'DEAR SIR,
'It is now long since we saw one another; and whatever has been the
reason neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To let friendship
die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is
voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary
pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be, taken finally away, he
that travels on alone, will wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do
not forget me; you see that I do not forget you. It is pleasing in the
silence of solitude to think, that there is one at least, however
distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is
yet hope of seeing again[454].
'Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The
spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for fifteen
years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or
tenderness[455]; for such another friend, the general course of human
things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham,
but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a weakly
body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge
of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends
sickly whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a
habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my dear
old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe your
acquaintance[456], died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed; there
passed not, I believe, a minute between health and death. At night, as
at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon
earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or
whithersoever I might remove[457], I would endeavour to retain Levett
about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was
called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not
unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued
him, I now wish that I had valued him more[458].
'I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, from which
at the expence of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now
recovering.
'You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see George fond
of his book, and the pretty misses airy and lively, with my own little
Jenny[459] equal to the best[460]: and in whatever can contribute to
your quiet or pleasure, you have Lady Rothes ready to concur. May
whatever you enjoy of good be encreased, and whatever you suffer of evil
be diminished.
I am, dear Sir,
Your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,
March 20, 1782.'
'To MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM[461].
'DEAR SIR,
'I hope I do not very grossly flatter myself to imagine that you and
dear Mrs. Careless[462] will be glad to hear some account of me. I
performed the journey to London with very little inconvenience, and came
safe to my habitation, where I found nothing but ill health, and, of
consequence, very little cheerfulness. I then went to visit a little way
into the country, where I got a complaint by a cold which has hung eight
weeks upon me, and from which I am, at the expence of fifty ounces of
blood, not yet free. I am afraid I must once more owe my recovery to
warm weather, which seems to make no advances towards us.
'Such is my health, which will, I hope, soon grow better. In other
respects I have no reason to complain. I know not that I have written
any thing more generally commended than the _Lives of the Poets_; and
have found the world willing enough to caress me, if my health had
invited me to be in much company; but this season I have been almost
wholly employed in nursing myself.
'When summer comes I hope to see you again, and will not put off my
visit to the end of the year. I have lived so long in London, that I did
not remember the difference of seasons.
'Your health, when I saw you, was much improved. You will be prudent
enough not to put it in danger. I hope, when we meet again, we shall all
congratulate each other upon fair prospects of longer life; though what
are the pleasures of the longest life, when placed in comparison with a
happy death?
'I am, dear Sir,
'Yours most affectionately,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, March 21, 1782.'
To THE SAME.
[Without a date, but supposed to be about this time.][463]
'DEAR SIR,
'That you and dear Mrs. Careless should have care or curiosity about my
health, gives me that pleasure which every man feels from finding
himself not forgotten. In age we feel again that love of our native
place and our early friends, which in the bustle or amusements of middle
life were overborne and suspended. You and I should now naturally cling
to one another: we have outlived most of those who could pretend to
rival us in each other's kindness. In our walk through life we have
dropped our companions, and are now to pick up such as chance may offer
us, or to travel on alone[464]. You, indeed, have a sister, with whom
you can divide the day: I have no natural friend left; but Providence
has been pleased to preserve me from neglect; I have not wanted such
alleviations of life as friendship could supply. My health has been,
from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of
ease[465]; but it is at least not worse: and I sometimes make myself
believe that it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently
oppressive.
'I think of seeing Staffordshire again this autumn, and intend to find
my way through Birmingham, where I hope to see you and dear Mrs.
Careless well. I am Sir,
'Your affectionate friend,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
I wrote to him at different dates; regretted that I could not come to
London this spring, but hoped we should meet somewhere in the summer;
mentioned the state of my affairs, and suggested hopes of some
preferment; informed him, that as _The Beauties of Johnson_ had been
published in London, some obscure scribbler had published at Edinburgh
what he called _The deformities of Johnson_.
'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'The pleasure which we used to receive from each other on Good-Friday
and Easter-day[466], we must be this year content to miss. Let us,
however, pray for each other, and hope to see one another yet from time
to time with mutual delight. My disorder has been a cold, which impeded
the organs of respiration, and kept me many weeks in a state of great
uneasiness; but by repeated phlebotomy it is now relieved; and next to
the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter myself, that you will rejoice
at mine.
'What we shall do in the summer it is yet too early to consider. You
want to know what you shall do now; I do not think this time of bustle
and confusion[467] likely to produce any advantage to you. Every man has
those to reward and gratify who have contributed to his advancement. To
come hither with such expectations at the expence of borrowed money,
which, I find, you know not where to borrow, can hardly be considered as
prudent. I am sorry to find, what your solicitation seems to imply, that
you have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set
the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your
inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must
pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in penury, with the
empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an
evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I
cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it[468]. Live on what you have;
live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure;
the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret: stay therefore
at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither.
_The Beauties of Johnson_ are said to have got money to the collector;
if the _Deformities_ have the same success, I shall be still a more
extensive benefactor.
'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me;
and to the young people whom I never have offended.
'You never told me the success of your plea against the Solicitors[469].
'I am, dear Sir,
'Your most affectionate,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, March 28, 1782.'
Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body[470] and mind this year, the
following correspondence affords a proof not only of his benevolence and
conscientious readiness to relieve a good man from errour, but by his
cloathing one of the sentiments in his _Rambler_ in different language,
not inferiour to that of the original, shews his extraordinary command
of clear and forcible expression.
A clergyman at Bath wrote to him, that in _The Morning Chronicle_, a
passage in _The Beauties of Johnson_[471], article DEATH, had been
pointed out as supposed by some readers to recommend suicide, the words
being, 'To die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is
generally his folly;' and respectfully suggesting to him, that such an
erroneous notion of any sentence in the writings of an acknowledged
friend of religion and virtue, should not pass uncontradicted.