d
airy. For my sake, therefore, among many greater reasons, take care,
dear Madam, of your health, spare no expence, and want no attendance
that can procure ease, or preserve it. Be very careful to keep your mind
quiet; and do not think it too much to give an account of your recovery
to, Madam,

'Yours, &c.

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'London, Sept. 7, 1782.'

'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,

'Having passed almost this whole year in a succession of disorders, I
went in October to Brighthelmston, whither I came in a state of so much
weakness, that I rested four times in walking between the inn and the
lodging. By physick and abstinence I grew better, and am now reasonably
easy, though at a great distance from health[487]. I am afraid, however,
that health begins, after seventy, and long before, to have a meaning
different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur
at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He
that lives must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die,
has GOD to thank for the infirmities of old age[488].

'At your long silence I am rather angry. You do not, since now you are
the head of your house, think it worth your while to try whether you or
your friend can live longer without writing[489], nor suspect that after
so many years of friendship, that when I do not write to you, I forget
you. Put all such useless jealousies out of your head, and disdain to
regulate your own practice by the practice of another, or by any other
principle than the desire of doing right.

'Your oeconomy, I suppose, begins now to be settled; your expences are
adjusted to your revenue, and all your people in their proper places.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a
great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it
makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

'Let me know the history of your life, since your accession to your
estate. How many houses, how many cows, how much land in your own hand,
and what bargains you make with your tenants.

* * * * *

'Of my _Lives of the Poets_, they have printed a new edition in octavo,
I hear, of three thousand. Did I give a set to Lord Hailes? If I did
not, I will do it out of these. What did you make of all your copy[490]?

'Mrs. Thrale and the three Misses[491] are now for the winter in
Argyll-street. Sir Joshua Reynold