companions; and we are now to pick up such as may offer, or to travel on alone. You, indeed, have a sister, with whom you can divide the day: I have no natural friend left; but Providence has been pleased to preserve me from neglect; I have not wanted such alleviations of life as friendship could supply.-My health has been, from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease: but it is at least not worse; and I sometimes make myself believe that it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently oppressive.

I think of seeing Staffordshire again this autumn; and I intend to find my way through Birmingham, where I hope to see you and dear Mrs. Careless well.

I am, sir, your affectionate friend,

Dear sir,

Samuel Johnson.

LETTER XXI.

To James Boswell, esq.

London, March 28, 1782.

The pleasure which we used to receive from each other on Good-Friday and Easter-day, we must this year be content to miss. Let us, however, pray for each other; and hope to see one another yet, from time to time, with mutual delight. My disorder has been a cold, which impeded the organs of respiration, and kept me many weeks in a state of great uneasiness; but by repeated phlebotomy it is now relieved: and, next to the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter myself that you will rejoice at mine.

What we shall do in the summer, it is yet too early to consider. You want to know what you shall do now ; I do not think this time of bustle and confusion likely to produce any advantage to you. Every man has those to

reward and gratify, who have contributed to his advancement. To come hither with such expectations, at the expense of borrowed money, which you know not where to borrow, can hardly be considered as prudent. I am sorry to find, what your solicitation seems to imply, that you have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must pay for the past. You must get a place; or pine in penury, with the empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have; live if you can on less: do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure; the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret. Stay, therefore, at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither.

Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me; and to the young people, whom I never have offended.

You have not told me the success of your plea against the solicitors.

The earnestness and tenderness of your

letter are such, that I cannot think myself showing it

more respect than it claims, by sitting down to answer it on the day on which I received it.

This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I am now harassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to Oxford.

Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever might have been your pleasure or mine, I know not how I could have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience: you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. That a man whose fortune is very narrow, cannot help the needy, is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will lessen his influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretchedness of a debtor, which, however, has passed into a proverb. Let it be remembered, that he who has money to spare, has it always in his power to benefit others; and of such power a good man must always be desirous.

I am pleased with your account of Easter.

We shall

meet, I hope, in autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the other's company. Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell.

Dear sir,

I am, &c.

Samuel Johnson.

LETTER XXIII.

To James Boswell, esq.

London, Sept. 7, 1782.

I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of body, and so strong impressions of the fragility of life, that I cannot hear, without emotion, of the removal of any one, whom I have known, into another state.

Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable you to bear it: for it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and, as his general life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years past been turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible must grieve you. His disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least actual, is in our power, but fondness is not; and if, by negligence or imprudence, you had extinguished his fondness, he could not, at will, rekindle it. Nothing then remained between you, but mutual forgiveness of each other's faults, and mutual desire of each other's happiness.

I shall long to know his final disposition of his for

tune.

You, dear sir, have now a new station; and have, therefore, new cares, and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the

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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 man 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 is 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 good will of the agents and factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gaiety, 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.

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

I received your letters only this morning.

I am, dear sir, yours,

&c.

Samuel Johnson.