form such an interest, as may not only exalt yourself, but dignify
your family.

'We are, as you may suppose, all busy here. Mr. Fox resolutely stands
for Westminster, and his friends say will carry the election[824].
However that be, he will certainly have a seat[825]. Mr. Hoole has just
told me, that the city leans towards the King.

'Let me hear, from time to time, how you are employed, and what progress
you make.

'Make dear Mrs. Boswell, and all the young Boswells, the sincere
compliments of, Sir, your affectionate humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'London, March 30, 1784.'

To Mr. Langton he wrote with that cordiality which was suitable to the
long friendship which had subsisted between him and that
gentleman[826].

March 27. 'Since you left me, I have continued in my own opinion, and in
Dr, Brocklesby's, to grow better with respect to all my formidable and
dangerous distempers: though to a body battered and shaken as mine has
lately been, it is to be feared that weak attacks may be sometimes
mischievous. I have, indeed, by standing carelessly at an open window,
got a very troublesome cough, which it has been necessary to appease by
opium, in larger quantities than I like to take, and I have not found it
give way so readily as I expected; its obstinacy, however, seems at last
disposed to submit to the remedy, and I know not whether I should then
have a right to complain of any morbid sensation. My asthma is, I am
afraid, constitutional and incurable; but it is only occasional, and
unless it be excited by labour or by cold, gives me no molestation, nor
does it lay very close siege to life; for Sir John Floyer[827], whom the
physical race consider as authour of one of the best books upon it,
panted on to ninety, as was supposed; and why were we content with
supposing a fact so interesting, of a man so conspicuous? because he
corrupted, at perhaps seventy or eighty, the register, that he might
pass for younger than he was. He was not much less than eighty, when to
a man of rank who modestly asked his age, he answered, "Go look;" though
he was in general a man of civility and elegance.

'The ladies, I find, are at your house all well, except Miss Langton,
who will probably soon recover her health by light suppers. Let her eat
at dinner as she will, but not take a full stomach to bed. Pay my
sincere respects to dear Miss Langton in Lincolnshire, let her know that
I mean not to break our league of friendship,