’I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery.  If we could have again but his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much lament the rest.  I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.

’Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change.  Aug. 26, 1782.’

’Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be.  I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you observe.

’Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind.  I am now better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance.  Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.’  BOSWELL.

[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed by his military title.  BOSWELL.

[454] Eight days later he recorded:—­’I have in ten days written to Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters are desired.’ Pr. and Med. 209.  He had written also to Mrs. Thrale, but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt.

[455] See ante, p. 84.

[456] See ante, i. 247.

[457] See post, p. 158, note 4.

[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained in one of Shenstone’s stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he has given high praise:—­

     ’I prized every hour that went by,
     Beyond all that had pleased me before;
     But now they are gone [past] and I sigh,
     I grieve that I prized them no more.’

J. BOSWELL, JUN.

[459] She was his god-daughter.  See post, May 10, 1784.

[460] ’Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. Langton, “who,” he said, “might be very good children, if they were let alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech, or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts every other word."’ Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 73.  See ante, p. 20, note 2.

[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and beginnings of lines.  BOSWELL.

[462] See vol. ii. p. 459.  BOSWELL.  She was Hector’s widowed sister, and Johnson’s first love.  In the previous October, writing of a visit to Birmingham, he said:—­’Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me when I had tea enough.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 205.