his
state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me
know, from time to time, all that you observe.

'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced
my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope
gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance.
Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL.

[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is
addressed by his military title. BOSWELL.

[454] Eight days later he recorded:--'I have in ten days written to
Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters
are desired.' _Pr. and Med._ 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale,
but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt.

[455] See _ante_, p. 84.

[456] See _ante_, i. 247.

[457] See _post_, p. 158, note 4.

[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained
in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he
has given high praise:--

'I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are gone [past] and I sigh,
I grieve that I prized them no more.'

J. BOSWELL, JUN.

[459] She was his god-daughter. See _post_, May 10, 1784.

[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr.
Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let
alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do
something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech,
or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what
they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts
every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 73. See _ante_, p.
20, note 2.

[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the
evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and
beginnings of lines. BOSWELL.

[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and
Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to
Birmingham, he said:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me
when I had tea enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 205.

[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his
health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad
health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of
disorders' (_post_, p. 156). What he