’Our first recourse in this distressed solitude, is, perhaps for want of habitual piety, to a gloomy acquiescence in necessity.  Of two mortal beings, one must lose the other; but surely there is a higher and better comfort to be drawn from the consideration of that Providence which watches over all, and a belief that the living and the dead are equally in the hands of God, who will reunite those whom he has separated; or who sees that it is best not to reunite.  I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate, and most humble servant,

‘January 20, 1780.’

‘Sam.  Johnson.’

On the 2nd of May I wrote to him, and requested that we might have another meeting somewhere in the North of England, in the autumn of this year.

From Mr. Langton I received soon after this time a letter, of which I extract a passage, relative both to Mr. Beauclerk and Dr. Johnson.

’The melancholy information you have received concerning Mr. Beauclerk’s death is true.  Had his talents been directed in any sufficient degree as they ought, I have always been strongly of opinion that they were calculated to make an illustrious figure; and that opinion, as it had been in part formed upon Dr. Johnson’s judgment, receives more and more confirmation by hearing what, since his death, Dr. Johnson has said concerning them; a few evenings ago, he was at Mr. Vesey’s, where Lord Althorpe, who was one of a numerous company there, addressed Dr. Johnson on the subject of Mr. Beauclerk’s death, saying, “Our club has had a great loss since we met last.”  He replied, “A loss, that perhaps the whole nation could not repair!” The Doctor then went on to speak of his endowments, and particularly extolled the wonderful ease with which he uttered what was highly excellent.  He said, that “no man ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come.”  At Mr. Thrale’s, some days before when we were talking on the same subject, he said, referring to the same idea of his wonderful facility, “That Beauclerk’s talents were those which he had felt himself more disposed to envy, than those of any whom he had known.”

’On the evening I have spoken of above, at Mr. Vesey’s, you would have been much gratified, as it exhibited an instance of the high importance in which Dr. Johnson’s character is held, I think even beyond any I ever before was witness to.  The company consisted chiefly of ladies, among whom were the Duchess Dowager of Portland, the Duchess of Beaufort, whom I suppose from her rank I must name before her mother Mrs. Boscawen, and her elder sister Mrs. Lewson, who was likewise there; Lady Lucan, Lady Clermont, and others of note both for their station and understandings.  Among the gentlemen were Lord Althorpe, whom I have before named, Lord Macartney, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lucan, Mr. Wraxal, whose