Amidst the importance and multiplicity of affairs in which your great office engages you, I take the liberty of recalling your attention for a moment to literature, and will not prolong the interruption by an apology which your character makes needless.
Mr. Hoole, a gentleman long known, and long esteemed in the India-House, after having translated Tasso[235], has undertaken Ariosto. How well he is qualified for his undertaking he has already shewn. He is desirous, Sir, of your favour in promoting his proposals, and flatters me by supposing that my testimony may advance his interest.
It is a new thing for a clerk of the India-House to translate poets; —it is new for a Governour of Bengal to patronize learning. That he may find his ingenuity rewarded, and that learning may flourish under your protection, is the wish of, Sir, Your most humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.'
I wrote to him in February, complaining of having been troubled by a recurrence of the perplexing question of Liberty and Necessity;—and mentioning that I hoped soon to meet him again in London.
'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
DEAR SIR,
I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What have you to do with Liberty and Necessity[236]? Or what more than to hold your tongue about it? Do not doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see you here again, for I love every part about you but your affectation of distress.
I have at last finished my Lives, and have laid up for you a load of copy[237], all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to set it right. Come to me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over.
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I am, dear Sir, Yours affectionately, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' |