'Let me have your prayers for the completion of my recovery: I am now better than I ever expected to have been. May God add to his mercies the grace that may enable me to use them according to his will. My compliments to all.

'April 13. I had this evening a note from Lord Portmore,1 desiring that I would give you an account of my health. You might have had it with less circumduction. I am, by God's blessing, I believe, free from all morbid sensations, except a cough, which is only troublesome. But I am still weak, and can have no great hope of strength till the weather shall be softer. The summer, if it be kindly, will, I hope, enable me to support the winter. God, who has so wonderfully restored me, can preserve me in all seasons.

'Let me inquire in my turn after the state of your family, great and little. I hope Lady Rothes and Miss Langton are both well. That is a good basis of content. Then how goes George on with his studies? How does Miss Mary? And how does my own Jenny? I think I owe Jenny a letter,

which I will take care to pay. I acknowledge the debt.

In the meantime tell her that

'Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies. If Mrs. Langton comes to London, she will favour me with a visit, for I am not well enough to go out.'

'SIR,-Mr. Hoole has told me with what benevolence you listened to a request which I was almost afraid to make, of

1 To which Johnson returned this answer :

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE

'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship directs, write to Mr. Langton.

Bolt Court, Fleet Street,

'Apr. 13, 1784.'

2 The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their arms which they have invariably used, have been (as I have seen authenticated by the best authority) one of those among the knights and esquires of honour who were represented by Holinshed as having issued from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the jousts, accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a knight with a

leave to a young painter to attend you from time to time in your painting room, to see your operations, and receive your instructions.

"The young man has perhaps good parts, but has been without a regular education. He is my godson, and therefore I interest myself in his progress and success, and shall think myself much favoured if I receive from you a permission to send him.

'My health is, by God's blessing, much restored; but I am not yet allowed by my physicians to go abroad; nor, indeed, do I think myself yet able to endure the weather.-I am, sir, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

'April 5, 1784.'

'SIR,-The bearer

TO THE SAME

my godson, whom I take the liberty of recommending to your kindness; which I hope he will deserve by his respect to your excellence, and his gratitude for your favours.—I am, sir, your most humble servant,

'April 10, 1784.'

TO THE SAME

'SAM. JOHNSON.

'SIR,-I am very much obliged by your civilities to my godson, but must beg of you to add to them the favour of permitting him to see you paint, that he may know how a picture is begun, advanced, and completed.

'If he may attend you in a few of your operations, I hope he will show that the benefit has been properly conferred, both by his proficiency and his gratitude. At least shall consider you as enlarging your kindness to, sir, your humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

'May 31, 1784.'

chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on Sunday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them in the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well ascertained: and they may hope, in the revolution of events, to recover their rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an indispensable requisite.

1 Son of Mr. Samuel Patterson, eminent for his knowledge of books.

TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE

'DEAR SIR,-What can be the reason that I hear nothing from you? I hope nothing disables you from writing. What I have seen, and what I have felt, gives me reason to fear everything. Do not omit giving me the comfort of knowing, that after all my losses I have yet a friend left.

'I want every comfort. My life is very solitary and very cheerless. Though it has pleased God wonderfully to deliver me om the dropsy, I am yet very weak, and have not passed the door since the 12th of December. I hope for some help from warm weather, which will surely come in time.

'I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church yesterday; I therefore received the holy sacrament at home, in the room where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before her death. O! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn to derive our hope only from God.

'In the meantime, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now living but you1 and Mr. Hector, that was the friend of my youth. Do not neglect, dear sir, yours affecSAM. JOHNSON.

tionately,

'London, Easter Monday,

April 12, 1784.'

TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD

'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

1 [This friend of Johnson's youth survived him somewhat more than three years, having died Feb. 19, 1788.-M.]

[It is the tradition that Taylor, who was a wealthy and childless man, had made Johnson his heir.-A. B.]

at all expected, and is such as that very few examples have been known of the like. returning thanks to God.

Join with me, my dear love, in

'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 meantime, let us pray for one another. -I am, madam, your humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

'London, April 26, 1784.'

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 daresay will be preserved by her as a jewel, as long as she lives.

TO MISS JANE LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER, KENT

'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 arithmetic; 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.

'May 10, 1784.'

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, a very remarkable circumstance 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

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