Though now his eightieth year was nigh.

Then, with no throbs of fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the easiest way.

The last stanza smells somewhat of the country tombstone; but to read
the whole and to realize the deep, manly sentiment which it implies,
without tears in one's eyes is to me at least impossible.

There is one little touch which may be added before we proceed to the
closing years of this tender-hearted old moralist. Johnson loved little
children, calling them "little dears," and cramming them with
sweetmeats, though we regret to add that he once snubbed a little child
rather severely for a want of acquaintance with the _Pilgrim's
Progress_. His cat, Hodge, should be famous amongst the lovers of the
race. He used to go out and buy oysters for Hodge, that the servants
might not take a dislike to the animal from having to serve it
themselves. He reproached his wife for beating a cat before the maid,
lest she should give a precedent for cruelty. Boswell, who cherished an
antipathy to cats, suffered at seeing Hodge scrambling up Johnson's
breast, whilst he smiled and rubbed the beast's back and pulled its
tail. Bozzy remarked that he was a fine cat. "Why, yes, sir," said
Johnson; "but I have had cats whom I liked better than this," and then,
lest Hodge should be put out of countenance, he added, "but he is a very
fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." He told Langton once of a young
gentleman who, when last heard of, was "running about town shooting
cats; but," he murmured in a kindly reverie, "Hodge shan't be shot; no,
no, Hodge shall not be shot!" Once, when Johnson was staying at a house