[1444] On this Mrs. Piozzi notes:--'No, no! Mr. Thrale's manners presented the character of a gay man of the town; like Millamant, in Congreve's comedy, he abhorred the country and everything in it.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 10. Mrs. Millamant, in The Way of the World, act iv. sc. iv., says:--'I loathe the country and everything that relates to it.'
[1445] 'It is but justice to Mr. Thrale to say, that a more ingenuous frame of mind no man possessed. His education at Oxford gave him the habits of a gentleman; his amiable temper recommended his conversation, and the goodness of his heart made him a sincere friend.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 99. Johnson wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale:--'He must keep well, for he is the pillar of the house; and you must get well, or the house will hardly be worth propping.' Piozzi Letters, i. 340. See post, April 18, 1778. Mme. D'Arblay (Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 104) gives one reason for Thrale's fondness for Johnson's society. 'Though entirely a man of peace, and a gentleman in his character, he had a singular amusement in hearing, instigating, and provoking a war of words, alternating triumph and overthrow, between clever and ambitious colloquial combatants, where there was nothing that could inflict disgrace upon defeat.'
[1446] In like manner he called Mr. Thrale Master or My master. 'I hope Master's walk will be finished when I come back.' Piozzi Letters, i. 355. 'My master may plant and dig till his pond is an ocean.' Ib. p. 357. See post, July 9, 1777.
[1447] Miss Burney thus described her in 1776:--'She is extremely lively and chatty; and showed none of the supercilious or pedantic airs so scoffingly attributed to women of learning or celebrity; on the contrary, she is full of sport, remarkably gay, and excessively agreeable. I liked her in everything except her entrance into the room, which was rather florid and flourishing, as who should say, "It is I!--No less a person than Mrs. Thrale!" However, all that ostentation wore out in the course of the visit, which lasted the whole morning; and you could not have helped liking her, she is so very entertaining-- though not simple enough, I believe, for quite winning your heart.' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 88.
[1448] Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 279. BOSWELL.
[1449] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Oct. 13, 1777:--'I cannot but think on your kindness and my master's. Life has upon the whole fallen short, very short, of my early expectation; but the acquisition of such a friendship, at an age when new friendships are seldom acquired, is something better than the general course of things gives man a right to expect. I think on it with great delight; I am not very apt to be delighted.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 7. Johnson's friends suffered from this connection. See post, March 20, 1778, where it is said that 'at Streatham he was in a great measure absorbed from the society of his old friends.'
[1450] Yet one year he recorded:--'March 3, I have never, I thank God, since new year's day deviated from the practice of rising. In this practice I persisted till I went to Mr. Thrale's sometime before Midsummer; the irregularity of that family broke my habit of rising. I was there till after Michaelmas.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 458, note. Hawkins places this in 1765; but Johnson states (Pr. and Med. p. 71), 'I returned from Streatham, Oct. 1, --66, having lived there more than three months.'
[1451] Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:--'I am at present in a tourbillon of conversations; but how come you to throw in the Thrales among the Reynoldses and the Beauclerks? Mr. Thrale is a worthy, sensible man, and has the wits much about his house; but he is not one himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale.' Letters of Boswell, p. 192. Murphy (Life, p. 141) says:--'It was late in life before Johnson had the habit of mixing, otherwise than occasionally, with polite company. At Mr. Thrale's he saw a constant succession of well-accomplished visitors. In that society he began to wear off the rugged points of his own character. The time was then expected when he was to cease being what George Garrick, brother to the celebrated actor, called him the first time he heard him converse. "A TREMENDOUS COMPANION"'
[1452] Johnson wrote to Dr. Warton on Oct. 9:--'Mrs. Warton uses me hardly in supposing that I could forget so much kindness and civility as she showed me at Winchester.' Wooll's Warton, p. 309. Malone on this remarks:--'It appears that Johnson spent some time with that gentleman at Winchester in this year.' I believe that Johnson is speaking of the year 1762, when, on his way to Devonshire, he passed two nights in that town. See Taylor's Reynolds, i. 214.
[1453] It was in 1745 that he published his Observations on Macbeth, as a specimen of his projected edition (ante, p. 175). In 1756 he issued Proposals undertaking that his work should be published before Christmas, 1757 (p. 318). On June 21, 1757, he writes:--'I am printing my new edition of Shakspeare' (p. 322). On Dec. 24 of the same year he says, 'I shall publish about March' (p.