HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 



" DEAR SIR, 



** It hath pleased Almighty God this morning to deprive me of 

 the powers of speech ; and as I do not know but that it might be 

 his further good pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request 

 you will on the receipt of this note, come to me, and aet for me, as 

 the exigencies of my case may require. 



" I am sincerely yours, 

 To Mr. Edmund Allen." " S. JOHNSON." 



Mr. Allen immediately attended him, and sent for his physicians, 

 Drs. Heberden and Brocklesby, by whose aid he recovered so far 

 as to be able to take the air and visit his friends as usual. In 

 August 1783, he took another journey to Lichfield and Oxford, 

 and on his return to London he received a visit from Mrs. Siddons. 

 He gives an account of this interview in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, 

 with whom he kept up a correspondence. " Mrs. Siddons, in her 

 visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left no- 

 thing behind her to be censured or despised. Neither praise nor 

 money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have de- 

 praved her. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very 

 well/' When Mrs. Siddons came into the room there happened to 

 be no chair ready for her, which the Doctor observing, said with a 

 smile, " Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other 

 people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself/' 



Towards the close of the year 1783, as he found his spirits much 

 cheered by society, it was proposed by some of his friends to esta- 

 blish a club in the neighbourhood, which would answer that purpose. 

 The Doctor was highly pleased at the proposal, and a club consist- 

 ing of twenty-four friends met at the Essex Head, Essex-street, 

 on the 10th of December, 1783, and continued to meet three even- 

 ings every week, except the week before Easter-day. 



In the spring of 1784 he was confined for some weeks to his house 

 by a dropsy, brought on by the frequent bleeding which he was 

 obliged to undergo for his alleviation from an asthma. In the sum- 

 mer of the same year he grew so much better, that supposing the 

 air of Italy might renovate his health, a tour through that country 

 was recommended by his friends. But this scheme was never much 

 encouraged by his physicians, though Sir Joshua Reynolds applied 

 to the Lord Chancellor to procure some addition to his pension to 

 enable him to defray the expence of the intended tour ; and his 

 Lordship, when his application proved unsuccessful, offered to ad- 

 vance <000. for that purpose, an4 Dr. Brocklesby offered an equal 



