There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have
not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight;
during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with as
much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit
of. In case of the worst, the Abbe Grant will be my executor in this
part of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has
been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as
possible.' BOSWELL. Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 291), in 1779, thus
mentions this 'younger brother':--'Macdonald abused Lord North in very
gross, yet too applicable, terms; and next day pleaded he had been
drunk, recanted, and was all admiration and esteem for his Lordship's
talents and virtues.'

[462] See _ante_, iii. 85, and _post_, Oct. 28.

[463] Cheyne's English Malady, ed. 1733, p. 229.

[464] 'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. See
_ante_, iii. 350, where Boswell is reproached by Johnson with 'bringing
in gabble,' when he makes this quotation.

[465] VARIOUS READINGS. Line 2. In the manuscript, Dr. Johnson, instead
of _rupibus obsita_, had written _imbribus uvida_, and _uvida nubibus_,
but struck them both out. Lines 15 and 16. Instead of these two lines,
he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following:--

Parare posse, utcunque jactet
Grandiloquus nimis alta Zeno.

BOSWELL. In Johnson's _Works_, i. 167, these lines are given with some
variations, which perhaps are in part due to Mr. Langton, who, we are
told (_ante_, Dec. 1784), edited some, if not indeed all, of Johnson's
Latin poems.

[466] Cowper wrote to S. Rose on May 20, 1789:--'Browne was an
entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before;
this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much.'
Southey's _Cowper_, vi. 237. His _De Animi Immortalitate_ was published
in 1754. He died in 1760, aged fifty-four. See _ante_, ii. 339.

[467] Boswell, in one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_ante_, iv. 179)
says:--'I do fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking; that I have a
constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and that if
it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid I
should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.... Drinking is in
reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time
of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and