"Ashbourne, July 8, 1771 "Last Saturday I came to Ashbourne-Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not the barren name of the Peak terrify you; I have never wanted strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence. "Ashbourne, Juy 7, 1771. "Poor Dr. Taylor is ill, and under my government: you know that the act of government is learned by obedience; I hope I can govern very tolerably. The old rheumatism is come again into my face and mouth, but nothing yet to the lumbago: however, having so long thought it gone, I do not like its return. Miss Porter was much pleased to be mentioned in your letter, and i sure that I have spoken better of her than she deserved. She holds that both Frank and his master are much improved. ` The master, she says, is not half BO lounging and untidy as he was; there was no such thing last year as getting him off his chair. Ashbourne, July 8, 1771. "Dr. Taylor is better, and is gone out in the chaise. ter too. I would have been glad to go to Hagley, in compliance with Mr. Lyttleton's kind invitation, for, beside the pleasure of his company, I should have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering per montes notvs et flumina nota, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.' But this year will not bring this gratification within my power. I promised Taylor a month. Everything is done here to pase me; and his health is a strong reason against desertion." LETTER 134. TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. In Leicester Fields. "Ashbourne, July 17, 1771. "DEAR SIR,-When I came to Lichfield, I found that my portrait 2 had Deen much visited, and much admired. Every man has a lurking wish to ap pear considerable in his native place; and I was pleased with the dignity conferred by such a testimony of your regard. "Be pleased, therefore, to accept the thanks of, Sir, your most obliged, and most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.' "Compliments to Miss Reynolds." LETTER 135. TO DR. JOHNSON. "Edinburgh, July 27, 1771. "MY DEAR SIR,--The bearer of this, Mr. Beattie, professor of moral philoso 1 Cornelius Ford, his mother's nephew.-PIOZZI. The second portrait of Johnson, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds; with his arms raised and his hands bent. It was at this time, it is believed, in the possession of Miss Lucy Porter.-M. ŋhy at Aberdeen, is desirous of being introduced to your acquaintance. His genius and learning, and labours in the service of virtue and religion, render him very worthy of it; and as he has a high esteem of your character, I hope you will give him a favourable reception. I ever am, &c., "JAMES BOSWELL." LETTER 186. TO MRS. THRALE. "Lichfield, Saturday, Aug. 3, 1771. "Having stayed my month with Taylor, I came away on Wednesday, leav ing him, I think, in a disposition of mind not very uncommon, at once weary af my stay, and grieved at my departure. My purpose was to have made haste to you and Streatham; and who would have expected that I should have been stopped by Lucy? Hearing me give Francis orders to take in places, she told me that I should not go till after next week. Ithought it proper to comply; for] was pleased to find that I could please, and proud of showing you that I do not come an universal outcast. Lucy is likewise a very peremptory maiden; and if I had gone without permission, I am not very sure that I might have beer welcome at another time." LETTER 137. TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. At Langton. "August 29, 1771. "DEAR SIR,-I am lately returned from Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The last letter mentions two others which you have written to me since you receivea my pamphlet. Of these two I never had but one, in which you mentioned design of visiting Scotland, and, by consequence, put my journey to Langton out of my thoughts. My summer wanderings are now over, and I am engag ing in a very great work, the revision of my Dictionary; from which I know not, at present, how to get loose. If you have observed, or been told, any errors or omissions, you will do me a great favour by letting me know them. "Lady Rothes, I find, has disappointed you and herself. Ladies will have these tricks. The Queen and Mrs. Thrale, both ladies of experience, yet both missed their reckoning this summer. I hope a few months will recompense your uneasiness. "Please to teli Lady Rothes how highly I value the honour of her invita tion, which it is my purpose to obey as soon as I have disengaged myself. In the meantime I shall hope to hear often of her ladyship, and every day better news and better, till I hear that you have both the happiness, which to both is very sincerely wished by, Sir, your most affectionate, and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." In October I again wrote to him, thanking him for his last letter, and his obliging reception of Mr. Beattie; informing him that I had been at Alnwick lately, and had good accounts of him from Dr Percy' LETTER 138. TO DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. Streatham, Dec.12, 1771. "DEAR SIR,-I have sought upon your epitaph, but without much effect. An epitaph is no easy thing. "Of your three stanzas, the third is utterly unworthy of you. The first and hird together give no discriminative character. If the first alone were to stand, Hogarth would not be distinguished from any other man of intellectual eminence. Suppose you worked upon something like this: "If the Hand of Art here torpid lies That traced the essential form of Grace, "If Genius warm thee, Reader, stay, If Merit touch thee, shed a tear; Be Vice and Dulness far away! Great Hogarth's honour'd dust is here." "In your second stanza, pictured morals is a beautiful expression, which I would wish to retain; but learn and mourn cannot stand