'--'Poh! (said Johnson,) if you have so many things that
will break, you had better break your neck at once, and there's an end
on't. You will break no small vessels:' (blowing with high derision.)
The horrour of death which I had always observed in Dr. Johnson,
appeared strong to-night. I ventured to tell him, that I had been,
for moments in my life, not afraid of death; therefore I could suppose
another man in that state of mind for a considerable space of time. He
said, 'he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.' He
added, that it had been observed, that scarce any man dies in publick,
but with apparent resolution; from that desire of praise which never
quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed to be willing to die, and full of
hopes of happiness. 'Sir, (said he,) Dr. Dodd would have given both his
hands and both his legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more
afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.' He
owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation, was
mysterious; and said, 'Ah! we must wait till we are in another state of
being, to have many things explained to us.
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