Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune of four thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable, because he could not talk in company; so miserable, that he was impelled to lament his situation in the street to ******, whom he hates, and who he knows despises him.  ’I am a most unhappy man, (said he).  I am invited to conversations.  I go to conversations; but, alas!  I have no conversation.’  Johnson.  ’Man commonly cannot be successful in different ways.  This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year, the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.’  Mr. Perkins made a shrewd and droll remark:  ’If he had got his four thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the same time that he was getting his fortune.’

Some other gentlemen came in.  The conversation concerning the person whose character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightingly, as he did not know his merit, was resumed.  Mrs. Thrale said, ’You think so of him, Sir, because he is quiet, and does not exert himself with force.  You’ll be saying the same thing of Mr. ***** there, who sits as quiet—.’  This was not well-bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction.  ’Nay, Madam, what right have you to talk thus?  Both Mr. ***** and I have reason to take it ill.  You may talk so of Mr. *****; but why do you make me do it?  Have I said anything against Mr. *****?  You have set him, that I might shoot him:  but I have not shot him.’

One of the gentlemen said, he had seen three folio volumes of Dr. Johnson’s sayings collected by me.  ’I must put you right, Sir, (said I,) for I am very exact in authenticity.  You could not see folio volumes, for I have none:  you might have seen some in quarto and octavo.  This is inattention which one should guard against.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, it is a want of concern about veracity.  He does not know that he saw any volumes.  If he had seen them he could have remembered their size.’

Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick to-day.  I saw him again on Monday evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger; but early in the morning of Wednesday, the 4th, he expired.  Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event:  ’I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with respect and benignity.’  Upon that day there was a Call of The literary club; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the following note:—­

’Mr. Johnson knows that Sir Joshua Reynolds and the other gentlemen will excuse his incompliance with the call, when they are told that Mr. Thrale died this morning.—­Wednesday.’