Letters, vol. ii. p. 363. p. 365. p. 367. "The club which has been lately instituted is at Sam's; and there was I when I was last out of the house. But the people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club1 that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer-the rest are yet on this side the grave." "London, 21st April, 1784. "I make haste to send you intelligence, which, if I do not flatter myself, you will not receive without some degree of pleasure. After a confinement of one hundred and twenty-nine days, more than the third part of a year, and no inconsiderable part of human life, I this day returned thanks to God in St. Clement's church for my recovery; a recovery, in my seventyfifth year, from a distemper which few in the vigour of youth are known to surmount; a recovery, of which neither myself, my friends, nor my physicians, had any hope; for though they flattered me with some continuance of life, they never supposed that I could cease to be dropsical. The dropsy, however, is quite vanished; and the asthma so much mitigated, that I walked to day with a more easy respiration than I have known, I think, for perhaps two years past. I hope the mercy that lightens my days will assist me to use them well. "The Hooles, Miss Burney, and Mrs. Hall (Wesley's sister), feasted yesterday with me very cheerfully on your noble salmon. Mr. Allen could not come, and I sent him a piece, and a great tail is still left. "Dr. Brocklesby forbids the club at present, not caring to venture the chillness of the evening; but I purpose to show myself on Saturday at the Academy's feast. I cannot publish my return to the world more effectually; for, as the Frenchman says, tout le monde s'y trouvera. "For this occasion I ordered some clothes; and was told by the tailor, that when he brought me a sick dress, he never expected to make me any thing of any other kind. My recovery is indeed wonderful." “London, 26th April, 1784. "On Saturday I showed myself again to the living world at the Exhibition: much and splendid was the company, but, like the Doge of Genoa at Paris, I admired nothing but my I went up all the stairs to the pictures without stopping Letters, to rest or to breathe, 'In all the madness of superfluous health.' "The Prince of Wales had promised to be there; but when we had waited an hour and a half, sent us word that he could not come. “Mrs. Davenant' called to pay me a guinea, but I gave two for you. Whatever reasons you have for frugality, it is not worth while to save a guinea a year by withdrawing it from a public charity. "Mr. Howard called on me a few days ago, and gave me the new edition, much enlarged, of his Account of Prisons He has been to survey the prisons on the continent; and in Spain he tried to penetrate the dungeons of the Inquisition, but his curiosity was very imperfectly gratified. At Madrid, they shut him quite out; at Valladolid, they showed him some public rooms." vol. ii. p. 367. "TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, In Lichfield. "London, 26th April, 1784. “MY DEAR,—I write to you now, to tell you that I am so far recovered that on the 21st I went to church to return thanks, after a confinement of more than four long months. "My recovery is such as neither myself nor the physicians at all expected, and is such as that very few examples have been known of the like. Join with me, my dear love, in returning thanks to God. "Dr. Vyse has been with (me) this evening; he tells me that you likewise have been much disordered, but that you are now better. I hope that we shall sometime have a cheerful interview. In the mean time let us pray for one another. I am, madam, your humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." ["DR. JOHNSON TO MISS REYNOLDS. "Bolt-court, 30th April, 1784. "DEAR MADAM,-Mr. Allen has looked over the papers, and thinks that one hundred copies will come to five pounds. [Probably a cousin of Mrs. Thrale's, Hester Lynch Salusbury Cotton, married to Mr. Davenant, who afterwards assumed the name of Corbet, and was created a baronet.-ED.] [Perhaps Miss Reynolds's " Essay on Taste." See ante, p. 3. Mr. Boswell was probably mistaken in saying that it had been printed.-ED.] Reyn. Reyn. Fifty will cost 47. 10s., and five and twenty will cost 41. 5s. It seems therefore scarcely worth while to print fewer than a hundred. "Suppose you printed two hundred and fifty at 67. 10s., and, without any name, tried the sale, which may be secretly done. You would then see the opinion of the publick without hazard, if nobody knows but I. If any body else is in the secret, you shall not have my consent to venture. I am, I am, dear madam, your most affectionate and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] What follows is a beautiful specimen of his gentleness and complacency to a young lady, his godchild, one of the daughters of his friend Mr. Langton, then, I think, in her seventh year. He took the trouble to write it in a large round hand, nearly resembling printed characters, that she might have the satisfaction of reading it herself. The original lies before me, but shall be faithfully restored to her; and I dare say will be preserved by her as a jewel, as long as she lives. "TO MISS JANE LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER, KENT. May 10, 1784. "MY DEAREST MISS JENNY,I am sorry that your pretty letter has been so long without being answered; but, when I am not pretty well, I do not always write plain enough for young ladies. I am glad, my dear, to see that you write so well, and hope that you mind your pen, your book, and your needle, for they are all necessary. Your books will give you knowledge, and make you respected; and your needle will find you useful employment when