[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun fly swiftly, and leave weeks and months behind him. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost as impatient as a lover.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech is at the end of Dryden's Conquest of Granada:—
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'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace; Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.' |
See ante, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright,' and post, Aug. 2, 1784.
[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home. Walpole's Letters, viii. 494. See ante, iii. 250, 336, and post, Aug. 19, 1784.
[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:—'To any man who extends his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy. But to a sick man, what is the publick?' Piozzi Letters, ii. 344.
The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:—
'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,
'in Ashbourne,
'Derbyshire.
'DEAR SIR,