'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given
him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he
come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him
so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail
anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am."

All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah!
you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of
all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 228. _Cecilia_ was the name
of her second novel (_post_, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a
letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more
kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness
and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir,

'Your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

_MS_. in the British Museum.

[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which
he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there
was no such book.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.2. See _post_, under
Sept. 29, 1783.

[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour,
submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections,
although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a
thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and
agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist._ Exper. No. 1000.
See _ante_, ii. 178.

[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the
scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first
reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:--'If the scheme were more
reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil
war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.'
_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481.

[512] See _ante_, i. 429, _post_, 170, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept.
30.

[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was
held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the
formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends'
were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old
Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had
a majority of 168. _Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in
Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that o