valued,
at first made a very favourable reply, which being communicated to Dr.
Johnson, greatly affected him; but eventually he had to confess that his
application had been unsuccessful, and made a counter proposal, very
gratefully refused by Johnson, that he should draw upon him to the
amount of L500 or L600.

On Wednesday, June 30, I dined with him, for the last time, at Sir
Joshua Reynolds's, no other company being present; and on July 2 I left
London for Scotland.

Soon afterwards he had the mortification of being informed by Mrs.
Thrale that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, a papist, and
her daughter's music-master. He endeavoured to prevent the marriage, but
in vain.

Eleven days after I myself had left town, Johnson set out on a jaunt to
Staffordshire and Derbyshire, flattering himself that he might be, in
some degree, relieved; but towards the end of October he had to confess
that his progress was slight. But there was in him an animated and lofty
spirit, and such was his love of London that he languished when absent
from it. To Dr. Brocklesby he wrote: "I am not afraid either of a
journey to London, or of a residence in it. The town is my element;
there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid
farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told me long ago that
my vocation was to public life, and I hope still to keep my station,
till God shall bid me 'Go in peace.'"

He arrived in London on November 16. Soon after his return both the
asthma and the dropsy became more violent and distressful, and though he
was attended by Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren, and Dr.
Butter, who all refused fees, and though he himself co-operated with
them, and made deep incisions in his body to draw off the water from it,
he gradually sank. On December 2, he sent directions for inscribing
epitaphs for his father, mother, and brother on a memorial slab in St.
Michael's Church, Lichfield. On December 8 and 9 he made his will; and
on Monday, December 13, he expired about seven o'clock in the evening,
with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly perceived when
his dissolution took place. A week later he was buried in Westminster
Abbey, his old schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, reading the service.

I trust I shall not be accused of affectation when I declare that I find
myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a "Guide,
Philosopher, and Friend." I shall, the