till your health is reestablished; keep easy and
cheerful company about you, and never try to think but at those stated
and solemn times when the thoughts are summoned to the cares of futurity,
the only cares of a rational being.

'As to my own health I think it rather grows better; the convulsions
which left me last year at Ashbourne have never returned, and I have by
the mercy of God very comfortable nights. Let me know very often how you
are till you are quite well.'

This letter, though it is dated 1778, must have been written in 1780.
Thrale's first attack was in June, 1779, when he was in 'extreme danger'
(_ante_, iii. 397, n. 2, 420). Johnson had the remission of the
convulsions on June 18, 1779. He recorded on June 18, 1780:--

'In the morning of this day last year I perceived the remission of
those convulsions in my breast which had distressed me for more than
twenty years. I returned thanks at church for the mercy granted me,
which has now continued a year.'--_Prayers and Meditations_, p. 183.

Three days later he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--

'It was a twelvemonth last Sunday since the convulsions in my breast
left me. I hope I was thankful when I recollected it; by removing
that disorder a great improvement was made in the enjoyment of life.'
--_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 163. (See _ante_, iii. 397, n. 1.)

He was at Ashbourne on June 18, 1779 (_ante_, iii. 453).

On April 20, 1778, the very day of which this letter bears the date,
he recorded:--

'After a good night, as I am forced to reckon, I rose seasonably....
In reviewing my time from Easter, 1777, I found a very melancholy
and shameful blank. So little has been done that days and months are
without any trace. My health has, indeed, been very much interrupted.
My nights have been commonly not only restless, but painful and fatiguing.
....Some relaxation of my breast has been procured, I think, by opium,
which, though it never gives me sleep, frees my breast from spasms.'
--_Prayers and Meditations_, p. 169. See _ante_, iii. 317, n. 1.

For Johnson's advice about bleeding, see _ante_, iii. 152; and for
possible occasions for 'suspected letters,' _ante_, i. 472, n. 4;
and ii. 202, n. 2.

_Mr. Mason's 'sneering observation in his "Memoirs of Mr. William
Whitehead"'_

(Vol. i, p. 31.)

I had long failed to find a copy of these _Memoirs_, though I had
searched in the Bodleian, the British Museum, and the London Library, and
had applied to the Un