“My readers,” writes Boswell, “are now, at last, to behold Samuel Johnson preparing himself for that doom from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man.” There can be few sights more fascinating. In the case of Johnson there is an especial fascination, since for many years he felt, and at times expressed, fear and horror of death in a degree to which most men are strangers. He said “he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.” But toward the end this horror abated, so that there is a peculiar beauty in the opening of his will, which he made but five days before his death. “In the name of God, Amen. I, Samuel Johnson, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last will and testament. I bequeath to God a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by repentance and I trust redeemed by Jesus Christ.” [Pg 70]
He calmly anticipates the acceleration with which he advances towards death. But, now as formerly, he will not dogmatise on his salvation; he “hopes” and “trusts.” “A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him quiet,” he had observed on one occasion; but on another, “No man can be sure that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation.” He might have prayed, as did Sir Francis South in his will dated November 14, 1631, “beseeching Him for the all-sufficient merits and infinite mercies of His only Son and my alone Saviour Christ Jesus to accept of this my poor sacrifice, and freely to pardon and forgive me my many multiplied sins and transgressions, and in the love of His most blessed Spirit to give me some comfortable assurance thereof during my time in this vale of flesh, that I may joyfully and willingly part with this miserable world to live with Him for ever in His eternal rest.”
It was this “comfortable assurance” that Johnson needed. To the last he seems logically to have maintained the distinction between hope and belief, but emotionally to have discarded it. Certainly at the end he was resigned.
But Johnson could not comfort himself with the idea, prevalent in his century, of the infinite goodness of God. He dismissed it as inapplicable to his case, a few months before his death, in a conversation with Dr. Adams. “‘As I cannot be sure that I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned’ (looking dismally).” But it is made a frequent ground of hope (for want of a better) in wills of the [Pg 71] time. John Murton, in a will proved the year of Johnson’s death, thus begins: “In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Murton, of Milton next Sittingbourne in the County of Kent, grocer, being advanced in years and in an indifferent state of health, but of sound and perfect mind memory and understanding, (praised be Almighty God for the same,) and considering the uncertain continuance of this mortal life, and the many hazards and dangers that we frail beings are daily liable and incident unto, do make publish and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following, (that is to say:) First and principally of all I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God who gave it, in all humble hopes and with a firm assurance of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.” Forty years previously Pope employed the same sentiment and almost the same phrase: “I Alexander Pope, of Twickenham in the County of Middlesex, make this my last will and testament. I resign my soul to its Creator in all humble hope of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.”
Boswell mars the rhythm of Johnson’s formal act of faith, and the depths of meaning it conveys (to those who remember Johnson’s delicate apprehension of Christian terms), by writing “but I hope purified by Jesus Christ” in place of the fuller form “but I hope purified by repentance and I trust redeemed by Jesus Christ.” A namesake, the Rev. [Pg 72] Samuel Johnson, whose will is dated November 8, 1777, and was proved on June 3, 1784, has a similar clause in words that strongly recall the theological arguments and vocabulary of the Doctor. “My soul I commit and commend altogether to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus trusting through His merits and powerful mediation to be saved from that eternal punishment whereof I am deserving on account of my sins, and to inherit all that eternal life promised in the Gospel to all them that obey Him: even so, Lord Jesus.”
It is true that such expressions are still frequent in wills of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and to some extent formal; but they are not so much a matter of course as in earlier days, and therefore all the more worth attention. “A few years ago,” wrote Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Dr. Johnson, “it was the uniform practice to begin wills with the words ‘In the Name of God, Amen,’ and frequently to insert therein a declaration of the testator’s hope of pardon in the merits of his Saviour; but in these more refined times such forms are deemed superfluous.” The will of Lucy Porter, Johnson’s step-daughter, is devoid of such pious expressions; indeed, wholly unsentimental save for a desire to be buried “under or near the tombstone of Catherine Chambers,” and a request that the funeral “may be performed in the afternoon before sun-setting.” The will of Anna Williams, who was for twenty years as a sister to Dr. Johnson, and died [Pg 73] the year before he died, is also devoid of piety, save for the conventional preface “In the Name of God, Amen.” Even of many divines and doctors of divinity the same may be said: they plunge in medias res, without any ascription of praise or uplifting of the heart to God.
The Rev. Samuel Johnson appears to have made his will betimes. But of Dr. Johnson Boswell has to say: “It is strange to think that Johnson was not free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so that he delayed it from time to time; and had it not been for Sir John Hawkins repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his kind resolution (to provide for Francis Barber) would not have been fulfilled.” But Sir John was not satisfied with the Doctor’s will when made. The deficiencies that he detected therein he attributed to its late execution. We may, however, leave Boswell and others to settle this controversy.
