TO MISS PORTER, AT MRS. JOHNSON'S, "MY DEAR MISS, IN LICHFIELD. "16th Jan. 1759. "I think myself obliged to you beyond all expression of gratitude for your care of my dear mother, God grant it may not be without success. Tell Kitty1 that I shall never forget her tenderness for her mistress. Whatever you can do, continue to do. My heart is very full. "I hope you received twelve guineas on Monday. I found a way of sending them by means of the postmaster, after I had written my letter, and hope they came safe. I will send you more in a few days. God bless you all. most obliged and most humble servant, "Over the leaf is a letter to my mother." "DEAR HONOURED MOTHER, I am my dear, your "SAM. JOHNSON." 16th Jan. 1759. "Your weakness afflicts me beyond what I am willing to communicate to you. I do not think you unfit to face death, but I know not how to bear the thought of losing you. Endeavour to do all you [can] for yourself. Eat as much as you can. "I pray often for you; do you pray for me. I have nothing to add to my last letter. I am, dear, dear mother, your dutiful 'SAM. JOHNSON." son, 66 TO MRS. JOHNSON, IN LICHFIELD. "DEAR HONOURED MOTHER, "18th Jan. 1759. "I fear you are too ill for long letters; therefore I will only tell you, you have from me all the regard that can possibly 66 1 Catherine Chambers, Mrs. Johnson's maid-servant. She died in October, 1767. See Dr. Johnson's Prayers and Meditations, p. 71: Sunday, Oct. 18, 1767. Yesterday, Oct. 17, I took my leave for ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old." Malone. subsist in the heart. I pray God to bless you for evermore, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. "Let Miss write to me every post, however short. “I am, dear mother, your dutiful son. "SAM. JOHNSON." TO MISS PORTER, AT MRS. JOHNSON'S, 66 DEAR MISS, "20th Jan. 1759. God grant "I will, if it be possible, come down to you. I may yet [find] my dear mother breathing and sensible. Do not tell her lest I disappoint her. If I miss to write next post, I am on the road. I am my dearest Miss, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." On the other side. "20th Jan. 1759. "DEAR HONOURED MOTHER,1 1 "Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well." God grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen. -I am, dear, dear mother, your dutiful son, "SAM. JOHNSON." TO MISS PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. "23d Jan. 1759.3 "You will conceive my sorrow for the loss of my mother, of the best mother. If she were to live again, surely I should This letter was written on the second leaf of the preceding, addressed to Miss Porter.-Malone. 2 So, in the prayer which he composed on this occasion: "Almighty God, merciful Father, in whose hands are life and death, sanctify unto me the sorrow which I now feel. Forgive me whatever I have done unkindly to my mother, and whatever I have omitted to do kindly. Make me to remember her good precepts and good example, and to reform my life according to thy holy word," &c.-Prayers and Meditations, p. 31.— Malone. 3 Mrs. Johnson probably died on the 20th or 21st January, and was buried on the day this letter was written.-Malone. behave better to her. But she is happy, and what is past is nothing to her; and for me, since I cannot repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will efface them. I return you and all those that have been good to her my sincerest thanks, and pray God to repay you all with infinite advantage. Write to me, and comfort me, dear child. I shall be glad likewise, if Kitty will write to me. I shall send a bill of twenty pounds in a few days, which I thought to have brought to my mother; but God suffered it not. I have not power or composure to say much more. God bless you, and bless us all. I am, dear Miss, your affectionate humble servant, 66 SAM. JOHNSON." Soon after this event, he wrote his "RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA: concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses vaguely and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with authentic precision. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of the knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he composed it in the evenings of one week,' sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over. Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred pounds, but afterwards paid him twenty-five pounds more, when it came to a second edition. Considering the large sums which have been received for compilations, and works requiring not much more genius than compilations, we cannot but wonder at the very low price which he was content to receive for this admirable performance; which, though he had written nothing else, would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. None of his writings has been so extensively 1 Rasselas was published in March or April, 1759.-Malone. In chapter 45, Johnson, in the character of Imlac, pathetically describes his own feelings: "I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband."-Markland. 2 See under June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds.—Malone. Vol diffused over Europe; for it has been translated into most, if not all, of the modern languages. This tale, with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shows us that this stage of our being is full of "vanity and vexation of spirit." To those who look no further than the present life, or who maintain that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it was created, the instruction of this sublime story will be of no avail. But they who think justly, and feel with strong sensibility, will listen with eagerness and admiration to its truth and wisdom. taire's "CANDIDE," written to refute the system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's "RASSELAS ; insomuch, that I have heard Johnson say, that if they had not been published so closely one after the other that there was not time for imitation,' it would have been in vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other. Though the proposition illustrated by both these works was the same, namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton profaneness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to discredit the belief of a superintending Providence: Johnson meant, by show 1 Grimm, in his Correspondence Litteraire, tom ii., p. 388, writes from Paris, March 1, 1759: "M. de Voltaire vient de nous égayer par un petit roman intitule: Candide ou L'Optimisme." In a letter to Miss Porter, under date March 23, 1759 (which will be found in the Appendix to this volume), Johnson tells her that he is going to publish a little story book, "which," says he, "I will send you when it is out." Rasselas then-for this was the little story book-was nearly ready for publication about the end of March of that year; and as the rate of printing, unless under pressure, was slow at that period, the little story had been in the printer's hands for several weeks, probably from the early part of February. So that Rasselas was being printed, not, it may be, before Candide was written, but before Candide was printed and published. Johnson, then, could not have even seen Candide before he had finished Rasselas; and his statement in the text is confirmed by evidence the probability of which approximates to absolute certainty. Johnson had not and could not have seen Candide, when he wrote Rasselas and sent it to press.-Editor. ing the unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal. "Rasselas," as was observed to me by a very accomplished lady, may be considered as a more enlarged and more deeply philosophical discourse in prose, upon the interesting truth, which in his "Vanity of Human Wishes" he had so successfully enforced in verse. The fund of thinking which this work contains is such, that almost every sentence of it may furnish a subject of long meditation. I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read it through; and at every perusal, my admiration of the mind which produced it is so highly raised, that I can scarcely believe that I had the honour of enjoying the intimacy of such a man. I restrain myself from quoting passages from this excellent work, or even referring to them, because I should not know what to select, or rather what to omit. I shall, however, transcribe one, as it shows how well he could state the arguments of those who believe in the appearance of departed spirits: a doctrine which it is a mistake to suppose that he himself ever positively held : "If all your fear be of apparitions (said the prince), I will promise safety: there is no danger from the dead; he that is once buried will be seen no more. "That the dead are seen no more (said Imlac), I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears." Notwithstanding my high admiration of "Rasselas," I will not maintain that the "morbid melancholy" in Johnson's constitution may not, perhaps, have made life appear to him more insipid and unhappy than it generally is: for I am sure that he had less enjoyment from it than I |