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 is a very harmless doctrine.  They are of opinion, that the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked, as to deserve everlasting punishment; nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and, therefore, that God is graciously pleased to allow a middle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of suffering.  You see there is nothing unreasonable in this; and if it be once established, that there are souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them, as for our brethren of mankind, who are yet in this life.”  This was Dr. Johnson’s guess into futurity; and to guess is the utmost that man can do: 

  “Shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.”

Mrs. Johnson left a daughter, Lucy Porter, by her first husband.  She had contracted a friendship with Mrs. Anne Williams, the daughter of Zachary Williams, a physician of eminence in South Wales, who had devoted more than thirty years of a long life to the study of the longitude, and was thought to have made great advances towards that important discovery.  His letters to lord Halifax, and the lords of the admiralty, partly corrected and partly written by Dr. Johnson, are still extant in the hands of Mr. Nichols[q].  We there find Dr. Williams, in the eighty-third year of his age, stating, that he had prepared an instrument, which might be called an epitome or miniature of the terraqueous globe, showing, with the assistance of tables, constructed by himself, the variations of