To Bennet Langton, Esq., At Langton, Near Spilsby, Lincolnshire

Dear Sir
I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of my friend, should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full of the fate of Dury; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrors of a violent death, which is more formidable at the first glance, than on a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very painful; the only danger is lest it should be unprovided. But if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war, what can be the state that would have awakened him to the care of futurity? When would that man have prepared himself to die, who went to seek death without preparation? What then can be the reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him that dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his life with more pain, but with less virtue; he leaves no example to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The only reason why we lament a soldier’s death, is, that we think he might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to many other kinds of death which are no so passionately bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the effect of accident; every death, which is not gradually brought on by the miseries of age, or when life is extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt out. He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent death; yet his death is borne with patience only because the cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us endeavour to see things as they are, and then inquire whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid and durable; that which may be derived from error must be, like its original, fallacious and fugitive.
I am, dear, dear Sir,
your most humble servant,
Sam: Johnson
21 September 1758

(via) 

To The Countess of Bute
Louvere, Aug. 20, 1752

My Dear Child, - ‘Tis impossible to tell you to what degree I share with you in the misfortune that has happened. I do not doubt your own reason will suggest to you all the alleviations that can serve on so sad an occasion, and will not trouble you with the commonplace topics that are used, generally to no purpose, in letters of consolation. Disappointments ought to be less sensibly felt at my age than yours; yet I own I am so far affected by this, that I have need of all my philosophy to support it. However, let me beg of you not to indulge an useless grief, to the prejudice of your health, which is so necessary to your family. Every thing may turn out better than you expect. We see so darkly into futurity, we never know when we have real cause to rejoice or lament. The worse appearances have often happy consequences, as the best lead many times into the greatest misfortunes. Human prudence is very straitly bounded. What is most in our power, though little so, is the disposition of our own minds. Do not give way to melancholy; seek amusements; be willing to be diverted, and insensibly you will become so. Weak people only place a merit in affliction. A grateful remembrance, and whatever honour we can pay to their memory, is all that is owing to the dead. Tears and sorrow are no duties to them, and make us incapable of those we owe to the living.
        I give you thanks for your care of my books. I yet retain, and carefully cherish, my taste for reading. If relays of eyes were to be hired like posthorses, I would never admit any but silent companions: they afford a constant variety of entertainment, which is almost the only one pleasing in the enjoyment, and inoffensive in the consequence. I am sorry your sight will not permit you a great use of it: the prattle of your little ones, and friendship of Lord Bute, will supply the place of it. My dear child, endeavour to raise your spirits, and believe this advice comes from the tenderness of your most affectionate mother,
          M. Wortley

(via) 

To Fanny Burney
Whitehall, July 29, 1782

Madam,

    I should feel exceedingly to blame if I could refuse to myself the natural satisfaction, and to you the just but poor return, of my best thanks for the very great instruction and entertainment I have received from the new present you have bestowed on the public. There are few - I believe I may say fairly there are none at all - that will not find themselves better informed concerning human nature, and their stock of observation enriched, by reading your ‘Cecilia.’ They certainly will, let their experiences in life and manners be what it may. The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth. You have crowded into a few small volumes an incredible variety of characters; most of them well planned, well supported, and well contrasted with each other. If there be any fault in this respect, it is one in which you are in no great danger of being imitated. Justly as your characters are drawn, perhaps they are too numerous. But I beg pardon; I fear it is quite in vain to preach economy to those who are come young to excessive and sudden opulence.
     I might trespass on your delicacy if I should fill my letter to you with what I fill my conversation to others. I should be troublesome to you alone if I should tell you all I feel and think on the natural vein of humour, the tender pathetic, the comprehensive and noble moral, and the sagacious observation, that appear quite throughout that extraordinary performance.
    In an age distinguished by producing extraordinary women, I hardly dare to tell you where my opinion would place you amongst them. I respect your modesty, that will not endure the commendations which your merit forces from everybody. 
    I have the honour to be, with great gratitude, respect, and esteem, madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Edm Burke.

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Edmund Burke was a statesman and author. His ‘Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’ has been on my reading list for quite some time.

