Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/43

 healed ; and that, by the help of thy holy spirit, I may obtain everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And, O Lord, so far as it may be lawful, I commend unto thy fatherly goodness my father, brother, wife, and mother, beseeching thee to make them happy for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

42.

Sept. 18, 1760, resolved D. j. l

To combat notions of obligation 2.

To apply to study.

To reclaim imagination.

To consult the resolves on Tetty's coffin 3.

To rise early.

To study Religion.

To go to Church.

To drink less strong liquors 4.

To keep Journal.

To oppose laziness, by doing what is to [be] done to morrow.

Rise as early as I can.

Send for books for Hist, of war 5.

Put books in order 6.

Scheme life 7.

1 Deo juvante. his long periods of abstinence, see

2 He had, I conjecture, been Life, i. 103, n. 3.

tempted to bind himself by a vow in 5 Boswell assumes that he meant

order to force himself to do what he to write a history of the war that the

thought he ought to do. Against vows first Pitt was carrying on in a suc-

he more than once strongly protested, cession of triumphs. It is possible

' Do not accustom yourself,' he wrote that it was a history of war in gene-

to Boswell, * to enchain your vola- ral that he had in view. Ib. i. 354. tility by vows; they will sometime 6 ' On Wednesday, April 3, [1776],

leave a thorn in your mind, which in the morning I found him very

you will perhaps never be able to busy putting his books in order, and

extract or eject.' Life, ii. 21. 'A vow as they were generally very old ones

is a horrible thing, it is a snare for clouds of dust were flying around

sin.' Ib. iii. 357. See also Letters, him. He had on a pair of large

i. 217. See post, p. 30, where he gloves such as hedgers use. His

records : ' I resolved in the presence present appearance put me in mind

of God but without a vow' &c. This of my uncle Dr. Boswell's descrip-

would seem to show that he had tion of him, " A robust genius, born

once made vows. to grapple with whole libraries." '

3 Ante, p. ii. Life, iii. 7.

4 For his use of strong liquors and 7< I have,' he said, *from the

O Almighty

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