'Diploma supra scriptum per Registrarium Iectum erat, et ex decreto venerabilis Domús communi Universitatis sigillo munitum_'[830].'
'DOM. DOCTORI HUDDESFORD, OXONIENSIS ACADEMIÆ VICE-CANCELLARIO.
'INGRATUS planè et tibi et mihi videar, nisi quanto me gaudio affecerint quos nuper mihi honores (te credo auctore) decrevit Senatus Academicus, Iiterarum, quo lamen nihil levius, officio, significem: ingratus etiam, nisi comitatem, quá vir eximius[831] mihi vestri testimonium amoris in manus tradidit, agnoscam et laudem. Si quid est undè rei lam gratæ accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis mihi placet, quod eo tempore in ordines Academicos denuo cooptatus sim, quo tuam imminuere auctoritatem, famamque Oxonii Iædere[832], omnibus modis conantur homines vafri, nec tamen aculi: quibus ego, prout viro umbratico licuit, semper restiti, semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has rerum procellas, vel Tibi vel Academiæ defuerit, illum virtuti et literis, sibique et posteris, defuturum existimo.
'S. JOHNSON.'
[Page 282: Johnson's letter of thanks. A.D. 1755.]
'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON.
'DEAR SIR,
'After I received my diploma, I wrote you a letter of thanks, with a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and sent another to Mr. Wise; but have heard from nobody since, and begin to think myself forgotten. It is true, I sent you a double letter[833], and you may fear an expensive correspondent; but I would have taken it kindly, if you had returned it treble: and what is a double letter to a petty king, that having fellowship and fines, can sleep without a Modus in his head[834]?
'Dear Mr. Warton, let me hear from you, and tell me something, I care not what, so I hear it but from you. Something I will tell you:—I hope to see my Dictionary bound and lettered, next week;—vastâ mole superbus. And I have a great mind to come to Oxford at Easter; but you will not invite me. Shall I come uninvited, or stay here where nobody perhaps would miss me if I went? A hard choice! But such is the world to, dear Sir,
'Your, &c.