and we find again Dr. Johnson himself saying, "Mr. Levett and Mrs. Desmoulins have vowed eternal hate. Levett is the more insidious, and wants me to turn her out :" and again, " Mrs. Williams is come home better, and the habitation is all concord and harmony, only Mr. Levett harbours discontent." It was not long, however, before Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins had a violent quarrel, so continually was dissension arising among those who may be almost termed his pensioners. Yet Johnson held him in great esteem, and regretted him in his death. To Mr. Laurence he communicates the intelligence of "our old friend's" death, and remarks:"So has ended the long life of a very useful, and very blameless man." To Mrs. Thrale he writes,-" My home has lost Levett; a man who took interest in everything, and therefore ready at conversation;" to Mrs. Porter," The loss of friends will be felt, and poor Levett has been a faithful adherent for thirty years;" and to Captain Langton,-" At night, at Mrs. Thrale's, as I was musing in my chamber, I thought, with uncommon earnestness, that, however I might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might remove, I would endeavour to retain Levett about me: in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was called to another state; a state for which, I think, he was not unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued him, I now wished that I had valued him more." We must construe the words, "for he was very useful to the poor," in conjunction with Dr. Johnson's belief in the merits and satisfaction of our Lord's death, and then we shall not be led astray by them. Poor Levett died very suddenly. "There passed not, I believe," says Johnson, "a minute between health and death." To others, he affectionately mentioned the decease of Levett; but the man is immortalized rather by Johnson's pathetic verses, the first three stanzas of which may be appropriately quoted here: "Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, "Well tried through many a varying year, Of every friendless name the friend. "Yet still he fills affection's eye, Obscurely wise and coarsely kind: Thy praise to merit unrefined." Much as these verses may be written to the praise of poor Levett, yet how much more do they, unwittingly, commemorate the benevolent heart of the poet, of whom it had many years before been said, after the manner of Shakspeare's forgiving Cardinal, when accused of showing kindness to a man of reported bad character,— "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson." The following entry has been found in one of his memorandum books: "January 20, Sunday, Robert Levett was buried in the churchyard of Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday, 17th, about seven the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and faithful friend I have known him from about 1746. Commendavi. May God have mercy on him! May He have mercy on me!" In the "Rambler," (No. 54,) Dr. Johnson had written long before, "When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliations of every fault ..... We consider, with the most afflictive anguish, the pain which we have given, and now cannot alleviate, and the losses which we have caused, and now cannot repair!" The notice of the inmates of Dr. Johnson's dwelling would not be complete without a brief sketch of Francis Barber, his faithful servant, almost uninterruptedly, for nearly thirty-two years. He was a negro, brought from Jamaica to this country by Colonel Bathurst, who, in his Will, left him his freedom: and Johnson, who was probably poor at this time, seems to have taken him out of compassion for his forlorn state, as well as out of love to his intimate friend Dr. Bathurst, son of the Colonel. It has been seen that Dr. Johnson put him to school, often wrote in terms of great kindness to him, and read and prayed with him. Twice, through some wayward fancy, he left his master, but was right glad to get into his old quarters again: for even when separated Johnson sought to do him good; and the servant could not refrain from an occasional visit to his old master's house. He, too, when comfortably ensconced in his former service, did not escape a participation in the domestic dissensions, for we find that Johnson used to dread "having his ears filled with the complaints of his duty, and in and of Frank aş she assumed ov rantable severity side the fault 1 the first to rel ill-tempered entertained a occasion, "I: friend's study, ance, Mr. Fra "A Literary I represented in help thinking guished men while bringin his master, a Francis Ba as a humbl His master, w of him in h Brocklesby, vourite serva depended on fifty pounds some reward "shall I be seventy pou He did ren CHAPTER VII. FURTHER INSTANCES. FROM much of Dr. Johnson's conduct in other ways, we perceive a kindness and tenderness of disposition. He usually experienced a repentant sorrow on depreciating the character of others, or on speaking sharply to them. In that remarkable interview with George the Third in the Queen's Library at Buckingham House, he, in conversation with the King, exposed an error of Dr. Hill, who was really a sort of literary and medical quack. However, as soon as he began to discover that he was depreciating the man in the eyes of his Sovereign, he commenced saying something in his favour, and thus, in great measure, sought to remove the effect of what he had before, yet quite truly, spoken. Boswell mentions, that he had heard Sir Joshua Reynolds, " a nice and delicate observer of manners, particularly remark, that when upon any occasion Johnson had been rough to any person in company, he took the first opportunity of reconciliation by drinking to him, or addressing his discourse to him;" if, however, the other had not grace to accept this reconciliation, then it gave him no more concern. We have an instance of Dr. Johnson's kindness, in this manner, handsomely accepted. At a dinner Johnson had spoken roughly |