To Lady Pomfret March 1740
I cannot deny your ladyship’s letter gave me a great deal of pleasure; but you have seasoned it with a great deal of pain, in the conclusion (after the many agreeable things you have said to me) that you are not entirely satisfied with me: you will not throw our separation on ill fortune; and I will not renew the conversation of the fallen angels in Milton, who in contesting on predestination and free-will, we are told, ‘They of the vain dispute could know no end.’ Yet I know that neither my pleasures, my passions, nor my interests, have ever disposed of me, so much as little accidents, which whether from chance or destiny, have always determined my choice. Here is weather for example, which, to the shame of all almanacks, keeps on the depth of winter in the beginning of spring; and makes it as much impossible for me to pass the mountains of Bologna, as it would be to wait on you in another planet, if you had taken up your residence in Venus or Mercury. However, I am fully determined to give myself that happiness; but when is out of my power to decide.
                You may imagine, apart from the gratitude I owe you and the inclination I feel for you, that I am impatient to hear good sense pronounced in my native tongue, having only heard my language out of the mouths of boys and governors for these five months. Here are inundations of them broke in upon us this carnival, and my apartment must be their refuge, the greater part of them having kept an inviolable fidelity to the languages their nurses taught them. Their whole business abroad (as far as I can perceive) being to buy new cloaths, in which they shine in some obscure coffee-house, where they are sure of meeting only one another; and after the important conquest of some waiting gentlewoman of an opera Queen, who perhaps they remember as long as they live, return to England excellent judges of men and manners. I find the spirit of patriotism so strong in me every time I see them, that I look on them as the greatest blockheads in nature; and, to say truth, the compound of booby and petit maitre makes up a very odd sort of animal. I hope we shall live to talk all these things over, and ten thousand more, which I reserve till the hour of meeting; which that it may soon arrive is the zealous wish of Your ever faithful, &c. &c.
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Letter from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

To Miss Young

Hagley, August 29, 1743

After a disagreeable stage-coach journey, disagreeable in itself, and infinitely so as it carried me from you, I am come to the most agreeable place and company in the world. The park, where we pass a great part of our time, is thoroughly delightful, quite enchanting. It consists of several little hills, finely tufted with wood, and rising softly one above another; from which are seen a great variety of at once beautiful and grand extensive prospects: but I am most charmed with its sweet embowered retirements, and particularly with a winding dale that runs through the middle of it. This dale is overhung with deep woods, and enlivened by a stream, that, now gushing from moss rocks, now falling in cascades, and now spreading into a calm length of water, forms the most natural and pleasing scene imaginable. At the source of this water, composed of some pretty rills, that purl from beneath the roots of oaks, there is as fine a retired seat, as lover’s heart could wish. There I often sit, and with a dear exquisite mixture of pleasure and pain of all that love can boast of excellent and tender, think of you. But what do I talk of sitting and thinking of you there? wherever I am, and however employed, I never cease to think of my loveliest Miss Young. You are part of my being; you mix with all my thoughts, even the most studious, and instead of disturbing give them greater harmony and spirit. Ah tell me, do I not now and then steal a tender thought from you? I may claim that distinction from the merit of my love. Yes, I love you to that degree as must inspire into the coldest breast a mutual passion. So look to your heart, for you will scarce be able to defend it against my tenderness. Nor is the society here inferior to the scene. It is gentle, animated, pleasing. Nothing passes but what either tends to amuse the imagination, improve the head, or better the heart. This is the truly happy life, the union of retirement and choice society; it gives an idea of that which the patriarchal or golden age is supposed to have been; when every family was a little state of itself, goverened by the mild laws of reason, benevolence and love. Don’t however imagine me so madly rural as not to think those who have the powers of happiness in their own minds happy everywhere. The mind is its own place, the genuine source of its own happiness; and, amidst all my raptures with regard to the country, I would rather live in the most London corner of London with you, than in the most country retirement, and that too enlivened by the best society, without you. You so fill my mind with all ideas of beauty, so satisfy my soul with the purest and most sincere delight, I should feel the want of little else. Yet still the country life is you, diversified now and then by the contrast of the town, is the wish of my heart. May heaven grant me that favorite happiness, and I shall be the happiest of men, and so much the happier as the possession of you will excite me to deserve my happiness, by whatever is virtuous and praise-worthy.

Let me now, my dearest Miss Young, bespeak your goodness. I shall soon, I am afraid, have occasion for all your friendship; and I would fain flatter myself that you will generously in my absence speak of me more than you ever owned to me. If I am so happy as to have your heart, I know you have spirit to maintain your choice; and it shall be the most earnest study and purpose of my life not only to justify but to do you credit by it. Beleive me, I languish to see you, and to draw everything that is good and amiable from your lovely eyes. Without you there is a blank in my happiness, which nothing else can fill up. I will not be so extravagant as to hope to hear from you, but I will hope to hear of you or rather from you by the means of our friend. Think with friendship and tenderness of him, who is with friendship and tenderness inexpressible all yours,

James Thomson
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Letter from James Thomson to Miss Young. Mr. Thomson never married.

