Foreigners (6 page)

Towards the end of Dr Johnson's life Francis' presence
became increasingly necessary, for it was apparent to all
that the doctor's health was failing rapidly. His household
was now located at 8 Bolt Court in an alley off Fleet
Street, and Dr Johnson was paying the reasonable sum of
forty pounds a year for a tall house with a garden to the
rear. However, these years were to prove difficult for the
doctor as he entered a period of great affliction. Miss
Williams, though still present, was increasingly enfeebled,
while Mrs Desmoulins and her daughter had suddenly
moved clear away. Mrs Desmoulins had been unable to
endure any further bickering with Miss Williams, but she
had also chosen to go into hiding in order that she might
avoid an indictment for debt that had recently been served
upon her. Despite her capacity to be as mean and petty
as Miss Williams, the doctor mourned the sudden absence
of Mrs Desmoulins and it served only to deepen his sense
of abandonment. After all, he had recently lost both of
his dear friends, the actor David Garrick, and the literary
man Oliver Goldsmith, while his Scottish companion, Mr
James Boswell, was practising law in faraway Edinburgh.
Furthermore, there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding,
and subsequent 'break', with Mrs Thrale which,
though now somewhat resolved, had left a rift in their
friendship that he understood would never be fully healed.
In addition to these tender sorrows, he also mourned the
passing of his house companion of thirty years, the destitute
and dishevelled Dr Levett, who, like Francis, could be
relied upon to join him for fireside conversation from the
early evening and, if necessary, continue clear through until
dawn.

Sadly, the doctor's ailments were such that it was no
longer possible for him to roam the narrow, dirty, streets
off the Strand, places that were shadowy and populated
with a full tide of beggars, thieves, and abandoned women.
These were dangerous passageways where violence was
commonplace, but the doctor was long accustomed to
observing and relishing this low life. Those irritating
fellows, the night watchmen who bawled the hour in every
dark street and alley of the city, were entirely familiar with
his immense bulk and greeted him almost as one of their
own. However, being a man dedicated to the night, the
curtailment of his roaming proved a crushing blow to the
doctor's spirit. Confined now to Bolt Court, loneliness was
fast becoming a mortal enemy of the doctor, and he
bestowed the name 'black dog' upon his deplorable bouts
of melancholia. He appeared to have even lost his tendency
to become excessively distracted at what he insisted were
his witticisms, but what others often perceived to be nothing
more than very small japes. No longer did the doctor relish
his own jocularity and send forth loud and uninhibited
peals of laughter, and life at Bolt Court was rapidly
becoming miserable for residents and visitors alike. 'When
I rise,' said the doctor in a letter to Mrs Thrale, 'my breakfast
is solitary, the black dog waits to share it . . . Dinner
with a sick woman you may venture to suppose not much
better than solitary. After dinner what remains but to count
the clock, and hope for that sleep which I can scarce expect.
Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and
confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall
exclude the black dog from a habitation like this?'

Dr Johnson's only hope, as he understood it, was to
attempt to avoid too much in the way of either seclusion
or idleness, and so he was often discovered by his negro
watering his tiny garden, or sitting at the stout mahogany
table that decorated the drawing room and busily translating
an obscure literary work, or writing long letters.
However, even this pleasure was sometimes denied to him,
for occasional inflammations of the good eye often made
it impossible for him to read for days on end. At these
moments, Francis' presence served to provide him with the
opportunity of a few hours of much-needed conversation.
And then, early one fateful morning, Francis arrived from
his home on St John Street, Smithfield, and discovered his
master sitting upright in his chair, which was not unusual
for the doctor's bronchial asthma was so severe that he was
generally afraid to lie flat at night. However, what made
this occasion disturbing was the fact that when the loyal
Francis entered, talking away as usual, there was no reply
from his master. It was then that Francis noticed a handwritten
note, and by this means he discovered that during
the dead of night his master had become overwhelmed by
confusion and giddiness, suffered a stroke, and subsequently
lost the power of speech. Francis immediately
summoned Dr Brocklesby, his master's physician and best
friend, and over the course of the following two to three
days, and after much dosing and blistering, Dr Johnson's
speech eventually began to return to him.

