'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'[London] March 20, 1755.'
[Page 283: A projected Review. Ætat 46.]
To THE SAME.
'DEAR SIR,
'Though not to write, when a man can write so well, is an offence sufficiently heinous, yet I shall pass it by, I am very glad that the Vice-Chancellor was pleased with my note. I shall impatiently expect you at London, that we may consider what to do next. I intend in the winter to open a Bibliothèque, and remember, that you are to subscribe a sheet a year; let us try, likewise, if we cannot persuade your brother to subscribe another. My book is now coming in luminis oras[835]. What will be its fate I know not, nor think much, because thinking is to no purpose. It must stand the censure of the great vulgar and the small[836]; of those that understand it, and that understand it not. But in all this, I suffer not alone: every writer has the same difficulties, and, perhaps, every writer talks of them more than he thinks.
[Page 284: Dr. Maty. A.D. 1755.]
'You will be pleased to make my compliments to all my friends: and be so kind, at every idle hour, as to remember, dear Sir,
'Your, &c.