The Life of Samuel Johnson

This section comprises the last year of Johnson’s life. Johnson’s friends lobby to have him travel to Italy for his health. Instead, Johnson goes back to his roots in Lichfield and Ashbourne. Here his health continues to be weak and precarious from dropsy and other maladies, but he is able to improve his symptoms through rest and exercise. At the same time, he experiences loneliness and melancholy relieved only by correspondence with Boswell and other friends. In May, Johnson has a religious experience of consolation in the midst of his physical suffering, which he tells Boswell about and interprets as the “interposition of Divine Providence” (1276).

Johnson and Boswell visit Oxford in June, and later that same month Johnson has what will turn out to be his last meeting with the Literary Club and, at the very end of the month, his final dinner with Boswell. Johnson is very grateful to his friends’ efforts to help him in his illness and their “steady and kind attachment” (1384) to him. Johnson makes out his will, leaving a “liberal provision” to his “faithful servant” Francis Barber. On his deathbed, he is visited by many of his friends and prays in the presence of a minister; Johnson asks God to “pardon the multitude of my offences” (1392).