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Life of Johnson, Volume 4, 1780-1784

Note 1171 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 7)

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On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know not if I have not turned a hundred.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 364. Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited in his memory.' Works, vi. 284.

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