I came hither on the 27th.How long I shall stay I have not determined.My dropsy is gone,and my asthma much remitted,but Ihave felt myself a little declining these two days,or at least to-day;but such vicissitudes must be expected.One day may be worse than another;but this last month is far better than the former;if the next should be as much better than this,I shall run about the town on my own legs.'
October 25.'You write to me with a zeal that animates,and a tenderness that melts me.I am not afraid either of a journey to London,or a residence in it.I came down with little fatigue,and am now not weaker.In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy,which I consider as the original and radical disease.
The town is my element;there are my friends,there are my books,to which I have not yet bid farewell,and there are my amusements.
Sir Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to publick life,and I hope still to keep my station,till God shall bid me Go in peace.'
His love of London continually appears.In a letter from him to Mrs.Smart,wife of his friend the Poet,which is published in a well-written life of him,prefixed to an edition of his Poems,in 1791,there is the following sentence:--'To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London,there are few places that can give much delight.'
Once,upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in The Spectator,'Born in New-England,did in London die;'
he laughed and said,'I do not wonder at this.It would have been strange,if born in London,he had died in New-England.'--BOSWELL.
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS:--
Ashbourne,Sept.2.'...I still continue by God's mercy to mend.My breath is easier,my nights are quieter,and my legs are less in bulk,and stronger in use.I have,however,yet a great deal to overcome,before I can yet attain even an old man's health.
Write,do write to me now and then;we are now old acquaintance,and perhaps few people have lived so much and so long together,with less cause of complaint on either side.The retrospection of this is very pleasant,and I hope we shall never think on each other with less kindness.'
Sept.9.'I could not answer your letter before this day,because I went on the sixth to Chatsworth,and did not come back till the post was gone.Many words,I hope,are not necessary between you and me,to convince you what gratitude is excited in my heart,by the Chancellor's liberality and your kind offices.I did not indeed expect that what was asked by the Chancellor would have been refused,but since it has,we will not tell that any thing has been asked.I have enclosed a letter to the Chancellor which,when you have read it,you will be pleased to seal with a head,or other general seal,and convey it to him;had I sent it directly to him,I should have seemed to overlook the favour of your intervention.
I do not despair of supporting an English winter.At Chatsworth,Imet young Mr.Burke,who led me very commodiously into conversation with the Duke and Duchess.We had a very good morning.The dinner was publick.'
Sept.18.'I have three letters this day,all about the balloon,Icould have been content with one.Do not write about the balloon,whatever else you may think proper to say.'
It may be observed,that his writing in every way,whether for the publick,or privately to his friends,was by fits and starts;for we see frequently,that many letters are written on the same day.
When he had once overcome his aversion to begin,he was,I suppose,desirous to go on,in order to relieve his mind from the uneasy reflection of delaying what he ought to do.
We now behold Johnson for the last time,in his native city,for which he ever retained a warm affection,and which,by a sudden apostrophe,under the word Lich,he introduces with reverence,into his immortal Work,THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY:--Salve,magna parens!
While here,he felt a revival of all the tenderness of filial affection,an instance of which appeared in his ordering the grave-stone and inion over Elizabeth Blaneyto be substantially and carefully renewed.
His mother.--ED.
To Mr.Henry White,a young clergyman,with whom he now formed an intimacy,so as to talk to him with great freedom,he mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son.'Once,indeed,(said he,)I was disobedient;Irefused to attend my father to Uttoxeter-market.Pride was the source of that refusal,and the remembrance of it was painful.Afew years ago,I desired to atone for this fault;I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather,and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain,on the spot where my father's stall used to stand.In contrition I stood,and I hope the penance was expiatory.'
'I told him (says Miss Seward)in one of my latest visits to him,of a wonderful learned pig,which I had seen at Nottingham;and which did all that we have observed exhibited by dogs and horses.
The subject amused him."Then,(said he,)the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated.PIG has,it seems,not been wanting to MAN,but MAN to PIG.We do not allow TIME for his education,we kill him at a year old."Mr.Henry White,who was present,observed that if this instance had happened in or before Pope's time,he would not have been justified in instancing the swine as the lowest degree of groveling instinct.Dr.Johnson seemed pleased with the observation,while the person who made it proceeded to remark,that great torture must have been employed,ere the indocility of the animal could have been subdued."Certainly,(said the Doctor;)but,(turning to me,)how old is your pig?"I told him,three years old."Then,(said he,)the pig has no cause to complain;he would have been killed the first year if he had not been EDUCATED,and protracted existence is a good recompence for very considerable degrees of torture."'
