striking a proof of filial
tenderness, that I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of transcribing it.

_December_, 1, 1743.

Sir,--I am extremely sorry that we have encroached so much upon your
forbearance with respect to the interest, which a great perplexity of
affairs hindered me from thinking of with that attention that I ought,
and which I am not immediately able to remit to you, but will pay it
(I think twelve pounds) in two months. I look upon this, and on the
future interest of that mortgage, as my own debt; and beg that you
will be pleased to give me directions how to pay it, and not mention
it to my dear mother. If it be necessary to pay this in less time, I
believe I can do it; but I take two months for certainty, and beg an
answer whether you can allow me so much time. I think myself very much
obliged for your forbearance, and shall esteem it a great happiness to
be able to serve you. I have great opportunities of dispersing any
thing that you may think it proper to make public. I will give a note
for the money payable at the time mentioned, to any one here that you
shall appoint.

I am, Sir, your most obedient,

and most humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

_At Mr. Osborne's, Bookseller, in Gray's Inn_.

In the following year (1744) he produced his Life of Savage, a work that
gives the charm of a romance to a narrative of real [**re in original]
events; and which, bearing the stamp of that eagerness [**ea ness in
original] and rapidity with which it was thrown off the mind of the
writer, exhibits rather the fervour of an eloquent advocate, than the
laboriousness of a minute biographer. The forty-eight octavo pages, as
he told Mr. Nichols [4], were written in one day and night. At its first
appearance it was warmly praised, in the Champion, probably either by
Fielding, or by Ralph, who succeeded to him in a share of that paper;
and Sir Joshua Reynolds, when it came into his hand, found his attention
so powerfully arrested, that he read it through without changing his
posture, as he perceived by the torpidness of one of his arms that had
rested on a chimney-piece by which he was standing. For the Life of
Savage [5], he received fifteen guineas from Cave. About this time he
fell into the company of Collins, with whom, as he tells us in his life
of that poet, he delighted to converse.

His next publication (in 1745) was a pamphlet, called "Miscellaneous
Observations