Autograph Letter Signed ('Willm. Murdin') from the historian William Murdin to Dr Samuel Johnson's friend the scrivener and author John Ellis, on the nature of friendship.

1p., 8vo. Bifolium. Twenty-seven lines of text. Good, on aged paper, with minor traces of previous mounting. Addressed, with black ink circular postmark ('20 | NO'), on reverse of second leaf, ''To Mr Ellis | att Mr Taverners in Thread-needle Street'. The letter begins: 'Nothing can yield Persons in our Stations greater Satisfaction, than to be entertain'd in our silent Retirement with some harmless amusements from a facetious & learned Correspondent. for without these while we were endeavouring with ye uttmost Diligence, to know ye World, as some People please to call it, we shouldn't att last know whether wee were in it or not; But like ye People that never go beyond ye Smoak of ye Town Chimneys, stare att every thing wee see, & imagine ye Rest of Mankinde to be a new Creation.' He explains that he has resolved to 'preserve a Correspondence with those I knew before', and to 'form a new one with those whose extensive Character only made 'em known to me'. He hopes to pay Ellis 'in Current Coin; which I hope you will comply with, & speedily lay your demands on' Murdin. Between 1740 and 1759 Murdin published his valuable 'Collection of State Papers relating to affairs in the reign of Elizabeth from 1571 to 1596: transcribed from original papers and other authentic memorials left by W. Cecill Lord Burghley, and reposited in the library at Hatfield House.' Johnson stated, in Boswell's Life, that the 'most literary conversation' he ever enjoyed was at the table of 'Jack Ellis, a money scrivener behind the Royal Exchange', at whose house he at one point dined twice a week.