MSS._
[1162] See _ante_, p. 293.
[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered
by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS.,
without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my
visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my
hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a
promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever
Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant
for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his
feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb.
Coll. MSS. shew (_ante_, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion
at least fell into other hands (_ante_, ii. 476). There are other
apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only
fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had
nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p.
vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a
letter to the _Gent.
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