It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars of Johnson’s remaining days[1220], of whom it was now evident, that the crisis was fast approaching, when he must ’die like men, and fall like one of the Princes[1221].’  Yet it will be instructive, as well as gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few circumstances, on the authenticity of which they may perfectly rely, as I have been at the utmost pains to obtain an accurate account of his last illness, from the best authority[1222].

Dr. Heberden[1223], Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren[1224], and Dr. Butter, physicians, generously attended him, without accepting any fees, as did Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; and all that could be done from professional skill and ability, was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable.  He himself, indeed, having, on account of his very bad constitution, been perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him might be drawn off by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too tenderly[1225].

About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby paid him his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, ’I have been as a dying man all night.’  He then emphatically broke out in the words of Shakspeare,—­

     ’Can’st thou not minister to a mind diseas’d;
      Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
      Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
      And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
      Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff,
      Which weighs upon the heart?’

To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great poet:—­

’----------------therein the patient
Must minister to himself[1226].’

Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application.

On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr. Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,—­

     ‘Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore Sano[1227],’

and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly over, he happened, in the line,

     ‘Qui spatium vitae; extremum inter munera ponat,’

to pronounce supremum for extremum; at which Johnson’s critical ear instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit of the grammarian[1228].