row either for vanity or pleasure; the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret. Stay, therefore, at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither.

Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me; and to the young people, whom I never have offended.

You have not told me the success of your plea against the solicitors.

The earnestness and tenderness of your letter are such, that I cannot think myself showing it more respect than it claims, by sitting down to answer it on the day on which I received it.

This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I am now harassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to Oxford.

Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. What

ever might have been your pleasure or mine, I know not how I could have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience: you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. That a man whose fortune is very narrow, cannot help the needy, is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will lessen his influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretchedness of a debtor, which, however, has passed into a proverb. Let it be remembered, that he who has money to spare, has it always in his power to benefit others; and of such power a good man must always be desirous.

I am pleased with your account of Easter. We shall meet, I hope, in autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the other's company,

Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell.

Dear sir,

I am,
&c.

Samuel Johnson.

LETTER XXIII.

To James Boswell, esq.

London, Sept. 7, 1782.

I have struggled through this year with much infirmity of body, and so strong impressions of the fragility of life, that I cannot hear, without emotion, of

the removal of any one, whom I have known, into ano

ther state.

Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable you to bear it: for it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and, as his general life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years past been turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible must grieve you. His disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least actual, is in our power, but fondness is not; and, if by negligence or imprudence, you had extinguished his fondness, he could not, at will, rekindle it. Nothing then remained between you, but mutual forgiveness of each other's faults, and mutual desire of each other's happiness.

I shall long to know his final disposition of his for tune.

You, dear sir, have now a new station; and have, therefore, new cares, and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new course of life with the least show and the least expense possible; you may at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt.

When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present life seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct, and maxims of prudence, which one generation of men has transmitted to another: but upon a closer

view, when it is perceived how much evil is produced, and how much good is impeded, by embarrassment and distress, and how little room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue; it is manifest that the boundless importance of the next life, enforces some attention to the interests of this.

Be kind to the old servants, and secure the good will of the agents and factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gaiety, or apparent suspicion. From them, you must learn the real state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your lands.

Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell. I think her expectations from air and exercise are the best that she can form. I hope she will live long and happily. I received your letters only this morning.

I am, dear sir, yours, &c.

Samuel Johnson,

LETTER XXIV.

To Mrs. Thrale.

Bolt Court, Fleet Street, June 19, 1783.

Dearest madam,

I am sitting down in no cheerful

solitude, to write a narrative which would once have affected with tenderness and sorrow but which you

you

will perhaps pass over now with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot know; and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done you evil. I had been disordered in the usual way; and had been relieved by the usual methods, by opium and

cathartics; but I had rather lessened my dose of opium. On Monday, the sixteenth, I sat for my picture; and I walked a considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and evening, I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes of life. Thus I went to bed: and, in a short time, I waked and sat up, as has been long my custom; when I felt a confusion and indistinctness in my head, which lasted, I suppose, about half a minute. I was alarmed; and I prayed to God, that however he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in Latin verse. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good: I made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired in my faculties.

Soon after, I perceived that I had suffered a paralytic stroke, and that my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy; and I considered that perhaps death itself when it should come, would excite less horror than seems now to attend it.

In order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams; and I put myself into violent motion: but all was in vain. I then went to bed; and, strange as it may seem, I think, I slept. When I saw light, it was time to contrive what I should do. Though God stopped my speech, he left me my hand; I enjoyed a mercy which was not granted to my dear friend Lawrence, who now perhaps overlooks me as I am writing, and rejoices that I have what he wanted. My first note was necessarily to my servant, who came in talking; and who could not immediately comprehend why he should read what I put

in to his hands.