“Sir,” said Doctor Johnson to a talkative politician, at a dinner-party, “I perceive you are a vile Whig,” and then he proceeded to demolish him.  Yet Johnson himself was a Whig, although he never knew it; just as he was a liberal in religion, and yet was boastful of being a stanch Churchman.

Johnson’s irritability never vented itself against the helpless.  His charity knew no limit—­not even the bottom of his purse.  When he had no money to give, he borrowed it.  And when his pension was three hundred pounds a year, the Thrales could not figure out that he spent more than seventy or eighty on himself.  The rest went to his dependents.  In his latter days his home was a regular museum of waifs and strays.  There was Miss Williams, the ancient aristocratic spinster who came to London to have an operation performed on one of her eyes.  She came to Johnson’s home and remained ten years, because she had been a friend of his wife.  This claim was enough, and she slid into the head place in Johnson’s household.  Her peevishness used to drive the old man, at times, into the street; but that tongue of his, with its crushing retorts, was ever silent and tender towards her.  The poor creature became blind, and used to shock the finicky Boswell by testing the fulness of the teacups with her finger.

Then there was a Mrs. Desmoulins and her daughter, who drifted down from Lichfield and came to Johnson, because forty years before, he, too, had lived in Lichfield.  He gave them house-room, treated them as guests, and each week left a half-guinea on the mantel of their room.

Then there was the broken-down Levett, and Francis Barber, who, coming as a servant, remained as one of the family, because he was too old to work.  A Miss Carmichael, in green spectacles and bombazine, carrying a cane, completed what the Doctor called his “seraglio.”  Writing to Mrs. Thrale in playful mood, telling of his household troubles, he says, “Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them.”  And he, the great, gruff and mighty Ursa Major, listened to all their woes, caring for them in sickness, wiping the death-dew from their foreheads, wearing crape upon his sleeve for them when dead.

* * * * *

This man tasted all the fame that is one man’s due; he had all the money he needed, or knew how to use; the coveted LL.D. came from his Alma Mater; and the patronage from Lord Chesterfield, for which he craved, only that he might fling it back.  He was the friend and confidant of the great and proud, deferred to by the King and sought out by those who prized the far-reaching mind and subtle imagination—­the things that link us with the Infinite.  The fear of hell and dread of death that haunted him in youth and middle age, finally gave way to faith and trust.  When partial paralysis came to him at midnight, his sanity did not fail him, and knowing the worst, he