TO A LADY WHO SOLICITED HIM TO OBTAIN THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S PATRONAGE TO HAVE HER MADAM: SON SENT TO THE UNIVERSITY I hope you will believe that my delay in answering your letter could proceed only from my unwillingness to destroy any hope that you had formed. Hope is 5 itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment. If it be asked, 10 what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an 15 expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken. When you made your request to me, you should have considered, Madam, what you were asking. You ask 20 me to solicit a great man, to whom I never spoke, for a young person whom I had never seen, upon a supposition which I had no means of knowing to be true. There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I should choose to supplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all the 25 possible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop should choose your son. I know, Madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted, when interest opposes it; but surely, Madam, you must allow, that there is no reason why that should be done by me, which every other man 30 may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man can do properly, without some very particular relation both to the Archbishop and to you. If I could help you in this exigence by any proper means, it would give me pleasure; but this proposal is so very remote from all usual methods, that I cannot comply with it, but at the risk of such answer and suspicions as I believe you do not wish me to undergo. I have seen your son this morning; he seems a pretty youth, and will, perhaps, find some better friend than 5 I can procure him; but, though he should at last miss the University, he may still be wise, useful, and happy. Madam, I am, Your most humble servant, June 8, 1762. SAM. JOHNSON. 10 TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF BUTE MY LORD: When the bills were yesterday delivered to me by Mr. Wedderburne, I was informed by him of the future favors which his Majesty has, by your Lordship's recom- 15 mendation, been induced to intend for me. Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed; your Lordship's kindness includes every circumstance that can gratify delicacy, or enforce obligation. You have conferred your 20 favors on a man who has neither alliance nor interest, who has not merited them by services, nor courted them by officiousness; you have spared him the shame of solicitation, and the anxiety of suspense. What has been thus elegantly given, will, I hope, 25 not be reproachfully enjoyed; I shall endeavor to give your Lordship the only recompense which generosity desires the gratification of finding that your benefits are not improperly bestowed. I am, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obliged, 30 July 20, 1762. TO BENNET LANGTON, AT LANGTON, LINCOLNSHIRE DEAR SIR: What your friends have done, that from your departure till now nothing has been heard of you, none of us are able to inform the rest; but as we are all 5 neglected alike, no one thinks himself entitled to the privilege of complaint. I should have known nothing of you or of Langton, from the time that dear Miss Langton left us, had not I met Mr. Simpson, of Lincoln, one day in the street, 10 by whom I was informed that Mr. Langton, your Mamma, and yourself, had been all ill, but that you were all recovered. That sickness should suspend your correspondence, I did not wonder; but hoped that it would be renewed at 15 your recovery. Since you will not inform us where you are, or how you live, I know not whether you desire to know anything of us. However, I will tell you that the Club subsists, but we have the loss of Burke's company since 20 he has been engaged in public business, in which he has gained more reputation than perhaps any man at his [first] appearance ever gained before. He made two speeches in the House for repealing the Stamp Act, which were publicly commended by Mr. Pitt, and have 25 filled the town with wonder. Burke is a great man by nature, and is expected soon to attain civil greatness. I am grown greater too, for I have maintained the newspapers these many weeks; and what is greater still, I have risen every morning 30 since New Year's day, at about eight; when I was up, I have indeed done but little; yet it is no slight advancement to obtain for so many hours more, the consciousness of being. I wish you were in my new study; I am now writing 35 the first letter in it. I think it looks very pretty about me. Dyer is constant at the Club; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent. Dr. Nugent, Dr. Goldsmith, and Mr. Reynolds, are very constant. Mr. Lye is printing his Saxon and Gothic Dictionary; all the Club subscribes. You will pay my respects to all my Lincolnshire friends. I am, dear Sir, March 9, 1766. Most affectionately yours, 5 10 If you are now able to comprehend that I might neglect to write without diminution of affection, you have taught me, likewise, how that neglect may be un- 15 easily felt without resentment. I wished for your letter a long time, and when it came, it amply recompensed the delay. I never was so much pleased as now with your account of yourself; and sincerely hope, that between public business, improving studies, and domestic 20 pleasures, neither melancholy nor caprice will find any place for entrance. Whatever philosophy may determine of material nature, it is certainly true of intellectual nature that it abhors a vacuum: our minds cannot be empty; and evil will break in upon them, if they are 25 not preoccupied by good. My dear Sir, mind your studies, mind your business, make your lady happy, and be a good Christian. After this, tristitiam et metus Trades protervis in mare Creticum Portare ventis. If we perform our duty, we shall be safe and steady, 'Sive per' &c., whether we climb the Highlands, or are tost among the Hebrides; and I hope the time 30 5 will come when we may try our powers both with cliffs and water. I see but little of Lord Elibank, I know not why; perhaps by my own fault. I am this day going into Staffordshire and Derbyshire for six weeks. I am, dear Sir, Last Saturday I came to Ashbourne; the dangers or the pleasures of the journey I have at present no disposition to recount; else might I paint the beauties of 15 my native plains; might I tell of the smiles of nature, and the charms of art': else might I relate how I crossed the Staffordshire canal, one of the great efforts of human labor, and human contrivance; which, from the bridge on which I viewed it, passed away on either 20 side, and loses itself in distant regions, uniting waters that nature had divided, and dividing lands which nature had united. I might tell how these reflections fermented in my mind till the chaise stopped at Ashbourne, at Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not the barren name of the 25 Peak terrify you; I have never wanted strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence. I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. 30 MR. JAMES MACPHERSON: I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me, |