Note 1259 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 7)

Sir Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to exact such a promise.' Croker's Corres. ii. 34. 'Reynolds used to say that "the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle day will never make a painter."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 119. 'Dr. Johnson,' said Lord Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's Eldon, i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the Church; "No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its buttresses; but certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it."' Ib. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vii. 716) says:—Lord Eldon was never present at public worship in London from one year's end to the other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough that he attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke, "as if there were no God in town.'"