een very heavy. From the middle of January to the middle
of June I was battered by one disorder after another! I am now very much
recovered, and hope still to be better. What happiness it is that Mrs.
Boswell has escaped.

'My _Lives_ are reprinting, and I have forgotten the authour of Gray's
character[480]: write immediately, and it may be perhaps yet inserted.

'Of London or Ashbourne you have your free choice; at any place I shall
be glad to see you. I am, dear Sir,

'Yours &c.

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Aug. 24, 1782.'

On the 3Oth of August, I informed him that my honoured father had died
that morning; a complaint under which he had long laboured having
suddenly come to a crisis, while I was upon a visit at the seat of Sir
Charles Preston, from whence I had hastened the day before, upon
receiving a letter by express.

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,

'I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of body, and
such strong impressions of the fragility of life, that death, whenever
it appears, fills me with melancholy; and 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; 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 doubtless
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 fortune[481].

'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[482]; of which one rule generally received is, that
the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new
course of life with the least show, and the least expence possible; you
may at pleasure encrease 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 timoro