Nor was Cummyns the only valuable member so lost to society. Hawkesworth, the pious, the virtuous, and the wise, for want of that fortitude which casts a shield before the merits of his friend, fell a lamented sacrifice to wanton malice and cruelty, I know not how provoked; but all in turn feel the lash of censure in a country where, as every baby is allowed to carry a whip, no person can escape except by chance. The unpublished crimes, unknown distresses, and even death itself, however, daily occurring in less liberal governments and less free nations, soon teach one to content oneself with such petty grievances, and make one acknowledge that the undistinguishing severity of newspaper abuse may in some measure diminish the diffusion of vice and folly in Great Britain, and while they fright delicate minds into forced refinements and affected insipidity, they are useful to the great causes of virtue in the soul and liberty in the State; and though sensibility often sinks under the roughness of their prescriptions, it would be no good policy to take away their licence. Knowing the state of Mr. Johnson's nerves, and how easily they were affected, I forbore reading in a new magazine, one day, the death of a Samuel Johnson who expired that month; but my companion snatching up the book, saw it himself, and contrary to my expectation, "Oh!" said he, "I hope Death will now be glutted with Sam Johnsons, and let me alone for some time to come; I read of another namesake's departure last week." Though Mr. Johnson was commonly affected even to agony at the thoughts of a friend's dying, he troubled himself very little with the complaints they might make to him about ill-health. "Dear Doctor," said he one day to a common acquaintance, who lamented the tender state of his _inside_, "do not be like the spider, man, and spin conversation thus incessantly out of thy own bowels." I told him of another friend who suffered grievously with the gout. "He will live a vast many years for all that," replied he, "and then what signifies how much he suffers! But he will die at last, poor fellow; there's the misery; gout seldom takes the fort by a coup-de-main, but turning the siege into a blockade, obliges it to surrender at discretion." A lady he thought well of was disordered in her health. "What help has she called in?" inquired Johnson. "Dr. James, sir," was the reply. "What is her disease?" "Oh, nothing positive; rather a gradual and gentle decline." "She will die, then, pretty dear!" answered he. "When Death's pale horse runs away with a person on full speed, an active physician may possibly give them a turn; but if he carries them on an even, slow pace, down-hill, too! no care nor skill can save them!"