What improvement you might gain stowed by our Creator; and it is reaby coming to London, you may easi-sonable, that all his gifts should be ly supply or easily compensate, by used to his glory, that all our faculenjoining yourself some particular ties should co-operate in his worship; study at home, or opening some new but they are to co-operate according avenue to information. Edinburgh to the will of him that gave them, is not yet exhausted; and I am sure according to the order which his wisyou will find no pleasure here, which dom has established. As ceremonies can deserve either that you should prudential or convenient are less oblianticipate any part of your future gatory than positive ordinances, as fortune, or that you should condemn bodily worship is only the token to yourself and your lady to penurious others or ourselves of mental adorafrugality for the rest of the year. tion, so Fancy is always to act in I need not tell you what regard you subordination to Reason. We may owe to Mrs. Boswell's entreaties; or take Fancy for a companion, but how much you ought to study the must follow Reason as our guide.— happiness of her, who studies yours We may allow Fancy to suggest cerwith so much diligence, and of whose tain ideas in certain places, but Reakindness you enjoy such good effects. son must always be heard, when she Life cannot subsist in society but by tells us, that those ideas and those reciprocal concessions. She permit- places have no natural or necessary ted you to ramble last year; you must relation. When we enter a church, permit her now to keep you at home. we habitually recall to mind the duty

Your last reason is so serious, that of adoration, but we must not omit I am unwilling to oppose it. Yet adoration for want of a temple; beyou must remember, that your image cause we know, and ought to rememof worshipping once a year in a cer- ber, that the Universal Lord is every tain place, in imitation of the Jews, where present; and that, therefore, is but a comparison, and simile non to come to Iona, or to Jerusalem, est idem;* if the annual resort to Je- though it may be useful, cannot be rusalem was a duty to the Jews, it necessary. was a duty because it was command- Thus I have answered your letter, ed; and you have no such command, and have not answered it negligently. therefore no such duty. It may be I love you too well to be careless dangerous to receive too readily, and when you are serious.

indulge too fondly, opinions from I think I shall be very diligent which perhaps no pious mind is next week about our travels, which I wholly disengaged, of local sancti- have too long neglected. I am, dear ty and local devotion. You know sir, your most, &c.

what strange effects they have produced over a great part of the Christian world. I am now writing, and you,

when you read this, are reading, un

der the eye of Omnipresence.

To what degree fancy is to be ad

Compliments to madam and miss.

LETTER XLI.

mitted into religious offices, it would From Dr. Johnson to Mr. James

require much deliberation to determine. I am far from intending totally to exclude it. Fancy is a faculty be

*Like is not the same.

Macpherson.

Mr. James Macpherson,

I RECEIVED your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered

me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law

LETTER XLIII.

shall do for me. I hope I shall never From Dr. Johnson to Mr. Elphinston. be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

Sir,

July 27, 1778.

What would you have me retract? HAVING myself suffered what you I thought your book an imposture; are now suffering, I well know the I think it an imposture still. For weight of your distress, how much this opinion I have given my reason need you have of comfort, and how to the public, which I here dare you little comfort can be given. A loss to refute. Your rage I defy. Your such as yours lacerates the mind, and abilities, since your Homer, are not breaks the whole system of purposes so formidable; and what I hear of and hopes. It leaves a dismal vacuyour morals inclines me to pay re-ity in life, which affords nothing on gard not to what you shall say, but which the affections can fix, or to to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.

LETTER XLII.

From Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Boswell.

July 22, 1777.

which endeavour may be directed. All this I have known; and it is now, in the vicissitude of things, your turn to know it.

