"' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. On
Oct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time.
We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii.315.
[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road.
Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey.
[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the
alleviation of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middle
state between clamour and silence, between general conversation and
self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making
haste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a day
of great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has been
performed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. Poor
Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with
prudence and she bore with fortitude. She has left me.
"Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."
[_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.]
Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity
and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that
knew her.
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