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Aetat. 43.]
Johnson's love for his wife.
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additional, and that a personal motive for presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained and am fond to indulge.

'April 26. 1752. being after 12 at Night of the 25th.

'O Lord! Governour of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed Spirits, if thou hast ordained the Souls of the Dead to minister to the Living, and appointed my departed Wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attenrion and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams[1] or in any other manner agreeable to thy Government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'

What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased God to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams[2].

That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind.

'March 28, 1753. I kept this day[3] as the anniversary of my

    stition is natural; and I have heard too many well-attested facts (facts to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of evidence) not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this manner, and forewarnings communicated, which cannot be explained by material philosophy or mere metaphysics.'

  1. ↑ Warburton in his Divine Legation, i. 284. quotes the 'famous sepulchral inscription of the Roman widow.' 'Ita peto vos Manes sanctissimi commendatum habeatis meum conjugem et velitis huic indulgentissimi esse horis nocturnis ut eum videam.' etc.
  2. ↑ Mrs. Boswell died in June 1789. Johnson's prayer with Boswell's comments on it was first inserted in the Additions to the second edition.
  3. ↑ Mrs. Johnson died on March 17, O. S., or March 28. N. S. The
I.—18
Tetty's
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