To this occupation he owed the re-invigoration of courage that, ere long, was followed by a return to the native temperature of tranquillity, that had early and intuitively taught him not to sully what yet he possessed of happiness, by inconsolably bemoaning what was withdrawn! and he resolved, in aid at once of his spirits and of his work, to cultivate more assiduously than ever his connexions with Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mrs. Delany.
DR. JOHNSON.
When at the end, therefore, of the ensuing autumn, he re-entered Newton House, his first voluntary egress thence was to Bolt Court; where he had the heartfelt satisfaction of finding Dr. Johnson recovered from his paralytic stroke, and not more than usually afflicted by his other complaints; for free from complaint Dr. Burney had never had the happiness to know that long and illustrious sufferer; whose pains and infirmities, however, seemed rather to strengthen than to deaden his urbanity towards Dr. Burney and this Memorialist.
It had happened, through vexatious circumstances, after the return from Chesington, that Dr. Burney, in his visits to Bolt Court, had not been able to take thither his daughter; nor yet to spare her his carriage for a separate inquiry; and incessant bad weather had made walking impracticable. After a week or two of this omission, Dr. Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Burney, enclosed the following billet.
“To Miss Burney.
“Madam,
“You have now been at home this long time, and yet I have neither seen nor heard from you. Have we quarrelled?
“I have met with a volume of the Philosophical Transactions, which I imagine to belong to Dr. Burney. Miss Charlotte[71] will please to examine.
“Pray send me a direction where Mrs. Chapone lives; and pray, some time, let me have the honour of telling you how much I am, Madam, your most humble servant,