Johnson maintained a long and intimate "Edinburgh, 8th Jan. 1778. friendship with Mr. Welch, who succeeded "DEAR SIR,-Your congratulations upon the celebrated Henry Fielding as one of his a new year are mixed with complaint: mine majesty's justices of the peace for Westmust be so too. My wife has for some time minster; kept a regular office for the police been ill, having been confined to the house of that great district; and discharged his inthese three months by a severe cold, attend-portant trust, for many years, faithfully and ed with alarming symptoms."

inattention. But the truth is, that there | was no particular time in which I had any thing particular to say; and general expressions of good will, I hope, our long friendship is grown too solid to want.

written memorials. If she has satisfied her self with hints, instead of full representations, let her supply the deficiencies now while her memory is yet fresh, and while her father's memory may help her. If she observes this direction, she will not have travelled in vain; for she will bring home a book with which she may entertain herself to the end of life. If it were not now too late, I would advise her to note the impressions which the first sight of any thing new and wonderful made upon her mind. Let her now set her thoughts down as she can recollect them; for faint as they may already be, they will grow every day fainter.

"Of public affairs you have information from the newspapers wherever you go, for the English keep no secret; and of other things Mrs. Nollekens informs you. My intelligence could, therefore, be of no use; and Miss Nancy's letters made it unnecessary to write to you for information; I was likewise for some time out of humour, to find that motion and nearer approaches to the sun did not restore your health so fast as I expected. Of your health the accounts "Perhaps I do not flatter myself unreahave lately been more pleasing; and I have sonably when I imagine that you may wish the gratification of imagining to myself a to know something of me. I can gratify length of years which I hope you have gain-your benevolence with no account of health. ed, and of which the enjoyment will be im- The hand of time, or of disease, is very proved by a vast accession of images and heavy upon me. I pass restless and uneasy observations which your journeys and va- nights, harassed with convulsions of my rious residence have enabled you to make breast, and flatulencies at my stomach; and and accumulate. You have travelled with restless nights make heavy days. But nothis felicity, almost peculiar to yourself, thing will be mended by complaints, and that your companion is not to part from therefore I will make an end. When we you at your journey's end; but you are to meet, we will try to forget our cares and live on together, to help each other's recol- our maladies, and contribute, as we can, to lections, and to supply each other's omis- the cheerfulness of each other. If I had sions. The world has few greater plea- gone with you, I believe I should have been sures than that which two friends enjoy, in better; but I do not know that it was in my tracing back, at some distant time, those power. I am, dear sir, your most humble transactions and events through which they servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." have passed together. One of the old man's miseries is, that he cannot easily find a companion able to partake with him of the past. You and your fellow-traveller have this comfort in store, that your conversation will be not easily exhausted; one will always be glad to say what the other will always be willing to hear.

That you may enjoy this pleasure long, your health must have your constant attention. I suppose you propose to return this year. There is no need of haste: do not come hither before the height of summer, that you may fall gradually into the inconveniences of your native clime. July seems to be the proper month. August and September will prepare you for the winter. After having travelled so far to find health, you must take care not to lose it at home; and I hope a little care will effectually pre

serve it.

"Miss Nancy has doubtless kept a constant and copious journal. She must not expect to be welcome when she returns without a great mass of information. Let her review her journal often, and set down what she finds herself to have omitted, that she may trust to memory as little as possible, for memory is soon confused by a quick succession of things; and she will grow every day less confident of the truth of her own narratives, unless she can recur to some |

This letter, while it gives admirable ad vice how to travel to the best advantage, and will therefore be of very general use, is another eminent proof of Johnson's warm and affectionate heart1.

["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. LUCY Porter.

"19th February, 1778. Pearson

"DEAR MADAM,-I have several little things to mention which I MSS. have hitherto neglected.

"You judged rightly in thinking that the bust 2 would not please. It is condemned by Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Reynolds, and Mrs. Garrick; so that your disapprobation is not singular.

