‘May 3, 1779.’

‘Sam.  Johnson.’

Mr. Wesley being in the course of his ministry at Edinburgh, I presented this letter to him, and was very politely received.  I begged to have it returned to me, which was accordingly done.  His state of the evidence as to the ghost did not satisfy me.

My readers will not be displeased at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in which Dr. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours.  He sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.*

* In one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention:  ’July 26, 1768.  I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top.  This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of an inch.’

Another of the same kind appears, ’Aug. 7, 1779, Partem brachii dextri carpo proximum et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanto temporis pili renovarentur.’

And, ’Aug. 15, 1773.  I cut from the vine 41 leaves, which weighed five oz. and a half, and eight scruples:—­I lay them upon my bookcase, to see what weight they will lose by drying.’—­Boswell.

My friend Colonel James Stuart, second son of the Earl of Bute, who had distinguished himself as a good officer of the Bedfordshire militia, had taken a publick-spirited resolution to serve his country in its difficulties, by raising a regular regiment, and taking the command of it himself.  This, in the heir of the immense property of Wortley, was highly honourable.  Having been in Scotland recruiting, he obligingly asked me to accompany him to Leeds, then the head-quarters of his corps; from thence to London for a short time, and afterwards to other places to which the regiment might be ordered.  Such an offer, at a time of the year when I had full leisure, was very pleasing; especially as I was to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information, discernment, and conviviality; and was to have a second crop in one year of London and Johnson.  Of this I informed my illustrious friend, in characteristical warm terms, in a letter dated the 30th of September, from Leeds.

On Monday, October 4, I called at his house before he was up.  He sent for me to his bedside, and expressed his satisfaction at this incidental meeting, with as much vivacity as if he had been in the gaiety of youth.  He called briskly, ’Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast in splendour.’