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that we owe its having been undertaken and carried through at the risk of great expense, for they were not absolutely sure of being indemnified.

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"Gough-Square, 14th Jan. 1756. "MADAM,-From the liberty of writing to you, if I have hitherto been deterred from the fear of your understanding, I am now encouraged to it from the confidence of your goodness.

"I am soliciting a benefit for Miss Williams (1), and beg that if you can by letters influence any in her favour (and who is there whom you cannot influence?) you will be pleased to patronise her on this occasion. Yet, for the time is short, and as you were not in town, I did not till this day remember that you might help us, and recollect how widely and how rapidly light is diffused.

"To every joy is appended a sorrow. The name of Miss Carter introduces the memory of Cave. Poor dear Cave! I owed him much; for to him I owe that I have known you. He died, I am afraid, unexpectedly to himself, yet surely unburthened with any great crime, and for the positive duties of religion I have yet no right to condemn him for neglect."

"I am, with respect, which I neither owe nor pay to any other, madam, your most obedient and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

On the first day of this year we find, from his private devotions, that he had then recovered from ́sickness, and in February that his eye was restored to its use. The pious gratitude with which he

(1) In 1756, Mr. Garrick, ever disposed to help the afflicted, indulged Miss Williams with a benefit-play, that produced her two hundred pounds. - HAWKINS.

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acknowledges mercies upon every occasion is very edifying; as is the humble submission which he breathes, when it is the will of his heavenly Father to try him with afflictions. As such dispositions become the state of man here, and are the true effects of religious discipline, we cannot but venerate in Johnson one of the most exercised minds that our holy religion hath ever formed. If there be any thoughtless enough to suppose such exercise the weakness of a great understanding, let them look up to Johnson, and be convinced that what he so earnestly practised must have a rational foundation.

LETTER 51. TO THE REV. JOSEPH WARTON. "15th April, 1756.

"DEAR SIR,-Though, when you and your brother were in town, you did not think my humble habitation worth a visit, yet I will not so far give way to sullenness as not to tell you that I have lately seen an octavo book (1) which I suspect to be yours, though I have not yet read above ten pages. That way of publishing, without acquainting your friends, is a wicked trick. However, I will not so far depend upon a mere conjecture as to charge you with a fraud which I cannot prove you to have committed.

"I should be glad to hear that you are pleased with your new situation. (2) You have now a kind of royalty and are to be answerable for your conduct to posterity;

(1) [The first volume of the Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope appeared anonymously in 1756.]

(2) [His appointment of second-master of Winchester School took place in 1755.]

I suppose you care not now to answer a letter, except there be a lucky concurrence of a post-day with a holiday. These restraints are troublesome for a time, but custom makes them easy, with the help of some honour, and a great deal of profit, and I doubt not but your abilities will obtain both.

"For my part, I have not lately done much. I have been ill in the winter, and my eye has been inflamed; but I please myself with the hopes of doing many things with which I have long pleased and deceived myself.

"What becomes of poor dear Collins ? I wrote him a letter which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.

"Let me not be long without a letter, and I will forgive you the omission of the visit; and if you can tell me that you are now more happy than before, you will give great pleasure to, dea: Sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

in

His works this year were, an abstract or epitome, in octavo, of his folio Dictionary, and a few essays a monthly publication, entitled "THE UNIVERSAL VISITER." Christopher Smart, with whose unhappy vacillation of mind he sincerely sympathised, was one of the stated undertakers of this miscellany; and it was to assist him that Johnson sometimes employed his pen. All the essays marked with two asterisks have been ascribed to him; but I am confident, from

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