which he prefaced with two
lines from a Sonnet of Milton.

To-day resolve deep thoughts with me to drench,
In mirth that after no repenting draws."

The number was limited to twenty-four. Each member present engaged
himself to spend at least sixpence; and, to pay a forfeit of three-pence
if he did not attend. But even here, in the club-room, after his
sixpence was duly laid down, and the arm chair taken, there was no
security for him against the intrusion of those maladies which had so
often assailed him. On the first night of meeting (13th of December,
1783) he was seized with a spasmodic asthma, and hardly made his way
home to his own house, where the dropsy combined with asthma to hold him
a prisoner for more than four months. An occurrence during his illness,
which he mentioned to Boswell, deserves notice, from the insight which
it gives into his peculiar frame of mind. "He had shut himself up, and
employed a day in particular exercises of religion--fasting,
humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden, he obtained extraordinary relief,
for which he looked up to heaven with grateful devotion. He made no
direct inference from the fact; but from his manner of telling it," adds
Boswell, "I could perceive that it appeared to him as something more
than an incident in the common course of events." Yet at this time, with
all his aspirations after a state of greater perfectness, he was not
able to bear the candour of Langton, who, when Johnson him desired to
tell him sincerely wherein he had observed his life to be faulty,
brought him a sheet of paper, on which were written many texts of
Scripture, recommendatory of Christian meekness.

At the beginning of June he had sufficiently rallied his strength to set
out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with
Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse,
there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same
promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as there had ever been.

Several of his friends were now anxious that he should escape the rigour
of an English winter by repairing to Italy, a measure which his
physicians recommended, not very earnestly indeed, and more I think in
compliance with his known wishes, than in expectation of much benefit to
his health. It was thought requisite, however, that some addition should
previously be made to his income, in order to his maintaining an
appearance somewhat suitable