’I hope dear Mrs. Boswell is now quite well, and that no evil, either real or imaginary, now disturbs you.

’I am, &c.

‘SAM.  JOHNSON.’

‘London, March 2, 1784.’

I also applied to three of the eminent physicians who had chairs in our celebrated school of medicine at Edinburgh, Doctors Cullen, Hope, and Monro, to each of whom I sent the following letter:—­

’DEAR SIR,

’Dr. Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter of anxious apprehension he writes to me, “Ask your physicians about my case.”

’This, you see, is not authority for a regular consultation:  but I have no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a man so eminent, and who, in his Life of Garth, has paid your profession a just and elegant compliment:  “I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusions[816] of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no hope of lucre.”

’Dr. Johnson is aged seventy-four.  Last summer he had a stroke of the palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely.  He had, before that, been troubled with a catarrhous cough.  This winter he was seized with a spasmodick asthma, by which he has been confined to his house for about three months.  Dr. Brocklesby writes to me, that upon the least admission of cold, there is such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot lie down in his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest and sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and syrup of poppies; and that there are oedematous tumours on his legs and thighs.  Dr. Brocklesby trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather.  Dr. Johnson says, that a dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems to think that a warmer climate would do him good.  I understand he is now rather better, and is using vinegar of squills.  I am, with great esteem, dear Sir,

’Your most obedient humble servant,

‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

‘March 7, 1784.’

All of them paid the most polite attention to my letter, and its venerable object.  Dr. Cullen’s words concerning him were, ’It would give me the greatest pleasure to be of any service to a man whom the publick properly esteem, and whom I esteem and respect as much as I do Dr. Johnson.’  Dr. Hope’s, ’Few people have a better claim on me than your friend, as hardly a day passes that I do not ask his opinion about this or that word.’  Dr. Monro’s, ’I most sincerely join you in sympathizing with that very worthy and ingenious character, from whom his country has derived much instruction and entertainment.’

Dr. Hope corresponded with his friend Dr. Brocklesby.  Doctors Cullen and Monro wrote their opinions and prescriptions to me, which I afterwards carried with me to London, and, so far as they were encouraging, communicated to Johnson.  The liberality on one hand, and grateful sense of it on the other, I have great satisfaction in recording.