Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/50

 Burney, and others, attended him affectionately. An account of his last illness (10 Nov. to 13 Dec.) was drawn up by Hoole. He begged Reynolds to forgive him a debt of 30l.; to read his bible, and never to paint on a Sunday; and gave pious admonitions to many friends. He submitted courageously to operations for the relief of his dropsy, and called to his surgeon to cut deeper. He made his will on 8 and 9 Dec., became composed after some agitation, and died quietly on 13 Dec. 1784. He was buried on 20 Dec. in Westminster Abbey, in the presence of many members of the Literary Club, Taylor reading the funeral service. Complaints were made of the absence of any special cathedral service; Hawkins, as executor, not considering himself justified in paying the fees, which the cathedral authorities did not offer to remit (, in Country Clergymen of the Eighteenth Century, p. 129; and  in Johnsoniana). A subscription opened by the Literary Club provided the monument by John Bacon [q. v.], with an epitaph by Dr. Parr, erected in St. Paul's in 1785 at a cost of eleven hundred guineas. From an account of a post-mortem examination, published by G. T. Squibb, it appears that Johnson suffered from gout, emphysema of the lungs, and granular disease of the kidneys. A plate of an emphysematous lung in Baillie's ‘Morbid Anatomy’ represents one of Johnson's.

In his will Johnson describes his property, which amounted to about 2,300l. He left 200l. to the representatives of Thomas Innys, bookseller, in gratitude for help formerly given to his father; 100l. to a female servant; while the rest was to be applied to a provision for his negro servant Barber. In a codicil he left some sums to obscure relations, and a number of books to various friends. Boswell and others were omitted, probably from mere inadvertence. Langton, in consideration of 750l. left in his hands, was to pay an annuity of 70l. to Barber, who was also made residuary legatee. Barber settled at Lichfield.

Johnson gave Boswell a list of his lodgings in London (, iii. 407). After leaving Castle Street (now East) about 1738, he lived successively in the Strand, Boswell Court, the Strand, Holborn, Fetter Lane, Holborn, Gough Square (1749–59), Staple Inn, Gray's Inn, 1 Inner Temple Lane (present site of Johnson Buildings), 7 Johnson's Court, and 8 Bolt Court (the house in Bolt Court was burnt in 1819, Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 232). Johnson's house at Lichfield was sold in 1785 for 235l. It was bought in 1887 for 800l. by Mr. G. H. Johnson of Southport (no relation), who preserves it without alteration. A statue by T. C. Lucas was erected at Lichfield in 1838, and a monument at Uttoxeter (commemorative of his penance there) in 1878 (Notes and Queries, 7th ser. iv. 402).

Johnson received the degree of LL.D. from Dublin in 1765, and from Oxford in 1775; but scarcely ever himself used the familiar title of ‘Dr. Johnson’ (, ii. 332). His library was sold after his death by James Christie the elder [q. v.] for 242l. 9s. A sale-catalogue is in the Bodleian Library.

A miniature of Johnson by an unknown painter before 1752 was engraved for Croker's edition. Reynolds painted him: (1) In 1756 (Boswell's picture, often engraved, given in Boswell, vol. i. opposite p. 392); (2) in 1770 for Lucy Porter, arms raised with characteristic gesture; replica at Knole Park, shown at Guelph Exhibition, 1891; (3) in 1773 for Beauclerk, afterwards Langton's, replica at Streatham, afterwards Sir Robert Peel's, now in National Gallery; frontispiece to Hill's ‘Boswell,’ vol. iii.; (4) in 1778 for Malone; the picture which made Johnson say that he would not be ‘blinking Sam’ (, Anecdotes, p. 248;  and, Life of Reynolds, i. 147, 357, ii. 143, 221). He was painted by Barry about 1781; for Kearsley, by S. C. Trotter, in 1782, an ‘ugly fellow, like the original,’ according to Johnson (Life of, 1785, published by Kearsley); by Miss Reynolds in 1783, called by the original ‘Johnson's grimly ghost’ (, Letters, ii. 302); and by Opie, who never finished the picture, according to Hawkins, p. 569. A fine mezzotint from this by Townley is in the common-room of University College; given in Hill's ‘Boswell,’ frontispiece to vol. iii. 245. Nollekens in 1777 made a bust in clay, never put into marble. There is a drawing of it by Wivell reproduced in Hill's ‘Boswell’ (frontispiece to vol. ii.)

Johnson had a tall, well-formed, and massive figure, indicative of great physical strength, but made grotesque by a strange infirmity. Madame d'Arblay speaks of his ‘vast body in constant agitation, swaying backwards and forwards;’ Miss Reynolds (Johnsoniana, p. 222) describes his apparently unconscious ‘antics,’ especially when he crossed a threshold. Sometimes when he was reading a book in the fields a mob would gather to stare at his strange gestures. Reynolds mentioned that he could constrain them when he pleased (, i. 144), though Boswell called them St. Vitus's dance. He had queer tricks of touching posts and carefully counting steps, even when on horseback