considerable reputation; yet it neither eclipsed, nor had power to eclipse, the satires of Pope.” The account she has given of Johnson’s last days and hours differs very widely from Macaulay’s version, who states that, “when at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson’s mind. His temper became unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to think with terror of death, and that which lies beyond death; he spake much of the mercy of God and of the propitiation of Christ.” In a letter written by Anna Seward to T. S. Whalley, dated November 7th, 1784, she said, “The extinction, in our sphere, of that mighty spirit, approaches fast. A confirmed dropsy deluges the vital source. It is melancholy to observe with what terror he contemplates his approaching fate.” In a letter to Mrs. Knowles (the wife of Dr. Knowles, an eminent physician in London, and in her younger days a well-known Staffordshire beauty), dated March 27th, 1785, Anna Seward says, “O, yes, as you observe, dreadful were the horrors which attended poor Johnson’s dying state. His religion was certainly not of that nature which sheds comfort on a death-bed pillow. I believe his faith was sincere, and therefore could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his existence. But religious feeling, on which you lay so great stress, was not the desideratum in Johnson’s virtue.” The reader must decide for himself which of these two contradictory accounts he will believe. It may be remarked that she was in “the almost daily habit of contemplating his dying,” which she describes as “a very melancholy spectacle.” She informs us that it was at Johnson’s repeatedly expressed desire that she often visited him. * * * * * In a letter written in 1785, to James Boswell, Anna Seward said that she regretted it was not in her power to collect more anecdotes of Dr. Johnson’s infancy. “My mother passed her days of girlhood with an uncle at Warwick, consequently, was absent from home in the school-boy days of the great man; neither did I ever hear her mention any of the promissory sparkles which, doubtless, burst forth, though no records of them are within my knowledge. I cannot meet with any contemporary of those, his _very_ youthful days. . . . Adieu, sir, go on and prosper in your arduous task of presenting to the world the portrait of Johnson’s mind and manners. If faithful, brilliant will be its lights, but deep its shades.”