Yet it is strange that any should jeopardise the fortunes of others, and frustrate his own desires, by tarrying to set his house in order: it can be explained only by neglect or superstition. Dr. Johnson did not take to heart his lines in “London”:—
“Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home.”
He may have put it off from sheer indolence, but it is not unlikely he felt something of the common superstition against making a will, [Pg 74] unreasonable though it may be and unwise. When Charles Lamb wished to make his first will he wrote: “I want to make my will, and to leave my property in trust for my sister. N.B. I am not going therefore to die.” But Lamb had not Johnson’s peculiar dread of death. The superstition is not yet defunct; its rise and origin would be difficult to trace. “It is received,” says a writer in the sixteenth century, “for an opinion amongst the ruder and more ignorant people, that if a man should chance to be so wise as to make his will in his good health when ... he might ask counsel of the learned, that then surely he should not live long after.”
It is curious that it should sometimes be a case for jocularity if a man make his will betimes. Possibly this light-heartedness is assumed as a cloak to hide from ourselves the gravity of our inevitable end. If this be so, it is not surprising to find Dr. Johnson convulsed with hilarity when his friend Langton made his will. But the story is an extraordinary one. “He now laughed immoderately, without any reason that we could perceive,” says Boswell, “ ... called him the testator; and added, ‘I dare say he thinks he has done a mighty thing. He won’t stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this wonderful deed: he’ll call up the landlord of the first inn on the road; and, after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him he should not delay making his will.... He [Pg 75] believes he has made this will; but he did not make it; you, Chambers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him say, ‘being of sound understanding’; ‘ha, ha, ha! I hope he has left me a legacy. I’d have his will turned into verse, like a ballad.’ ... Johnson could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet-ditch.”
In spite of Dr. Johnson’s amusement, the early making of a will has long been of grave concern to moralists. As Donne in one of his sermons says, the execution of a will at the last may be a heavy business, but the addition of a codicil, if necessary, may be easily dispatched. But in wills themselves the most elaborate language is employed to force home this precept. The will of Dame Jane Talbot, dated in the 20th year of Henry VII., thus begins: “I Dame Jane Talbot, widow late the wife of Sir Humphrey Talbot knight, calling to remembrance that the gracious passage and departing from this transitory life dependeth and ensueth upon a discrete will made by good deliberation in good and virtuous order; and that I and all other Christian people be mortal and must [Pg 76] depart from the wretched uncertain and unstable life, the hour and time of which departing from the same unstable life is uncertain; and also that I and any other mortal person, be apt by the sending and visitation of God to receive and take such infirmities and sickness whereby I might, in or immediately before the article or pain of death, lack or fail sure and perfect mind and reason to order and make my last will and testament according to the meritorious and wholesome intent to the will of my soul: wherefore I the said Dame Jane Talbot, being of perfect health, whole mind and good memory, to the honour of God and health of my said soul ordain and make this my testament and last will in manner and form following; that is to say, First I bequeath and give my soul unto my Lord God, Father of Heaven, which of His inestimable and infinite mercy and goodness hath made it assemblable to His own image, and of His infinite mercy with His precious blood hath redeemed it, and to His blessed Mother the Virgin Saint Mary and also to the charitable tuition and keeping of all the saints in Heaven.”
Johnson had not wife or children of his own to provide for, but he had many friends. As already hinted, some of these he offended by the omission of their names. For this reason also he displeased Lucy Porter. Boswell (himself omitted) says that she should have considered that she had left nothing to Johnson, though her will was made in his [Pg 77] lifetime. But it is fair to remark that she mentions few names in all, and that her will was not executed until September in the year of Johnson’s death.
Thus even so simple a document as Johnson’s will occasioned searchings of heart, a result that some strive heroically or pathetically to avoid. “I again desire that all things may be composed with peace honour and honesty,” wrote Dorothy Eve, of Canterbury, in 1691. A merchant, James Clegg, whose will was proved the same year as Johnson’s, declared that he made his testament “to explain my last will for the distribution of what shall result to be my property and to me belonging at the time of my decease, in such manner that I hope not to embroil those persons who will have the pleasure of surviving me.” Wills that stir the passions and sting the memory are indeed of frequent occurrence. Wills that satisfy every friend must surely be few.
