able to
convince me that _Taxation was no Tyranny_.'

[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:--'I intend to be in London
next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful
affection.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 748.

[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am
ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun _fly swiftly_, and _leave weeks and
months behind him_. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the
world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost
as impatient as a lover.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech
is at the end of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_:--

'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace;
Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.'

See _ante_, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is
produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every
day is bright,' and _post_, Aug. 2, 1784.

[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home.
Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 494. See _ante_, iii. 250, 336, and _post_,
Aug. 19, 1784.

[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:--'To any man who extends
his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy.
But to a sick man, what is the publick?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 344.

The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of
autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:--

'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,

'in Ashbourne,

'Derbyshire.

'DEAR SIR,

'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is to write
letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of
life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with
me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was
glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless,
my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid.

'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of
ministers: those that are _out_ and _in_ one can scarce call them, for
who is _out_ or _in_ is perhaps four times a day a new question. The
tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each
party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national
interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the
King and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, and
the real power of Government every where else. Thus