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Updated: June 28, 2025
We are glad to know that this was a false impression, and, in fact, Miss Williams, however unfortunate in temper and circumstances, seems to have been a lady by manners and education. The next inmate of this queer household was Robert Levett, a man who had been a waiter at a coffee-house in Paris frequented by surgeons.
They were ungrateful and undeserving, and quarreled constantly among themselves, so that his home could have been no peaceful spot. "Williams hates everybody," he writes; "Levett hates Desmoulins and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them." It does not sound peaceful or happy.
Levett's, who could not come, and he sent to two more, and they could not; so that, at last, Levett as a great kindness did resolve he would leave his business and come himself, which set me in great ease in my mind, and so home, and there with my wife setting all things in order against to-morrow, having seen Mrs. Turner at home, and so late to bed. 14th.
Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might remove , I would endeavour to retain Levett about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor.
More than a year later Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale: 'Discord keeps her residence in this habitation, but she has for some time been silent. We have much malice, but no mischief. Levett is rather a friend to Williams, because he hates Desmoulins more. A thing that he should hate more than Desmoulins is not to be found. Piozzi Letters, ii. 80. Mrs.
Scott agreed with him. Scott, you yourself gave lectures at Oxford. He smiled. Dr. Scott left us, and soon afterwards we went to dinner. Our company consisted of Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, Mr. Allen, the printer, and Mrs. Hall, sister of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, and resembling him, as I thought, both in figure and manner.
He had received from Oxf. and Dublin the degree of LL.D. Though of rough and domineering manners, J. had the tenderest of hearts, and his house was for years the home of several persons, such as Mrs. Williams and Levett, the surgeon, who had no claim upon him but their helplessness and friendlessness. As Goldsmith aptly said, he "had nothing of the bear but his skin."
Levett, who I suppose holds his usual place at your breakfast table . 'I ever am, my dear Sir, 'Your affectionate humble servant, 'Edinburgh, Feb. 28, 1778. 'You are at present busy amongst the English poets, preparing, for the publick instruction and entertainment, Prefaces, biographical and critical.
Also, if by any mischance that box should be lost, duplicates of nearly all these papers are in the hands of my good friend and partner in our inland British trade, Simon Levett, whom you know. Remember my words, both of you." "Father," broke in Margaret in an anxious voice, "why do you speak of the future thus? I mean, as though you had no share in it? Do you fear aught?"
It was a very severe winter, which probably aggravated his complaints; and the solitude in which Mr. Levett and Mrs. Williams had left him, rendered his life very gloomy. Mrs. Desmoulins , who still lived, was herself so very ill, that she could contribute very little to his relief . He, however, had none of that unsocial shyness which we commonly see in people afflicted with sickness.
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