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��was easier in his mind, and as fit to die at that instant, as he could be a year hence. He requested me to receive the sacra ment with him on Sunday, the next day. Complained of great weakness, and of phantoms that haunted his imagination.

5th. Being Sunday, I communicated with him and Mr. Lang- ton, and othei of his friends, as many as nearly filled the room. Mr. Strahan, who was constant in his attendance on him throughout his illness, performed the office 1. Previous to reading the exhortation, Johnson knelt, and with a degree of fervour that I had never been witness to before, uttered the following most eloquent and energetic prayer 2 :. ..

Upon rising from his knees, after the office was concluded, he said, that he dreaded to meet God in a state of idiocy, or with opium in his head 3 ; and, that having now communicated with the effects of a dose upon him, he doubted if his exertions were the genuine operations of his mind, and repeated from bishop Taylor this sentiment, * That little, that has been omitted in health, can be done to any purpose in sickness V

He very much admired, and often in the course of his illness recited, from the conclusion of old Isaac Walton's life of bishop Sanderson, the following pathetic request :

' Thus this pattern of meekness and primitive innocence changed this for a better life : 'tis now too late to wish, that mine may be like his ; for I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age, and God knows it hath not ; but, I most humbly beseech Almighty God, that my death may ; and I do as earnestly beg, that, if any reader shall receive any satisfaction from this very plain, and, as true relation, he will be so charitable as to say, Amen V

While he was dressing and preparing for this solemnity, an

1 Life, iv. 416. 5 'Thus this pattern of meek-

2 For the prayer, see ante, i. 121. ness and primitive innocence chang'd

3 ' I will take no more physic, not this for a better life. 'Tis now too even my opiates ; for I have prayed late to wish that my life may be that I may render up my soul to God like his ; for I am in the eighty- unclouded.' Life, iv. 415. For the fifth year of my Age; but I humbly effect of opium on him see Letters, beseech Almighty God that my ii. 437. death may ; and do as earnestly beg

4 Nevertheless in Holy Dying of every Reader to say Amen.' The Jeremy Taylor has a whole section Life of Bishop Sanderson, first ed., (ch. iii. sect. 6) on 'the advantages 1678.

of sickness.'

accident

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