for rhymes. Art and nature have been seen together too often. In the first stanza is feeling, in the second feel. Feeling for tenderness or sensibility is a word merely colloquial, of late introduction, not yet sure enough of its own existence to claim a place upon a stone. If thou hast neither is quite prose, and prose of the familiar kind. Thus easy is it to find faults, but it is hard to make an epitaph. "When you have reviewed it, let me see it again: you are welcome to any help that I can give, on condition that you make my compliments to Mrs. Garrick. I am, dear Sir, your most, &c., SAM. JOHNSON."] In his religious record of this year we observe that he was better than usual, both in body and mind, and better satisfied with the regularity of his conduct. But he is still "trying his ways" too rigorously. He charges himself with not rising early enough; yet he mentions what was surely a sufficient excuse for this, supposing it 1 In October, 1771, John Bell, Esq. of Hertfordshire, a gentleman with whom he had mainjained a long and strict friendship, had the misfortune to lose his wife, and wished Johnson, from the outlines of her character, which he should give him, and his own knowledge of her worth, to compose a monumental inscription for her; he returned the husband thanks for the confidence he placed in him, and acquitted himself of the task in a fine eulogium, now to be een in the parish church of Watford in Hertfordshire.-HAWKINS. to be a duty seriously required, as he all his life appears to have thought it :-"One great hindrance is want of rest; my nocturnal complaints grow less troublesome towards morning; and I am tempted to repair the deficiencies of the night." Alas! how hard would it be, if this indulgence were to be imputed to a sick man as a crime. In his retrospect on the following Easter-eve, he says, "When I review the last year, I am able to recollect so little done, that shame and sorrow, though perhaps too weakly, come upon me." Had he been judging of any one else in the same circumstances, how clear would he have been on the favourable side. How very difficult, and in my opinion almost constitutionally impossible it was for him to be raised early, even by the strongest resolutions, appears from a note in one of his little paper books (containing words arranged for his Dictionary), written, I suppose, about 1753 :-"I do not remember that, since I left Oxford, I ever rose early by mere choice, but once or twice at Edial, and two or three times for the Rambler." I think he had fair ground enough to have quieted his mind on the subject, by concluding that he was physically incapable of what is at best but a commodious regulation. In 1772 he was altogether quiescent as an author; but it will be found, from the various evidences which I shall bring together, that his mind was acute, lively, and vigorous. LETTER 139. TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Feb. 27, 1772. "DEAR SIR,-Be pleased to send to Mr. Banks, whose place of residence I do not know, this note, which I have sent open, that, if you please, vou may read it. When you send it, do not use your own seal. I am, Sir, you most "SIR,-I return thanks to you and to Dr. Solander, for the pleasure which I received in yesterday's conversation. I could not recollect a motto for your Goat, but have given her one. You, Sir, may perhaps have an epic poem from some happier per than, Sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." LETTER 141. FROM MR. BOSWELL. "MY DEAR SIR,—It is hard that I cannot prevail on you to write to me oftener. But I am convinced that it is in vain to expect from you a private correspondence with any regularity. I must, therefore, look upon you as a fountain of wisdom, from whence few rills are communicated to a distance, and which must be approached at its source, to partake fully of its virtues. "I am coming to London soon, and am to appear in an appeal from the Court of Sessions in the House of Lords. A schoolmaster in Scotland was, by ▲ court of inferior jurisdiction, deprived of his office, for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars. The Court of Sessions, considering it to be dangerous to the interest of learning and education, to lessen the dig. nitv of teacners, and make them afraid of too indulgent parents, instigated by the complaints of their children, restored him. H enemies have appealed to the House of Lords, though the salary is only twenty pounds a year. I was counsel for him here. I hope there will be little fear of a reversal; but I must beg to have your aid in my plan of supporting the decree. It is a general question, and not a point of particular law. I am, &c., LETTER 142. TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "JAMES BOSWELL." "March 15, 1772. "DEAR SIR,-That you are coming so soon to town I am very glad; and still more glad that you are coming as an advocate. I think nothing more likely to make your life pass happily away, than that consciousne of your own value, which eminence in your profession will certainly conf. If I can give you any collateral help, I hope you do not suspect that it will be wanting. My kindness for you has neither the merit of singular virtue, nor the reproach of singular prejudice. Whether to love you be right or wrong, I have many on my side: Mrs. Thrale loves you, and Mrs. Williams loves you, and what would have inclined me to love you, if I had been neutral before, you are a great favourite of Dr. Beattie. "Of Dr. Beattie I should have thought much, but that his lady puts him out of my head; she is a very lovely woman. "The ejection. which you come hither to oppose, appears very cruel, unreasonable, and oppressive. I should think there could not be much doubt of your success. "My health grows better, yet I am not fully recovered. I believe it is held |