moving this, poffibly, "stone of ftumbling," this, as it appears, "rock of offence;" efpecially as your filence may tend to confirm the opinion of thofe who underftand the paffage in this very unfavourable fense: and if you fhall think this deferving of your private notice, you will thereby confer an honour, as well as an obligation SIR,

on,

Your obedient humble fervant, &c.

To Dr. Johnfon, &c.

LETTER XXXI.

Το

SIR,

May 15, 1782.

BEING now in the country in a state of recovery, as I hope, from a very oppreffive diforder, I cannot neglect the acknowledgment of your Chriftian letter. The book, called "The Beauties of J-n," is the production of I know not whom; I never faw it but by cafual inspection, and confidered myself as utterly dif engaged from its confequences. Of the paffage you mention I remember fome notice in fome paper; but, knowing that it must be misrepresented, I thought of it no more, nor do I now know where to find it in my own books. I am accustomed to think little of news-papers; but an opinion fo weighty and serious as yours has de

termined

termined me to do, what I fhould, without your feafonable admonition, have omitted; and I will direct my thought to be fhewn in its true ftate. If I could find the paffage, I would direct you to it. I suppose the tenor is this: "Acute difeafes are the immediate and inevitable strokes of Heaven; but of them the pain is fhort, and the conclusion speedy: chronical disorders, by which we are fufpended in tedious torture between life and death, are commonly the effect of our own mifconduct and intemperance. To die," &c. This, Sir, you fee is all true, and all blameless. I hope, fome time in the next week, to have all rectified. My health has been lately much fhaken; if you favour this with any answer, it will be a comfort to me to know that I have your prayers.

I AM to acknowledge and thank you for your favour of the 15th; and I am happy to find, that you think the business on which I wrote to you not undeferving

your attention. The fentiment, as you have prefaced and explained it, as I doubted not would be the cafe, is quite unexceptionable.

I am glad to find that you are better than you have been, and on the recovery. Indeed, I should be wanting in gratitude, as well as benevolence and charity, if you had not, in return for the great pleasure I have received from your writings, my best wishes and prayers; and particularly, as my last and best, that, when the period of the prefent ftate of your existence shall approach, you may have a short and eafy paffage from this life to that in which good men "reft from their labours, and their works follow them."

I am, SIR,

With great esteem, your obliged

and obedient humble fervant, &c.

To Dr. Johnfon, &c.

The following appeared in the MORNING CHRONICLE of May 29, 1782.

A correfpondent having mentioned, in the Morning Chronicle of Dec. 12, the last claufe of the following paragraph, as feeming to favour fuicide; we are requefted to print the whole paffage, that its true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend fuicide, but exercise.

"Exercife cannot fecure us from that diffolution to which we are decreed; but, while the foul and body continue united, it can make the affociation pleafing, and give probable hopes that they fhall be disjoined by

an eafy feparation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases are from heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death indeed falls from heaven, but we poifon it by our own mifconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly." Vide RAMBLER, vol. II. N° 85.

LETTER XXXIIL

To MR. NICHOL S.

SIR, Oct. 10, 1782. WHILE I am at Brighthelmftone, if you have any need of confulting me, Mr. Strahan will do us the favour to tranfinit our papers under his frank. I have looked often into your "Anecdotes," and you will hardly thank a lover of literary history for telling you, that he has been informed and gratified., I wish you would add your own discoveries and intelligence to those of Dr. Rawlinson, and undertake the Supplement to Wood. Think on it *.

I am, SIR,

Your humble fervant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

In a fubfequent letter, dated Oct. 28, Dr. Johnfon adds, "I wish, Sir, you could obtain fome fuller information of Jortin, « Markland, and Thirlby. They were three contemporaries of great M m 2

"eminence."

TO THE REV. MR. WILSON, CLITHEROE,

REV. SIR,

LANCASHIRE.

Bolt-court, Fleet-ftreet, London,
Dec. 31, 1782.

THAT I have fo long omitted to return you thanks for the honour conferred upon me by your Dedication, I entreat you with great earneftnefs not to confider it as more faulty than it is. A very importunate and oppreffive disorder has for fome time debarred me from the pleasures, and obftructed me in the duties of life. The esteem and kindness of wife and good men is one of the last pleasures which I can be content to lose; and gratitude to those from whom this pleasure is received, is a duty of which I hope never to be reproached with the final neglect.

"eminence." It was in confequence of this request that I drew up the account of Thirlby, which is printed in the Magazine for April 1784, p. 260; which having been fhewn to Dr. Johnson in the state of a proof fheet, he added to it nearly half of what is there printed. The Doctor's MS. is now before me, and begins with "What I can • tell of Thirlby, I had from those who knew him; I never faw him "in my life." The communication concludes with "This is what I

can remember." I will take this opportunity of adding, that, on my fhewing Dr. Johnfon the "Remarks on his Life of Milton," which were published in 8vo. 1780, he wrote on the margin of p. 14, "In the bufinefs of Lauder, I was deceived; partly by thinking the man too frantick to be fraudulent. Of this quotation from the ["Literary] Magazine ["a POETICAL SCALE"]," I was not the "author. I fancy it was put in after I had quitted that work; for I "not only did not write it, but do not remember it." J. N.

I there