you do not care to read. When you are a little older, I hope you will be very diligent in learning arithmetick; and, above all, that through your whole life you will carefully say your prayers and read your Bible. I am, my dear, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." On Wednesday, May 5, I arrived in London, and next morning had the pleasure to find Dr. Johnson greatly recovered. I but just saw him; for a coach was waiting to carry him to Islington, to the house of his friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, where he went sometimes for the benefit of good air, which, notwithstanding his having formerly laughed at the general opinion upon the subject, he now acknowledged was conducive to health. One morning afterwards, when I found him alone, he communicated to me, with solemn earnestness, the very remarkable circumstance [alluded to so often in the preceding letters] which had happened in the course of his illness, when he was much distressed by the dropsy. He had shut himself up, and employed a day in particular exercises of religion, fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden he obtained extraordinary relief, for which he looked up to Heaven with grateful devotion. He made no direct inference from this fact; but from his manner of telling it, I could perceive that it appeared to him as something more than an incident in the common course of events. For my own part, I have no difficulty to avow that cast of thinking, which, by many modern pretenders to wisdom, is called superstitious. But here I think even men of dry rationality may believe, that there was an intermediate' interposition of Divine Providence, and that "the fervent prayer of this righteous man" availed. 1 On Sunday, May 9, I found Colonel Vallancy", [So in all the editions, though the meaning of the term intermediate does not seem quite clear. Perhaps Mr. Boswell may have meant immediate.-ED.] * Upon this subject there is a very fair and judicious remark in the Life of Dr. Abernethy, in the first edition of the Biographia Britannica, which I should have been glad to see in his Life, which has been written for the second edition of that valuable work."To deny the exercise of a particular Providence in the Deity's government of the world is certainly impious, yet nothing serves the cause of the scorner more than an incautious forward zeal in determining the particular instances of it." In confirmation of my sentiments, I am also happy to quote that sensible and elegant writer, Mr. Melmoth, in Letter viii of his collection, published under the name of Fitzosborne. "We may safely assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It would scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which affords so firm a support to the soul in those seasons wherein she stands in most need of assistance, merely because it is not possible, in questions of this kind, to solve every difficulty which attends them."-BOSWELL. 3 [Afterwards General Vallancy; an ingenious man, but somewhat of a visionary on Irish antiquities. He died in 1812, æt. 92.-ED. ED. the celebrated antiquary and engineer of Ireland, with him. On Monday, the 10th, I dined with him at Mr. Paradise's, where was a large company; Mr. Bryant, Mr. Joddrel', Mr. Hawkins Browne, &c. On Thursday, the 13th, I dined with him at Mr. Joddrel's, with another large company; the Bishop of Exeter, Lord Monboddo, Mr. Murphy, &c. I was sorry to observe Lord Monboddo avoid any communication with Dr. Johnson. I flattered myself that I had made them very good friends; but unhappily his lordship had resumed and cherished a violent prejudice against my illustrious friend, to whom I must do the justice to say, there was on his part not the least anger, but a good-humoured sportiveness. Nay, though he knew of his lordship's indisposition towards him, he was even kindly; as appeared from his inquiring of me, after him, by an abbreviation of his name, "Well, how does Monny?" On Saturday, May 15, I dined with him at Dr. Brocklesby's, where were Colonel Vallancy, Mr. Murphy, and that ever-cheerful companion, Mr. Devaynes, apothecary to his majesty. [Indeed his friends seem [As this sheet was passing through the press, the following paragraph appeared in the daily papers: Died, on Wednesday, 26th January, 1831, at his house in Portland-place, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, Richard Paul Jodrell, Esq., F. R. S., F.A.S., D. C. L., formerly M.P. for the borough of Seaford, deputy lieutenant, and one of his majesty's justices of the peace for the counties of Oxford, Derby, Norfolk, and Middlesex. It may be recorded as an almost unprecedented instance, that Mr. Jodrell had lived to be in possession of his paternal estates eighty years, his father having died at an early age in 1751. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and distinguished as a scholar as author of the 'Illustrations of Euripides' and other literary works, and was the last surviving member of Dr. Johnson's [Essex-street] club. Having outlived all his contemporaries, he, melancholy to relate, of late years had outlived his own mental faculties, and it had become necessary, from insidious attempts made on his impaired understanding, to throw legal protection around his person and property. He is succeeded in his estates by his eldest son, Sir Richard Paul Jodrell, of Sall-park, in the county of Norfolk, bart."-ED.] 2 [Bishop Newton (after giving some amusing anecdotes of Isaac Hawkins Browne, the father,) says, "He left only one son behind him, of the same name with himself, a very worthy good young man, possessed of many of his father's excellencies without his failings."-Life, 8vo. 110.—J. H. MARKLAND.] 3 Dr. John Ross.-BoswELL. |