Hawkins's Life of Johnson. in
wards, she ran away from him, and was tried, providentially, in his opinion, for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. Her hus band was, with difficulty, prevented from attending the court, in the hope she would be hanged. She pleaded her own cause, and was acquitted ; a separation between this ill-starred couple took place ; and Dr. Johnson then took Levett home, where he continued till his death, which happened suddenly, without pain, Jan. 17, 1782. His vanity in supposing that a young woman of family and fortune should be enamoured of him, Dr. Johnson thought, deserved some check. As no relations of his were known to Johnson, he advertised for them x . In the course of a few weeks an heir at law appeared, and ascertained his title to what effects the deceased had left behind.
' Levett's character was rendered valuable by repeated proof of honesty, tenderness, and gratitude to his benefactor, as well as by an unwearied diligence in his profession 2 . His single failing was, an occasional departure from sobriety. Johnson would observe, he was, perhaps, the only man who ever became intoxicated through motives of prudence. He reflected, that if he refused the gin or brandy offered him by some of his patients, he could have been no gainer by their cure, as they might have had nothing else to bestow on him. This habit of taking a fee, in whatever shape it was exhibited, could not be put off by advice or admonition of any kind. He would swallow what he did not like, nay, what he knew would injure him, rather than go home with an idea, that his skill had been exerted without recompense. " Had (said Johnson) all his patients maliciously combined to reward him with meat and strong liquors instead of money, he would either have burst, like the dragon in the Apocrypha 3 , through repletion, or been scorched up, like Portia, by swallowing fire 4 ." But let not from hence an imputation of rapaciousness be fixed upon him. Though he took all that
��1 Life, iv. 143. 3 Bel and the Dragon, verse 27.
2 'He was an old and faithful 'With this she fell distract, friend,' Johnson recorded in his And, her attendants absent, Diary. Ante, i. 102. ' He was very swallow'd fire.'
useful to the poor,' he wrote to Mr. Julius Caesar, Act iv. sc. 3, 1. 155. Langton. Life, iv. 145.
was
�� �
