'Ay, Sir, we have a claim upon you.' JOHNSON. No,
Sir, I am not obliged to do any more. No man is obliged to do as much
as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself. If a soldier
has fought a good many campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires
to ease and tranquillity. A physician, who has practised long in a
great city, may be excused if he retires to a small town, and takes less
practice. Now, Sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the same
proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that the practice of
a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great
city.' BOSWELL. 'But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in
writing than in not writing.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you MAY wonder.'

He talked of making verses, and observed, 'The great difficulty is to
know when you have made good ones. When composing, I have generally
had them in my mind, perhaps fifty at a time, walking up and down in my
room; and then I have written them down, and often, from laziness, have
written only half lines. I have written a hundred lines in a day. I
remember I wrote a hundred lines of The Vanity of Human Wishes in a day.
Doctor, (turning to Goldsmith,) I am not quite idle; I made one line
t'other day; but I made no more.' GOLDSMITH. 'Let us hear it; we'll put
a bad one to it.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, I have forgot it.'

'TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE

'DEAR SIR,--What your friends have done, that from your departure till
now nothing has been heard of you, none of us are able to inform the
rest; but as we are all neglected alike, no one thinks himself entitled
to the privilege of complaint.

'I should have known nothing of you or of Langton, from the time that
dear Miss Langton left us, had not I met Mr. Simpson, of Lincoln, one
day in the street, by whom I was informed that Mr. Langton, your Mamma,
and yourself, had been all ill, but that you were all recovered.

'That sickness should suspend your correspondence, I did not wonder; but
hoped that it would be renewed at your recovery.

'Since you will not inform us where you are, or how you live, I know
not whether you desire to know any thing of us. However, I will tell you
that THE CLUB subsists; but we have the loss of Burke's company since
he has been engaged in publick business, in which he has gained more
reputation than perhaps any man at his [first] appearance ever gained
before. He made two speeches