Dr. Brocklesby), as well as my own, going on very hopefully. I have just begun to take vinegar of squills. The powder hurt my stomach so much that it could not be continued. 1 "Return Sir Alexander Dick my sincere thanks for his kind letter; and bring with you the rhubarb which he so tenderly offers me. "I hope dear Mrs. Boswell is now quite well, and that no evil, either real or imaginary, now disturbs you. I am, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON." I also applied to three of the eminent physicians who had chairs in our celebrated school of medicine at Edinburgh, Doctors Cullen, Hope, and Monro, to each of whom I sent the following letter: "7th March, 1784. "DEAR SIR,-Dr. Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter of anxious apprehension he writes to me,' Ask your physicians about my case.' This, you see, is not authority for a regular consultation; but I have no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a man so eminent, and who, in his Life of Garth, has paid your profession a just and elegant compliment: I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusions of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.' "Dr. Johnson is aged seventy-four. Last summer he had a stroke of the palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely. He had, before that, been troubled with a catarrhous cough. This winter he was seized with a spasmodick asthma, by which he has been confined to his house for about three months. Dr. Brocklesby writes to me, that upon the least admission of cold, there is such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot lie down in his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest, and sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and of poppies; and that there are oedematous tumours in his legs and thighs. Dr. Brocklesby trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather. Dr. Johnson says that a dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems to think that a warmer climate would syrup 1 From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.-BOSWELL. do him good. I understand he is now rather better, and is using vinegar of squills. I am, with great esteem, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL.” All of them paid the most polite attention to my letter and its venerable object. Dr. Cullen's words concerning him were, " It would give me the greatest pleasure to be of any service to a man whom the publick properly esteem, and whom I esteem and respect as much as I do Dr. Johnson." Dr. Hope's, "Few people have a better claim on me than your friend, as hardly a day passes that I do not ask his opinion about this or that word." Dr. Monro's, "I most sincerely join you in sympathizing with that very worthy and ingenious character, from whom his country has derived much instruction and entertainment." Dr. Hope corresponded with his friend Dr. Brocklesby. Doctors Cullen and Monro wrote their opinions and prescriptions to me, which I afterwards carried with me to London, and, so far as they were encouraging, communicated to Johnson. The liberality on one hand, and grateful sense of it on the other, I have great satisfaction in recording. ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. LUCY PORTER. "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, 10th March, 1784. "MY DEAREST LOVE,-I will not suppose that it is for want of kindness that you did not answer my last letter; and I therefore write again to tell you that I have, by God's great mercy, still continued to grow better. My asthma is seldom troublesome, and my dropsy has ran itself almost away, in a manner which my physician says is very uncommon. "I have been confined from the 14th of December, and shall not soon venture abroad; but I have this day dressed myself as I was before my sickness. "If it be inconvenient to you to write, desire Mr. Pearson to let me know how you do, and how you have passed this long Pearson Pemb. winter. I am now not without hopes that we shall once more see one another. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb and Miss Adey, and to all my friends, particularly to Mr. Pearson. I am, my dear, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." "DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. GASTRELL AND MISS ASTON. "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, London, 11th March, 1784. "Dear Ladies,—The kind and speedy answer with which you favoured me to my last letter encourages me to hope that you will be glad to hear again that my recovery advances. My disorders are an asthma and dropsy. The asthma gives me no great trouble when I am not in motion, and the water of the dropsy has passed away in so happy a manner, by the goodness of God, as Dr. Heberden declares himself not to have known more than four times in all his practice. I have been confined to the house from December the 14th, and shall not venture out till the weather is settled; but I have this day dressed myself as before I became ill. Join with me in returning thanks, and pray for me that the time now granted me may not be ill spent. "Let me now, dear ladies, have some account of you. Tell me how you have endured this long and sharp winter, and give me hopes that we may all meet again with