experienced the delights of a London winter, spent in the bosom of flattery, gayety, and Grosvenor Square; 'tis a poor thing, however, and leaves a void in the mind, but I have had my compting-house duties to attend, my sick master to watch, my little children to look after, and how much good have I done in any way? Not a scrap as I can see; the pecuniary affairs have gone on perversely: how should they chuse [an omission here] when the sole proprietor is incapable of giving orders, yet not so far incapable as to be set aside! Distress, fraud, folly, meet me at every turn, and I am not able to fight against them all, though endued with an iron constitution, which shakes not by sleepless nights or days severely fretted.

"Mr. Thrale talks now of going to Spa and Italy again; how shall we drag him thither? A man who cannot keep awake four hours at a stroke &c. Well! this will indeed be a tryal of one's patience; and who must go with us on this expedition? Mr. Johnson!-he will indeed be the only happy person of the party; he values nothing under heaven but his own mind, which is a spark from heaven, and that will be invigorated by the addition of new ideas. If Mr. Thrale dies on the road, Johnson will console himself by learning how it is to travel with a corpse: and, after all, such reasoning is the true philosophy-one's heart is a mere incumbrance would I could leave mine behind. The children shall

go to their sisters at Kensington, Mrs. Cumyns may take care of them all. God grant us a happy meeting some where and some time!

"Baretti should attend, I think; there is no man who has so much of every language, and can manage so well with Johnson, is so tidy on the road, so active too to obtain good accommodations. He is the man in the world, I think, whom I most abhor, and who hates and professes to hate me the most; but what does that signifie? He will be careful of Mr. Thrale and Hester whom he does love-and he won't strangle me, I suppose. Somebody we must have. Croza would court our daughter, and Piozzi could not talk to Johnson, nor, I suppose, do one any good but sing to one, should we sing songs in a strange land? must be the man, and I will beg it of him as a favour. Oh, the triumph he will have! and the lyes he will tell!" Thrale's death is thus described in "Thraliana":

and how

Baretti

"On the Sunday, the 1st of April, I went to hear the Bishop of Peterborough preach at May Fair Chapel, and though the sermon had nothing in it particularly pathetic, I could not keep my tears within my eyes. I spent the evening, however, at Lady Rothes', and was cheerful. Found Sir John Lade, Johnson, and Boswell, with Mr. Thrale, at my return to the Square. On Monday morning Mr. Evans came to breakfast; Sir Philip and Dr. Johnson to dinner-so did Baretti. Mr. Thrale eat voraciously— so voraciously that, encouraged by Jebb and Pepys, who had charged me to do so, I checked him rather severely, and Mr. Johnson added these remarkable words: "Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little better than suicide." He did not, however, desist, and

Sir Philip said, he eat apparently in defiance of control, and that it was better for us to say nothing to him. Johnson observed that he thought so too; and that he spoke more from a sense of duty than a hope of success. Baretti and these two spent the evening with me, and I was enumerating the people who were to meet the Indian ambassadors on the Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and bespoke an elegant entertainment.

"On the next day, Tuesday the 3rd, Mrs. Hinchliffe called on me in the morning to go see Webber's drawings of the South Sea rareties. We met the Smelts, the Ords, and numberless blues there, and displayed our pedantry at our pleasure. Going and coming, however, I quite teazed Mrs. Hinchliffe with my lowspirited terrors about Mr. Thrale, who had not all this while one symptom worse than he had had for months; though the physicians this Tuesday morning agreed that a continuation of such dinners as he had lately made would soon dispatch a life so precarious and uncertain. When I came home to dress, Piozzi, who was in the next room teaching Hester to sing, began lamenting that he was engaged to Mrs. Locke on the following evening, when I had such a world of company to meet these fine Orientals; he had, however, engaged Roneaglia and Sacchini to begin with, and would make a point of coming himself at nine o'clock if possible. I gave him the money I had collected for his benefit35l. I remember it was- -a banker's note-and burst out o' crying, and said, I was sure I should not go to it. The man was shocked, and wondered what I meant.

Nay, says I, 'tis mere lowness of spirits, for Mr. Thrale is very well now, and is gone out in his carriage to spit cards, as I call'd it — sputar le carte. Just then came a letter from Dr. Pepys, insisting to speak with me in the afternoon, and though there was nothing very particular in the letter considering our intimacy, I burst out o' crying again, and threw myself into an agony, saying, I was sure Mr. Thrale would dye.

"Miss Owen came to dinner, and Mr. Thrale came home so well! and in such spirits! he had invited more people to my concert, or conversazione, or musical party, of the next day, and was delighted to think what a show we should make. He eat, however, more than enormously. Six things the day before, and eight on this day, with strong beer in such quantities! the very servants were frighted, and when Pepys came in the evening he said this could not last-either there must be legal restraint or certain death. Dear Mrs. Byron spent the evening with me, and Mr. Crutchley came from Sunning-hill to be ready for the morrow's flash. Johnson was at the Bishop of Chester's. I went down in the course of the afternoon to see after my master as usual, and found him not asleep, but sitting with his legs up-because, as he express'd it. I kissed him, and said how good he was to be so careful of himself. He enquired who was above, but had no disposition to

*

(Note by Mrs. T.). "I rejected all propositions of the sort, and said, as he had got the money, he had the best right to throw it I should always prefer my husband to my children: let him do his own way."

away.

come up stairs. Miss Owen and Mrs. Byron now took their leave. The Dr. had been gone about twenty minutes when Hester went down to see her рара, and found him on the floor. What's the meaning of this? says she, in an agony. I chuse it, replies Mr. Thrale firmly; I lie so o' purpose. She ran, however, to call his valet, who was gone out-happy to leave him so particularly well, as he thought. When my servant went instead, Mr. Thrale bid him begone, in a firm tone, and added that he was very well and chose to lie so. By this time, however, Mr. Crutchley was run down at Hetty's intreaty, and had sent to fetch Pepys back. He was got but into Upper Brook Street, and found his friend in a most violent fit of the apoplexy, from which he only recovered to relapse into another, every one growing weaker as his strength grew less, till six o'clock on Wednesday morning, 4th April, 1781, when he died. Sir Richard Jebb, who was fetched at the beginning of the distress, seeing death certain, quitted the house without even prescribing. Pepys did all that could be done, and Johnson, who was sent for at eleven o'clock, never left him, for while breath remained he still hoped. I ventured in once, and saw them cutting his clothes off to bleed him, but I saw no more."

We learn from Madame D'Arblay's Journal, that, towards the end of March, 1781, Mr. Thrale had resolved on going abroad with his wife, and that Johnson was to accompany them, but a subsequent entry states that the doctors condemned the plan; and "therefore," she adds, "it is settled that a great meeting of his