But in the condition of mortal beings, one must lose another. What would be the wretchedness of life, if there was not something always in view, some Being immutable and unfailing, to whose mercy man may have recourse! Τον πρωτον κινεντα

Madam, THOUGH I am well enough pleas-axivтov.* ed with the taste of sweetmeats, very Here we must rest. The greatest little of the pleasure which I received Being is the most benevolent. We at the arrival of your jar of marma- must not grieve for the dead as men lade arose from eating it. I received without hope, because we know they it as a token of friendship, as a proof are in his hands. We have, indeed, of reconciliation, things much sweeter not leisure to grieve long, because than sweetmeats, and upon this con- we are hastening to follow them.sideration I return you, dear madam, Your race and mine have been inmy sincerest thanks. By having terrupted by many obstacles, but we your kindness I think I have a dou- must humbly hope for an happy end. ble security for the continuance of Mr. I am, sir, your most humble servant. Boswell's, which it is not to be expected that any man can long keep, when the influence of a lady so highly and so justly valued operates

LETTER XLIV.

against him. Mr. Boswell will tell From Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale,

you that I was always faithful to your interest, and always endeavoured to exalt you in his estimation.You must now do the same for me. We must all help one another; and

on the Death of Mr. Thrale.

London, April 5, 1781.

Dearest madam,

Or your injunctions to pray for you you must now consider me as, dear and write to you, I hope to leave neimadam, your most obliged and most ther unobserved; and I hope to find

humble servant.

* The first immoveable mover.

you willing in a short time to alleviate (which shall never end. I am, dearyour trouble by some other exercise est madam, your, &c.

of the mind. I am not without my part of the calamity. No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed

LETTER XLV.

me like this. But let us remember, From Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale.

London, April 9, 1781.

Dearest madam,
THAT you are gradually recovering

that we are in the hands of him, who knows when to give and when to take away; who will look upon us with mercy through all our variations of existence, and who invites us to your tranquillity is the effect to be call on him in the day of trouble. humbly expected from trust in God. Call upon him in this great revolu- Do not represent life as darker than tion of life, and call with confidence. it is. Your loss has been very great, You will then find comfort for the but you retain more than almost any past, and support for the future. He other can hope to possess. You are that has given you happiness in mar- high in the opinion of mankind; you riage, to a degree of which, without have children from whom much pleapersonal knowledge, I should have sure may be expected; and that you thought the description fabulous, can will find many friends you have no give you another mode of happiness reason to doubt. Of my friendship, as a mother; and, at last, the happi- be it worth more or less, I hope you ness of losing all temporal cares in think yourself certain, without much the thoughts of an eternity in hea-art or care. It will not be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have

ven.

I do not exhort you to reason your-received; but I hope to be always self into tranquillity. We must first ready at your call. Our sorrow has pray, and then labour; first implore different effects; you are withdrawn the blessing of God, and then use into solitude, and I am driven into those means which he puts into our company. I am afraid of thinking I never had such hands. Cultivated ground has few what I have lost. Let me have your weeds; a mind occupied by lawful a friend before. business has little room for useless prayers and those of my dear Queen-* regret. ey.

We read the will to-day; but I The prudence and resolution of will not fill my first letter with any your design to return so soon to your other account than that, with all my business and your duty, deserves zeal for your advantage, I am satis- great praise; I shall communicate it fied; and that the other executors, on Wednesday to the other execumore used to consider property than tors. Be pleased to let me know I, commend it for wisdom and equi- whether you would have me come to ty. Yet why should I not tell you, Streatham to receive you, or stay that you have five hundred pounds here till the next day. I am, &c. for your immediate expenses, and

two thousand pounds a year, with both the houses and all the goods?

LETTER XLVI.

Let us pray for one another, that From Dr. Johnson to Mr. Hector in

the time, whether long or short, that

shall yet be granted us, may be well spent; and that when this life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a better may begin,

Birmingham.

[Without a date, but supposed to be about this
time.]

