Chapter III: Part 3

"'Why, Madam, she stole a quilt from the man of the house, and he had her taken up: but Bet Flint had a spirit not to be subdued; so when she found herself obliged to go to jail, she ordered a sedan chair, and bid her footboy walk before her. However, the boy proved refractory, for he was ashamed, though his mistress was not.'

"'And did she ever get out of jail again, Sir?'

"'Yes, Madam; when she came to her trial, the judge acquitted her. "So now," she said to me, "the quilt is my own, and now I'll make a petticoat of it."[1] Oh, I loved Bet Flint!'

"Bless me, Sir!' cried Mrs. Thrale, 'how can all these vagabonds contrive to get at _you_, of all people?'

"'Oh the dear creatures!' cried he, laughing heartily, 'I can't but be glad to see them!'"

[Footnote 1: This story is told by Boswell, roy. 8vo, edit. p. 688.]

Madame D'Arblay's notes (in her Diary) of the conversation and mode of life at Streatham are full and spirited, and exhibit Johnson in moods and situations in which he was seldom seen by Boswell. The adroitness with which he divided his attentions amongst the ladies, blending approval with instruction, and softening contradiction or reproof by gallantry, gives plausibility to his otherwise paradoxical claim to be considered a polite man.[1] He obviously knew how to set about it, and (theoretically at least) was no mean proficient in that art of pleasing which attracts

"Rather by deference than compliment,
And wins e'en by a delicate dissent."

[Footnote 1: "When the company were retired, we happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the provost of Eton, who died about that time; and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and goodness of heart--'He was the only man, too,' says Mr. Johnson, quite seriously, 'that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man,' continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, 'no man is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach of it: yet people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice.'"--_Anecdotes_. "I think myself a very polite man,"--_Boswell_. 1778.]

Sir Henry Bulwer (in his "France") says that Louis the Fourteenth was entitled to be called a man of genius, if only from the delicate beauty of his compliments. Mrs. Thrale awards the palm of excellence in the same path to Johnson. "Your compliments, Sir, are made seldom, but when they are made, they have an elegance unequalled; but then, when you are angry, who dares make speeches so bitter and so cruel?" "I am sure," she adds, after a semblance of defence on his part, "I have had my share of scolding from you." _Johnson_. "It is true, you have, but you have borne it like an angel, and you have been the better for it." As the discussion proceeds, he accuses her of often provoking him to say severe things by unreasonable commendation; a common mode of acquiring a character for amiability at the expense of one's intimates, who are made to appear uncharitable by being thus constantly placed on the depreciating side.

Some years prior to this period (1778) Mrs. Thrale's mind and character had undergone a succession of the most trying ordeals, and was tempered and improved, without being hardened, by them. In allusion to what she suffered in child-bearing, she said later in life that she had nine times undergone the sentence of a convict,--confinement with hard labour. Child after child died at the age when the bereavement is most affecting to a mother. Her husband's health kept her in a constant state of apprehension for his life, and his affairs became embarrassed to the very verge of bankruptcy. So long as they remained prosperous, he insisted on her not meddling with them in any way, and even required her to keep to her drawing-room and leave the conduct of their domestic establishment to the butler and housekeeper. But when (from circumstances detailed in the "Autobiography") his fortune was seriously endangered, he wisely and gladly availed himself of her prudence and energy, and was saved by so doing. I have now before me a collection of autograph letters from her to Mr. Perkins, then manager and afterwards one of the proprietors of the brewery, from which it appears that she paid the most minute attention to the business, besides undertaking the superintendence of her own hereditary estate in Wales. On September 28, 1773, she writes to Mr. Perkins, who was on a commercial journey:--

"Mr. Thrale is still upon his little tour; I opened a letter from you at the counting-house this morning, and am sorry to find you have so much trouble with Grant and his affairs. How glad I shall be to hear that matter is settled at all to your satisfaction. His letter and remittance came while I was there to-day.... Careless, of the 'Blue Posts,' has turned refractory, and applied to Hoare's people, who have sent him in their beer. I called on him to-day, however, and by dint of an unwearied solicitation, (for I kept him at the coach side a full half-hour) I got his order for six butts more as the final trial."

Examples of fine ladies pressing tradesmen for their votes with compromising importunity are far from rare, but it would be difficult to find a parallel for Johnson's Hetty doing duty as a commercial traveller. She was simultaneously obliged to anticipate the electioneering exploits of the Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe; and in after life, having occasion to pass through Southwark, she expresses her astonishment at no longer recognising a place, every hole and corner of which she had three times visited as a canvasser.

After the death of Mr. Thrale, a friend of Mr. H. Thornton canvassed the borough on behalf of that gentleman. He waited on Mrs. Thrale, who promised her support. She concluded her obliging expressions by saying:--"I wish your friend success, and I think he will have it: he may probably come in for two parliaments, but if he tries for a third, were he an angel from heaven, the people of Southwark would cry, 'Not _this_ man, but Barabbas.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Miss Laetitia Matilda Hawkins vouches for this story.--"Memoir, &c." vol. i. p.66, note, where she adds:--"I have heard it said, that into whatever company she (Mrs. T.) fell, she could be the most agreeable person in it."]

On one of her canvassing expeditions, Johnson accompanied her, and a rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing the moralist's hat in a state of decay, seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the back with the other, cried out, "Ah, Master Johnson, this is no time to be thinking about hats." "No, no, Sir," replied the Doctor, "hats are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and huzzah with;" accompanying his words with the true election halloo.

Thrale had serious thoughts of repaying Johnson's electioneering aid in kind, by bringing him into Parliament. Sir John Hawkins says that Thrale had two meetings with the minister (Lord North), who at first seemed inclined to find Johnson a seat, but eventually discountenanced the project. Lord Stowell told Mr. Croker that Lord North did not feel quite sure that Johnson's support might not sometimes prove rather an incumbrance than a help. "His lordship perhaps thought, and not unreasonably, that, like the elephant in the battle, he was quite as likely to trample down his friends as his foes." Flood doubted whether Johnson, being long used to sententious brevity and the short flights of conversation, would have succeeded in the expanded kind of argument required in public speaking. Burke's opinion was, that if he had come early into Parliament, he would have been the greatest speaker ever known in it. Upon being told this by Reynolds, he exclaimed, "I should like to try my hand now." On Boswell's adding that he wished he _had_, Mrs. Thrale writes: "Boswell had leisure for curiosity: Ministers had not. Boswell would have been equally amused by his failure as by his success; but to Lord North there would have been no joke at all in the experiment ending untowardly."

He was equally ready with advice and encouragement during the difficulties connected with the brewery. He was not of opinion with Aristotle and Parson Adams, that trade is below a philosopher[1]; and he eagerly buried himself in computing the cost of the malt and the possible profits on the ale. In October 1772, he writes from Lichfield:

[Footnote 1: "Trade, answered Adams, is below a philosopher, as Aristotle proves in his first chapter of 'Politics,' and unnatural, as it is managed now."--_Joseph Andrews_.]

"Do not suffer little things to disturb you. The brew-house must be the scene of action, and the subject of speculation. The first consequence of our late trouble ought to be, an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate; an endeavour not violent and transient, but steady and continual, prosecuted with total contempt of censure or wonder, and animated by resolution not to stop while more can be done. Unless this can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want help. Surely there is something to be saved; there is to be saved whatever is the difference between vigilance and neglect, between parsimony and profusion. The price of malt has risen again. It is now two pounds eight shillings the quarter. Ale is sold in the public-houses at sixpence a quart, a price which I never heard of before."

In November of the same year, from Ashbourne:

"DEAR MADAM,--So many days and never a letter!--_Fugere fides, pietasque pudorque_. This is Turkish usage. And I have been hoping and hoping. But you are so glad to have me out of your mind.[1]

"I think you were quite right in your advice about the thousand pounds, for the payment could not have been delayed long; and a short delay would have lessened credit, without advancing interest. But in great matters you are hardly ever mistaken."

[Footnote 1: This tone of playful reproach, when adopted by Johnson at a later period, has been cited as a proof of actual ill-treatment.]

In May 17, 1773:

"Why should Mr. T---- suppose, that what I took the liberty of suggesting was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the hint take some hold of his mind."

In the copy of the printed letters presented by Mrs. Thrale to Sir James Fellowes, the blank is filled up with the name of Thrale, and the passage is thus annotated in her handwriting:

"Concerning his (Thrale's) connection with quack chemists, quacks of all sorts; jumping up in the night to go to Marlbro' Street from Southwark, after some advertising mountebank, at hazard of his life," In "Thraliana":

"18_th July_, 1778.--Mr. Thrale overbrewed himself last winter and made an artificial scarcity of money in the family which has extremely lowered his spirits. Mr. Johnson endeavoured last night, and so did I, to make him promise that he would never more brew a larger quantity of beer in one winter than 80,000 barrels[1], but my Master, mad with the noble ambition of emulating Whitbread and Calvert, two fellows that he despises,--could scarcely be prevailed on to promise even _this_, that he will not brew more than four score thousand barrels a year for five years to come. He did promise that much, however; and so Johnson bade me write it down in the 'Thraliana';--and so the wings of Speculation are clipped a little--very fain would I have pinioned her, but I had not strength to perform the operation."

[Footnote 1: "If he got but 2_s._ 6_d._ by each barrel, 80,000 half crowns are L10,000; and what more would mortal man desire than an income of ten thousand a year--five to spend, and five to lay up?"]

