Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/134

 126 Extracts from

��this question ' What would be a proper annuity to bequeath to a favourite servant?' The doctor answered, that the circum stances of the master were the truest measure, and that, in the case of a nobleman, 5o/. a year was deemed an adequate reward for many years' faithful service. ' Then shall I,' said Johnson, I desire you to tell him so I .' And now, at the making of the will, a devise, equivalent to such a provision, was therein in serted. The residue of his estate and effects, which took in, though he intended it not, the house at Lichfield, he bequeathed to his executors, in trust for a religious association, which it is y 'needless to describe 2.
 * be nobilissimus ; for, I mean to leave Frank 7o/. a year, and

Having executed the will with the necessary formalities, he would have come home, but being pressed by Mr. and Mrs. Strahan to stay, he consented, and we all dined together. Towards the evening, he grew chearful, and I having promised to take him in my coach, Mr. Strahan and Mr. Ryland would accompany him to Bolt-court. In the way thither he appeared much at ease, and told stories. At eight I sat him down, and Mr. Strahan and Mr. Ryland betook themselves to their re spective homes.

Sunday 28th. I saw him about noon ; he was dozing ; but waking, he found himself in a circle of his friends. Upon open ing his eyes, he said, that the prospect of his dissolution was very terrible to him, and addressed himself to us all, in nearly these words : c You see the state in which I am ; conflicting with bodily pain and mental distraction : while you are in health and strength, labour to do good, and avoid evil, if ever you hope to

escape the distress that now oppresses me.' A little while

after, ' I had, very early in my life, the seeds of goodness in

1 Life, iv. 401. that 'the statute of Mortmain, no

V 2 Boswell says that ' he had thoughts doubt, would have hindered the be-

of leaving to Pembroke College his quest to the College.' This was a

house ; but his friends who were mistake, as the two Universities of

about him very properly dissuaded Oxford and Cambridge, and the Col-

him from it, and he bequeathed it to leges within them, were exempted

some poor relations.' Ib. i. 75. from its operation. Blackstone's

In a note on this passage I say Commentaries, ed. 1775, ii. 274.

me

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