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BOSWELL'S LETTERS 81
plexities beset him (he
was left with five
children) ; and it may be that what once
made him odd, aggravated by his breaking
health, now made him gloomy. After his
wife's death he came to London for good.
Already he had taken a house in Queen Anne
Street, and here he worked hard at " The
Life," comforted a little by his assurance that
it would be a masterpiece :
"
I am absolutely certain that my mode of
biography, which gives not only a History of
Johnson's visible progress through the world,
and of his publications, but a view of his
mind in his letters and conversations, is the
most perfect that can be conceived, and will
be more of a Life than any work that has ever
yet appeared."
With this bold but just prophecy we may
leave him ; he died in 1795.