That Johnson's advice was neither thrown away nor undervalued, may be inferred from an incident related by Boswell. Mr. Perkins had hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the mezzotinto of Dr. Johnson by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him, somewhat flippantly, "Why do you put him up in the counting-house?" Mr. Perkins answered, "Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there." "Sir," said Johnson, "I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak sincerely."

He was in the habit of paying the most minute attention to every branch of domestic economy, and his suggestions are invariably marked by shrewdness and good sense. Thus when Mrs. Thrale was giving evening parties, he told her that though few people might be hungry after a late dinner, she should always have a good supply of cakes and sweetmeats on a side table, and that some cold meat and a bottle of wine would often be found acceptable. Notwithstanding the imperfection of his eyesight, and his own slovenliness, he was a critical observer of dress and demeanour, and found fault without ceremony or compunction when any of his canons of taste or propriety were infringed. Several amusing examples are enumerated by Mrs. Thrale:

"I commended a young lady for her beauty and pretty behaviour one day, however, to whom I thought no objections could have been made. 'I saw her,' said Dr. Johnson, 'take a pair of scissors in her left hand though; and for all her father is now become a nobleman, and as you say excessively rich, I should, were I a youth of quality ten years hence, hesitate between a girl so neglected, and a _negro_.'

"It was indeed astonishing how he _could_ remark such minuteness with a sight so miserably imperfect; but no accidental position of a riband escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of propriety. When I went with him to Litchfield, and came downstairs to breakfast at the inn, my dress did not please him, and he made me alter it entirely before he would stir a step with us about the town, saying most satirical things concerning the appearance I made in a riding-habit; and adding, ''Tis very strange that such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of dress: if I had a sight only half as good, I think I should see to the centre.'

"Another lady, whose accomplishments he never denied, came to our house one day covered with diamonds, feathers, &c., and he did not seem inclined to chat with her as usual. I asked him why? when the company was gone. 'Why, her head looked so like that of a woman who shows puppets,' said he, 'and her voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not bear her to-day; when she wears a large cap, I can talk to her.'

"When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms: 'A Brussels trimming is like bread-sauce,' said he, 'it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it; but sauce was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and trimming is an ornament to the manteau, or it is nothing. Learn,' said he, 'that there is propriety or impropriety in every thing how slight soever, and get at the general principles of dress and of behaviour; if you then transgress them, you will at least know that they are not observed.'"

Madame D'Arblay confirms this account. He had just been finding fault with a bandeau worn by Lady Lade, a very large woman, standing six feet high without her shoes:

"_Dr. J._--The truth is, women, take them in general, have no idea of grace. Fashion is all they think of. I don't mean Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, when I talk of women!--they are goddesses!--and therefore I except them.

"_Mrs. Thrale._--Lady Lade never wore the bandeau, and said she never would, because it is unbecoming.

"_Dr. J. (laughing.)_--Did not she? then is Lady Lade a charming woman, and I have yet hopes of entering into engagements with her!

"_Mrs. T._--Well, as to that I can't say; but to be sure, the only similitude I have yet discovered in you, is in size: there you agree mighty well.

"_Dr. J._--Why, if anybody could have worn the bandeau, it must have been Lady Lade; for there is enough of her to carry it off; but you are too little for anything ridiculous; that which seems nothing upon a Patagonian, will become very conspicuous upon a Lilliputian, and of you there is so little in all, that one single absurdity would swallow up half of you."

Matrimony was one of his favourite subjects, and he was fond of laying down and refining on the duties of the married state, with the amount of happiness and comfort to be found in it. But once when he was musing over the fire in the drawing-room at Streatham, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," replied the Doctor in a very angry tone, "who is not likely to propagate understanding;" and so left the room. "Our companion," adds Mrs. Thrale, in the "Anecdotes," "looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and, drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its consequences."

The young gentleman was Mr. Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade; who was proposed, half in earnest, whilst still a minor, by the Doctor as a fitting mate for the author of "Evelina." He married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.

In "Thraliana" she says:--"Lady Lade consulted him about her son, Sir John. 'Endeavour, Madam,' said he, 'to procure him knowledge; for really ignorance to a rich man is like fat to a sick sheep, it only serves to call the rooks about him.' On the same occasion it was that he observed how a mind unfurnished with subjects and materials for thinking can keep up no dignity at all in solitude. 'It is,' says he, 'in the state of a mill without grist.'"

The attractions of Streatham must have been very strong, to induce Johnson to pass so much of his time away from "the busy hum of men" in Fleet Street, and "the full tide of human existence" at Charing Cross. He often found fault with Mrs. Thrale for living so much in the country, "feeding the chickens till she starved her understanding." Walking in a wood when it rained, she tells us, "was the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; for he would say, after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment." This is almost as bad as the foreigner, who complained that there was no ripe fruit in England but the roasted apples. Amongst other modes of passing time in the country, Johnson once or twice tried hunting and, mounted on an old horse of Mr. Thrale's, acquitted himself to the surprise of the "field," one of whom delighted him by exclaiming, "Why Johnson rides as well, for ought I see, as the most illiterate fellow in England." But a trial or two satisfied him--

"He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
Who after a long chase o'er hills, dales, fields,
And what not, though he rode beyond all price,
Ask'd next day,'If men ever hunted twice?'"

It is very strange, and very melancholy, was his reflection, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them. The mode of locomotion in which he delighted was the vehicular. As he was driving rapidly in a postchaise with Boswell, he exclaimed, "Life has not many things better than this." On their way from Dr. Taylor's to Derby in 1777, he said, "If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a postchaise with a pretty woman, but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation."

Mr. Croker attributes his enjoyment to the novelty of the pleasure; his poverty having in early life prevented him from travelling post. But a better reason is given by Mrs. Thrale:

"I asked him why he doated on a coach so? and received for answer, that in the first place, the company were shut in with him _there_; and could not escape, as out of a room; in the next place, he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf; and very impatient was he at my occasional difficulty of hearing. On this account he wished to travel all over the world: for the very act of going forward was delightful to him, and he gave himself no concern about accidents, which he said never happened; nor did the running-away of the horses at the edge of a precipice between Vernon and St. Denys in France convince him to the contrary: 'for nothing came of it,' he said, 'except that Mr. Thrale leaped out of the carriage into a chalk-pit, and then came up again, looking as _white_!' When the truth was, all their lives were saved by the greatest providence ever exerted in favour of three human creatures: and the part Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the likeliest thing in the world to produce broken limbs and death."

The drawbacks on his gratification and on that of his fellow travellers were his physical defects, and his utter insensibility to the beauty of nature, as well as to the fine arts, in so far as they were addressed to the senses of sight and hearing. "He delighted," says Mrs. Thrale, "no more in music than painting; he was almost as deaf as he was blind; travelling with Dr. Johnson was, for these reasons, tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: 'Never heed such nonsense,' would be the reply: 'a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another: let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."

It is no small deduction from our admiration of Johnson, and no trifling enhancement of his friends' kindness in tolerating his eccentricities, that he seldom made allowance for his own palpable and undeniable deficiencies. As well might a blind man deny the existence of colours, as a purblind man assert that there was no charm in a prospect, or in a Claude or Titian, because he could see none. Once, by way of pleasing Reynolds, he pretended to lament that the great painter's genius was not exerted on stuff more durable than canvas, and suggested copper. Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring plates large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish obstacles are these!" exclaimed Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a thousand ton of copper: you may paint it all round if you will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, Sir?" (to Thrale, who sate by.)

He always "civilised" to Dr. Burney, who has supplied the following anecdote:

"After having talked slightingly of music, he was observed to listen very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord; and with eagerness he called to her, 'Why don't you dash away like Burney?' Dr. Burney upon this said to him, 'I believe, Sir, we shall make a musician of you at last.' Johnson with candid complacency replied, 'Sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.'"

In 1774, the Thrales made a tour in Wales, mainly for the purpose of revisiting her birthplace and estates. They were accompanied by Johnson, who kept a diary of the expedition, beginning July 5th and ending September 24th. It was preserved by his negro servant, and Boswell had no suspicion of its existence, for he says, "I do not find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there." The diary was first published by Mr. Duppa in 1816; and some manuscript notes by Mrs. Thrale which reached that gentleman too late for insertion, have been added in Mr. Murray's recent edition of the Life. The first entry is:

"_Tuesday, July 5_.--We left Streatham 11 A.M. Price of four horses two shillings a mile. Barnet 1.40 P.M. On the road I read 'Tully's Epistles.' At night at Dunstable." At Chester, he records:--"We walked round the walls, which are complete, and contain one mile, three quarters, and one hundred and one yards." Mrs. Thrale's comment is, "Of those ill-fated walls Dr. Johnson might have learned the extent from any one. He has since put me fairly out of countenance by saying, 'I have known _my mistress_ fifteen years, and never saw her fairly out of humour but on Chester wall.' It was because he would keep Miss Thrale beyond her hour of going to bed to walk on the wall, where from the want of light, I apprehended some accident to her, perhaps to him."

He thus describes Mrs. Thrale's family mansion:

"_Saturday, July 30._--We went to Bach y Graig, where we found an old house, built 1567, in an uncommon and incommodious form--My mistress chatted about tiring, but I prevailed on her to go to the top--The floors have been stolen: the windows are stopped--The house was less than I seemed to expect--The River Clwyd is a brook with a bridge of one arch, about one third of a mile--The woods have many trees, generally young; but some which seem to decay--They have been lopped--The house never had a garden--The addition of another story would make an useful house, but it cannot be great."

On the 4th August, they visited Rhuddlan Castle and Bodryddan[1], of which he says:--

[Footnote 1: Now the property of Mr. Shipley Conway, the great-grandson of Johnson's acquaintance, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and representative, through females, of Sir John Conway or Conwy, to whom Rhuddlan Castle, with its domain, was granted by Edward the First.]

"Stapylton's house is pretty: there are pleasing shades about it, with a constant spring that supplies a cold bath. We then went out to see a cascade. I trudged unwillingly, and was not sorry to find it dry. The water was, however, turned on, and produced a very striking cataract."[1]

[Footnote 1: Bowles, the poet, on the unexpected arrival of a party to see his grounds, was overheard giving a hurried order to set the fountain playing and carry the hermit his beard.]

Mrs. Piozzi remarks on this passage: "He teased Mrs. Cotton about her dry cascade till she was ready to cry."

Mrs. Cotton, _nee_ Stapylton, married the eldest son of Sir Lynch Cotton, and was the mother of Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere. She said that Johnson, despite of his rudeness, was at times delightful, having a manner peculiar to himself in relating anecdotes that could not fail to attract both old and young. Her impression was that Mrs. Thrale was very vexatious in wishing to engross all his attention, which annoyed him much. This, I fancy, is no uncommon impression, when we ourselves are anxious to attract notice.

The range of hills bordering the valley or delta of the Clwyd, is very fine. On their being pointed out to him by his host, he exclaimed: "Hills, do you call them?--mere mole-hills to the Alps or to those in Scotland." On being told that Sir Richard Clough had formed a plan for making the river navigable to Rhyddlan, he broke out into a loud fit of laughter, and shouted--"why, Sir, I could clear any part of it by a leap." He probably had seen neither the hills nor the river, which might easily be made navigable.

On two occasions, Johnson incidentally imputes a want of liberality to Mrs. Thrale, which the general tenor of her conduct belies:

"_August 2._--We went to Dymerchion Church, where the old clerk acknowledged his mistress. It is the parish church of Bach y Graig; a mean fabric; Mr. Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale's father) was buried in it.... The old clerk had great appearance of joy, and foolishly said that he was now willing to die. He had only a crown given him by my mistress."

"_August 4._--Mrs. Thrale lost her purse. She expressed so much uneasiness that I concluded the sum to be very great; but when I heard of only seven guineas, I was glad to find she had so much sensibility of money."

Johnson might have remarked, that the annoyance we experience from a loss is seldom entirely regulated by the pecuniary value of the thing lost.

On the way to Holywell he sets down: "Talk with mistress about flattery;" on which she notes: "He said I flattered the people to whose houses we went: I was saucy and said I was obliged to be civil for two, meaning himself and me.[1] He replied nobody would thank me for compliments they did not understand. At Gwanynog (Mr. Middleton's), however, _he_ was flattered, and was happy of course."

[Footnote 1: Madame D'Arblay reports Mrs. Thrale saying to Johnson at Streatham, in September, 1778: "I remember, Sir, when we were travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to the people; 'Madam,' you said, 'let me have no more of this idle commendation of nothing. Why is it, that whatever you see, and whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?' 'Why I'll tell you, Sir,' said I, 'when I am with you, and Mr. Thrale, and Queeny, I am obliged to be civil for four!'"]

The other entries referring to the Thrales are:

"_August_ 22.--We went to visit Bodville, the place where Mrs. Thrale was born, and the churches called Tydweilliog and Llangwinodyl, which she holds by impropriation."

"_August_ 24.--We went to see Bodville. Mrs. Thrale remembered the rooms, and wandered over them, with recollections of her childhood. This species of pleasure is always melancholy.... Mr. Thrale purposes to beautify the churches, and, if he prospers, will probably restore the tithes. Mrs. Thrale visited a house where she had been used to drink milk, which was left, with an estate of 200_l._ a year, by one Lloyd, to a married woman who lived with him."

"_August_ 26.--_Note_. Queeny's goats, 149, I think."

Without Mr. Duppa's aid this last entry would be a puzzle for commentators. His note is:

"Mr. Thrale was near-sighted, and could not see the goats browsing on Snowdon, and he promised his daughter, who was a child of ten years old, a penny for every goat she would show him, and Dr. Johnson kept the account; so that it appears her father was in debt to her one hundred and forty-nine pence. _Queeny_ was an epithet, which had its origin in the nursery, by which (in allusion to _Queen_ Esther) Miss Thrale (whose name was Esther) was always distinguished by Johnson." She was named, after her mother, Hester, not Esther.

On September 13, Johnson sets down: "We came, to Lord Sandys', at Ombersley, where we were treated with great civility." It was here, as he told Mrs. Thrale, that for the only time in his life he had as much wall fruit as he liked; yet she says that he was in the habit of eating six or seven peaches before breakfast during the fruit season at Streatham. Swift was also fond of fruit: "observing (says Scott) that a gentleman in whose garden he walked with some friends, seemed to have no intention to request them to eat any, the Dean remarked that it was a saying of his dear grandmother:

"'Always pull a peach
When it is within your reach;'

and helping himself accordingly, his example was followed by the whole company." Thomson, the author of the "Castle of Indolence," was once seen lounging round Lord Burlington's garden, with his hands in his waistcoat pockets, biting off the sunny sides of the peaches.

Johnson's dislike to the Lyttletons was not abated by his visit to Hagley, of which he says, "We made haste away from a place where all were offended." Mrs. Thrale's explanation is: "Mrs. Lyttelton, _ci-devant_ Caroline Bristow, forced me to play at whist against my liking, and her husband took away Johnson's candle that he wanted to read by at the other end of the room. Those, I trust, were the offences."

He was not in much better humour at Combermere Abbey, the seat of her relative, Sir Lynch Cotton, which is beautifully situated on one of the finest lakes in England. He commends the place grudgingly, passes a harsh judgment on Lady Cotton, and is traditionally recorded to have made answer to the baronet who inquired what he thought of a neighbouring peer (Lord Kilmorey): "A dull, commonplace sort of man, just like you and your brother."

In a letter to Levet, dated Lleweny, in Denbighshire, August 16, 1774, printed by Boswell, is this sentence: "Wales, so far as I have yet seen of it, is a very beautiful and rich country, all enclosed and planted." Her marginal note is: "Yet to please Mr. Thrale, he feigned abhorrence of it."

I am indebted to an intelligent and accurate in-formant for a curious incident of the Welsh tour:

"Dr. Johnson was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to dine at Maesnynan, with my relation, Mr. Lloyd, who, with his pretty young daughter (motherless), received them at the door. All came out of the carriage except the great lexicographer, who was crouching in what my uncle jokingly called the Poets' Corner, deeply interested evidently with the book he was reading. A wink from Mrs. Thrale, and a touch of her hand, silenced the host. She bade the coachman not move, and desired the people in the house to let Mr. Johnson read on till dinner was on the table, when she would go and whistle him to it. She always had a whistle hung at her girdle, and this she used, when in Wales, to summon him and her daughters[1], when in or out of doors. Mr. Lloyd and all the visitors went to see the effect of the whistle, and found him reading intently with one foot on the step of the carriage, where he had been (a looker-on said) five minutes."

[Footnote 1:

"He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back."]

"This scene is well told by Miss Burney, in her 'Camilla'[1] _ex relatione_ Mrs. Williams (Lady Cotton's sister, who was present) and Beata Lloyd, whose brother, Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of the Guards, was the Brummell of his day, celebrated for his manly beauty and accomplishments. I heard Lord Crewe say that Colonel Lloyd's horse, and his graceful manner of mounting him, used to attract members of both Houses (he among them) to _turn out_ to see him mount guard; and the Princesses were forbidden, when driving out, to go so often that way and at that time."

[Footnote 1: Book viii. chap, iv., Dr. Orkborne is described standing on the staircase of an inn absorbed in the composition of a paragraph whilst the party are at dinner.]

Their impressions of one another as travelling companions were sufficiently favourable to induce the party (with the addition of Baretti) to make a short tour in France in the autumn of the year following, 1775, during part of which Johnson kept a diary in the same laconic and elliptical style. The only allusion to either of his friends is:

"We went to Sansterre, a brewer. He brews with about as much malt as Mr. Thrale, and sells his beer at the same price, though he pays no duty for malt, and little more than half as much for beer. Beer is sold retail at sixpence a bottle."

In a letter to Levet, dated Paris, Oct. 22, 1775, he says:

"We went to see the king and queen at dinner, and the queen was so impressed by Miss, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who she was. I find all true that you have ever told me at Paris. Mr. Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine table; but I think our cookery very bad. Mrs. Thrale got into a convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars."

A striking instance of Johnson's occasional impracticability occurred during this journey:

"When we were at Rouen together," says Mrs. Thrale, "he took a great fancy to the Abbe Kofiette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation: the talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbe rose from his seat and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the abbe to England, intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the company of the Abbe Roffette."

In a letter dated May 9, 1780, also, Mrs. Thrale alludes to more than one disagreement in France:

"When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne, when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity perhaps, and so now you begin again: after having taken five years' breath, you might have done more than this. Say another word, and I will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys and how cross you were for nothing--but some how or other, our travels never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence."

Joseph Baretti, who now formed one of the family, is so mixed up with their history that some account of him becomes indispensable. He was a Piedmontese, whose position in his native country was not of a kind to tempt him to remain in it, when Lord Charlemont, to whom he had been useful in Italy, proposed his coming to England. His own story was that he had lost at play the little property he had inherited from his father, an architect. The education given him by his parents was limited to Latin; he taught himself English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. His talents, acquirements, and strength of mind must have been considerable, for they soon earned him the esteem and friendship of the most eminent members of the Johnsonian circle, in despite of his arrogance. He came to England in 1753; is kindly mentioned in one of Johnson's letters in 1754; and when he was in Italy in 1761, his illustrious friend's letters to him are marked by a tone of affectionate interest. Ceremony and tenderness are oddly blended in the conclusion of one of them:

"May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or some other place nearer to, Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, SAMUEL JOHNSON."

Johnson remarked of Baretti in 1768: "I know no man who carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in his mind. He has not indeed many hooks, but with what hooks he has, he grapples very forcibly." Cornelia Knight was "disgusted by his satirical madness of manner," although admitting him to be a man of great learning and information. Madame D'Arblay was more struck by his rudeness and violence than by his intellectual vigour. "Thraliana" confirms Johnson's estimate of Baretti's capacity:

"Will. Burke was tart upon Mr. Baretti for being too dogmatical in his talk about politics. 'You have,' says he, 'no business to be investigating the characters of Lord Falkland or Mr. Hampden. You cannot judge of their merits, they are no countrymen of yours.' 'True,' replied Baretti, 'and you should learn by the same rule to speak very cautiously about Brutus and Mark Antony; they are my countrymen, and I must have their characters tenderly treated by foreigners.'

"Baretti could not endure to be called, or scarcely thought, a foreigner, and indeed it did not often occur to his company that he was one; for his accent was wonderfully proper, and his language always copious, always nervous, always full of various allusions, flowing too with a rapidity worthy of admiration, and far beyond the power of nineteen in twenty natives. He had also a knowledge of the solemn language and the gay, could be sublime with Johnson, or blackguard with the groom; could dispute, could rally, could quibble, in our language. Baretti has, besides, some skill in music, with a bass voice, very agreeable, besides a falsetto which he can manage so as to mimic any singer he hears. I would also trust his knowledge of painting a long way. These accomplishments, with his extensive power over every modern language, make him a most pleasing companion while he is in good humour; and his lofty consciousness of his own superiority, which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, is never despicable, but vanity, which he possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty ridiculous.

"France displayed all Mr. Baretti's useful powers--he bustled for us, he catered for us, he took care of the child, he secured an apartment for the maid, he provided for our safety, our amusement, our repose; without him the pleasure of that journey would never have balanced the pain. And great was his disgust, to be sure, when he caught us, as he often did, ridiculing French manners, French sentiments, &c. I think he half cryed to Mrs. Payne, the landlady at Dover, on our return, because we laughed at French cookery, and French accommodations. Oh, how he would court the maids at the inns abroad, abuse the men perhaps! and that with a facility not to be exceeded, as they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he could in Spain, I find, and so 'tis plain he could here. I will give one instance of his skill in our low street language. Walking in a field near Chelsea, he met a fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to be a foreigner, said sneeringly, 'Come, Sir, will you show me the way to France?' 'No, Sir,' says Baretti, instantly, 'but I will show you the way to Tyburn.' Such, however, was his ignorance in a certain line, that he once asked Johnson for information who it was composed the Pater Noster, and I heard him tell Evans[1] the story of Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in the Milanese dialect, expecting great credit for his powers of invention. Evans owned to me that he thought the man drunk, whereas poor Baretti was, both in eating and drinking, a model of temperance. Had he guessed Evans's thoughts, the parson's gown would scarcely have saved him a knouting from the ferocious Italian."

[Footnote 1: Evans was a clergyman and rector of Southwark.]

On Oct. 20, 1769, Baretti was tried at the Old Bailey on a charge of murder, for killing with a pocket knife one of three men who, with a woman of the town, hustled him in the Haymarket.[1] He was acquitted, and the event is principally memorable for the appearance of Johnson, Burke, Grarrick, and Beauclerc as witnesses to character. The substance of Johnson's evidence is thus given in the "Gentleman's Magazine":

[Footnote 1: In his defence, he said:--"I hope it will be seen that my knife was neither a weapon of offence or defence. I wear it to carve fruit and sweetmeats, and not to kill my fellow creatures. It is a general custom in France not to put knives on the table, so that even ladies wear them in their pockets for general use."]

"_Dr. J_.--I believe I began to be acquainted with Mr. Baretti about the year 1753 or 1754. I have been intimate with him. He is a man of literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.--_Q_. Was he addicted to pick up women in the streets?--_Dr. J. I_ never knew that he was.--_Q_. How is he as to eyesight?--_Dr. J._ He does not see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he could be capable of assaulting any body in the street, without great provocation."

It would seem that Johnson's sensibility, such as it was, was not very severely taxed.

"_Boswell_.--But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged?

"_Johnson_.---I should do what I could to bail him; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer.

"_Boswell_.--Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?

"_Johnson_.--Yes, Sir, and eat it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow. Friends have risen up for him on every side, yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."

Steevens relates that one evening previous to the trial a consultation of Baretti's friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, the solicitor. Johnson and Burke were present, and differed as to some point of the defence. On Steevens observing to Johnson that the question had been agitated with rather too much warmth, "It may be so," replied the sage, "for Burke and I should have been of one opinion if we had had no audience." This is coming very near to--

"Would rather that the man should die
Than his prediction prove a lie."

Two anecdotes of Baretti during his imprisonment are preserved in "Thraliana":

"When Johnson and Burke went to see Baretti in Newgate, they had small comfort to give him, and bid him not hope too strongly. 'Why what can _he_ fear,' says Baretti, placing himself between 'em, 'that holds two such hands as I do?'

"An Italian came one day to Baretti, when he was in Newgate for murder, to desire a letter of recommendation for the teaching of his scholars, when he (Baretti) should be hanged. 'You rascal,' replies Baretti, in a rage, 'if I were not _in my own apartment_, I would kick you down stairs directly,'"

The year after his acquittal Baretti published "Travels through Spain, Portugal, and France;" thus mentioned by Johnson in a Letter to Mrs, Thrale, dated Lichfield, July 20, 1770:

"That Baretti's book would please you all, I made no doubt. I know not whether the world has ever seen such travels before. Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write can seldom ramble." The rate of pay showed that the world was aware of the value of the acquisition. He gained _500l._ by this book. His "Frusta Letteraria," published some time before in Italy, had also attracted much attention, and, according to Johnson, he was the first who ever received money for copyright in Italy,

In a biographical notice of Baretti which appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1789, written by Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster, it is stated that it was not distress which compelled him to accept Mr. Thrale's hospitality, but that he was overpersuaded by Johnson, contrary to his own inclination, to undertake the instruction of the Misses Thrale in Italian. "He was either nine or eleven years almost entirely in that family," says the Dean, "though he still rented a lodging in town, during which period he expended his own _500l._, and received nothing in return for his instruction, but the participation of a good table, and _150l._ by way of presents. Instead of his letters to Mrs. Piozzi in the 'European Magazine,' had he told this plain unvarnished tale, he would have convicted that lady of avarice and ingratitude, without incurring the danger of a reply, or exposing his memory to be insulted by her advocates."

He was less than three years in the family. As he had a pension of _80l._ a year, besides the interest of his _500l._, he did not want money. If he had been allowed to want it, the charge of avarice would lie at Mr., not Mrs., Thrale's door; and his memory was exposed to no insult beyond the stigma which (as we shall presently see) his conduct and language necessarily fixed upon it. All his literary friends did not entertain the same high opinion of him. An unpublished letter from Dr. Warton to his brother contains the following passage:

"He (Huggins, the translator of Ariosto) abuses Baretti infernally, and says that he one day lent Baretti a gold watch, and could never get it afterwards; that after many excuses Baretti, skulked, and then got Johnson to write to Mr. Huggins a suppliant letter; that this letter stopped Huggins awhile, while Baretti got a protection from the Sardinian ambassador; and that, at last, with great difficulty, the watch was got from a pawnbroker to whom Baretti had sold it."

This extract is copied from a valuable contribution to the literary annals of the eighteenth century, for which we are indebted to the colonial press.[1] It is the diary of an Irish clergyman, containing strong internal evidence of authenticity, although nothing more is known of it than that the manuscript was discovered behind an old press in one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. That such a person saw a good deal of Johnson in 1775, is proved by Boswell, whose accuracy is frequently confirmed in return. In one marginal note Mrs. Thrale says: "He was a fine showy talking man. Johnson liked him of all things in a year or two." In another: "Dr. Campbell was a very tall handsome man, and, speaking of some other _High_-bernian, used this expression: 'Indeed now, and upon my honour, Sir, I am but a Twitter to him.'"[2]

[Footnote 1: Diary of a Visit to England in 1775. By an Irishman (the Rev. Doctor Thomas Campbell, author of "A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland.") And other Papers by the same hand. With Notes by Samuel Raymond, M.A., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Sydney. Waugh and Cox. 1854.]

[Footnote 2: He is similarly described in the "Letters," vol. i. p. 329.]

Several of his entries throw light on the Thrale establishment:

"_14th._--This day I called at Mr. Thrale's, where I was received with all respect by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. She is a very learned lady, and joins to the charms of her own sex, the manly understanding of ours. The immensity of the brewery astonished me."