'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
DEAR SIR, Your anxiety about my health is very friendly, and very agreeable with your general kindness. I have, indeed, had a very frightful blow. On the 17th of last month, about three in the morning, as near as I can guess, I perceived myself almost totally deprived of speech. I had no pain. My organs were so obstructed, that I could say no, but could scarcely say yes. I wrote the necessary directions, for it pleased GOD to spare my hand, and sent for Dr. Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby.
Between the time in which I discovered my own disorder, and that in which I sent for the doctors, I had, I believe, in spite of my surprize and solicitude, a little sleep, and Nature began to renew its operations. They came, and gave the directions which the disease required, and from that time I have been continually improving in articulation. I can now speak, but the nerves are weak, and I cannot continue discourse long; but strength, I hope, will return. The physicians consider me as cured.
I was last Sunday at church. On Tuesday I took an airing to Hampstead, and dined with THE CLUB, where Lord Palmerston was proposed, and, against my opinion, was rejected. I designed to go next week with Mr. Langton to Rochester, where I purpose to stay about ten days, and then try some other air. I have many kind invitations. Your brother has very frequently enquired after me. Most of my friends have, indeed, been very attentive. Thank dear Lord Hailes for his present.
I hope you found at your return every thing gay and prosperous, and your lady, in particular, quite recovered and confirmed. Pay her my respects.
I am, dear Sir,
Your most humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
London, July 3, 1783.'
'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.
DEAR MADAM, The account which you give of your health is but melancholy. May it please GOD to restore you.
My disease affected my speech, and still continues, in some degree, to obstruct my utterance; my voice is distinct enough for a while; but the organs being still weak are quickly weary: but in other respects I am, I think, rather better than I have lately been; and can let you know my state without the help of any other hand.
In the opinion of my friends, and in my own, I am gradually mending. The Physicians consider me as cured; and I had leave, four days ago, to wash the cantharides from my head. {Cantharides: popularly known as “Spanish fly”, a fatty substance secreted by certain blister beetles used at that time not only as an aphrodisiac but as a topical medication. – Editor}.
I am going next week into Kent, and purpose to change the air frequently this summer; whether I shall wander so far as Staffordshire I cannot tell. I should be glad to come. Return my thanks to Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. Pearson, and all that have shewn attention to me.
Let us, my dear, pray for one another, and consider our sufferings as notices mercifully given us to prepare ourselves for another state.
I live now but in a melancholy way. My old friend Mr. Levett is dead, who lived with me in the house, and was useful and companionable; Mrs. Desmoulins is gone away; and Mrs. Williams is so much decayed, that she can add little to another's gratifications. The world passes away, and we are passing with it; but there is, doubtless, another world, which will endure for ever. Let us all fit ourselves for it.
I am, &c.,
SAM. JOHNSON.
London, July 5, 1783.'
Such was the general vigour of his constitution, that he recovered from this alarming and severe attack with wonderful quickness; so that in July he was able to make a visit to Mr. Langton at Rochester, where he passed about a fortnight, and made little excursions as easily as at any time of his life. In August he went as far as the neighbourhood of Salisbury, to Heale, the seat of William Bowles, Esq., a gentleman whom I have heard him praise for exemplary religious order in his family. In his diary I find a short but honourable mention of this visit:
'August 28, I came to Heale without fatigue. 30. I am entertained quite to my mind.'
'To DR. BROCKLESBY. Heale, near Salisbury, Aug. 29, 1783.
DEAR SIR, Without appearing to want a just sense of your kind attention, I cannot omit to give an account of the day which seemed to appear in some sort perilous. I rose at five and went out at six, and having reached Salisbury about nine, went forward a few miles in my friend's chariot. I was no more wearied with the journey, though it was a high-hung, rough coach, than I should have been forty years ago. We shall now see what air will do. The country is all a plain; and the house in which I am, so far as I can judge from my window, for I write before I have left my chamber, is sufficiently pleasant.
Be so kind as to continue your attention to Mrs. Williams; it is great consolation to the well, and still greater to the sick, that they find themselves not neglected; and I know that you will be desirous of giving comfort even where you have no great hope of giving help.
I am, &c.
SAM. JOHNSON.'
While he was here he had a letter from Dr. Brocklesby, acquainting him of the death of Mrs. Williams, which affected him a good deal. Though for several years her temper had not been complacent, she had valuable qualities, and her departure left a blank in his house. Upon this occasion he, according to his habitual course of piety, composed a prayer.
I shall here insert a few particulars concerning him, with which I have been favoured by one of his friends.
'He had once conceived the design of writing the Life of Oliver Cromwell, saying, that he thought it must be highly curious to trace his extraordinary rise to the supreme power, from so obscure a beginning. He at length laid aside his scheme, on discovering that all that can be told of him is already in print; and that it is impracticable to procure any authentick information in addition to what the world is already possessed of.'
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'He had likewise projected, but at what part of his life is not known, a work to shew how small a quantity of REAL FICTION there is in the world; and that the same images, with very little variation, have served all the authours who have ever written.'
'His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently employed on his deceased friends. He often muttered these, or such like sentences: "Poor man! and then he died."'
'Speaking of a certain literary friend, "He is a very pompous puzzling fellow, (said he); he lent me a letter once that somebody had written to him, no matter what it was about; but he wanted to have the letter back, and expressed a mighty value for it; he hoped it was to be met with again, he would not lose it for a thousand pounds. I layed my hand upon it soon afterwards, and gave it him. I believe I said, I was very glad to have met with it. O, then he did not know that it signified any thing. So you see, when the letter was lost it was worth a thousand pounds, and when it was found it was not worth a farthing."'
(classix comix™ is underwritten in part by the Bob’s Bowery Bar Foundation for Hopelessly Uncommercial Arts and Letters: “Another grey and cold winter’s day, with the cheer and bonhomie of ‘the holidays’ long gone, and the last withered fire hazard of a Christmas tree thrown unceremoniously onto the frozen sidewalk – yes, even the cheeriest soul can fall victim these days to what what I believe is now called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or, as it was known when I was a lad, the plain old winter doldrums.
Might I suggest as an antidote to thoughts of self-slaughter a visit to my favorite public house – indeed some have called it ‘Horace’s living room’, ha ha – Bob’s Bowery Bar? If you are a first-time visitor, simply say, ‘Horace sent me,’ and receive your first drink on the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Offer includes domestic beers and wines and ‘well’ drinks only – and, sorry, no doubles!”
– Horace P. Sternwall, host and narrator 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 play: “Requiem for a Rumdum”, by Horst P. Schwarzberger, starring Kitty Carlisle as “Dr. Blanche”, and guest-starring Frank Fontaine as “Robbie the Rummy”.)
part 246
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