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fight fo that all men are equally afraid of death when they see it; only some have a power of turning their fight away from it better than others."

Johnson's own account of his views of futurity will appear truly rational; and may, perhaps, imprefs the unthinking with ferioufnefs

"I never thought confidence with respect to futurity any part of the character of a brave, a wife, or a good man. Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wisdom impreffes ftrongly the confcioufnefs of thofe faults, of which it is, perhaps, itself an aggravation; and goodnefs, always withing to be better, and imputing every deficiency to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to fuppofe the condition of forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime fupplied by penitence.

"This is the state of the best; but what muft be the condition of him whofe heart will not fuffer him to rank himself among the beft, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the ferenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feigu."

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The fubject of grief for the lofs of relations and friends being one day introduced, Mr. B. obferved, that it was ftrange to confider how foon it in general wears away. Dr. Taylor mentioned a gentleman of the neighbourhood as the only inftance he had ever known of a person who had endeavoured to retain grief.— He told Dr. Taylor, that after his Lady's death, which affected him deeply, he refolved that the grief, which he cherished with a kind of facred fondnefs, fhould be lafting; but that he found he could not keep it long." "_" All grief (said Johnson) for what cannot in the courfe of nature be helped, foon wears away; in fome fooner, indeed, in fome later; but it never continues very long, unless where there is madnefs, fuch as will make a man have pride fo fixed in his mind, as to imagine himself a king, or any other paffion in an unreasonable way: for all unneceflary grief is unwife, and therefore will not be long retained by a found mind. If, indeed, the cause of our grief is occafioned by our own misconduct, if grief is mingled with remorfe of confcience, it should be lasting."-B. "But, Sir, we do not approve of a man who very foon forgets the lofs of a wife or a friend."-7. "Sir, we difapprove of him, not because he foon forgets his grief; for the fooner it is forgotten the better; but because we fuppofe,

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pofe, that if he forgets his wife or his friend foon, he has not had much affection for them."

To one who had recently loft a wife, Johnfon obferved, "The lofs which you have lately fuffered, I felt many years ago, and know therefore how much has been taken from you, and how little help can be had from confolation. He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, fees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the fame hopes, and fears, and intereft; from the only companion with whom he has fhared much good or evil; and with whom he could fet his mind at liberty, to retrace the paft, or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the fettled course of fentiment and action is flopped; and life ftands fufpended and motionless, till it is driven by external causes into a new channel. But the time of fufpenfe is dreadful.

"Our first recourse in this diftreffed folitude is, perhaps for want of habitual piety, to a gloomy acquiefcence in neceffity. Of two mortal beings, one must lose the other; but surely there is a higher and better comfort to be drawn from the confideration of that Providence which > watches over all, and a belief that the living and the dead are equally in the hands of GOD, who will reunite thofe whom he has feparated, er who fees that it is beft not to reunite."

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Johnson himself was very much affected by the death of his mother, and fent to Mr. Bofwell to come and affift him to compofe his mind, which indeed was extremely agitated.→ He lamented that all ferious and religious converfation was banithed from the fociety of men, though great advantages might be derived from it. All acknowledged, he faid, what hardly any body practifed, the obligation we were under of making the concerns of eternity the governing principles of our lives. Every man, he observed, at last wishes for retreat: he fees his expectations frufirated in the world, and begins to wean himself from it, and to prepare for everlafting feparation.

Mr. B. one day mentioned to him, that he had feen the execution of feveral convicts at Tyburn, and that none of them feemed to be under any concern." Moft of them, Sir (faid Johnson), have never thought at all."-B. "But is not the fear of death natural to man ?"-J. "So much fo, Sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it." He then, in a low and earneft tone, talked of his meditating upon the awful hour of his own diffolution, and in what manner he should conduct himself upon that occafion: "I know not (said he) whether I fhould wish to have a friend by me, or have it all between GoD and myself."

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They afterward talked of the melancholy end of a gentleman who had deftroyed himself.→→ Johníon obferved, "It was owing to imaginary difficulties in his affairs, which, had he talked with any friend, would foon have vanished." B. "Do you think, Sir, that all who commit fuicide are mad?". "Sir, they are often not univerfally difordered in their intellects, but one paffion preffes fo upon them, that they yield to it, and commit fuicide, as a paffionate man will ftab another." He added, "I have often thought, that after a man has taken the refolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do any thing, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear."--Goldsmith (who was in the room) faid, "I don't fee that." -7. "Nay, why fhould not you see what every one else fees?"-G. "It is for fear of fomething that he has refolved to kill himself; and will not that timid difpofition reftrain him?"— 7. "It does not fignify that the fear of fomething made him refolve; it is upon the state of his mind after the refolution is taken that I argue. Suppofe a man, either from fear or pride, or confcience, or whatever motive, has refolved to kill himself, when once the refolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He He may then go and take the King of Pruffia by the nose, at the head of his army. He cannot fear the rack,

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