’A friend, whose name I will tell when your mamma has tried to guess it, sent to my physician to enquire whether this long train of illness had brought me into difficulties for want of money, with an invitation to send to him for what occasion required.  I shall write this night to thank him, having no need to borrow.’

And afterwards, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale,—­

’Since you cannot guess, I will tell you, that the generous man was Gerard Hamilton.  I returned him a very thankful and respectful letter[761].’

I applied to Mr. Hamilton, by a common friend, and he has been so obliging as to let me have Johnson’s letter to him upon this occasion, to adorn my collection.

’To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.

’DEAR SIR,

’Your kind enquiries after my affairs, and your generous offers, have been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby.  I return thanks with great sincerity, having lived long enough to know what gratitude is due to such friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to sullenness or pride.  I am, indeed, in no want.  Sickness is, by the generosity of my physicians, of little expence to me.  But if any unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear Sir, how cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality.

     ’I am, Sir,
        Your most obedient
          And most humble servant,
                    SAM.  JOHNSON.’

‘November, 19, 1783[762].’

I find in this, as in former years, notices of his kind attention to Mrs. Gardiner[763], who, though in the humble station of a tallow-chandler upon Snow-hill, was a woman of excellent good sense, pious, and charitable.  She told me, she had been introduced to him by Mrs. Masters[764], the poetess, whose volumes he revised, and, it is said, illuminated here and there with a ray of his own genius.  Mrs. Gardiner was very zealous for the support of the Ladies’ charity-school, in the parish of St. Sepulchre.  It is confined to females; and, I am told, it afforded a hint for the story of Betty Broom in The Idler[765].  Johnson this year, I find, obtained for it a sermon from the late Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, whom he, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale[766], characterises as ‘knowing and conversible;’ and whom all who knew his Lordship, even those who differed from him in politicks, remember with much respect[767].

The Earl of Carlisle having written a tragedy, entitled The Fathers Revenge[768], some of his Lordship’s friends applied to Mrs. Chapone[769] to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read and give his opinion of it[770], which he accordingly did, in a letter to that lady.  Sir Joshua Reynolds having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carlisle’s possession, though I was not fortunate enough to have the honour of being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy of literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour