I remained one day more in town, to have the chance of talking over my negociation with the Lord Chancellor; but the multiplicity of his Lordship’s important engagements did not allow of it; so I left the management of the business in the hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Soon after this time Dr. Johnson had the mortification of being informed by Mrs. Thrale, that, ‘what she supposed he never believed[1044],’ was true; namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, an Italian musick-master[1045].  He endeavoured to prevent it; but in vain.  If she would publish the whole of the correspondence that passed between Dr. Johnson and her on the subject, we should have a full view of his real sentiments.  As it is, our judgement must be biassed by that characteristick specimen which Sir John Hawkins has given us:  ’Poor Thrale!  I thought that either her virtue or her vice would have restrained her from such a marriage.  She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over; and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget, or pity[1046].’

It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable portion of happiness from the comforts and elegancies which he enjoyed in Mr. Thrale’s family[1047]; but Mrs. Thrale assures us he was indebted for these to her husband alone, who certainly respected him sincerely.  Her words are,—­

’Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson; but the perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in the first years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; nor could I pretend to support it without help, when my coadjutor was no more_[1048].’

Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have heard Mrs. Thrale make in his life-time, without a single murmur against any peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which attended their intimacy[1049].

As a sincere friend of the great man whose Life I am writing, I think it necessary to guard my readers against the mistaken notion of Dr. Johnson’s character, which this lady’s Anecdotes of him suggest; for from the very nature and form of her book, ’it lends deception lighter wings to fly’.[1050]

’Let it be remembered, (says an eminent critick[1051],) that she has comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. Johnson in twenty years, during which period, doubtless, some severe things were said by him; and they who read the book in two hours, naturally enough suppose that his whole conversation was of this complexion.  But the fact is, I have been often in his company, and never once heard him say a severe thing to any one; and many others can attest the same[1052].  When he did say a severe thing, it was generally extorted by ignorance pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation.