Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/124

 n6 Extracts from

��upper room, which had the advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study 1, and furnished with books, chosen with so little regard to editions or their external appearance, as shewed they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of learning. Here he was in a situation and circum stances that enabled him to enjoy the visits of his friends, and to receive them in a manner suitable to the rank and condition of many of them. A silver standish, and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished those appearances of squalid indigence, which, in his less happy days, disgusted those who came to see him 2.

In one of his diaries he noted down a resolution to take a seat in the church; this he might possibly do about the time of this his removal. The church he frequented was that of St. Clement Danes 3, which, though not his parish-church, he preferred to that of the Temple, which I recommended to him, as being free from noise, and, in other respects, more commodious. His only reason was, that in the former he was best known. He was not constant in his attendance on divine worship 4 ; but, from an opinion peculiar to himself, and which he once intimated to me, seemed to wait for some secret impulse as a motive to it. ...

The Sundays which he passed at home were, nevertheless, spent in private exercises of devotion 5, and sanctified by acts of charity of a singular kind : on that day he accepted of no

1 Ante, \. 37. 4 Ante, ii. 94, n. I.

2 Boswell, dining with him in 1781, 5 'He was accustomed on these says that ' he produced now for the days to read the Scriptures, and par- first time some handsome silver ticularly the Greek Testament, with salvers, which, he told me, he had the paraphrase of Erasmus. Very late bought fourteen years ago ; so it was in his life he formed a resolution to a great day.' Life, iv. 92. See also read the Bible through, which he ib. ii. 215, where Boswell, dining with confessed to me he had never done ; him for the first time in 1773, 'found at the same time lamenting, that every thing in very good order,' and he had so long neglected to peruse, ib. ii. 376, where, occupying a room what he called the charter of his in his house in 1775, he ' found every- salvation.' Note by Hawkins. See thing in excellent order.' ante, i. 59.

3 Ante, i. 62, n. 6 ; Life, ii. 214.

invitation

�� �