These things have never cost me any

1 The friendship between Mr. Welch and him was unbroken. Mr. Welch died not months many before him, and bequeathed him five guineas for a ring, which Johnson received with tenderness, as a kind memorial. His regard was constant for his friend Mr. Welch's daughters; of whom Jane is married to Mr. Nollekens, the statuary, whose merit is too well known to require any praise from me.-BOSWELL. [See a great deal about Miss Anne in Miss Hawkins's Memoirs.-ED.]

2 [This bust, and the walking-stick mentioned by Boswell, are now in the possession of Mrs. Pearson, of Hill Ridware, near Lichfield.—HarWOOD.]

"When you complained for want of oysters, I ordered you a barrel weekly for a "I am sorry poor Mrs. Williams is so month; you sent me word sooner that you ill: though her temper is unpleasant, she had enough, but I did not countermand the has always been polite and obliging to me. rest. If you could not eat them, could you | I wish many happy years to good Mr. Lenot give them away? When you want any vett, who, I suppose, holds his usual place thing send me word. at your breakfast-table. I ever am, my dear sir, your affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

"TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

"Edinburgh, 12th March, 1778.

'on two points, the Middlesex election, and | then he will be almost as thankful for the the taxation of the Americans by the Brit- bill as I am for the letter that enclosed it. ish houses of representatives. There is a "If I do not lose, what I hope always to charm in the word parliament, so I avoid keep, my reverence for transcendent merit, it. As I am a steady and a warm tory, II shall continue to be, with unalterable regret that the king does not see it to be fidelity, madam, your most obliged, and better for him to receive constitutional sup- most humble servant, plies from his American subjects by the "SAM. JOHNSON."] voice of their own assemblies, where his royal person is represented, than through the medium of his British subjects. I am persuaded that the power of the crown, which I wish to increase, would be greater when in contact with all its dominions, than if the rays of regal bounty were to shine' upon America through that dense and troubled body a modern British parliament. But, enough of this subject; for your angry voice at Ashbourne upon it still sounds awful in my mind's ears.'-I ever am, my dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

Το

"I am much better. A little cough (still) remains which will not confine me. houses (like yours) of great delicacy I am not willing to bring it.

"Now, dear madam, we must talk of business. Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the re-purchase of part of his household stuff. Several of them gave him five guineas. It would be an honour to him to owe part of his relief to Mrs. Montagu.

"Let me thank you, madam, once more for your inquiry; you have, perhaps, among your numerous train not one that values a kind word or a kind look more than, madam, your most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

"MY DEAR SIR,-The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours; for on the evening of the day that it reached me, I found it contradicted in The London Chronicle,' which I could depend upon as authentick concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it. I did not see the paper in which the approaching extinction of a bright luminary' was announced. Sir William Forbes told me of it; and he says he saw me so uneasy, that he did not give me the report in such strong terms as he read it. He afterwards sent me a letter from Mr. Langton to him, which relieved me much. I am, however, not quite easy, as I have not heard from you; and now I shall not have that comfort before I see you, for I set out for London to-morrow before the post comes in. I hope to be with you on Wednesday morning: and I ever am, with the highest veneration, my dear sir, your most obliged, faithful, and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES Boswell."

On Wednesday, March 18, I arrived in London, and was informed by good Mr. Francis, that his master was better, and was gone to Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which place I wrote to him, begging to know when he would be in town. He was not expected for some time; but next day, having called on Dr. Taylor, in Dean's yard, Westminster, I found him there, and was told he had come to town for a few hours. He met me with his usual kindness, but instantly returned to the writing of something on which he was employed when I came in, and on which he seemed much intent. Finding him thus engaged, I made my visit very short, and had no more of his conversation, except his expressing a serious regret that a friend of ours 3 was living at too much expense, considering how poor an appearance he made. "If," said he, "a man has splendour from his expense, if he spends his money in pride or in pleasure, he has value; but if he lets others spend it for him, which is most commonly the case, he has no advantage from it."

On Friday, March 20, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allot

3 [Mr. Langton.—ED.]

however, Mrs. Thrale ventured to blame their ingratitude, and condemn their conduct, he would instantly set about softening the one aud justifying the other; and finished commonly by telling her, that she knew not how to make allowances for situations she never experienced.]

ted to me was now appropriated to a chari-ed on one was wormwood to the rest. If, table purpose; Mrs. Desmoulins, and, I think, her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins herself told me he allowed her half a guinea a week. Let it be remembered, that this was above a twelfth part of his pension.

