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upon me.-Is this the balloon that has been so long expected, this balloon to which I subscribed, but without payment? It is pity that philosophers have been disappointed, and shame that they have been cheated; but I know not well how to prevent either. Of this experiment I have read nothing. Where was it exhibited? and who was the man that ran away with so much money? Continue, dear sir, to write often and more at a time, for none of your prescriptions operate to their proper uses more certainly than your letters operate as cordials.'

‘August 26.—I suffered you to escape last post without a letter, but you are not to expect such indulgence very often; for I write not so much because I have anything to say, as because I hope for an answer; and the vacancy of my life here makes a letter of great value.-I have here little company and little amusement, and thus abandoned to the contemplation of my own miseries, I am something gloomy and depressed; this too I resist as I can, and find opium, I think, useful, but I seldom take more than one grain.-Is not this strange weather? Winter absorbed the spring, and now autumn is come before we have had summer. But let not our kindness for each other imitate the inconstancy of the seasons.'

'Sept. 2.-Mr. Windham has been here to see me; he came, I think, forty miles out of his way, and stayed about a day and a half; perhaps I make the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham is inter stellas1 Luna minores.' He then mentions the effects of certain medicines as taken: that 'Nature is recovering its original powers, and the functions returning to their proper state. God continue his mercies, and grant me to use them rightly.'

'Sept. 9.-Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? And have you ever seen Chatsworth? I was at Chatsworth on Monday: I had seen it before, but never when its owners were at home: I was very kindly received, and

1 It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written stellas instead of ignes.

honestly pressed to stay: but I told them that a sick man is not a fit inmate of a great house. But I hope to go again some time.'

Sept. 11.-I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, except sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks. Last evening I felt what I had not known for a long time, an inclination to walk for amusement; I took a short walk and came back again neither breathless nor fatigued.-This has been a gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of late it seems to mend; I hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do not feel it;

"Præterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis
Febre calet sola."1

I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to be doing in the world. I have no company here, and shall naturally come home hungry for conversation.-To wish you, dear sir, more leisure, would not be kind; but what leisure you have you must bestow upon me.'

'Sept. 16.-I have now let you alone for a long time, having indeed little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with luxury. At Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but once; and the doctor with whom I live follows a milk diet. I grow no fatter, though my stomach, if it be not disturbed by physic, never fails me.-I now grow weary of solitude, and think of removing next week to Lichfield, a place of more society, but otherwise of less convenience. When I am settled I shall write again.-Of the hot weather that you mentioned, we have [not] had in Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel heat, and suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter climate may be useful. But I hope to stand another English winter.'

'Lichfield, Sept. 29.-On one day I had three letters about the air balloon: yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart to my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement. In amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid

1 Juvenal, Sat. x. 217.

it must end, for I do not find that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes of communication: and it can give no new intelligence of the state of the air at different heights till they have ascended above the height of mountains, which they seem never likely to do.-I came hither on the 27th. How long I shall stay I have not determined. My dropsy is gone, and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be expected. One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this I shall run about the town on my own legs.'

'October 6.-The fate of the balloon I do not much lament. to make new balloons is to repeat the jest again. We know now a method of mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify no curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can reach without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains, which we have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its regions, to the top of Teneriffe, and therefore learn nothing from those who navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment, however, was bold and deserved applause and reward. But since it has been performed, and its event is known, I had rather now find a medicine that can ease an asthma.'

'October 25.-You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a tenderness that melts me. I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or a residence in it. I came down with little fatigue, and am now not weaker. In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy, which I consider as the original and radical disease. The town is my element; 1

1 His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the poet, which is published in a wellwritten life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems in 1791, there is the following sentence: 'To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.'

Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in the Spectator, Born in New England, did in London die';

he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if, born in London, he had died in New England.'

Sir

there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to public life, and I hope still to keep my station till God shall bid me Go in peace.'

TO MR. HOOLE

'Ashbourne, Aug. 7.

'Since I was here I have two little letters from you, and have not had the gratitude to write. But every man is most free with his best friends, because he does not suppose that they can suspect him of intentional incivility.-One reason for my omission is, that being in a place to which you are wholly a stranger I have no topics of correspondence. If you had any knowledge of Ashbourne I could tell you of two Ashbourne men, who being last week condemned at Derby to be hanged for a robbery, went and hanged themselves in their cell. But this, however it may supply us with talk, is nothing to you. Your kindness, I know, would make you glad to hear some good of me, but I have not much good to tell; if I grow not worse, it is all that I can say.-I hope Mrs. Hoole receives more help from her migration. Make her my compliments, and write again to, dear sir, your affectionate servant.'

‘Aug. 13.—I thank you for your affectionate letter. I hope we shall both be the better for each other's friendship, and I hope we shall not very quickly be parted.-Tell Mr. Nichols that I shall be glad of his correspondence, when his business allows him a little remission: though to wish him less business that I may have more pleasure, would be too selfish.-To pay for seats at the balloon is not very necessary, because in less than a minute, they who gaze at a mile's distance will see all that can be seen. About the wings I am of your mind; they cannot at all assist it, nor I think regulate its motion.-I am now grown somewhat easier in my body, but my mind is sometimes depressed.-About the Club I am in no great pain. The forfeitures go on, and the house, I hear, is improved for our future meetings. I hope we shall meet often and sit long.'

'Sept. 4.-Your letter was, indeed, long in coming, but it was very welcome. Our acquaintance has now subsisted long,

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