Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/81

 winter, having a cough which would have interrupted both my own attention and that of others, and when the cough grew less troublesome I did not regain the habit of going to church, though I did not wholly omit it. I found the service not burthensome nor tedious, though I could not hear the lessons. I hope in time to take pleasure in public Worship x.

On this whole day I took nothing of nourishment but one cup of tea without milk, but the fast was very inconvenient. Towards night I grew fretful, and impatient, unable to fix my mind, or govern my thoughts, and felt a very uneasy sensation both in my stomach and head, compounded as it seemed of laxity and pain.

From this uneasiness, of which when I was not asleep I was sensible all night, I was relieved in the morning by drinking tea, and eating the soft part of a penny loaf.

This I have set down for future observation.

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Saturday Apr. 10, I dined on cakes and found myself filled and satisfied.

Saturday 10. Having offered my prayers to God, I will now review the last year.

Of the Spring and Summer, I remember that I was able in those seasons to examine and improve my dictionary 2, and was

tea and cross-buns He carried tion.' Wesley's Journal, ed. 1830,

me with him to the church of iv. 241.

St. Clement Danes, where he had his 1 For ' his great reluctance to go seat ; and his behaviour was, as to church,' see Life, \. 67. I had imaged to myself, solemnly 2 On Aug. 29, 1771, he wrote to devout. 1 never shall forget the Boswell : ' I am engaging in a very tremulous earnestness with which great work, the revision of my Dic- he pronounced the awful petition in tionary? Life, ii. 142. On March the Litany : " In the hour of death, 23, 1772, Eoswell found him busy on Lord deliver us." ' Life, ii. 214. he wrote to Dr. Taylor : 'I am now St. Clement's in the Strand (the send the whole dictionary to the largest church I ever preached in at press, and though I often went slug- London, except perhaps St. Sepul- gishly to the work I am not much chre's) to an immense congrega- delighted at the completion.' Letters,
 * Nov. 24, 1782. I preached at within a few hours of being able to

seldom

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