During this period, Dr Brocklesby spoke privately with
Francis and shared with the servant his worry that, aside
from the doctor's various physical afflictions, his master
was suffering greatly from an oppressive loneliness that
would only be resolved by his actively seeking the company
of others. Conversing carefully with the occasional visitor
over dishes of tea, or keeping the peace among his squabbling
household servants, was never going to be enough
to satisfy the intellect, or truly arrest the isolation, of the
great man, whose appearance had, even by his own negligent
standards, become wretched. These days the neck of
his shirt and his breeches were habitually loose, his stockings
were in need of being drawn up, he wore his shoes
unbuckled, and his unpowdered wig was comically small
and precariously balanced on his oversized head. There
were very few 'clean shirt' days. Dr Brocklesby was sure
that only by forcing the doctor back into society might
things improve and so, during the harsh winter of 1783,
his friends, myself among them, advanced the idea of
establishing a small club in Essex Street, as a place where
the doctor might enjoy congenial company and good
conversation.

We members of this new association were encouraged
to dine three times a week and suffer a fine of three pence
should we miss a gathering. The first meeting was held at
the Essex Head Tavern and it attracted an enthusiastic
crowd, but Dr Johnson was racked with asthma, and clearly
struggling to breathe properly, so much so that he was too
ill to return home unaided. However, the true drama of
the occasion was the doctor's behaviour during the gathering.
For some time now his friends had noticed that his
severe humour and dogmatic manner seemed to intensify
as his ailments took a firmer grip. At such moments he
would become increasingly oppressive in conversation which
caused many, including those who held him in the highest
esteem, to grow first to fear, then to abhor, his unpolished
and disagreeable irascibility. The doctor's favourite technique
of argument was usually a flat denial of his opponent's
statement, irrespective of how foolish this made him
appear, followed by a grand assault of verbal brilliance
such as one might expect from a man who had fixed the
English language and succeeded in ridding it of cant. But
sadly, these days those opponents whom he could not
vanquish by force of his admittedly large intellect, he
simply bullied into submission with a vile display of rudeness
which seemed unrelated to any quantities of drink
that he might have consumed. Thereafter, he often failed
to make amends by raising a glass to the offended person's
health or shaking his hand when he left the room, gestures
which he had long been accustomed to offering.

After the first meeting of the new association, it was
nearly two months before the doctor was well enough to
once again venture out of his house. During this period,
Francis and his wife Betsy and the children moved their
household into Bolt Court. This caused the doctor's
friend, Sir John Hawkins, some consternation, but he
temporarily set aside his prejudices and simply urged the
great man to put his affairs in order and immediately
prepare a will. However, Dr Johnson was fearful that such
a course of action might suggest a willingness to cease
struggling with life, and as such he baulked at taking a
step that, in his rational mind, he knew to be both sensible
and natural. The very thought of his own dissolution
and eventual death was intolerable to him, but the one
issue that he admitted must be swiftly resolved was the
matter of what would happen to Francis, who had served
him faithfully for almost thirty-five years, and about
whose future he agonised. The doctor had little confidence
in Francis' powers of survival, for he understood
his servant's weaknesses and he had laboured hard to both
accommodate these faults and at the same time protect
the man. One afternoon the doctor asked his friend and
physician, Dr Brocklesby, what might be a proper annuity
to bequeath a highly regarded servant, and he was told
that fifty pounds a year might be considered a generous
amount. Dr Johnson listened carefully, and then decided
upon seventy pounds a year for Francis, whom he determined
would be his principal legatee. He instructed Sir
John Hawkins to draw up the draft of the will and to
include the generous legacy to Francis, however, Sir John
Hawkins left blanks where, in good time, he imagined
Dr Johnson would insert the names of other legatees,
but the doctor appeared to have no desire to do such a
thing. Instead he named two more executors, Sir Joshua
Reynolds and Dr William Scott, and charged them and
Sir John Hawkins with the task of disbursing sums to a
few others after his death, and then he reiterated his
desire to give 'the rest of the aforesaid sums of money
and property, together with my books, plate, and household
furniture . . . to the use of Francis Barber, my
manservant, a negro . . .'

