expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.

[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's
_Memoirs_, i. 106.

[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough
Square. _Ante_, i. 328.

[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's
house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 180.

[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I
was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange
discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half
demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to
the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the
two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he
wrote:--'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any
period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this
day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little
festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and
Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199.

[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p.
553) pretends to account for this trip.

[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL.

[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is
gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful
confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is
most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 209.

[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs.
Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.

[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see
ante, i. 243, note 3.

[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under
_Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst
misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this
description with less aversion than I do.'

[435]

'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.'

Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4.

[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_,
'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I)
says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some
kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note.

[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:--

'And Labour steals an hour t