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Soon after our arrival at Thrale's, I heard one of the maids calling eagerly on another, to go to Dr. Johnson. I wondered what this could mean. I afterwards learnt, that it was to give her a Bible, which he had brought from London as a present to her. He was for a considerable time occupied in reading Mémoires de Fontenelle, leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the court, without his hat.

Thrale's bill at the inn for dinner was eighteen shillings and tenpence. At night I went to Mr. Langley's, Mrs. Wood's, Captain Astle, &c. We left Ashbourn and went to Buxton, thence to Pool's Hole, which is narrow at first, but then rises into a high arch; but is so obstructed with crags, that it is difficult to walk in it.

Johnson wished to go to Italy two years later; and his present willingness to be left was probably caused by a growing sense of the dangers which threatened their friendship. Mrs. Thrale's anger appears in her journal.

To Miss Burney Johnson once said: 'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know. Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed: "There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity." Northcote's Reynolds, i. 82.

We have seen that, although Napoleon, the defeated, has a more gorgeous tomb than Wellington, who defeated him, yet there is consolation in the thought that although England has no monument to Shakespeare he now has the freedom of Elysium; while the present address of the British worthies who have battened and fattened on poor humanity's thirst for strong drink, since Samuel Johnson was executor of Thrale's estate, is unknown.

That Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family, which contributed so much to the happiness of his life, was owing to her desire for his conversation, is very probable and a general supposition: but it is not the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. Thrale, having spoken very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was requested to make them acquainted.

This being mentioned to Johnson, he accepted of an invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was so much pleased with his reception, both by Mr. and Mrs.

We stopped at Messieurs Dillys, booksellers in the Poultry; from whence he hurried away, in a hackney coach, to Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough. I called at his house in the evening, having promised to acquaint Mrs. Williams of his safe return; when, to my surprize, I found him sitting with her at tea, and, as I thought, not in a very good humour: for, it seems, when he had got to Mr.

Taylor on the subject, expressed in the broadest language, almost the only passage, as far as we remember, in all Boswell's book, which we should have been inclined to leave out, is suffered to remain. We complain, however, much more of the additions than of the omissions. We have half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. Tyers, scraps of Mr. Murphy, scraps of Mr.

Thrale's, and been told that he had come to England chiefly with a view to see Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained the highest veneration. He has since published A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault; that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.