Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/99

 breath, that the act of respiration became not only voluntary but laborious in a decumbent posture 1. By copious bleeding I was relieved, but not cured 2.

I have this year omitted church on most Sundays, intending to supply the deficience in the week. So that I owe twelve attendances on worship 3. I will make no more such super stitious stipulations, which entangle the mind with unbidden obligations 4.

My purpose once more, O Thou merciful Creatour that governest all our hearts and actions, /3iorrjs 0117*0 Kvpepv&v 5, let not my purpose be vain My purpose once more is

To rise at eight.

i. To keep a journal.

a. To read the whole Bible in some language before Easter.

3. To gather the arguments for Christianity 6.

4. To worship God more frequently in publick.

122.

Sept. 1 8, 1777, Ashbourn 7.

Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast brought me to the beginning of another year, grant me so to remember thy

1 Voluntary is a strange term to man ! one would think that to pray

use of breathing. Decumbent is not for his dead wife and to pinch him-

in Johnson's Dictionary. self with church fasts had been

a Life, iii. 104 ; Letters, ii. 1-2 ; almost the whole of his religion.'

and ante, p. 64. Cowper's Works, ed. 1836, v. 157.

3 There had been but fourteen 5 Steering the helm of life. Sundays so far in this year. See 6 Boswell on the Sunday evening ante, p. 56. which he and Johnson spent in

4 Ante, p. 25. Cowper wrote on Aberdeen in August, 1773, records : Aug. 27, 1785: 'If it be fair to 'I said he should write expressly in judge of a book by an extract I do support of Christianity ; for that, not wonder that you were so little although a reverence for it shines edified by Johnson's journal. It is through his works in several places, even more ridiculous than was poor that is not enough. " You know (said

sof flatulent memory [Dr. Rutty, I) what Grotius has done, and what

Life, iii. 171]. The portion of it Addison has done. You should do

given us in this day's paper con- also." He replied, " I hope I shall." '

tains not one sentiment worth one Life, v. 89.

farthing ; except the last, in which 7 He spent his birthday with Bos- he resolves to bind himself with no well at Dr. Taylor's. Ib. iii. 157; more unbidden obligations. Poor Letters, ii. 33.

VOL. I. G gifts,

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