Brighthelmstone, and in the establishment of new clubs. In 1781, another
of these societies was, by his desire, formed in the city. It was to
meet at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Churchyard; and his wish was,
that no patriot should be admitted. He now returned to the use of wine,
which, when he did take it, he swallowed greedily.

About this time Mr. Thrale died, leaving Johnson one of his executors,
with a legacy of 200_l_. The death of Levett, in the same year, and of
Miss Williams, in 1783, left him yet more lonely. A few months before
the last of these deprivations befel him, he had a warning of his own
dissolution, which he could not easily mistake. The night of the 16th of
June, on which day he had been sitting for his picture, he perceived
himself, soon after going to bed, to be seized with a sudden confusion
and indistinctness in his head, which seemed to him to last about half a
minute. His first fear was lest his intellect should be affected. Of
this he made experiment, by turning into Latin verse a short prayer,
which he had breathed out for the averting of that calamity. The lines
were not good, but he knew that they were not so, and concluded his
faculties to be unimpaired. Soon after he was conscious of having
suffered a paralytic stroke, which had taken away his speech. "I had no
pain," he observed afterwards, "and so little dejection in this dreadful
state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered, that perhaps
death itself, when it should come, would excite less horror than seems
now to attend it." In hopes of stimulating the vocal organs, he
swallowed two drams, and agitated his body into violent motion, but it
was to no purpose; whereupon he returned to his bed, and, as he thought,
fell asleep. In the morning, finding that he had the use of his hand, he
was in the act of writing a note to his servant, when the man entered.
He then wrote a card to his friend and neighbour, Mr. Allen, the
printer, but not without difficulty, his hand sometimes, he knew not