it,
and if anything could make him delay it, it wd. be a clause
of this kind, wh. wd. give him an honourable pretence for
doing so. It would then be said I had published, for the
sake of an emolument, not from respect to the memory of my
friend, what even a printer, for the sake of the same
emolument, had not published. That Strahan is sufficiently
jealous you will see by the enclosed letter, wh. I will beg
the favour of you to return to me, but by the Post, and not
by the carrier.

If you will give me leave I will add a few lines to yr.
account of your own life, giving some account in my own name
of your behaviour in this illness, if, contrary to my own
hopes, it should prove your last. Some conversations we had
lately together, particularly that concerning your want of
an excuse to make to Charon, the excuse you at last thought
of, and the very bad reception wh. Charon was likely to give
it, would, I imagine, make no disagreeable part of the
history. You have in a declining state of health, under an
exhausting disease, for more than two years together now
looked at the approach of death with a steady cheerfulness
such as very few men have been able to maintain for a few
hours, tho' otherwise in the most perfect Health.

I shall likewise, if you give me leave, correct the sheets
of the new edition of your works, and shall take care that
it shall be published exactly according to your last
corrections. As I shall be at London this winter, it will
cost me very little trouble.

All this I have written upon the supposition that the event
of yr. disease should prove different from what I still hope
it may do. For your spirits are so good, the spirit of life
is still so very strong in you, and the progress of your
disorder is so slow and gradual, that I still hope it may
take a turn. Even the cool and steady Dr. Black, by a letter
I received from him last week, seems not to be averse to the
same hopes.

I hope I need not repeat to you that I am ready to wait on
you whenever you wish to see me. Whenever you do so I hope
you will not scruple to call on me. I beg to be remembered
in the kindest and most respectful manner to yr. Brother,
your sister, your nephew, and all other friends.--I ever am,
my dearest friend, mos