��To THE REV. JAMES CoMPTON 1 . SIR,
Your business, I suppose, is in a way of as easy progress as such business ever has. It is seldom that event keeps pace with expectation.
The scheme of your book I cannot say that I fully comprehend. I would not have you ask less than an hundred guineas, for it seems a large octavo. Go to Mr. Davies in Russel Street 2 , shew him this letter, and shew him the book if he desires to see it. He will tell you what hopes you may form, and to what Book seller you should apply.
If you succeed in selling your book, you may do better than by dedicating it to me. You may perhaps obtain permission to dedicate it to the Bishop of London, or to Dr. Vyse 3 , and make way by your book to more advantage than I can procure you.
Please to tell Mrs. Williams that I grow better, and that I wish to know how she goes on. You, Sir, may write for her to,
Sir, Your most humble Servant,
SAM: JOHNSON.
Oct. 24, 1782. To the Reverend Mr. Compton. To be sent to Mrs. Williams.
��TO MISS REYNOLDS 4 . DEAR MADAM,
Instead of having me at your table, which cannot, I fear,
1 From the facsimile in Scribner's His book, it seems, was never pub-
Magazine, September, 1894, p. 344 ; lished. There is no mention of it
published also in Underbrush by in the Catalogue of the British
James T. Fields, Boston, $th ed., p. 1 7. Museum, or of him in the Dictionary
Mr. Fields found this letter in a of National Biography.
copy of Rasselas purchased at a 2 Ante, i. 427 ; ii. 61.
second-hand bookshop. 3 Rector of Lambeth. Letters, ii.
For an account of Compton, whom 14.
Johnson had known in Paris as a 4 From the original in the posses- Benedictine monk, see Letters, ii. sion of Messrs. J. Pearson Co., 271, 290. S P^ 1 Mal1 Pl ac e> London.
quickly
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