The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes, Volume 12

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Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss, 1812

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Page 366 - I was alarmed, and prayed God, that however he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in Latin verse. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good : I made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired in my faculties.
Page 366 - I put myself into violent motion, and I think repeated it; but all was vain. I then went to bed, and, strange as it may seem, I think slept. When I saw light, it was time to contrive what I should do. Though God stopped my speech, he left me my hand : I enjoyed a mercy which was not granted to my dear friend Lawrence, who now perhaps overlooks me as I am writing, and rejoices that I have what he wanted. My first note was necessarily to my servant, who came in talking, and could not immediately comprehend...
Page 366 - I sat for my picture, and walked a considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and evening I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes of life. Thus I went to bed, and in a short time waked and sat up, as has...
Page 381 - Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits and in thy mercy: forgive and accept my late conversion; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance...
Page 182 - Magazine," a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language is spoken. To this undertaking he owed the affluence in which he passed the last twenty years of his life, and the fortune which he left behind him, which, though...
Page 366 - ... my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less horror than seems now to attend it.
Page 365 - I am sitting down in no cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over now with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of regard however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done you evil.
Page 28 - ... constitution of body, so hardened by early severities, and wholesome fatigue, that he was insensible of any sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was in his air and motion something rough...
Page 352 - In a man's letters, you know, madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast ; whatever passes within him, is shown, undisguised, in its natural process ; nothing is inverted, nothing distorted : you see systems in their elements ; you discover actions in their motives.
Page 362 - Several chapels have been destroyed, and several inoffensive papists have been plundered ; but the high sport was to burn the gaols. This was a good rabble trick. The debtors and the criminals were all set at liberty ; but of the criminals, as has always happened, many are already retaken ; and two pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is expected that they will be pardoned.

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