Beschreibung:

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). Autograph letter signed ('Sam: Johnson') to William Scott Lichfield, 10 October 1784 , giving an account of his health since he left London on 13 July for Lichfield and Ashbourne 'where for some time the asthma harrassed me with great pertinacity ... in the night between the 12th and 13th of August, after a day of great evacuation by abstinence and purges, by the help of an opiate taken about midnight, the asthma remitted, so that I went to Church with less labour than for some time before ... my limbs are very weak ... How I shall pass the winter I know not, but hope to pass part of it with you', 3 pages, 4to , integral address leaf, 'To Dr Scot in the Commons London', remains of seal (seal tear repaired, folds of address panel weak; with an engraved portrait. William Scott later Baron Stowell, was an intimate friend of Johnson from the time of the first meeting at Oxford (where Scott was a tutor and, from 1773, Camden reader in ancient history). Scott accompanied Johnson on his journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh in 1773, was elected a member of The Club in 1778, and with Hawkins and Reynolds acted as an executor of Johnson's will. Johnson bequeathed to Scott his Dictionnaire de Commerce and Lectius's edition of the Greek poets. Scott became a distinguished maritime and international lawyer, advocate-general and MP for Oxford University 1801-21. This letter is dated on Johnson's last visit to his native city. He died on 13 December 1784. (2)