Sadly, Dr Johnson's recurrent battles with asthma
continued to prevent him from attending the Essex Street
Club as regularly as he wished. In fact, as he became increasingly
aware of the reality of his situation, Dr Johnson
decided to travel to Lichfield and revisit his youth, but
while there his ailments caused him to sleep long and often,
and his suffering seemed only to increase. And then the
doctor received news of the death of Miss Williams, who
had, for some time, been languishing in helpless misery,
and this loss left him desolate. He returned to London
where he yearned for pleasant company and conversation,
but most of his time was spent in a deep, but agitated,
slumber that was inevitably punctuated by raucous breathing
and the occasional yelp of pain. Francis continued to attend
upon him daily, but as his master's condition worsened the
negro made sure that he was also available for long nightly
vigils in the sickroom in case the doctor's pain became
intolerable. On the morning of Monday 13 December,
Francis noted that the slumbering doctor's breathing had
become difficult, and then his master awoke suddenly with
a series of convulsive movements that alarmed Francis.
Apparently the pain in his master's legs was so unbearable
that the doctor snatched up a pair of scissors and plunged
them deep into his calves causing jagged wounds. This
afforded the doctor some relief, but also occasioned a loss
of blood which startled Francis and Mrs Desmoulins, who
had recently arrived at the house to offer what help she
could. In fact, she had another reason for attending upon
her beloved Dr Johnson on this day, for she wished to
receive his blessings, which he was happy to give. Once the
bleeding had stopped, the doctor slowly turned to Mrs
Desmoulins and whispered, 'God bless you,' in a trembling
voice. Francis waited and watched as Mrs Desmoulins
fought bravely to hold back her tears, and then she rushed
quickly from the room.

Later that same day the ailing Dr Johnson received a
visit from a Miss Morris, who was the child of a friend
of his. The young woman's unexpected arrival alarmed
Francis, but he escorted her from the street door up the
stairs to Dr Johnson's chamber, where he asked her to wait.
He entered and informed his master that a young woman
was here who claimed to be the daughter of a friend, and
that she had asked permission to see him so that she might
receive his blessings. Dr Johnson smiled weakly, which his
negro servant took as a sign that he should usher this Miss
Morris into the room, which he did. The doctor turned
in the bed and looked carefully at the girl before
pronouncing, 'God bless you, my dear.' With this said he
turned away and Francis marshalled Miss Morris from the
room. Soon after, Francis, together with Mrs Desmoulins,
returned to Dr Johnson's chamber where they both realised
that the doctor's breathing had become even more laboured,
but there was nothing that they could do to alleviate his
discomfort. Shortly after seven o'clock in the evening, both
Francis and Mrs Desmoulins noticed that the painful
breathing had ceased and so they quickly left their respective
chairs and went to the bed where they discovered that the
great Englishman was dead.

The woman poured her visitor more tea and then
coughed loudly without resorting to covering her mouth.
It was clear that, in common with her husband's late master,
this woman had no passion for clean linen or immersing
herself in cold water. The story of her time in Lichfield
with her negro husband was now clearly uppermost in her
mind, but it was apparent that this was not a joyful tale.
If, as seemed to be the case, Francis Barber was still alive
then what I most desired was an introduction to the man
so that I might discover for myself why fortune had not
smiled upon him since the death of his master. It was an
indisputable fact that Dr Johnson had provided handsomely
for Francis, although Sir John Hawkins, among
many others, had complained loudly of the imprudence
of Dr Johnson leaving money to a negro. If the rumours
of Barber's fall from grace, and his foolishly squandering
the assets bequeathed to him, and thereby betraying the
generosity of England's greatest literary mind, proved to
be true then this would serve only to confirm Hawkins'
estimation of Dr Johnson's folly.