kindness and cheerfulness. I am, dear ladies, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. your "London, 18th March, 1784. "DEAR SIR,-I am too much pleased with the attention which and you 1 dear lady show to my welfare, not to be diligent in letting you know the progress which I make towards health. The dropsy, by God's blessing, has now run almost totally away by natural evacuation: and the asthma, if not irritated by cold, gives me little trouble. While I am writing this I have not any sensation of debility or disease. But I do not yet venture out, having been confined to the house from the 13th of December, now a quarter of a year. "When it will be fit for me to travel as far as Auchinleck I am not able to guess; but such a letter as Mrs Boswell's might draw any man not wholly motionless a great way. Pray tell Who had written him a very kind letter.-BoSWELL. the dear lady how much her civility and kindness have touched and gratified me. "Our parliamentary tumults have now begun to subside, and the king's authority is in some measure re-established. Mr. Pitt will have great power 1; but you must remember that what he has to give must, at least for some time, be given to those who gave, and those who preserve, his power. A new minister ean sacrifice little to esteem or friendship: he must, till he is settled, think only of extending his interest. * "If you come hither through Edinburgh, send for Mrs. Stewart, and give from me another guinea for the letter in the old case, to which I shall not be satisfied with my claim till she gives it me. 'Please to bring with you Baxter's Anacreon; and if you procure heads of Hector Boece, the historian, and Arthur Johnston, the poet, I will put them in my room; or any other of the fathers of Scottish literature. "I wish you an easy and happy journey, and hope I need not tell you that you will be welcome to, dear sir, affectionate humble servant, your most "SAM. JOHNSON." ["TO MRS. THRALE. Letters, "London, 20th March, 1784. vol. ii. MADAM,-Your last letter had something of tenderness. P. 354. The accounts which you have had of my danger and distress were I suppose not aggravated. I have been confined ten weeks with an asthma and dropsy. But I am now better. God has in his mercy granted me a reprieve; for how much time his mercy must determine. "On the 19th of last month I evacuated twenty pints of water, and I think I reckon exactly. From that time the tumour has subsided, and I now begin to move with some freedom. You will easily believe that I am still at a great distance from health; but I am, as my chirurgeon expressed it, amazingly better. Heberden seems to have great hopes. "Write to me no more about dying with a grace. When you feel what I have felt in approaching eternity-in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no revocation-you will know the folly: my wish is that you may know it sooner. The [Mr. Boswell does not give us his letter, to which this is an answer; but it is clear that he expressed some too sanguine hopes of preferment from Mr. Pitt, whose favour, as we have just seen, he had endeavoured to propitiate. See ante, p. 153, я.—ED.] ' [See ante, vol. ii. p. 328.—ED.] distance between the grave and the remotest part of human longevity is but a very little; and of that little no path is certain. You know all this, and I thought that I knew it too; but I know it now with a new conviction. May that new conviction not be vain! “I am now cheerful. I hope this approach to recovery is a token of the Divine mercy. My friends continue their kindness. I give a dinner to-morrow. I am, madam, your, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON."] I wrote to him, March 28, from York, informing him that I had a high gratification in the triumph of monarchical principles over aristocratical influence, in that great county, in an address to the king; that I was thus far on my way to him, but that news of the dissolution of parliament having arrived, I was to hasten back to my own county, where I had carried an address to his majesty by a great majority, and had some intention of being a candidate to represent the county in parliament. "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "London, 30th March, 1784. "DEAR SIR,-You could do nothing so proper as to hasten back when you found the parliament dissolved. With the influence which your address must have gained you, it may reasonably be expected that your presence will be of importance, and your activity of effect. "Your solicitude for me gives me that pleasure which every man feels from the kindness of such a friend; and it is with delight I relieve it by telling that Dr. Brocklesby's account is true, and that I am, by the blessing of God, wonderfully relieved. "You are entering upon a transaction which requires much prudence. You must endeavour to oppose without exasperating; to practise temporary hostility, without producing enemies for life. This is, perhaps, hard to be done; yet it has been done by many, and seems most likely to be effected by opposing merely upon general principles, without descending to personal or particular censures or objections. One thing I must enjoin you, which is seldom observed in the conduct of elections; I must entreat you to be scrupulous in the use of |