now uttered a prayer of repentance and c̄.[1]; perhaps Tetty knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Tetty is now praying for me. God help me. Thou, God, art merciful, hear my prayers, and enable me to trust in Thee.
We were married almost seventeen years, and have now been parted thirty.
I then read 11 p. from Ex. 36. to Lev. 7. I prayed with Fr. and used the prayer for Good Friday.
29. Good Friday. After a night of great disturbance and solicitude, such as I do not remember, I rose, drank tea, but without eating, and went to Church. I was very composed, and coming home, read Hammond on one of the Psalms for the day[2]. I then read Leviticus. Scot[3] came in which hindred me from Church in the afternoon. A kind letter from Gastrel[4]. I read on, then went to Evening prayers, and afterwards drank tea with bunns; then read till I finished Leviticus 24 pages et sup.
To write to Gastrel to morrow.
To look again into Hammond.
30. Sat. Visitors Paradise and I think Horseley. Read 11 pages of the Bible. I was faint, dined on herrings and potatoes. At Prayers, I think, in the Evening. I wrote to Gastrel, and received a kind letter from Hector. At night Lowe. Pr.[5] with Francis.
31. Easter Day. Read 15 pages of the Bible. Cætera alibi[6].
2 He wrote from Lichfield on July 26, 1775: – 'When I came I found Lucy at her book. She had Hammond's Commentary on the Psalms before her. He is very learned, she says, but there is enough that anybody may understand.' Letters, i. 357. Addison, quoting Fell's Life of Hammond, says: – 'As this good man was troubled with a complication of distempers, when he had the gout upon him, he used to thank God that it was not the stone; and when he had the stone, that he had not both these distempers on him at the same time.' The Spectator, No. 574. Franklin, in a letter written in his old age, utters the same thanks.
3 Scott had chambers hard by in the Temple, where Johnson and Boswell dined with him on April 10, 1778. Life, iii. 261.
4 Mrs. Gastrell of Lichfield. Life, ii. 470. For Johnson's answer to her letter, see Letters, ii. 248.
