Prayers and Meditations.
��17 Sunday. I lay late, and had only Palfrey 1 to dinner, (d. 2s. 6.) I read part of Waller's Directory, a pious rational book, but in any except a very regular life difficult to practise 2 .
It occurred to me that though my time might pass un employed, no more should pass uncounted, and this has been written to-day in consequence of that thought. I read a Greek Chapter, prayed with Francis, which I now do commonly, and explained to him the Lord's Prayer, in which I find connection not observed, I think, by the expositors. I made punch 3 for Myself and my servants, by which in the night I thought both my breast and imagination disordered.
March 18. I rose late, looked a little into books. Saw Miss Reynolds and Miss Thrale, and Nicolaida 4 , afterwards Dr. Hunter came for his catalogue 5 . I then dined on tea, &c. ; then read over part of Dr. Laurence's book de Temperamentis 6 , which seems to have been written with a troubled mind.
I prayed with Francis.
My mind has been for some time much disturbed. The Peace of God be with me.
��1 Strahan printed palfrey. A critic in Notes and Queries, March 2, 1867, suggested that Johnson wrote pastry. Palfrey, or Palfry (as Johnson writes the name, post, p. 106) was some poor man, to whom he gave (as *d j probably signifies) on this day and on the 24th, two shillings and sixpence.
2 Divine Meditations upon Several Occasions with a Doyly Directory. By the Excellent Pen of Sir William Waller, Kt. London, 1680. Waller was the Presbyterian general, the 'William the Conqueror' of the citi zens of London. Clarendon's History, ed. 1826, iv. 114.
The day was strictly divided in the Directory, with frequent private prayers and meditations, and family prayers at noon and supper. ' In summer time I would be up by five ; in winter by six. At Meals I would observe a moderation ; a mean be
��tween eating by the ounce and by the pound.'
3 In his Dictionary he describes punch as ' a cant word.'
4 ' A learned Greek, nephew of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who had fled from a massacre of the Greeks.' Johnstone's Works of Dr. Parr, i. 84. See also ib. pp. 87-90, and Life, ii. 379.
5 A little later was published an instalment of the Catalogue of Dr. William Hunter's Collection of Coins. It was written by Charles Combe. Diet, of Nat. Biog. xi. 427 ; xxviii. 304.
6 Mr. Croker thinks that Lawrence had lent Johnson Galen's work De Temperamentis et inequali temperie. I conjecture that it was a work in manuscript by Lawrence, who wrote his medical books in Latin. The entries of the I9th and 26th support this view.
��I hope
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