When peace was made between the two countries the old friendship was renewed. Ib. iii. 147.
[1088] On this day he wrote a touching letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had lost his wife (Croker's Boswell, p. 66, note). Perhaps the thoughts thus raised in him led him to this act of reconciliation.
[1089] Dr. Johnson here addresses his worthy friend, Bennet Langton, Esq., by his title as Captain of the Lincolnshire militia, in which he has since been most deservedly raised to the rank of Major. BOSWELL.
[1090] President of the Royal Society.
[1091] The King visited Warley Camp on Oct. 20. Ann. Reg. xxi. 237.
[1092] He visited Coxheath Camp on Nov. 23. Ib. Horace Walpole, writing of April of this year when, in the alarm of a French invasion, the militia were called out, says:—'The King's behaviour was childish and absurd. He ordered the camp equipage, and said he would command the army himself.' Walpole continues:—'It is reported, that in a few days will be published in two volumes, folio, an accurate account of His Majesty's Journeys to Chatham and Portsmouth, together with a minute Description of his numerous Fatigues, Dangers, and hair-breadth Escapes; to which will be added the Royal Bon-mots. And the following week will be published an History of all the Campaigns of the King of Prussia, in one volume duodecimo.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 262, 264.
[1093] Boswell, eleven years later, wrote of him:—'My second son is an extraordinary boy; he is much of his father (vanity of vanities). He is of a delicate constitution, but not unhealthy, and his spirit never fails him. He is still in the house with me; indeed he is quite my companion, though only eleven in September.' Letters of Boswell, p. 315. Mr. Croker, who knew him, says that 'he was very convivial, and in other respects like his father—though altogether on a smaller scale.' He edited a new edition of Malone's Shakespeare. He died in 1822. Croker's Boswell, p. 620.
[1094] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 30, 1773.
[1095] Ib. Nov. 1.
[1096] Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church. Johnson wrote in 1783:—'At home I see almost all my companions dead or dying. At Oxford I have just left [lost] Wheeler, the man with whom I most delighted to converse.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 302. See post, Aug. 30, 1780.