God bless and restore you, my most dear daddy!  You know

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not how kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child, F. B.

[Mr. Crisp’s illness became so alarming, that Miss Burney hastened to Chesington, where she had been only a few days when her valued friend breathed his last.  In reply to a letter, in which she had given Dr. Burney an account of Mr. Crisp’s increasing sufferings, the doctor wrote: 

“Ah! my dear Fanny, your last letter has broke all our hearts! your former accounts kept off despair; but this brings it back in all its horrors.  I wish, if it were possible, that you would let him know how much I loved him, and how heavily I shall feel his loss when all this hurry subsides, and lets me have time to brood over my sorrows.  I have always thought that, in many particulars, his equal was not to be found.  His wit, learning, taste, penetration, and, when well, his conviviality, pleasantry, and kindness of heart to me and mine, will ever be thought of with the most profound and desponding regret.”

After the last mournful duties had been performed at Chesington,(177) Miss Burney returned to her father’s house in St. Martin’s-street; but some time elapsed ere she recovered composure sufficient to resume her journal.]

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                    Dr. Johnson attacked by paralysis.

Thursday, june 19.-We heard to-day that Dr. Johnson had been taken ill, in a way that gave a dreadful shock to himself, and a most anxious alarm to his friends.  Mr. Seward brought the news here, and my father and I instantly went to his house.  He had earnestly desired me, when we lived so much together at Streatham, to see him frequently if he should be ill.  He saw my father, but he had medical people with him, and could not admit me upstairs, but he sent me down a most kind message, that he thanked me for calling, and when he was better should hope to see me often.  I had the satisfaction to hear from Mrs. Williams that the physicians had pronounced him to be in no danger, and expected a speedy recovery.

The stroke was confined to his tongue.  Mrs. Williams told me a most striking and touching circumstance that attended the attack.  It was at about four o’clock in the morning:  he found himself with a paralytic affection; he rose, and composed in his own mind a Latin prayer to the Almighty, “that whatever were the sufferings for which he must prepare himself, it would please Him, through the grace and mediation of our blessed Saviour, to spare his intellects, and let them all fall upon his body.”  When he had composed this, internally, he endeavoured to speak it aloud, but found his voice was gone.

June 20.-I Went in the morning to Dr. Johnson, and heard a good account of him.  Dr. Rose, Dr. Dunbar, and Sam Rose, the Doctor’s son, dined with us.  We expected the rest of our party early though the absence of Dr. Johnson, whom they were all invited to meet, took off the spirit of the evening.