TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'I sit down to answer your letter on the same day in which I received it, and am pleased that my first letter of the year is to you. No man ought to be at ease while he knows himself in the wrong; and I have not satisfied myself with my long silence. The letter relating to Mr. Sinclair, however, was, I believe, never brought.
'My health has been tottering this last year; and I can give no very laudable account of my time. I am always hoping to do better than I have ever hitherto done.
'My journey to Ashbourne and Staffordshire was not pleasant; for what enjoyment has a sick man visiting the sick? {Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27: 'All here is gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' – Editor} — Shall we ever have another frolick like our journey to the Hebrides?
'I hope that dear Mrs. Boswell will surmount her complaints; in losing her you would lose your anchor, and be tost, without stability, by the waves of life. I wish both her and you very many years, and very happy.
'For some months past I have been so withdrawn from the world, that I can send you nothing particular. All your friends, however, are well, and will be glad of your return to London.
'I am, dear Sir,
'Yours most affectionately,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'January 5, 1782.'
At a time when he was less able than he had once been to sustain a shock, he was suddenly deprived of Mr. Levett, which event he thus communicated to Dr. Lawrence:—
'SIR,
'Our old friend, Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently cheerful, died this morning. The man who lay in the same room, hearing an uncommon noise, got up and tried to make him speak, but without effect. He then called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, who, though when he came he thought him dead, opened a vein, but could draw no blood. So has ended the long life of a very useful and very blameless man.
'I am, Sir,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Jan. 17, 1782.'
In one of his memorandum-books in my possession, is the following entry:—
'January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the church-yard of Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday 17, about seven in the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and faithful friend; I have known him from about 46. May GOD have mercy on him. May he have mercy on me.'
In one of Johnson's registers of this year, there occurs the following curious passage:—
'Jan. 20. The Ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave thanks.'
It has been the subject of discussion, whether there are two distinct particulars mentioned here? or that we are to understand the giving of thanks to be in consequence of the dissolution of the Ministry? In support of the last of these conjectures may be urged his mean opinion of that Ministry, which has frequently appeared in the course of this work; and it is strongly confirmed by what he said on the subject to Mr. Seward:—
'I am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never disgraced a country. If they sent one army to the relief of another, the first army was defeated and taken before the second arrived. I will not say that what they did was always wrong; but it was always done at a wrong time.'
'TO MRS. STRAHAN.
'DEAR MADAM,
'Mrs. Williams shewed me your kind letter. This little habitation is now but a melancholy place, clouded with the gloom of disease and death. Of the four inmates, one has been suddenly snatched away; two are oppressed by very afflictive and dangerous illness; and I tried yesterday to gain some relief by a third bleeding, from a disorder which has for some time distressed me, and I think myself to-day much better.
'I am glad, dear Madam, to hear that you are so far recovered as to go to Bath. Let me once more entreat you to stay till your health is not only obtained, but confirmed. Your fortune is such as that no moderate expence deserves your care; and you have a husband, who, I believe, does not regard it. Stay, therefore, till you are quite well. I am, for my part, very much deserted; but complaint is useless. I hope GOD will bless you, and I desire you to form the same wish for me.
'I am, dear Madam,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Feb. 4, 1782.'
'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.
'DEAR MADAM,
'I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome time with my breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a cold, of which I could not get the violence abated, till I had been let blood three times. I have not, however, been so bad but that I could have written, and am sorry that I neglected it.
'My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams, and Desmoulins, and myself, are very sickly: Frank is not well; and poor Levett died in his bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not one minute passed between health and death; so uncertain are human things.
'Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your scenes are more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, therefore, keep ourselves as easy as we can; though the loss of friends will be felt, and poor Levett had been a faithful adherent for thirty years.
'Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to mend that and my other faults. Let me have your prayers.
'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and the whole company of my friends. I am, my dear,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, March 2, 1782.'
TO CAPTAIN LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER.
'DEAR SIR,
'It is now long since we saw one another; and whatever has been the reason neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be, taken finally away, he that travels on alone, will wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do not forget me; you see that I do not forget you. It is pleasing in the silence of solitude to think, that there is one at least, however distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is yet hope of seeing again.
'Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or tenderness; for such another friend, the general course of human things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a weakly body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends sickly whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my dear old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe your acquaintance, died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed.
At night, as at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might remove, I would endeavour to retain Levett about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued him, I now wish that I had valued him more.
'I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, from which at the expence of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now recovering.
'You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see George fond of his book, and the pretty misses airy and lively, with my own little Jenny {Johnson’s god-daughter – Editor} equal to the best. May whatever you enjoy of good be encreased, and whatever you suffer of evil be diminished.
I am, dear Sir,
Your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,
March 20, 1782.'
(classix comix™ is made possible in part through a continuing emolument from the Bob’s Bowery Bar Fund for Underemployed Artists and Writers: “Labor Day has come and gone, and, yes, a faint coolish whiff of autumn is in the air; why not take a brisk walk through Metropolis and wend your way to my favorite destination, Bob’s Bowery Bar, unveiling this week our new fall menu, featuring such perennial favorites as Mom’s Mulligan Stew and Bob’s Big Bowery Burger (eight ounces of fresh ground round topped with limburger and raw red onion, nestled on a warm-from-the-oven eight-grain roll), as well as several intriguing new items, of which perhaps my personal favorite is Mom’s Traditional Steak-and-Kidney Pie, which I can attest goes swell with a brimming imperial pint of Bob’s justly-renowned basement-brewed house bock!”
– Horace P. Sternwall, host of Bob’s Bowery Bar Presents Philip Morris Commander’s “Blanche Weinberg, Lady Psychiatrist”, broadcast live 8pm Sundays {EST} exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. This week’s presentation: “The Morbid Mr. Mordor”, by Hubert P. Shillingsworth, starring Kitty Carlisle as “Dr. Blanche”, with special guest star Wally Cox as “Mr. Mordor”.)
part 228
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