[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:—­’I should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him.’  Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, ii. 233.  On Nov. 25 she called on him.  ’He let me in, though very ill.  He told me he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him.  “I remember,” said he, “that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places.”  “Oh!” said the man of the house, “that’s nothing but by the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings.”  He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling me this.’  Miss Burney continues:—­’How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way.  Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, “Be not,” he said, in a voice of even tenderness, “be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now.”  I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the most energetic, said:—­“Remember me in your prayers."’ Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, ii. 327.  See ante, iii. 367, note 4.

[1165] Mr. Hector’s sister and Johnson’s first love. Ante, ii. 459.

[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor.  BOSWELL.

[1167] See ante, ii. 474, and iii. 180.

[1168] ’Reliquum est, [Greek:  Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].’ Cicero, Epistolae ad Atticum, iv. 6.  ‘Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.’  Erasmus, Adagiorum Chiliades, ed. 1559, p. 485.

[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.’  Temple’s Works, ed. 1757, i. 170.

[1170] It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson’s literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence.  Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty: 

’DIVINITY.

’A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton’s exercise.