He
continued his attendance some time, still without success. At length the
man's wife told him, she had discovered that her husband's affairs
_were_ in a bad way. When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him,
"Your pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of
fever which you have: is your mind at ease?" Goldsmith answered it was
not.'
After dinner, Mrs. Butter went with me to see the silk-mill which Mr.
John Lombe had[461] had a patent for, having brought away the contrivance
from Italy. I am not very conversant with mechanicks; but the simplicity
of this machine, and its multiplied operations, struck me with an
agreeable surprize. I had learnt from Dr. Johnson, during this
interview, not to think with a dejected indifference of the works of
art, and the pleasures of life, because life is uncertain and short; but
to consider such indifference as a failure of reason, a morbidness of
mind; for happiness should be cultivated as much as we can, and the
objects which are instrumental to it should be steadily considered as of
importance[462], with a reference not only to ourselves, but to multitudes
in successive ages.
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