To Mrs. Dewes
Delville, 21 Dec. 1745

Many flying reports we have had of the entire defeat of the rebels, but there is no stress to be laid on ship news; besides the rumour of one day is contradicted by the next. I have answered all your letters; never was one more welcome than that which brought the account of my brother’s being with you at Gloucester. I had terrified myself extremely on his account; I could not think of him surrounded by those desperate rebels without fearing the worst that could happen; but your letter happily relieved me from my anxiety.
I don’t find that the troubles of the times have given any check to gay doings in this part of the world. The Castle is crowded twice a week; plays, assembly, and drums, are as much frequented as ever. I must own this may be a right policy to keep up the hopes of people, but I am surprised that their spirits should hold out; and I cannot but think, under the terrible apprehensions of losing our liberty and our property, it would be more becoming to abate our diversions, especially as we have reason to think that the great irreligion and luxury of the times have brought our present calamities on us; though (I hope in God) we have no apparent reason to fear that the rebels will succeed in their attempts. We already feel, and must still feel more the sad effects of only an attempt, for expenses have been very great, and it will be a considerable time before those wounds can be healed. The distemper amongst the cows about London is a sad distress; I hope it has no reached the country.
I wrote you word last Saturday that I was to have a rare rout. I had two tables for dinner, ten persons at each table; my hall is as large as my parlous, and boarded, so I thought it best to have one of the tables placed there, and I desired an aunt of Mrs. Green’s to do the honours for me, which made the affair very easy. Mrs. Green sat in my bedchamber to receive her company, and everybody was gay and well pleased except young Mrs. Agar, the daughter to my Lord Castledurrow (whose son, Mr. Flower, married Miss Tatton), and she poor woman was taken ill at dinner, and in danger of miscarrying: I urged her to stay as much as I could, as I really thought she ran a vast hazard in going home; but home she would go, and the day after she miscarried, but is in a fair way of doing well.
Last Monday the Dean and I went to the rehearsal of the Messiah, for the relief of poor debtors; it was very well performed, and I much delighted. You know how  much I delight in music, and that piece is very charming; but I had not courage to go to the performance at night, the weather was so excessively bad, and I thought it would be hazardous to come out of so great a crowd so far, that is my kind guardian thought so for me.
The great folks at the Castle continue to show great favour, but we pay them little attendance, no more than not to be remarked as backward. Everybody is to appear on the Prince of Wale’s birthday in Irish stuffs, as they did on the Princess’s; I have not yet bought mine. My new housekeeper promises very well, and I have got a pretty young cookmaid that dresses meat incomparably well, as far as we go, for we keep a plain table.
I have desired Mr. Stanley to pay Mr. Dewes twenty-four pounds, fourteen of it to be disposed of as usual, and ten pounds for Mrs. C. on H’s account, indeed I meant it for him, but my money was not paid time enough before his sailing. The Dean’s kind love and wishes attend the ‘pearly Dewes.’

- Mrs. Mary Delany 

To Mr. Robert Levet
Paris, October 22, 1775

Dear Sir, - We are still here, commonly very busy in looking about us. We have been to-day to Versailles. You have seen it, and I shall not describe it. We came yesterday from Fontainebleau, where the Court is now. We went to see the King and Queen at dinner, and the Queen was so impressed by Miss Thrale, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who she was. I find all true that you have ever told me at Paris. Mr. Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine table; but I think our cookery very bad. Mrs. Thrale got into a convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars. But upon the whole I cannot make much acquaintance here; and though the churches, palaces, and some private houses are very magnificent, there is no very great pleasure after having seen many in seeing more; at least the pleasure, whatever it be, must some time have an end, and we are beginning to think when we shall come home. Mr. Thrale calculates that as we left Streatham on the fifteenth of September we shall see it again about the fifteenth of November.
I think I had not been on this side of the sea five days before I found a sensible improvement in my health. I ran a race in the rain this day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow, and speaks French, I think, quite as well as English.
Make my compliments to Mrs. Williams*; and give my love to Francis; and tell my friends that I am not lost. - I am, dear sir, your affectionate humble, etc.,

Sam. Johnson.