We retired from Mrs. Williams to another room. Tom Davies soon after joined us. He had now unfortunately failed in his circumstances, and was much indebted to Dr. Johnson's kindness for obtaining for him many alleviations of his distress. After he went away, Johnson blamed his folly in quitting the stage, by which he and his wife got five hundred pounds a year. I said, I believed it was owing to Churchill's

His liberality, indeed, was at all periods of his life very remarkable. Mr. Howard, of Lichfield, at whose father's house Johnson had in his early years been kindly received, told me, that when he was a boy at the Charter-house, his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to Mr. Samuel Johnson, which he accordingly did, and found him in an upper room, of poor appearance. Johnson received him with much courte-attack upon him, ousness, and talked a great deal to him, as to a schoolboy, of the course of his education, and other particulars. When he af- JOHNSON. "I believe so too, sir. But terwards came to know and understand the what a man is he who is to be driven from high character of this great man, he recol- the stage by a line? Another line would lected his condescension with wonder. He have driven him from his shop!" added, that when he was going away, Mr. Johnson presented him with half a guinea; and this, said Mr. Howard, was at a time when he probably had not another.

ED.

Piozzi,

"He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone."

I told him that I was engaged as counsel at the bar of the house of commons to oppose a road-bill in the county of Stirling, and asked him what mode he would advise [Johnson's patience was as much me to follow in addressing such an auditried by these inmates as his gene ence. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you must rosity. The dissensions that the provide yourself with a good deal of extraP. 164. many odd 2 inhabitants of his house neous matter, which you are to produce occhose to live in distressed and morti-casionally, so as to fill up the time; for you fied him exceedingly. He really was some- must consider, that they do not listen much. times afraid of going home, because he was If you begin with the strength of your so sure to be met at the door with number- cause, it may be lost before they begin to less complaints; and he used to lament pa- listen. When you catch a moment of atthetically to Mrs. Thrale, and to Mr. Sas- tention, press the merits of the question uptres, the Italian master, who was much his on them." He said, as to one point of the favourite, that they made his life miserable merits, that he thought "it would be a from the impossibility he found of making wrong thing to deprive the small landholdtheirs happy, when every favour he bestow-ers of the privilege of assessing themselves for making and repairing the high roads; 1 Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's god- ty without a good reason, which was alit was destroying a certain portion of liberfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writing-ways a bad thing." When I mentioned he pleasantly said, "What! does he talk of this observation next day to Mr. Wilkes, liberty? Liberty is as ridiculous in his advice as to the best mode of speaking at mouth as religion in mine." Mr. Wilkes's the bar of the house of commons was not more respectful towards the senate than that of Dr. Johnson. "Be as impudent as you can, as merry as you can, and say whatever comes uppermost. Jack Lee 3 is the best

master.-BOSWELL.

2 [In Malone's MS. notes, he, on more than

one occasion, reprobates "the misrepresentations," as he calls them, "of this mendacious lady," on the subject of Johnson's inmates and pensioners; and he particularly notices this passage, from which, he says, "it might be inferred that he had twenty in his house, whereas Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins occasionally, and Levett, with his two servants, composed the whole." This is the style in which Malone and Boswell usually treated Mrs. Piozzi; and, as generally happens, she is right, or, at least, justifiable in what she says. Surely, in this particular case, when we find that, besides Dr. Johnson, his house contained Mr. Levett, Mrs. Williams, Miss Carmichael, Mrs. Desmoulins, Miss Desmoulins, a negro, and a female servant, Mrs. Piozzi was justified in talking of his "many inmates."-ED.]

3 [Mr. Lee, afterwards solicitor-general in the Rockingham administration. "He was a man of strong parts, though of coarse manners, and who never hesitated to express in the coarsest language whatever he thought."-Wraxall's Mem. vol. ii. p. 237. He was particularly distinguished by the violence of his invective against the person