742.

[801] Hawkins (_Life_, 562) says that this November Johnson said to
him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the
palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of
my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.'

[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to
decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was
20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.'
After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to
run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's _London and
its Environs_, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143.

[803] In Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty
of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6
vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his
boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
_Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap.
Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 17.

[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last
night, and sit now panting over my paper. _Dabit Deus his quoque finem.'
['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, _Aeneids_, 1.199.]
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347.

[805] Boswell's purpose in this _Letter_ was to recommend the Scotch to
address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India
Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. _Ib_. p. 39. 'Let
us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of _property_ and
_constitution_;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a
dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an
object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no
doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then
in power' (ante, p. 223.)

[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the
American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says,
'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration
was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:--'When
pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning
taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for
whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been