Beschreibung:

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). Autograph letter signed ('Sam: Johnson') to William Adams (Master of Pembroke College) Bolt Court, 30 March 1784, 4 pages, 4to , integral address panel (repaired tear to margin of second leaf causing loss of a few letters as square bracketed above, seal removed, paper repair to the seal area). Provenance : Sir Francis Adams Hyett (in his ownership in 1952); Sotheby's, London, 22 July 1980, lot 526, to Brown.
JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). Autograph letter signed ('Sam: Johnson') to William Adams (Master of Pembroke College) Bolt Court, 30 March 1784, 4 pages, 4to , integral address panel (repaired tear to margin of second leaf causing loss of a few letters as square bracketed above, seal removed, paper repair to the seal area). Provenance : Sir Francis Adams Hyett (in his ownership in 1952); Sotheby's, London, 22 July 1980, lot 526, to Brown. ON THE FORTHCOMING EDITION OF XENOPHON'S MEMORABILIA , DEPARTED OXFORD FRIENDS AND AND HIS OWN FAILING HEALTH. Because of the miscarriage of his previous letter, forwarding a letter from the Prior of the Benedictines [Fr William Cowley], Johnson passes on the information that 'the collation of the manuscripts in the King's library at Paris for the use of Dr Edwards is finished ... The letter came to me when I was very hard beset with an Asthma and a Dropsy.' He emphasises the importance of including the collations in the Xenophon and making the edition a suitable memorial for Edwards [who had died in 1783]: 'The Prior ought to have an answer. The book being printed, almost all the expense is incurred, and the addition of so many various readings will of itself make it valuable. Thus we shall complete the desire and preserve the memory of our friend ... The collators must, I suppose, be paid. My Guinea is ready.' He asks Adams to 'write to Dr. Owen to send me the necessary intelligence,' explaining that 'I cannot wait on him, having never been beyond the door from the 13th of December' [Henry Owen was seeing the work through the press]. Johnson glumly reports that 'Younger men die daily about me. I much regret the loss of Dr. Wheeler' [Benjamin Wheeler of Magdalen College]; his final paragraph refers to the kindness of Miss Adams in inviting him to Oxford and concludes: 'I hope to see you in the Summer for a few days. But a sick Man is a very perverse being, he gives much trouble, he receives many favours, yet is never pleased and not often thankful. I will try when I come to leave both the miseries and vices of disease behind me.' Johnson had written to Edward Edwards vice-principal of Jesus College, 2 November 1778, encouraging him to publish his commentaries on Xenophon; when he visited Oxford in 1782 Edwards's kindness in giving up his room had touched him deeply. He managed to revisit Oxford in the summer of 1784 but died before publication of the Xenophon in 1785. It is noted on pp. iii-iv of the edition that, of eleven manuscripts examined, three came from the King's Library in Paris, and Johnson's readiness to pay something to the collators may have been greater because he had stayed at the Benedictine monastery in Paris in 1775. Bruce Redford, ed. The Letters of Samuel Johnson (Princeton, N.J., 1992-94, 5 vols., IV, pp. 204-05).