LETTER XVI,

To Saunders Welsh, esq. at Rome.

Dear sir,

February 3, 1778)

To have suffered one of my best and dearest friends to pass almost two years in foreign countries without a letter, has a very shameful appearance of inattention. But the truth is, that there was no occasion on which I had any thing particular to say; and general expressions of good will, I hope, our friendship is grown too solid to want.

Of public affairs you have information from the newspapers wherever you go; and of other things, Mrs. Nollekins informs you. My intelligence could therefore be of no use; and your daughter'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 ac counts have lately been more pleasing; and I have the gratification of imagining to myself a length of years which I hope you have gained, and of which the enjoy ment will be improved by a vast accession of images and observations, that your journeys and various residence have enabled you to make, and accumulate. You have travelled with this felicity, almost peculiar to yourself, that your companion is not to part from you at your journey's end; but you are to live on together, to help each other's recollection, and to supply each other's omissions. The world has few greater pleasures than that which two friends enjoy, in tracing back, at some distant time, those transactions and events through which

they 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 fellowtraveller have this comfort in store, that your conversation will not easily be 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. Do not come hither before the height of summer, that you may fall gradually into the inconveniences of your native clime. 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 preserve it.

Your daughter 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 narra, tives, unless she can recur to some written memorials. If she has satisfied herself with hints, instead of full representations, let her supply the deficiences now while her memory is yet fresh, and while her father's memory may help her. If she observes this direction, 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 impression 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.

Perhaps I do not flatter myself unreasonably when I imagine that you may wish to know something of me. I can gratify your benevolence with no account of health. The hand of time, or of disease, is very heavy upon me. I pass restless and uneasy nights; and restless nights make heavy days. But nothing will be mended by complaints, and therefore I will make an end. When we meet, we will try to forget our cares and our maladies; and contribute, as we can, to the cheerfulness of each other. If I had gone with you, I believe I should have been better; but I do not know that it was in my power.

"

I am, dear sir,

Your most humble servant,

Samuel Johnson.

LETTER XVII.

To a young clergyman in the country.

Dear sir,

Bolt Court, Aug. 30, 1788.

Not many days ago Dr. Lawrence showed me a letter, in which you make kind mention of me: I hope, therefore, you will not be displeased that I endea vour to preserve your good will by a few observations which your letter suggested to me.

You are afraid of falling into some improprieties in the daily service, by reading to an audience that requires no exactness. Your fear, I hope, secures you from danger. They who contract absurd habits, are such as have no fear. It is impossible to do the same thing very often, without some peculiarity of manner; but that

mans

ner may be good or bad, and a little care will at least preserve it from being bad; to make it very good, there must, I think, be something of natural or casual felicity, which cannot be taught.

Your present method of making your sermons seems very judicious. Few frequent preachers can be supposed to have sermons more their own than yours will be. Take care to register, somewhere or other, the authors from whom your several discourses are borrowed; and do not imagine that you shall always remember even what perhaps you now think it impossible to forget.

My advice however is, that you attempt, from time to time, an original sermon; and, in the labour of composition, do not burden your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself, at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first words that occur; and when you have matter you will easily give it form: nor, perhaps, will this method be always necessary, for, by habit, your thoughts and diction will flow together.

The composition of sermons is not very difficult: the divisions not only help the memory of the hearer, but direct the judgment of the writer; they supply sources of invention, and keep every part in its proper place.

What I like least in your letter is your account of the manners of your parish; from which I gather, that it has been long neglected by the parson. The dean of Carlisle, when he was a little rector in Northampton

shire, told me, that it might be discerned whether or not there was a clergyman resident in a parish, by the civil or savage manners of the people. Such a congregation as yours stand in much need of reformation; and I would not have you think it impossible to reform them. A very savage parish was civilized by a decayed gentlewoman, who went thither to teach a petty school. My learned friend, Dr. Wheeler, of Oxford, when he was a young man, had the care of a neighbouring parish for fifteen pounds a year, which he was never paid; but he counted it an advantage that it compelled him to make a sermon weekly. One woman he could not bring to the communion; and, when he reproved or exhorted her, she only answered that she was no scholar. He was advised to set some good woman or man of the parish, a little wiser than herself, to talk to her in a language level to her mind. Such honest (I may call them holy) artifices, must be practised by every clergyman; for all means must be tried by which souls may be saved. Talk to your people, however, as much as you can; and you will find that the more frequently you converse with them upon religious subjects, the more willingly they will attend, and the more submissively they will learn. A clergyman's diligence always makes him venerable.

I think I have now only to say, that, in the momentous work which you have undertaken, I pray God to bless you.

I am, sir,

Your most humble servant,

Samuel Johnson,