Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/390

 NARRATIVE

OF THE LAST WEEK OF JOHNSON'S LIFE

BY THE

RIGHT HON. WILLIAM WINDHAM

��[FROM the Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham, i vol. 8vo. 1866, p. 28.

For other extracts from this Diary see Letters, ii. 439.]

TUESDAY, December 7th. Ten minutes past two, P.M.

After waiting some short time in the adjoining room, I was admitted to Dr. Johnson z in his bedchamber, where, after placing me next him on the chair, he sitting in his usual place on the east side of the room (and I on his right hand), he put into my hands two small volumes (an edition of the New Testament), as he afterwards told me, saying, 'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto? He then proceeded to observe that I was entering upon a life which would lead me deeply into all the business of the world 2 ;

1 Life, iv. 407,411, 415. lo extreme consequences.' Mackin-

2 In the Coalition Ministry of 1783 tosh's Life, ii. 59. He eagerly op- Windham had been Chief Secretary posed the establishment of parochial for Ireland. Ib. iv. 200. schools, the abolition of the slave

' Windham was a man of a very trade, and the bills for preventing

high order, spoiled by faults ap- wanton cruelty to animals, and for

parently small. For the sake of a the abolition of capital punishment

new subtlety or a forcible phrase he for petty thefts. Romilly's Life, ii.

was content to utter what loaded 216,288. ' I remember with delight,'

him with permanent unpopularity ; wrote Parr, 'those happier days when

his logical propensity led him always his refinements, instead of being

that

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