[1263] Mr. Strahan, mentioning ‘the anxious fear’, which seized Johnson, says, that ’his friends who knew his integrity observed it with equal astonishment and concern.’  He adds that ’his foreboding dread of the Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine mercy.’ Pr. and Med. preface, p. xv.

[1264] The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford:—­’The Doctor’s prejudices were the strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible man.  You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy.  But did you ever hear what he told me himself?  That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke’s name in his Dictionary.  This, however, wore off.  At some distance of time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the Christian Religion.  I recommended Clarke’s Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is called his Prayers and Meditations, that he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in reading Clarke’s Sermons.  BOSWELL.  See ante, i. 398.

[1265] The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has inserted it in Prayers and Meditations, p. 216.  BOSWELL.

[1266] See ante, iii. 433.

[1267] The counterpart of Johnson’s end and of one striking part of his character may be found in Mr. Fearing in The Pilgrim’s Progress, part ii. ’"Mr. Fearing was,” said Honesty, “a very zealous man.  Difficulty, lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his interest in that celestial country.”  “I dare believe,” Greatheart replied, “that, as the proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever yet could shake off with ease."’ See ante, ii. 298, note 4.

[1268] Her sister’s likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by Reynolds.  Northcote’s Reynolds, i. 185.

[1269] The following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the very chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by his feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a friendship.  The letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton’s family believe it was intended for Mr. Boswell.

’MY DEAR SIR,—­After many conflicting hopes and fears respecting the event of this heavy return of illness which has assailed our honoured friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from Lichfield, about four days ago the appearances grew more and more awful, and this afternoon at eight o’clock, when I arrived at his house to see how he should be going on, I was acquainted at the door, that about three quarters of an hour before, he breathed his