"TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., TRINITY COllege. "DEAR SIR, "June 28, 1758. "Though I might have expected to hear from you, upon your entrance into a new state of life at a new place, yet recollecting (not without some degree of shame) that I owe you a letter upon an old account, I think it my part to write first. This, indeed, I do not only from complaisance, but from interest; for living on in the old way, I am very glad of a correspondent so capable as yourself, to diversify the hours. You have, at present, too many novelties about you to need any help from me to drive along your time. I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed. You, who are very capable of anticipating futurity, and raising phantoms before your own eyes, must often have imagined to yourself an academical life, and have conceived what would be the manners, the views, and the conversation, of men devoted to letters; how they would choose their companions, how they would direct their studies, and how they would regulate their lives. Let me know what you expected, and what you have found. At least record it to yourself before custom has reconciled you to the scenes before you, and the disparity of your discoveries to your hopes has vanished from your mind. It is a rule never to be forgotten, that whatever strikes strongly, should be described while the first impression remains fresh upon the mind. "I love, dear sir, to think on you, and therefore should willingly write more to you, but that the post will not now give me leave to do more than send my compliments to Mr. Warton, and tell you that I am, dear sir, most affectionately, "Your very humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." Major-General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of footguards, had fallen in the gallant discharge of his duty near St. Cas in the unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. His lady and Mr. Langton's mother were sisters. The news of this event occasioned the following beautiful letter of sympathy from Johnson to his friend : 66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE. "Sept. 21, 1758. "DEAR SIR, "I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of my friend should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full of the fate of Dury; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrors of a violent death, which is more formidable at the first glance, than on a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very painful; the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided. But if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war, what can be the state that would have awakened him to the care of futurity? When would that man have prepared himself to die, who went to seek death without preparation? What then can be the reason why we lament more, him that dies of a wound, than him that dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his life with more pain, but with less virtue: he leaves no example to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The only reason why we lament a soldier's death, is, that we think he might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to many other kinds of death, which are not so passionately bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the effect of accident; every death which is not gradually brought on by the miseries of age; or when life is extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt out. He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent death; yet his death is borne with patience, only because the cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us endeavour to see things as they are, and then inquire whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid and durable: that which may be derived from error, must be, like its original, fallacious and fugitive. "I am, dear sir, "Your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." With this note of sympathy closes our record of the year 1758. In the month of January, 1759, the depths of Johnson's heart were again stirred by the death of his mother, whom he had always tenderly loved and dutifully cared for. The event affected him greatly. Sir John Hawkins, in his "Life of Johnson," gives this charitable account of our Author's grief: "His mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality." Extending a like charity to Sir John himself, we would say that the worthy knight's philosophy must have got the better of even the ordinary feelings of humanity when he wrote such words. Had Johnson been a man stoical enough to let his aged mother drop into the grave without a tear, we should hardly have been tempted to re-cast his biography just now. In the belief that our readers differ from Sir John, and belong to another school of philosophy, we give the following letters, which our Author wrote to his dying parent, and his stepdaughter Miss Porter, who attended his mother through her last illness. Their simple pathos would be spoilt by comment. 66 TO MRS. JOHNSON, IN LICHFIELD. "HONOURED MADAM, "Jan. 13, 1759. "The account which Miss [Porter] gives me of your health pierces my heart. God comfort, and preserve you, and save you, for the sake of Jesus Christ. "I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of our Saviour, and sometimes the sentences in the Communion Service, beginning, Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 90 HIS MOTHER'S DEATH. "I have just now read a physical book, which inclines me to think that a strong infusion of the bark would do you good. Do, dear mother, try it. Pray, send me your blessing, and forgive all that I have done amiss to you. And whatever you would have done, and what debts you would have paid first, or anything else that you would direct, let Miss put it down; I shall endeavour to obey you. "I have got twelve guineas to send you, but unhappily am at a loss how to send it to-night. If I cannot send it to-night, it will come by the next post. Pray, do not omit anything mentioned in this letter. God bless you for ever and ever. "I am, "Your dutiful son, "SAM. JOHNSON." 66 TO MISS PORTER, AT MRS. JOHNSON'S, IN LIChfield. "MY DEAR MISS, “Jan. 16, 1759. "I think myself obliged to you beyond all expression of gratitude for your care of my dear mother. God grant it may not be without success. Tell Kitty, that I shall never forget her tenderness for her mistress. Whatever you can do continue to do. My heart is very full. "I hope you received twelve guineas on Monday. I found a way of sending them by means of the Postmaster, after I had written my letter, and hope they came safe. I will send you more in a few days. God bless you all. "I am, my dear, "Your most obliged and most humble servant, "Over the leaf is a letter to my mother." "DEAR HONOURED MOTHER, "Jan. 16, 1759. "Your weakness afflicts me beyond what I am willing to communicate to you. I do not think you unfit to face death, but |