that I never thought about obviating its effects on anybody else. It is supposed to have been produced by the English custom of making April fools; that is, of sending one another on some foolish errand on the 1st of April. "Tell Mrs. Boswell that I shall taste her marmalade cautiously at first. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. 'Beware,' says the Italian proverb, 'of a reconciled enemy.' But when I find it does me no harm, I shall then receive it, and be thankful for it, as a pledge of firm, and, I hope, of unalterable kindness. She is, after all, a dear, dear lady. "Please to return Dr. Blair thanks for his sermons. The Scotch write English wonderfully well. "My health is very bad, and my nights are very unquiet. What can I do to mend them? I have for this summer nothing better in prospect than a journey into Staffordshire and Derbyshire, perhaps with Oxford and Birmingham in my way. "Make my compliments to Miss Veronica; I must leave it to her philosophy to comfort you for the loss of little David. You must remember, that to keep three out of four is more than your share. Mrs. Thrale has but four out of eleven. "I am engaged to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to a little edition of The English Poets.' I think I have persuaded the booksellers to insert something of Thomson; and if you could give me some information about him, for the life which we have is very scanty, I should be glad. "I am, dear Sir, "Your most affectionate humble servant, Letters such as those last quoted represent the sunny hours of our Author's life, at this period; but, in fearful contrast to these there were hours of gloom also just then, which have pictured themselves in no letters, though they forced their way into the old man's "Prayers and Meditations" :-"When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to HOURS OF GLOOM. 307 madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies." And again, on Easter-day, the following:-" Almighty and most merciful Father, who seest all our miseries, and knowest all our necessities, look down upon me, and pity me. Defend me from the violent incursion of evil thoughts, and enable me to form and keep such resolutions as may conduce to the discharge of the duties which thy providence shall appoint me; and so help me, by thy Holy Spirit, that my heart may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found, and that I may serve thee with a pure affection and a cheerful mind. Have mercy upon me; O GOD, have mercy upon me; years and infirmities oppress me, terror and anxiety beset me. Have mercy upon me, my Creator and my Judge. In all perplexities relieve and free me; and so help me by thy Holy Spirit, that I may now so commemorate the death of thy Son our Saviour JESUS CHRIST, as that when this short and painful life shall have an end, I may, for his sake, be received to everlasting happiness. Amen." Afterwards, at church, renovation comes:-"I was for some time distressed, but at last obtained, I hope from the GOD of Peace, more quiet than I have enjoyed for a long time. I had made no resolution, but as my heart grew lighter, my hopes revived, and my courage increased; and I wrote with my pencil in my Common Prayer Book, It is fortunate for us that we have not taken in hand to classify our hero's life; for a life with so many eruptive forces working in and through it, stubbornly refuses to run nicely into any little mould. Life laughs at logic; and to insist upon looking at a great original man only through the eyes of some little philosophic system is simply to deny that the man is original at all. "Surely the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us 308 HOURS OF GLOOM. to feel with him-which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion. Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must miss the essential truth, unless it be lit up by the love that sees in all forms of human thought and work, the life-and-death struggles of separate human beings.” THE DOCTOR AND YOUNG SHERIDAN. 309 CHAPTER XXXIII. 66 DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD-LETTERS-PROPOSED LITTLE ADVENTURE." (1777.) In the summer of this year Johnson wrote one prologue and was lauded in another. His own was spoken before Hugh Kelly's comedy, "A Word to the Wise ; " that in which he himself was complimented was composed by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the son of the man whom the doctor had unfortunately offended beyond forgiveness. This last was spoken before "Sir Thomas Overbury," a tragedy by Johnson's old companion of unhappy memory, Richard Savage. The closing lines, in which delicate reference is made to our Author's Life of his poor friend, and to the Dictionary, are these: "So pleads THE TALE that gives to future times Fix'd by THE HAND THAT BIDS OUR LANGUAGE LIVE." Young Sheridan was afterwards elected a member of the Literary Club, having been proposed by the Doctor, on this ground: "He who has written the two best comedies of his age, is surely a considerable man." The comedies referred to are "The Rivals," published in 1775, and "The School for Scandal," published in 1777. In doing the son this honour, Johnson may have meant also to pay an indirect compliment to the father; for we now know the Doctor's peculiar way of begging a man's pardon. But the Doctor's grandest summer work was something infinitely finer than any prologue to any comedy, and the praise due to it could not have been fitly spoken before any mere stage-tragedy. It was a great act of mercy; and is one of the most interesting scenes in a very real tragedy that was performed in London about that time. The Rev. William Dodd, a very popular preacher, a zealous promoter of charitable institutions, and the author of a number of works in theological literature, had nevertheless contracted some vicious habits ill suited to his solemn office. To make up the deficit which licence and luxury had made in his income, he, in an evil hour, forged a bill upon the Earl of Chesterfield, whose tutor he had once been, and who, he probably flattered himself, would step in between him and ruin when he saw that the fatal error had been committed. But these hopes, if he had them, were doomed to be blasted; the Earl allowed the law to take its course, and that course meant death to the forger. Knowing our Author's force of mind, and believing in his goodness of heart, the wretched criminal had recourse to him in his hour of need, and wrote him a letter imploring him to use his power of language and persuasion in craving the Royal Mercy. Johnson read the letter, walking up and down his room in great agitation, and having finished it, said, "I will do what I can." And he kept his word. He wrote Dr. Dodd's "Speech to the Recorder," at the Old Bailey, when sentence of death was about to be pronounced. He also wrote "The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren," a sermon delivered by the condemned man to his fellow-prisoners in the chapel of Newgate. 66 DR. DODD TO DR. JOHNSON. 66 May 23, 1777. "I am so penetrated, my ever dear Sir, with a sense of your extreme benevolence towards me, that I cannot find words equal to the sentiments of my heart. "You are too conversant in the world to need the slightest hint from me, of what infinite utility the Speech on the awful day has been to me. I experience every hour some good effect from it. I am sure that effects still more salutary and important must follow from your kind and intended favour. I will labour-God being my helper-to do justice to it from the pulpit. I am sure, |