On the morning of December 7, Dr. Johnson requested to see Mr. Nichols.  A few days before, he had borrowed some of the early volumes of the magazine, with a professed intention to point out the pieces which he had written in that collection.  The books lay on the table, with many leaves doubled down, and, in particular, those which contained his share in the parliamentary debates.  Such was the goodness of Johnson’s heart, that he then declared, that “those debates were the only parts of his writings which gave him any compunction:  but that, at the time he wrote them, he had no conception that he was imposing upon the world, though they were, frequently, written from very slender materials, and often from none at all, the mere coinage of his own imagination.”  He added, “that he never wrote any part of his work with equal velocity.”  “Three columns of the magazine in an hour,” he said, “was no uncommon effort; which was faster than most persons could have transcribed that quantity.  In one day, in particular, and that not a very long one, he wrote twelve pages, more in quantity than ever he wrote at any other time, except in the Life of Savage, of which forty-eight pages, in octavo, were the production of one long day, including a part of the night.”

In the course of the conversation, he asked whether any of the family of Faden, the printer, were living.  Being told that the geographer, near Charing Cross, was Faden’s son, he said, after a short pause, “I borrowed a guinea of his father near thirty years ago; be so good as to take this, and pay it for me.”

Wishing to discharge every duty, and every obligation, Johnson recollected another debt of ten pounds, which he had borrowed from his friend, Mr. Hamilton, the printer, about twenty years before.  He sent the money to Mr. Hamilton, at his house in Bedford row, with an apology for the length of time.  The reverend Mr. Strahan was the bearer of the message, about four or five days before Johnson breathed his last.

Mr. Sastres, whom Dr. Johnson esteemed and mentioned in his will, entered the room, during his illness.  Dr. Johnson, as soon as he saw him, stretched forth his hand, and, in a tone of lamentation, called out, “Jam moriturus!” But the love of life was still an active principle.  Feeling himself swelled with the dropsy, he conceived that, by incisions in his legs, the water might be discharged.  Mr. Cruikshank apprehended that a mortification might be the consequence; but, to appease a distempered fancy, he gently lanced the surface.  Johnson cried out, “Deeper, deeper!  I want length of life, and you are afraid of giving me pain, which I do not value.”

On the 8th of December, the reverend Mr. Strahan drew his will, by which, after a few legacies, the residue, amounting to about fifteen hundred pounds, was bequeathed to Frank, the black servant, formerly consigned to the testator by his friend Dr. Bathurst.