If you anticipate your
inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must
pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in penury, with the
empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an
evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I
cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it[468]. Live on what you have;
live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure;
the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret: stay therefore
at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither.
_The Beauties of Johnson_ are said to have got money to the collector;
if the _Deformities_ have the same success, I shall be still a more
extensive benefactor.
'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me;
and to the young people whom I never have offended.
'You never told me the success of your plea against the Solicitors[469].
'I am, dear Sir,
'Your most affectionate,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, March 28, 1782.'
Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body[470] and mind this year, the
following correspondence affords a proof not only of his benevolence and
conscientious readiness to relieve a good man from errour, but by his
cloathing one of the sentiments in his _Rambler_ in different language,
not inferiour to that of the original, shews his extraordinary command
of clear and forcible expression.
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