Note 799 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 5)

'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand and saying:—"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! priez Dieu pour moi."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 293, 5. 'I snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate myself with such amusements as the time offers.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 349.