Dear sir,
THAT you and dear Mrs. Careless

should have care or curiosity about organs of respiration, and kept me my health, gives me that pleasure many weeks in a state of great unwhich every man feels from finding easiness, but by repeated phlebotohimself not forgotten. In age we my is now relieved; and, next to the feel again that love of our native place recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter and our early friends, which, in the myself that you will rejoice at mine. bustle or amusements of middle life, What we shall do in the summer were overborne and suspended. You it is yet too early to consider. You and I should now naturally cling to want to know what you shall do one another: we have outlived most now; I do not think this time of busof those who could pretend to rival us tle and confusion likely to produce in each other's kindness. In our any advantage to you. Every man walk through life we have dropped has those to reward and gratify who our companions, and are now to pick have contributed to his advancement. up such as chance may offer us, or To come hither with such expecta to travel on alone. You, indeed, have tions at the expense of borrowed moa sister, with whom you can divide ney, which, I find, you know not the day I have no natural friend where to borrow, can hardly be consileft; but Providence has been pleas- dered as prudent. I am sorry to find, ed to preserve me from neglect; I what your solicitations seem to imply, have not wanted such alleviations of that you have already gone the whole life as friendship could supply. My length of your credit. This is to set health has been, from my twentieth the quiet of your life at hazard. If year, such as has seldom afforded me you anticipate your inheritance, you a single day of ease; but it is at least can at last inherit nothing; all that not worse; and I sometimes make you receive must pay for the past. myself believe that it is better. My You must get a place, or pine in disorders are, however, still sufficient- penury, with the empty name of a ly oppressive. great estate. Poverty, my dear friend,

I think of seeing Staffordshire is so great an evil, and pregnant with again this autumn, and intend to find so much temptation, and so much mimy way through Birmingham, where sery, that I cannot but earnestly enI hope to see you and dear Mrs. Care- join you to avoid it. Live on what less well. I am, sir, your affection- you have, live if you can on less; do ate friend.

LETTER XLVII.

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

Dr. Johnson to James Boswell, Esq. to have got money to the collector;

London, March 28, 1782.

if the Deformities' have the same success I shall be still a more extensive benefactor.

Dear sir, THE pleasure which we used to re- Make my compliments to Mrs. Bosceive from each other on Good-Friday well, who is, I hope, reconciled to and Easter-day, we must this year be me: and to the young people, whom content to miss. Let us, however, I never have offended. pray for each other, and hope to see You never told me the success of one another yet from time to time your plea against the solicitors. I with mutual delight. My disorder am, dear sir, your most affectionate, has been a cold, which impeded the &c.

LETTER XLVIII.

|cows, how much land in your own hand, and what bargains you make

Dr. Johnson to James Boswell, Esq. with your tenants.

London, Dec. 7, 1782.

Of my Lives of the Poets,' they Dear sir, have printed a new edition in octavo, HAVING passed almost this whole I hear, of three thousand. Did I year in a succession of disorders, I give a set to lord Hailes? If I did went in October to Brighthelmston, not, I will do it out of these. What whither I came in a state of so much did you make of all your copy? weakness that I rested four times in Mrs. Thrale and the three misses walking between the inn and the lodg- are now, for the winter, in Argylling. By physic and abstinence I street. Sir Joshua Reynolds has grew bettter, and am now reasonably been out of order, but is well again; easy, though at a great distance from and I am, dear sir, your affectionate, health. I am afraid, however, that humble servant.

LETTER XLIX.

Dr. Johnson to Miss Susannah
Thrale.

Dearest miss Susy,

health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of WHEN you favoured me with your old age. letter, you seemed to be in want of At your long silence I am rather materials to fill it, having met with angry. You do not, since now you no great adventures, either of peril are the head of your house, think it or delight, nor done nor suffered any worth your while to try whether you thing out of the common course of or your friend can live longer with- life.

out writing, nor suspect, after so ma- When you have lived longer, and ny years of friendship, that when I considered more, you will find the do not write to you I forget you? common course of life very fertile Put all such useless jealousies out of observation and reflection. Upon of your head, and disdain to regulate the common course of life must our your own practice by the practice of thoughts and our conversation be geanother, or by any other principle nerally employed. Our general course than the desire of doing right. of life must denominate us wise or

Your economy, I suppose, begins foolish; happy or miserable: if it is now to be settled: your expenses are well regulated, we pass on prosperadjusted to your revenue, and all your ously and smoothly; as it is neglectpeople in their proper places. Re-ed, we live in embarrassment, persolve not to be poor: whatever you plexity, and uneasiness. have, spend less. Poverty is a great Your time, my love, passes, I supenemy to human happiness, it cer- pose, in devotion, reading, work, tainly destroys liberty, and it makes and company. Of your devotions, some virtues impracticable, and oth- in which I earnestly advise you to ers extremely difficult. be very punctual, you may not perLet me know the history of your haps think it proper to give me an life since your accession to your es- account; and of work, unless I unHow many houses, how many derstood it better, it will be of no

tate.