48 HIS WIFE'S DEATH. Wife, by her first marriage, of HENRY PORTER, Her whom he loved much, and wept for long. She died in London, in the month of March, A.D. MDCCLII. No wretched piece of swelling bombast this, but a simple and touching tribute to the memory of the woman he had loved, and married, and companied with for sixteen years. That Johnson loved his wife devotedly has never once been doubted; that his wife did not return the affection in quite the same degree may easily be believed; but that "she indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London," we have on the authority of only one lady-and ladies have not hitherto been found the fairest judges of their own sex. In any case, it is clear that he was only the more if she was so much the less; but he never complained himself, and it is unnecessary to defend where no charge has been made. Her wedding-ring was kept by him till his own death-a sanctified treasure, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he had pasted a slip of paper with these words written on it : "Eheu! Eliz. Johnson, How Johnson felt, and what he thought, during the immediate pressure of this the heaviest trial of a heavily tried life, may be gathered from a beautiful and noble letter of sympathy to Mr. James Elphinstone, written eighteen months before, on a like mournful occasion, but which finds its fitting place here : "DEAR SIR, 66 TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTONE. "September 25, 1750. "You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of HIS WIFE'S DEATH. 49 age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she should rather mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate, his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death, resigned, peaceful and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts ; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God: yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable, that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity. "There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, dear Sir, "Your most obliged, most obedient, "And most humble servant, 50 HIS WIFE'S DEATH. So closely did the thought of his departed wife cling to Johnson's memory all the rest of his days on earth, that it may be doubted if she was not mightier, as an influence, after her death than she had ever been when alive. "The idea of her life 'did' sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life 'Did' come apparel'd in more precious habit, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she liv'd indeed." Before closing this chapter, let us look for a moment into some of the deep places of that great heart; and let us try to look reverently-for this is no common case, and no common man. "April 26th, 1752, being after "12 at Night of the 25th. "O Lord! Governor of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed spirits, if thou hast ordained the souls of the dead to minister to the living, and appointed my departed wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams, or in any other manner agreeable to thy government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." "March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayers and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." Again and again we have heard all this called superstition, and then seen it on the instant put contemptuously aside. Really it is amusing or amazing, one hardly knows which-to watch the coolness with which some people ticket a deep feeling with an illsounding name, and then fancy they have done with it for ever. Is this clever settlement of difficult questions owing to superior HIS WIFE'S DEATH. 51 insight, one wonders, or only to supreme impertinence? Call the widowed man's prayer for his dead wife love, and not superstition, and then it will seem beautiful in our eyes. Beautiful, and not wholly unintelligible; for, " Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness." "April 23, 1753- I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the meantime I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." And then all his own little occasional faults of temper would come back upon the tender-hearted, large-souled man, as grievous offences hardly to be forgiven: but he never blamed the dead. Here is an extract from one of his prayers uttered about a year after his wife's decease : "O Lord, who givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected, in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild instruction." Johnson's faults, so far at least as they affected his wife, never lay about the roots of his character: that is abundantly evident. "And, O Lord, so far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife; beseeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness." "Can we believe that the dear dead are gone?" 52 JOHNSON'S HOUSEHOLD. CHAPTER VII. JOHNSON'S HOUSEHOLD HIS FRIENDS-VISIT TO OXFORD. (1752-1754.) SHORTLY before this sad event, Mrs. Williams, daughter of a Welsh physician, and a woman of some parts, had come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes. She afterwards became totally blind. While Mrs. Johnson lived, this lady had been received as a constant visitor of the family; and now, after his wife's death, Johnson gave her an apartment in the house, which she occupied till 1758, when Johnson removed to Gray's Inn, and she again went into lodgings. At a still subsequent period she once more became an inmate with our Author in Johnson's Court, remaining with him from that time forward to her death. Another humble friend, Mr. Robert Levett, an obscure physician practising among the poorer classes, was favoured in the same remarkable way; had an apartment in Johnson's house, and waited upon him every morning through the whole course of his breakfast, which was both late and long-continued. Johnson had such an inordinately high opinion of his poor friend's abilities that he had been heard to say, he should not be satisfied though attended by the whole College of Physicians, if Mr. Levett were not among them. What a strange family group! Rough, impetuous, making no fuss about his good deeds, and looking for no very high returns, this man gathers the poor and the needy and the otherwise forsaken round his board: drawn to them, as they were to him, by the attractive power of a kind heart. When Mr. Levett was mentioned on one occasion, and some surprise expressed at Johnson's fondness for him, Goldsmith remarked, "He is poor and |