DR. JOHNSON TO MR. ELPHINSTON,
DEAR SIR, You have as I find, by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother, and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother now eighty-two years of age, whom therefore I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mr.
• Translator of Martial, Bossuet, &c. and formerly master of an academy at Kensington.