In 1775, Johnson received from the University of Oxford the honorary degree of D.C.L. The same degree had been conferred on him some time before by the University of Dublin; but he did not then assume the title of doctor. His only subsequent work which requires notice is the Lives of the English Poets, written for a collective edition of them, which the booksellers were about to publish. To the selection of the authors, praise cannot be given: many ornaments to our literature are omitted, and many obscure persons have found a place in the collection: this however, probably, was not Johnson’s fault. The publication began in 1779, and was not completed till 1781: the lives have gone through many editions by themselves. Though strongly coloured by personal and political predilections, they contain much sound criticism, and form a valuable article in British biography. Many incidents connected with Johnson’s life, his places of residence, his domestication in Mr. Thrale’s family, his connexion with The Club, and the like, have been made generally known by the amusing works of Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, and others. Perhaps public curiosity was never so strongly directed towards the person, habits, and conversation of any man known only as an author; and certainly it never has been so amply gratified. Boswell’s Life of Johnson is unique in its kind. His powers of conversation were very great, and not only commanded the admiration and deference of his contemporaries, but have contributed in a principal degree to the upholding of his traditionary fame. They were deformed by an assumption of superiority, and an intolerance of contradiction or opposition, which often betrayed him into offensive rudeness. Yet his temper was at bottom affectionate and humane, his attachments strong, and his charity only bounded, and scarcely bounded, by his means. The latter years of Dr. Johnson’s life were overshadowed by much gloom. Many of his old and most valued friends sank into the grave before him; his bodily frame was much shattered by disease; his spirits became more liable to depression; and his sincere and ardent piety was too deeply tinged by constitutional despondency to afford him steady comfort and support under his sufferings. He was struck by palsy in 1783, but recovered to the use both of his bodily and mental faculties. A complication of asthma and dropsy put an end to his existence, December 13, 1785. During his illness, his anxiety for a protracted life was painfully intense: but his last hours are described by the bystanders to have been calm, happy, and confident. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. A statue to his memory is erected in St. Paul’s Cathedral. [Illustration: [Monument to Dr. Johnson in St. Paul’s Cathedral.]] [Illustration: _Engraved by W. Holl._ JEFFERSON. _From a Print engraved by A. Desnoyers._ Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.