*Widow of a Welsh clergyman, who in her old age had her home in Johnson’s house. She was blind 

To Mrs. Thomson
Hagley, In Worcestershire
October 4th, 1747

My Dear Sister,
I thought you had known me better than to interpret my silence into a decay of affection, especially as your behaviour has always been such as rather to increase than diminish it. Do not imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally very fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint against you, of which, by the by, I have not the least shadow, I am conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving.
It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to hear you have a good, kind husband, and are in easy, contented circumstances; but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them, than which nothing could have given me equal pleasure, the only return I can make them now is, by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor Lizzy had lived longer, to have been a farther witness of the truth of what I say; and that I might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a sister, who so truly deserved my esteem and love. But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here below: let us, however, do it cheerfully and gratefully, supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer shore, where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not, perhaps, be inconsistent with that blissful state.
You did right to call your daughter by her name; for you must needs have had a particular tender friendship for one another, endeared as you were by nature, by having passed the affectionate years of your youth together, and by that great softener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my powers to ease it a little, I account one of the my exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this melancholy though not unpleasing strain.
I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my letter to him. As I approve, entirely, of his marrying again, you my readily ask me why I do not marry at all. My circumstances have hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce me to keep from engaging in such a state; and now, though they are more settled, and of late, which you will be glad to hear, considerably improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to mention some other petty reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspicious, that was I to pay a visit to Scotland, of which I have some thoughts of doing soon, I might possibly be tempted to think of a thing not easily repaired if done amiss. I have always been of opinion that none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and yet, who more forsaken than they, while the gentlemen are continually running abroad all the world over? Some of them, it is true, are wise enough to return for a wife. You see I am beginning to make interest already with the Scotch ladies. But no more of this infectious subject. Pray let me hear from you now and then; and though I am not a regular correspondent, yet, perhaps I may mend in that respect. Remember me kindly to your husband, and believe me to be your most affectionate brother,
James Thomson 

Letter from Samuel Johnson
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To Mr. William Drummond
Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street
August 13, 1766

Sir, - I did not expect to hear that it could be, in an assembly convened for the propagation of Christian knowledge, a question whether any nation uninstructed in religion should receive instruction; or whether that instruction should be imparted to them by a translation of the holy books into their own language. If obedience to the will of God be necessary to happiness, and knowledge of his will be necessary to obedience, I know not how he that withholds this knowledge, or delays it, can be said to love his neighbor as himself. He that voluntarily continues ignorance is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces; as to him that should extinguish that tapers of a lighthouse might justly be imputed the calamities of ship-wreck. Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity; and as no man is good but as he wishes the good of others, no man can be good in the highest degree who wishes not to others the largest measures of the greatest good. To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with any purposes that terminate on this side of the grave, is a crime of which I know not that the world has yet had an example, except in the practice of the planters of America, a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble.
The Papists have, indeed, denied to the laity the use of the Bible; but this prohibition, in few places now very rigorously enforced, is defended by arguments which have for their foundation the care of souls. To obscure, upon motives merely political, the light of revelation, is a practice reserved for the reformed; and, surely, the blackest midnight of Popery is meridian sunshine to such a reformation. I am not very willing that any language should be totally extinguished. The similitude and derivation of languages afford the most indubitable proof of the traduction of nations and the genealogy of mankind. They add often physical certainty to historical evidence; and often supply the only evidence of ancient migrations, and of the revolution of ages which left no written monuments behind them.
Every man’s opinions, at least his desires, are a little influenced by his favourite studies. My zeal for languages may seem, perhaps, rather over-heated, even to those by whom I desire to be well esteemed. To those who have nothing in their thoughts but trade or policy, present power, or present money, I should not think it necessary to defend my opinions; but with men of letters, I would not unwillingly compound, by wishing the continuance of every language, however narrow in its extent, or however incommodious for common purposes, till it is reposited in some version of a known book, that it may be always hereafter examined and compared with other languages, and then permitting its disuse. For this purpose the translation of the Bible is most to be desired. It is not certain that the same method will not preserve the Highland language, for the purposes of learning, and abolish it from daily use. When the Highlanders read the Bible they will naturally wish to have its obscurities cleared, and to know the history, collateral or appendant. Knowledge always desires increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterward propagate itself. When they once desire to learn, they will naturally have recourse to the nearest language by which that desire can be gratified; and one will tell another that if he would attain knowledge he must learn English.
This speculation may, perhaps, be thought more subtle than the grossness of real life will easily admit. Let it, however, be remembered that the efficacy of ignorance has long been tried, and has not produced the consequence expected. Let knowledge, therefore, take its turn; and let the patrons of privation stand a while aside, and admit the operation of positive principles.
You will be pleased, sir, to assure the worthy man who is employed in the new translation, that he has my wishes for his success; and if here or at Oxford I can be of any use, that I shall think it more than honour to promote his undertaking.
I am sorry that I delayed so long to write. - I am, sir, your most humble servant,
Sam. Johnson.