made existence misery[1]. 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[2]. How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of God! Johnson, who was blest with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it by dire experience, will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. Me told Mr. Paradis[3] 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[4]. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again[5], and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His expression concerning
- ↑ Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of himself when lie thus criticised the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. 'The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.' Johnson's Works, vii. 431.
- ↑ Writing in his old age to Hector, he said.—'My health has been from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease' (Post, under March 21, 1782). Hawkins writes, that he once told him 'that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain.' Hawkins, p. 396.
- ↑ See Post, Oct. 27, 1784, note.
- ↑ In the Rambler, No. 85, he pointed out 'how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.' See Post, July 21. 1763, for his remedies against melancholy.
- ↑ Thirty-two miles in all. Southey mentions that in 1728, the Wesleys, to save the more money for the poor, began to perform their journeys on foot. He adds,—'It was so little the custom in that age for men in their rank of life to walk any distance, as to make them think it a discovery that four or five-and-twenty miles are an easy and safe day's journey.' Southey's Wesley, i. 52.
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