It was pleasing to me to read that Mrs. Aston was so well, and that Lucy Porter was so glad to see you.

In the place where you now are, there is much to be observed; and you will easily procure yourself skillful directors. But what will you do to keep away the black dog that worries you at home? If you would, in compliance with your father's advice, inquire into the old tenures and old charters of Scotland, you would certainly open to yourself many striking scenes of the manners of the Middle Ages. The feudal system, in a country half barbarous, is naturally productive of great anomalies in civil life. The knowledge of past times is naturally growing less in all cases not of public record; and the past time of Scotland is so unlike the present, that it is already difficult for a Scotchman to image the economy of his grandfather. Do not be tardy nor negligent; but gather up eagerly what can yet be found.

We have, I think, once talked of another project,-a history of the late insurrection in Scotland, with all its incidents. Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history. Voltaire, who loved a striking story, has told what he could not find to be true.

You may make collections for either of these projects, or for both, as opportunities occur, and digest your materials at leisure. The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this: Be not solitary; be not idle-which I would thus modify: If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

There is a letter for you, from

LONDON, October 27, 1779.

Your humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

Dear Madam:

L'

TO MRS. LUCY PORTER IN LICHFIELD

IFE is full of troubles. I have just lost my dear friend Thrale. I hope he is happy; but I have had a great loss. I am otherwise pretty well. I require some care of myself, but that care is not ineffectual; and when I am out of order I think it often my own fault.

The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the season in which the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I

hope that both you and I shall partake of its benefits.

My desire is to see Lichfield; but being left executor to my friend, I know not whether I can be spared; but I will try, for it is now long since we saw one another; and how little we can promise ourselves many more interviews, we are taught by hourly examples of mortality. Let us try to live so as that mortality may not be an evil. Write to me soon, my dearest; your letters will give me great pleasure.

I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by sending it to Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its conveyance, I did the best I could, and perhaps before now he has it.

Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends: I have a great value for their kindness, and hope to enjoy it before summer is past. Do write to me.

LONDON, April 12, 1781.

I am, dearest love,

Your most humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.

TO MR. PERKINS

Dear Sir:

I

AM much pleased that you are going a very long journey, which may, by proper conduct, restore your health and prolong your life.

Observe these rules:

I. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise.

2. Do not think about frugality: your health is worth more than it can cost.

3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue.

4.

Take now and then a day's rest.

6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy.

This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind neither exercise, nor diet, nor physic can be of much use.

I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy recovery. I am, dear Sir,

JULY 28, 1782.

Your most affectionate humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.

L

FROM A LETTER TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

IFE, 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 inan 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 grows 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 kindness of the agents and factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gayety, 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.

I

Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell: I think her expectations from air and exercise are the best that she can form. hope she will live long and happily.

ON

TO MRS. THRALE

N MONDAY the 16th I sat for my picture, and 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 waked and sat up, as has been long my custom; when I felt a confusion and indistinçtness in my head, which lasted I suppose about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed 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 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. Wine has been celebrated for the production of eloquence. I put myself into violent motion, and I think repeated it; but all was vain. I then went to bed, and strange as it may seem, I think 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 could not immediately comprehend why he should read what I put into his hands.

I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that I might have a discreet friend at hand, to act as occasion should require. In penning this note I had some difficulty: my hand, I knew not how nor why, made wrong letters. I then wrote to Dr. Taylor to come to me, and bring Dr. Heberden; and I sent to Dr. Brocklesby, who is my neighbor. My physicians are very friendly, and give me great hopes; but you may imagine my situation. have so far recovered my vocal powers as to repeat the Lord's Prayer with no imperfect articulation. My memory, I hope, yet remains as it was; but such an attack produces solicitude for the safety of every faculty.

I

A PRIVATE PRAYER BY DR. JOHNSON

GOD, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was created, and by whose providence I am sustained, look down upon me with tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been created to be finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to add wickedness to wickedness. /

O Lord, let me not sink into total depravity: look down upon me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin,

Almighty and most merciful Father, who has continued my life from year to year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of sinful pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness.

Let not my years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, let me become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more obedient to thy laws.

Forgive, O merciful Lord, whatever I have done contrary to thy laws. Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may produce true contrition and effectual repentance: so that when I shall be called into another state, I may be received among the sinners to whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

A

WEALTH

From the Rambler, No. 58, October 6th, 1750

S THE love of money has been, in all ages, one of the passions that have given great disturbance to the tranquillity of the world, there is no topic more copiously treated by the ancient moralists than the folly of devoting the heart to the accumulation of riches. They who are acquainted with these authors need not be told how riches excite pity, contempt, or reproach whenever they are mentioned; with what numbers of examples the danger of large possessions is illustrated; and how all the powers of reason and eloquence have been exhausted in endeavors to eradicate a desire which seems to have intrenched itself too strongly in the mind to be driven out, and which perhaps had not lost its power even over those who declaimed against it, but would have broken out in the poet or the sage, if it had been excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the approximation of its proper object.

Their arguments have been indeed so unsuccessful, that I know not whether it can be shown that by all the wit and reason which this favorite cause has called forth, a single convert was ever made; that even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune; or disburthened himself of wealth when he had tried its inquietudes, merely to enjoy the peace and leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state.