’Accept, thou great and good heart, my earnest and fervent thanks and prayers for all thy benevolent and kind efforts in my behalf—­Oh!  Dr. Johnson! as I sought your knowledge at an early hour in life, would to heaven I had cultivated the love and acquaintance of so excellent a man!—­I pray god most sincerely to bless you with the highest transports—­the infelt satisfaction of humane and benevolent exertions!—­And admitted, as I trust I shall be, to the realms of bliss before you, I shall hail your arrival there with transports, and rejoice to acknowledge that you was my Comforter, my Advocate and my friend!  God be ever with you!’

Dr. Johnson lastly wrote to Dr. Dodd this solemn and soothing letter:—­

’To the reverend Dr. Dodd.

’Dear sir,—­That which is appointed to all men is now coming upon you.  Outward circumstances, the eyes and the thoughts of men, are below the notice of an immortal being about to stand the trial for eternity, before the Supreme Judge of heaven and earth.  Be comforted:  your crime, morally or religiously considered, has no very deep dye of turpitude.  It corrupted no man’s principles; it attacked no man’s life.  It involved only a temporary and reparable injury.  Of this, and of all other sins, you are earnestly to repent; and may god, who knoweth our frailty, and desireth not our death, accept your repentance, for the sake of his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

’In requital of those well-intended offices which you are pleased so emphatically to acknowledge, let me beg that you make in your devotions one petition for my eternal welfare.  I am, dear Sir, your affectionate servant,

‘June 26, 1777.’

‘Sam.  Johnson.’

Under the copy of this letter I found written, in Johnson’s own hand,
‘Next day, June 27, he was executed.’

Tuesday, September 16, Dr. Johnson having mentioned to me the extraordinary size and price of some cattle reared by Dr. Taylor, I rode out with our host, surveyed his farm, and was shown one cow which he had sold for a hundred and twenty guineas, and another for which he had been offered a hundred and thirty.  Taylor thus described to me his old schoolfellow and friend, Johnson:  ’He is a man of a very clear head, great power of words, and a very gay imagination; but there is no disputing with him.  He will not hear you, and having a louder voice than you, must roar you down.’

In the evening, the Reverend Mr. Seward, of Lichfield, who was passing through Ashbourne in his way home, drank tea with us.  Johnson described him thus:—­’Sir, his ambition is to be a fine talker; so he goes to Buxton, and such places, where he may find companies to listen to him.  And, Sir, he is a valetudinarian, one of those who are always mending themselves.  I do not know a more disagreeable character than a valetudinarian, who thinks he may do any thing that is for his ease, and indulges himself in the grossest freedoms:  Sir, he brings himself to the state of a hog in a stye.’