father, mother, brother, and Bathurst, in another. I did it only once,
so far as it might be lawful for me." In a prayer, January 23, 1759, the
day on which his mother was buried, he commends, as far as may be
lawful, her soul to God, imploring for her whatever is most beneficial
to her in her present state. In this habit he persevered to the end of
his days. The reverend Mr. Strahan, the editor of the Prayers and
Meditations, observes, "that Johnson, on some occasions, prays that the
Almighty _may have had mercy_ on his wife and Mr. Thrale; evidently
supposing their sentence to have been already passed in the divine mind;
and, by consequence, proving, that he had no belief in a state of
purgatory, and no reason for praying for the dead that could impeach the
sincerity of his profession as a protestant." Mr. Strahan adds, "that,
in praying for the regretted tenants of the grave, Johnson conformed to
a practice which has been retained by many learned members of the
established church, though the liturgy no longer admits it, if _where
the tree, falleth, there it shall be_; if our state, at the close of
life, is to be the measure of our final sentence, then prayers for the
dead, being visibly fruitless, can be regarded only as the vain
oblations of superstition. But of all superstitions this, perhaps, is
one of the least unamiable, and most incident to a good mind. If our
sensations of kindness be intense, those, whom we have revered and
loved, death cannot wholly seclude from our concern. It is true, for the
reason just mentioned, such evidences of our surviving affection may be
thought ill judged; but surely they are generous, and some natural
tenderness is due even to a superstition, which thus originates in piety
and benevolence." These sentences, extracted from the reverend Mr.
Strahan's preface, if they are not a full justification, are, at least,
a beautiful apology. It will not be improper to add what Johnson himself
has said on the subject. Being asked by Mr. Boswell[p], what he thought
of purgatory, as believed by the Roman catholicks? his answer was, "It