Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney, Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 80, and Prior's Malone, p. 259.
[493] Pr. and Med. p. 214. BOSWELL.
[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful, I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the Acts [xx. 17-end], and then read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of the library.'
[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii.151. Johnson was not yet leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless, if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage. In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to me... for ever."' Johnson's letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (ante, p. 145), in which he says that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,' might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, iii. 242.
[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the Rose MSS.:--'Oct. 6, Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus, uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modice sumpsi, ne intemperantia ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam quando revisam?'
[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors. Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 293.
[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party. Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' Ib.