says of friendship renders it
almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale;
and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779,
but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been
even better than it is (_ante_, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the
year 1777 or 1778.

[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ...
this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' _Rambler_, No. 69.

[465] See _ante_, i. 63.

[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and
3.

[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. _Ante_, p. 139, note 1.

[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in _The Rambler_, No. 53:-'In
the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the
mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is
a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can
avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:--'The prospect of penury in age is
so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must
resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of
sparing.' See _ante_. 441.

[469] See _ante_, p. 128.

[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (_Memoirs_, i.
249):--'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his
constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times.
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she
continues (_ib_. p. 251) 'to take a _little_ wine. He replied, "I can't
drink a _little_, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as
easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured
and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush,
hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it
is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."'

[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes,
reached its seventh edition by 1787. See _ante_, i. 214.

[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 93.
Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it.

[473] What follows appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ of May 29,
1782:--'A correspondent having mentioned, in the _Morning Chronicle_ of
December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to
favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its
true meaning may appear, which is not to recomme