"'Sir,' he said twenty-six years later 'I have known what it was to
have a wife, and (in a solemn tender faultering tone) I have known what
it is to _lose a wife_.--It had almost broke my heart.'"
Long before the pension had given him security Johnson had begun to
make his home a refuge for the poor and lonely:
"Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy,
his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself.
Mrs Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and
a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to
London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which
afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant
visitor at his house while Mrs Johnson lived; and after her death,
having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her
eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an
apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he
had a house."
From the accounts we have of Mrs Williams we cannot imagine her to have
been an easy companion. Her blindness made her peevish and quarrelsome
and we may wonder, with Boswell, at Johnson's patience with her. But
she was a good talker and that was a great merit in Johnson's eyes. He
made many efforts to brighten her life and increase her tiny income;
Garrick was induced to give her a benefit performance and Mrs Montagu
to provide her with a small pension.
"The truth is," says Boswell "that his humane consideration of the
forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by her father,
induced him to treat her with the utmost tenderness, and even to be
desirous of procuring her amusement, so as sometimes to incommode many
of his friends, by carrying her with him to their houses, where, from
her manner of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not
but offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations."
But Boswell was a proud man when he was first invited to drink tea with
her after dining out with Johnson. He knew that it was a sign of real
intimacy.
"We went home to his house to tea. Mrs Williams made it with
sufficient dexterity, notwithstanding her blindness, though her manner
of satisfying herself that the cups were full enough appeared to me
a little aukward; for I fancied she put her finger down a certain
way, till she felt the tea touch it[12]. In my first elation at being
allowed the privilege of attending Dr Johnson at his late visits to
this lady ..., I willingly drank cup after cup."
Nor was the lady's dinner forgotten when Boswell and Johnson went off
to their tavern:
"There was, on these occasions, a little circumstance of kind attention
to Mrs Williams, which must not be omitted. Before coming out, and
leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her choice of a chicken, a
sweetbread, or any other little nice thing, which was carefully sent to
her from the tavern, ready-drest."
Her death left Johnson very desolate.
"I have lost a companion," he wrote "to whom I have had recourse
for domestick amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of
knowledge never was exhausted.... She left her little substance to a
charity-school. She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor
want, nor sorrow."
About 1746 Johnson had made the acquaintance of another "humble
friend," Mr Robert Levet.
"He was" says Boswell "an obscure practiser in physick amongst the
lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes
whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such
extensive practice in that way, that Mrs Williams has told me, his walk
was from Hounsditch to Marybone.... Such was Johnson's predilection for
him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have
heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the
College of Physicians, unless he had Mr Levet with him. Ever since I
was acquainted with Dr Johnson, and many years before, as I have been
assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr Levet had an apartment in his
house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the
whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange
grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a
word while any company was present."
But this "odd old surgeon" was poor and honest; and that, as Goldsmith
said, was recommendation enough to Johnson, who never treated him as
a dependent and indeed declared that "Levet was indebted to him for
nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at breakfast,
and now and then a dinner on a Sunday." The greatest honour which
Johnson paid his old friend were the "pathetick verses" which he wrote
at his death. Here we will quote two stanzas:
Well try'd through many a varying year
See _Levett_ to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
His virtues walk'd their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
His single talent well employ'd.
For five years towards the end of his life Johnson had a further
addition to his household.
"On Friday, March 20, [1778]" says Boswell "I found him at his own
house, sitting with Mrs Williams, and was informed that the room
formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charitable purpose;
Mrs Desmoulins[13], and I think her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael,
being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity,
that Mrs Desmoulins herself told me, he allowed her half-a-guinea a
week. Let it be remembered, that this was above a twelfth part of his
pension."
The invasion had, as we shall see, a disturbing effect on the household
and it was well that Johnson had a devoted servant.
This was Francis Barber, a negro who had been brought to England in
1750 and received his freedom (for the slave trade still flourished)
from his master, Colonel Bathurst. Dr Bathurst, the Colonel's son, was
a very intimate friend of Johnson and gave him Francis as a servant.
Johnson, as his way was, made of him a friend. Francis once took a
fancy to go to sea; but Johnson had a horror of the sailor's life and
got him back. Finding him intelligent and worth a better education he
sent him to school at Bishop Stortford.
Here are two letters which shew Johnson's fatherly kindness:
"TO MR FRANCIS BARBER.