sure that it would have done you good. Your History is like other
histories, but your Journal is in a very high degree curious and
delightful. There is between the History and the Journal that difference
which there will always be found between notions borrowed from without,
and notions generated within. Your History was copied from books; your
Journal rose out of your own experience and observation. You express
images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have impressed
them with great force upon your readers. I know not whether I could name
any narrative by which curiosity is better excited, or better gratified.

'I am glad that you are going to be married; and as I wish you well in
things of less importance, wish you well with proportionate ardour in
this crisis of your life. What I can contribute to your happiness, I
should be very unwilling to with-hold; for I have always loved and
valued you, and shall love you and value you still more, as you become
more regular and useful: effects which a happy marriage will hardly fail
to produce.

'I do not find that I am likely to come back very soon from this place.
I shall, perhaps, stay a fortnight longer; and a fortnight is a long
time to a lover absent from his mistress. Would a fortnight ever have an
end?

'I am, dear Sir,
'Your most affectionate humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Brighthelmstone,
Sept. 9, 1769.'