To what an extent the remembrance of friends may be carried is illustrated by a will made a few years after Johnson’s death. While Johnson bequeathed books to less than a score of friends, Martha Shorte, in a list which must long have engaged her thoughts, bequeaths mementoes to more than a hundred beneficiaries. “The small trifle,” she says in one place, “is only to denote that all my kind neighbours lived in my memory.” In some cases it may be surmised, or at least the suspicion will cross the mind, that her friends were not unaware of her testamentary tendencies. To one, for instance, she gives “two mahogany [Pg 78] stools that she used to like,” to another, “an old inlaid Chinese cabinet that she always admired,” to another the “yew-tree card-table which she admired.” But there is a danger in lavish remembrance: for if one be omitted where many are comprised, the sting is so much the more sharp.
Johnson left the residue of his estate to his negro servant, Francis Barber. Even this raised dissent. Sir John Hawkins, says Boswell, seemed not a little angry at this bequest, and muttered a caveat against ostentatious bounty to negroes. Barber had once been a slave, but had received the gift of liberty under his master’s will. The latter years of his liberty Johnson hoped to provide for.
Simpson Strachan, the merchant whose will was buried for fear of the enemy, may illustrate the case of Barber. “My will and my intention is that my negro man ... in virtue of his faithful services be made free of all slavery whatever, and I do hereby order and ordain and request my executors to pay all the expenses attending his freedom from my estate, and that they give him the sum of ￡330 currency to his own use and behoof as a reward for his fidelity and attachment to me.” Most would agree with Boswell that a faithful servant, in lieu of near relations, is peculiarly entitled to enjoy
“A little gold that’s sure each week, That comes not from his living kind, But from a dead man in his grave, Who cannot change his mind.” [Pg 79]
Nor was it his master’s fault if Barber made so ill a use of his money as Hawkins affirms.
Provision for old servants is still a frequent, even an outstanding, feature of wills, accompanied often by graceful expressions of gratitude. Perhaps it has always been so. The Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice, of the Privy Council, was writing a codicil by way of instruction to his executors, shortly before the year of Johnson’s death. He makes us feel vividly what Johnson must have owed to his faithful servant: “My diamond shoe and knee buckles I mean to include in my wearing apparel left to Richard Deale, also gold-headed canes, as his attention and fidelity increases every day, and sorry I am to say he is the only servant I ever had who seemed sensible of good treatment and did not behave ungratefully.”
To the ordinary reader Dr. Johnson’s other bequests appear thoughtful too, though Hawkins considered them ill-proportioned and ill-calculated. To the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkeley, near Frome, he gave ￡100, “requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick”; to his god-children, “the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, each of them ￡100 of my stock in the 3 per cent. consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my executors, in the education or settlement in the world of them my said legatees”; and to “Mr. Sastres, the Italian master, the sum of ￡5, to be laid out in books of piety for [Pg 80] his own use.” But uppermost in his mind, it would seem, was the debt of gratitude he owed, for his father’s sake, to Innys the bookseller; for him he remembered in his will made in the immediate apprehension of death, while most of his bequests occurred in the codicil executed on the following day.
One of the strangest characteristics of man is that, in the face of death, he can without a qualm speak bitter words and cherish hard feelings, a characteristic which sometimes distinguishes or disfigures wills. Dr. Johnson’s will is free from any such taint. Yet he retained a certain roughness of language to the last. “Treat thy nurses and servants sweetly, and as it becomes an obliged and a necessitous person,” says Jeremy Taylor. Boswell speaks of Johnson’s “uncommon kindness to his servants.” But, asked one morning how he liked a new attendant who had sat up with him, Johnson replied with a touch of his old humorous self: “Not at all, Sir; the fellow’s an idiot; he is as awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.”
When Burke heard how Langton could convict the Doctor of nothing worse than a roughness of speech or manner, he said: “It is well if, when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.” It does seem that Johnson was not unworthy of some such eulogium in spite of certain charges [Pg 81] raised against him, and in spite of his fear of death. It is grateful to consider that Johnson’s words may be applicable to himself: “The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.” Boswell says that the word polluted in Johnson’s will may to some convey an impression of more than ordinary contamination, but mentions that the same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, who was purity itself. A man would indeed be ignorant of human nature, not to mention the phraseology of wills, if he were to attach importance to the words polluted with many sins; he would indeed be blind to the “view of infinite purity.” It may be of interest therefore to compare the will of Dr. Sanderson with Dr. Johnson’s in this respect. “First, I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, as of a faithful Creator, which I humbly beseech Him mercifully to accept, looking upon it, not as it is in itself—infinitely polluted with sin—but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of His only beloved Son, and my most sweet Saviour Jesus Christ.”
When John Selden died, his barber had a mind to see his will: “For,” said he, “I never knew a wise man make a wise will.” The will of Dr. Johnson, that great and good, wise and humorous, figure, may be read in Boswell or Hawkins, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, or at Somerset House. It leaves a savour wholly sweet, and is in every item dignified.