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 122 Extracts from

��\ now added, that he had never mentioned to me the disposal of the residue of his estate, which, after the purchase of an annuity for Frank, I found would be something considerable, and that he would do well to bequeath it to his relations. His answer was,


 * I care not what becomes of the residue.' A few days after,

it appeared that he had executed the draft, the blanks remaining, with all the solemnities of a real will. I could get him no farther, and thus, for some time, the matter rested.

He had scarce arrived in town, before it was found to be too true, that he was relapsing into a dropsy ; and farther, that he was at times grievously afflicted with an asthma. Under an apprehension that his end was approaching, he enquired of Dr. Brocklesby, with great earnestness indeed, how long he might probably live, but could obtain no other than unsatisfactory answers x : and, at the same time, if I remember right, under a seeming great pressure of mind, he thus addressed him, in the words of Shakespeare :

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the full bosom of that perilous stuff,
 * Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd ;

Which weighs upon the heart ? '

Macbeth [Act v. sc. 3].

To which the doctor, who was nearly as well read in the above author as himself, readily replied,

' Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.*

Upon which Johnson exclaimed' Well applied : that's more than poetically true 2 .'

He had, from the month of July in this year, marked the progress of his diseases, in a journal which he intitled ' ^Egri Ephemeris,' noting therein his many sleepless nights by the words, Nox insomnis. This he often contemplated, and, finding very little ground for hope that he had much longer to live, he set himself to prepare for his dissolution, and betook himself to

��1 Life, iv. 415. 2 Life, iv. 400.

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