Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  ‘TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.

  ‘DEAR MADAM,

  ‘I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome time with my breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a cold, of which I could not get the violence abated, till I had been let blood three times. I have not, however, been so bad but that I could have written, and am sorry that I neglected it.

  ‘My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams, and Desmoulins, and myself, are very sickly: Frank is not well; and poor Levett died in his bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not one minute passed between health and death; so uncertain are human things.

  ‘Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your scenes are more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, therefore, keep ourselves as easy as we can; though the loss of friends will be felt, and poor Levett had been a faithful adherent for thirty years.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to mend that and my other faults. Let me have your prayers.

  ‘Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and the whole company of my friends.

  I am, my dear,

  ‘Your most humble servant,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘London, March 2, 1782.’

  TO THE SAME.

  ‘DEAR MADAM,

  ‘My last was but a dull letter, and I know not that this will be much more cheerful; I am, however, willing to write, because you are desirous to hear from me.

  ‘My disorder has now begun its ninth week, for it is not yet over. I was last Thursday blooded for the fourth time, and have since found myself much relieved, but I am very tender and easily hurt; so that since we parted I have had but little comfort, but I hope that the spring will recover me; and that in the summer I shall see Lichfield again, for I will not delay my visit another year to the end of autumn.

  ‘I have, by advertising, found poor Mr. Levett’s brothers in Yorkshire, who will take the little he has left: it is but little, yet it will be welcome, for I believe they are of very low condition.

  ‘To be sick, and to see nothing but sickness and death, is but a gloomy state; but I hope better times, even in this world, will come, and whatever this world may withhold or give, we shall be happy in a better state. Pray for me, my dear Lucy.

  ‘Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and my old friend Hetty Baily, and to all the Lichfield ladies.

  ‘I am, dear Madam,

  ‘Yours, affectionately,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘Bolt-court, Fleet-street,

  March 19, 1782.’

  On the day on which this letter was written, he thus feelingly mentions his respected friend and physician, Dr. Lawrence: —

  ‘Poor Lawrence has almost lost the sense of hearing; and I have lost the conversation of a learned, intelligent, and communicative companion, and a friend whom long familiarity has much endeared. Lawrence is one of the best men whom I have known. — Nostrum omnium miserere Deus.’

  It was Dr. Johnson’s custom when he wrote to Dr. Lawrence concerning his own health, to use the Latin language. I have been favoured by Miss Lawrence with one of these letters as a specimen: —

  ‘T. LAWRENCIO, Medico, S.

  ‘NOVUM frigus, nova tussis, nova spirandi difficultas, novam sanguinis missionem suadent, quam tamen te inconsulto nolim fieri. Ad te venire vix possum, nec est cur ad me venias. Licere vel non licere uno verbo dicendum est; catera mihi et Holdero reliqueris. Si per te licet, imperatur nuncio Holderum ad me deducere.

  ‘Maiis Calendis, 1782.

  ‘Postquàm tu discesseris, quò me vertam?’

  TO CAPTAIN LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER.

  ‘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.

  ‘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; 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, 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, 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.

  ‘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 equal to the best: 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 BIRMINGHAM461.

  ‘DEAR SIR,

  ‘I hope I do not very grossly flatter myself to imagine that you and dear Mrs. Careless 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.]

&nbs
p; ‘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. 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; 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, 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 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. 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.

  ‘I am, dear Sir,

  ‘Your most affectionate,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘London, March 28, 1782.’

  Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body 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, 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.

  Johnson thus answered the clergyman’s letter: —

  To THE REVEREND MR. —— , AT BATH.

  ‘SIR,

  ‘Being now in the country in a state of recovery, as I hope, from a very oppressive disorder, I cannot neglect the acknowledgement of your Christian letter. The book called The Beauties of Johnson is the production of I know not whom: I never saw it but by casual inspection, and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences. Of the passage you mention, I remember some notice in some paper; but knowing that it must be misrepresented, I thought of it no more, nor do I know where to find it in my own books. I am accustomed to think little of newspapers; but an opinion so weighty and serious as yours has determined me to do, what I should, without your seasonable admonition, have omitted; and I will direct my thought to be shewn in its true state. If I could find the passage, I would direct you to it. I suppose the tenour is this:— ‘Acute diseases are the immediate and inevitable strokes of Heaven; but of them the pain is short, and the conclusion speedy; chronical disorders, by which we are suspended in tedious torture between life and death, are commonly the effect of our own misconduct and intemperance. To die, &c.’ — This, Sir, you see is all true and all blameless. I hope, some time in the next week, to have all rectified. My health has been lately much shaken: if you favour me with any answer, it will be a comfort to me to know that I have your prayers.

  ‘I am, &c.,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘May 15, 1782.’

  This letter, as might be expected, had its full effect, and the clergyman acknowledged it in grateful and pious terms.

  The following letters require no extracts from mine to introduce them: —

  ‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

  ‘DEAR SIR,

  ‘The earnestness and tenderness of your letter is such, that I cannot think myself shewing it more respect than it claims by sitting down to answer it the day on which I received it.

  ‘This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I am now harrassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to Oxford.

  ‘Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever might have been your pleasure or mine, I know not how I could have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be his rank by birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual excellence, what good can he do? or what evil can he prevent? That he cannot help the needy is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will destroy his influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretched-ness of a debtor, which, however, has passed into a proverb. Of riches, it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered, that he who has money to spare, has it always in h
is power to benefit others; and of such power a good man must always be desirous.

  ‘I am pleased with your account of Easter. We shall meet, I hope in Autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the other’s company.

  ‘Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to the young charmers.

  ‘I am, &c.

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’ ‘London, June 3, 1782.’

  ‘To MR. PERKINS.

  ‘DEAR SIR,

  I am much pleased that you are going a very long journey, which may by proper conduct restore your health and prolong your life.

  ‘Observe these rules:

  1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise.

  2. Do not think about frugality; your health is worth more than it can cost.

  3. Do not continue any day’s journey to fatigue.

  4. Take now and then a day’s rest.

  5. Get a smart sea-sickness, if you can.

  6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy.

  ‘This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind, neither exercise, nor diet, nor physick, can be of much use.

  ‘I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy recovery.

  I am, dear Sir,

  ‘Your most affectionate, humble servant,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘July 28, 1782.’

  ‘To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

  ‘DEAR SIR,

  ‘Being uncertain whether I should have any call this autumn into the country, I did not immediately answer your kind letter. I have no call; but if you desire to meet me at Ashbourne, I believe I can come thither; if you had rather come to London, I can stay at Streatham; take your choice.

  ‘This year has been very heavy. From the middle of January to the middle of June I was battered by one disorder after another! I am now very much recovered, and hope still to be better. What happiness it is that Mrs. Boswell has escaped.

  ‘My Lives are reprinting, and I have forgotten the authour of Gray’s character: write immediately, and it may be perhaps yet inserted.