Of the time past since these resolutions were made I can give

no very laudable account. Between Easter and Whitsuntide, having always considered that time as propitious to study x , I attempted to learn the low Dutch Language 2 , my application was very slight, and my memory very fallacious, though whether more than in my earlier years, I am not very certain. My progress was interrupted by a fever, which, by the imprudent use of a small print, left an inflammation in my useful eye 3 , which was not removed but by two copious bleedings, and the daily use of catharticks for a long time. The effect yet remains.

My memory has been for a long time very much confused. Names, and Persons, and Events, slide away strangely from me. But I grow easier.

The other day looking over old papers, I perceived a resolution to rise early always occurring. I think I was ashamed, or grieved, to find how long and how often I had resolved, what yet except for about one half year I have never done 4 . My Nights are now such as give me no quiet rest, whether I have not lived resolving till the possibility of performance is past, I know not. God help me, I will yet try.

104.

Talisker 5 in Skie, Sept. 24, 1773.

On last Saturday was my sixty fourth birthday. I might perhaps have forgotten it had not Boswel told me of it, and, what pleased me less, told the family at Dunvegan 6 .

preceding Meditations on Good troublesome kindness, has informed

Friday and Easter Sunday are writ- this family and reminded me that

ten. Note by G. Strahan. the i8th of September is my birth-

1 For the influence that weather day. The return of my birth-day, and seasons have on study, see Life, if I remember it, fills me with i. 332. thoughts which it seems to be the

2 Quoted in Life, ii. 263. He general care of humanity to escape, seems to have twice taken up the I can now look back upon threescore study of Dutch. Ib. iv. 21, n. 3. and four years, in which little has

3 Letters, i. 57, n. 5, 220. been done, and little has been en-

4 Ante, p. 37. joyed ; a life diversified by misery,

5 Life, v. 250-6 ; Letters, i. 268 ; spent part in the sluggishness of Footsteps of Dr. Johnson in Scot- penury, and part under the violence land, pp. 206-11. of pain, in gloomy discontent or

6 On Sept. 21 Johnson wrote to Mrs. importunate distress. But perhaps Thrale : ' Boswell, with some of his I am better than I should have been

F 2, The

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