This was the last of his literary labours; nor do we hear of his writing any thing for the press in the meanwhile, except such slight compositions as a prologue for a comedy by Mr. Hugh Kelly, and a dedication to the King of the Posthumous Works of Pearce, Bishop of Rochester. His body was weighed down with disease, and his mind clouded with apprehensions of death. He sought for respite from these sufferings in the usual means--in short visits to his native place, or to Brighthelmstone, and in the establishment of new clubs. In 1781, another of these societies was, by his desire, formed in the city. It was to meet at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Churchyard; and his wish was, that no patriot should be admitted. He now returned to the use of wine, which, when he did take it, he swallowed greedily. About this time Mr. Thrale died, leaving Johnson one of his executors, with a legacy of 200_l_. The death of Levett, in the same year, and of Miss Williams, in 1783, left him yet more lonely. A few months before the last of these deprivations befel him, he had a warning of his own dissolution, which he could not easily mistake. The night of the 16th of June, on which day he had been sitting for his picture, he perceived himself, soon after going to bed, to be seized with a sudden confusion and indistinctness in his head, which seemed to him to last about half a minute. His first fear was lest his intellect should be affected. Of this he made experiment, by turning into Latin verse a short prayer, which he had breathed out for the averting of that calamity. The lines were not good, but he knew that they were not so, and concluded his faculties to be unimpaired. Soon after he was conscious of having suffered a paralytic stroke, which had taken away his speech. "I had no pain," he observed afterwards, "and so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered, that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less horror than seems now to attend it." In hopes of stimulating the vocal organs, he swallowed two drams, and agitated his body into violent motion, but it was to no purpose; whereupon he returned to his bed, and, as he thought, fell asleep. In the morning, finding that he had the use of his hand, he was in the act of writing a note to his servant, when the man entered. He then wrote a card to his friend and neighbour, Mr. Allen, the printer, but not without difficulty, his hand sometimes, he knew not why, making a different letter from that which he intended; his next care was to acquaint Dr. Taylor, his old schoolfellow, and now a prebendary of Westminster, with his condition, and to desire he would come and bring Dr. Heberden with him. At the same time, he sent in for Dr. Brocklesby, who was his near neighbour. The next day his speech was restored, and he perceived no deterioration, either in his memory or understanding. In the following month he was well enough to pass a week