Details
JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). Autograph letter signed ('Sam: Johnson') to Lucy Porter ('Dear Madam'), London, 8 April 1780, 2½ pages, 4to (small tear in inner margin touching 2 words on 2nd page, a few light spots, lower portion of 2nd leaf torn away below signature and date). Provenance: Lucy Porter (d.1786); Revd. John Batteridge Pearson (1749-1808, formerly curate of Lichfield), her principal legatee; Philip Pennant Pearson (his grandson, and the godson and heir of David Pennant), who took the name Pennant in 1860 on inheriting the Pennant estates at Nantlys; by descent to the present owners.
'I am indeed but a sluggish correspondent, and know not when I shall much mend, however I will try. I am glad that your oisters (sic) proved good, for I would have every thing good that belongs to you; and would have your health good that you may enjoy the rest.' Johnson is also sending books to her brother, and has sent her 'a little stuff gown, such as is all the fashion at this time. Yours is the same with Mrs Thrale['s] and Miss [Queeney Thrale] bought it for us. These stuffs are very cheap and are thought very pretty'. Other topics include Mr Thrale's illness ('He has had a stroke like that of an apoplexy, but he is at last got so well as to be at Bath, out of the way of trouble and business'); his slow progress with the 'draft of the lives ... I purpose to use despatch but something or other always hinders. I have a great number to do, but many of them will be short'; and the improvement in his health from dieting - '[I] am I think the better for abstinence. I can breathe and move with less difficulty, and I am as well, as people of my age commonly are'.
Lucy Porter's reply to the present letter, dated 15 April 1780 and opening 'as you say you are but a very sluggish correspondent', is the only one of her letters to Johnson which is known to survive. It was found among Mrs Thrale-Piozzi's papers, and published for the Johnsonian Society in 1979, with an introduction by James L. Clifford who had previously owned it. Lucy reports that she has received the 'stuff gown' and 'been a visiting in my new gown and it was much admired by the Connoisseurs in dress'. Perhaps characteristically she then worries about having been cheated by the carrier.
Her younger brother, Joseph, to whom Johnson sent a quantity of sermons, was a merchant at Leghorn, and Lucy inherited a considerable sum from him on his death. 'Stuff' is defined in Johnson's Dictionary as 'textures of wool thinner than cloth'. The Lives awaiting completion included Rowe, Granville and Sheffield, and at least sixteen more. (2)
'I am indeed but a sluggish correspondent, and know not when I shall much mend, however I will try. I am glad that your oisters (sic) proved good, for I would have every thing good that belongs to you; and would have your health good that you may enjoy the rest.' Johnson is also sending books to her brother, and has sent her 'a little stuff gown, such as is all the fashion at this time. Yours is the same with Mrs Thrale['s] and Miss [Queeney Thrale] bought it for us. These stuffs are very cheap and are thought very pretty'. Other topics include Mr Thrale's illness ('He has had a stroke like that of an apoplexy, but he is at last got so well as to be at Bath, out of the way of trouble and business'); his slow progress with the 'draft of the lives ... I purpose to use despatch but something or other always hinders. I have a great number to do, but many of them will be short'; and the improvement in his health from dieting - '[I] am I think the better for abstinence. I can breathe and move with less difficulty, and I am as well, as people of my age commonly are'.
Lucy Porter's reply to the present letter, dated 15 April 1780 and opening 'as you say you are but a very sluggish correspondent', is the only one of her letters to Johnson which is known to survive. It was found among Mrs Thrale-Piozzi's papers, and published for the Johnsonian Society in 1979, with an introduction by James L. Clifford who had previously owned it. Lucy reports that she has received the 'stuff gown' and 'been a visiting in my new gown and it was much admired by the Connoisseurs in dress'. Perhaps characteristically she then worries about having been cheated by the carrier.
Her younger brother, Joseph, to whom Johnson sent a quantity of sermons, was a merchant at Leghorn, and Lucy inherited a considerable sum from him on his death. 'Stuff' is defined in Johnson's Dictionary as 'textures of wool thinner than cloth'. The Lives awaiting completion included Rowe, Granville and Sheffield, and at least sixteen more. (2)
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