ery welcome to him, as appeared by their engaging
in a great deal of discourse together.'

We surely cannot but admire the benevolent exertions of this great and
good man, especially when we consider how grievously he was afflicted
with bad health, and how uncomfortable his home was made by the
perpetual jarring of those whom he charitably accommodated under his
roof. He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of
females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions them, together
with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: 'Williams
hates every body; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams;
Desmoulins hates them both; Poll* loves none of them.'**

* Miss Carmichael.

** A year later he wrote: At Bolt-court there is much
malignity, but of late little hostility.'--ED.

In 1779, Johnson gave the world a luminous proof that the vigour of his
mind in all its faculties, whether memory, judgement, or imagination,
was not in the least abated; for this year came out the first four
volumes of his Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the most eminent
of the English Poets, published by the booksellers of London. The
remaining volumes came out in the year 1780. The Poets were selected by
the several booksellers who had the honorary copy right, which is still
preserved among them by mutual compact, notwithstanding the decision of
the House of Lords against the perpetuity of Literary Property. We have
his own authority, that by his recommendation the poems of Blackmore,
Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden, were added to the collection.

On the 22nd of January, I wrote to him on several topicks, and mentioned
that as he had been so good as to permit me to have the proof sheets of
his Lives of the Poets, I had written to his servant, Francis, to take
care of them for me.

On the 23rd of February I wrote to him again, complaining of his
silence, as I had heard he was ill, and had written to Mr. Thrale, for
information concerning him; and I announced my intention of soon being
again in London.

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,--Why should you take such delight to make a bustle, to write
to Mr. Thrale that I am negligent, and to Francis to do what is so very
unnecessary. Thrale, you may be sure, cared not about it; and I shall
spare Francis the trouble, by ordering a set both of the Lives and Poets
to dear Mrs. Boswell,* in acknowledgement of her marmalade. Persuade her
to