‘July 12, 1784.’

‘Sam.  Johnson.’

Next day he set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and Derbyshire, flattering himself that he might be in some degree relieved.

During his absence from London he kept up a correspondence with several of his friends, from which I shall select what appears to me proper for publication, without attending nicely to chronological order.

To Dr. Brocklesby, he writes, Ashbourne, Sept. 9:—­

’Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire?  And have you ever seen Chatsworth?  I was at Chatsworth on Monday:  I had indeed seen it before, but never when its owners were at home; I was very kindly received, and honestly pressed to stay:  but I told them that a sick man is not a fit inmate of a great house.  But I hope to go again some time.’

Sept. 11.  ’I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, except sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks.  Last evening, I felt what I had not known for a long time, an inclination to walk for amusement; I took a short walk, and came back again neither breathless nor fatigued.  This has been a gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of late it seems to mend; I hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do not feel it: 

     “Praeterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis
     Febre calet sola.—­”

I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to be doing in the world.  I have no company here, and shall naturally come home hungry for conversation.  To wish you, dear Sir, more leisure, would not be kind; but what leisure you have, you must bestow upon me.’

Lichfield, Sept. 29.  ’On one day I had three letters about the air-balloon:  yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart to my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement.  In amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes of communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state of the air at different heights, till they have ascended above the height of mountains, which they seem never likely to do.  I came hither on the 27th.  How long I shall stay I have not determined.  My dropsy is gone, and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be expected.  One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this, I shall run about the town on my own legs.’

October 25.  ’You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a tenderness that melts me.  I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or a residence in it.  I came down with little fatigue, and am now not weaker.  In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy, which I consider as the original and radical disease.  The town is my element*; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements.  Sir Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to publick life, and I hope still to keep my station, till God shall bid me Go in peace.’