GOD pardon and bless us, for
JESUS CHRIST'S sake.

'I am, &c.

'SAM. JOHNSON[1199],'

'Dec. 2, 1784.'

My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself
for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to
man[1200]. Death had always been to him an object of terrour; so that,
though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at
which many have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very much
pleased to be told that he looked better. An ingenious member of the
_Eumelian Club_[1201], informs me, that upon one occasion when he said
to him that he saw health returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by
the hand and exclaimed, 'Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I
ever had.'

His own state of his views of futurity will appear truly rational; and
may, perhaps, impress the unthinking with seriousness.

'You know, (says he,)[1202] I never thought confidence with respect to
futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wise, or a good man.
Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wisdom impresses
strongly the consciousness of those faults, of which it is, perhaps,
itself an aggravation; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and
imputing every deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to
voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of
forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by
penitence.

'This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him
whose heart will not suffer him to