From this dismal malady he
never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and
all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful
influence. He told Mr. Paradise that he was sometimes so languid and
inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.
Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, strove to
overcome it by forcible exertions. He frequently walked to Birmingham
and back again, and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His
expression concerning it to me was 'I did not then know how to manage
it.' His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen,
physician in Lichfield, his god-father, and put into his hands a state
of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen was so much struck with the
extraordinary acuteness, research, and eloquence of this paper, that in
his zeal for his godson he shewed it to several people. His daughter,
Mrs. Desmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in Dr.
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