Note 1163 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 7)

Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. Coll. MSS. shew (ante, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least fell into other hands (ante, ii. 476). There are other apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a letter to the Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay (Poetical Review, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. Strahan:—