st have been employed, ere the indocility of the animal
could have been subdued. "Certainly, (said the Doctor;) but, (turning
to me,) how old is your pig?" I told him, three years old. "Then, (said
he,) the pig has no cause to complain; he would have been killed the
first year if he had not been EDUCATED, and protracted existence is a
good recompence for very considerable degrees of torture."'

As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. Thrale
was no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed that he would
naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his beloved
wife's daughter, and end his life where he began it. But there was in
him an animated and lofty spirit, and however complicated diseases might
depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him, beheld and acknowledged the
invictum animum Catonis. Such was his intellectual ardour even at this
time, that he said to one friend, 'Sir, I look upon every day to be
lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance;' and to another, when
talking of his illness, 'I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.'
And such was his love of London, so high a relish had he of its
magnificent extent, and variety of intellectual entertainment, that he
languished when absent from it, his mind having become quite luxurious
from the long habit of enjoying the metropolis; and, therefore, although
at Lichfield, surrounded with friends, who loved and revered him, and
for whom he had a very sincere affection, he still found that such
conversation as London affords, could be found no where else. These
feelings, joined, probably, to some flattering hopes of aid from the
eminent physicians and surgeons in London, who kindly and generously
attended him without accepting fees, made him resolve to return to the
capital.

From Lichfield he came to Birmingham, where he passed a few days with
his worthy old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, who thus writes to me:--'He
was very solicitous with me to recollect some of our most early
transactions, and transmit them to him, for I perceive nothing gave him
greater pleasure than calling to mind those days of our innocence. I
complied with his request, and he only received them a few days before
his death. I have transcribed for your inspection, exactly the minutes
I wrote to him.' This paper having been found in his repositories after
his death, Sir John Hawkins has inserted it entire, and I have made
occasional use of it and othe