notwithstanding which, Mr. T. very unceremoniously begged of me to change place with Sophy, who was threatened with a sore throat, and might be injured by sitting near the door. I had scarcely swallowed a spoonful of soup when this occurred, and was so overset by the coarseness of the proposal, that I burst into tears, said something petulant-that perhaps ere long, the lady might be at the head of Mr. T.'s table, without displacing the mistress of the house, &c., and so left the apartment. I retired to the drawing-room, and for an hour or two contended with my vexation, as I best could, when Johnson and Burke came up. On seeing them, I resolved to give a jobation to both, but fixed on Johnson for my charge, and asked him if he had noticed what passed, what I had suffered, and whether allowing for the state of my nerves, I was much to blame? He answered, "Why, possibly not; your feelings were outraged." I said, "Yes, greatly so; and I cannot help remarking with what blandness and composure you witnessed the outrage. Had this transaction been told of others, your anger would have known no bounds; but, towards a man who gives good dinners &c., you were meekness itself!" Johnson coloured, and Burke, I thought, looked foolish; but I had not a word of answer from either.""

The only excuse for Mr. Thrale is to be found in his mental and bodily condition at the time, which made it impossible for Johnson or Burke to interfere without a downright quarrel with him, nor without making matters worse. This, however, is not the only instance

in which Johnson witnessed Thrale's laxity of morals without reproving it. Opposite the passage in which Boswell reports Johnson as palliating infidelity in a husband by the remark, that the man imposes no bastards on his wife, she writes: "Sometimes he does. Johnson knew a man who did, and the lady took very tender care of them."

Madame D'Arblay was not uniformly such a source of comfort to her as that lady supposed. The entries in "Thraliana" relating to her show this:

“August, 1779.-Fanny Burney has been a long time from me; I was glad to see her again; yet she makes me miserable too in many respects, so restlessly and apparently anxious, lest I should give myself airs of patronage or load her with the shackles of dependance. I live with her always in a degree of pain that precludes friendship-dare not ask her to buy me a ribbon-dare not desire her to touch the bell, lest she should think herself injured-lest she should forsooth appear in the character of Miss Neville, and I in that of the widow Bromley. See Murphy's 'Know Your Own Mind.""

"Fanny Burney has kept her room here in my house seven days, with a fever or something that she called a fever; I gave her every medicine and every slop with my own hand; took away her dirty cups, spoons, &c. ; moved her tables: in short, was doctor, and nurse and maid - for I did not like the servants should have additional trouble lest they should hate her for it. And now,- with the true gratitude of a wit, she tells me

that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities to her. It does? does it?"

"Miss Burney was much admired at Bath (1780); the puppy-men said, 'She had such a drooping air and such a timid intelligence;' or, 'a timid air,' I think it was, and a drooping intelligence;' never sure was such a collection of pedantry and affectation as filled Bath when we were on that spot. How everything else and everybody set off my gallant bishop. Quantum lenta solent inter viburna Cupressi.' Of all the people I ever heard read verse in my whole life, the best, the most perfect reader, is the Bishop of Peterboro' (Hinchcliffe.)" *

"July 1st, 1780.-Mrs. Byron, who really loves me, was disgusted at Miss Burney's carriage to me, who have been such a friend and benefactress to her: not an article of dress, not a ticket for public places, not a thing in the world that she could not command from me: yet always insolent, always pining for home, always preferring the mode of life in St. Martin's Street to all I could do for her. She is a saucy-spirited little puss to be sure, but I love her dearly for all that; and I fancy she has a real regard for me, if she did not think it beneath the dignity of a wit, or of what she values more-the dignity of Dr. Burnett's daughter — "The people (in

* In a marginal note on Boswell, she says: 1783) did read shamefully. Yet Mr. Lee, the poet, many years before Johnson was born, read so gracefully, the players would not accept his tragedies till they had heard them from other lips: his own (they said) sweetened all which proceeded from them." Speaker Onslow equally was celebrated for his manner of reading.

to indulge it. Such dignity! the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square!* In good time!”

"1781. What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be always sending for his daughter home so! what a monkey is she not better and happier with me than she can be anywhere else? Johnson is enraged at the silliness of their family conduct, and Mrs. Byron disgusted; I confess myself provoked excessively, but I love the girl so dearly-and the Doctor, too, for that matter, only that he has such odd notions of superiority in his own house, and will have his children under his feet forsooth, rather than let 'em live in peace, plenty, and comfort anywhere from home. If I did not provide Fanny with every wearable every wishable, indeed,—it would not vex me to be served so; but to see the impossibility of compensating for the pleasures of St. Martin's Street, makes one at once merry and mortified.

"Dr. Burney did not like his daughter should learn Latin even of Johnson, who offered to teach her for friendship, because then she would have been as wise as himself forsooth, and Latin was too masculine for Misses. A narrow-souled goose-cap the man must be at last, agreeable and amiable all the while too, beyond almost any other human creature. Well, mortal man is but a paltry animal! the best of us have such drawbacks both upon virtue, wisdom, and knowledge."

Alluding to a character in "Evelina."

In what his daughter calls a doggrel list of his friends and his feats, Dr. Burney has thus mentioned the Thrales:

"1776.—This year's acquaintance began with the Thrales,
Where I met with great talents 'mongst females and males,
But the best thing it gave me from that time to this,
Was the freedom it gave me to sound the abyss,
At my ease and my leisure, of Johnson's great mind,
Where new treasures unnumber'd I constantly find."

Highly to her credit, Mrs. Thrale did not omit any part of her own duties to her husband because he forgot his. In March, 1780, she writes to Johnson:

"I am willing to show myself in Southwark, or in any place, for my master's pleasure or advantage; but have no present conviction that to be re-elected would be advantageous, so shattered a state as his nerves are in just now. Do not you, however, fancy for a moment, that I shrink from fatigue — or desire to escape from doing my duty; - spiting one's antagonist is a reason that never ought to operate, and never does operate with me: I care nothing about a rival candidate's innuendos, I care only about my husband's health and fame; and if we find that he earnestly wishes to be once more member for the Borough-he shall be member, if anything done or suffered by me will help make him so."

In the May following she writes: "Meanwhile, Heaven send this Southwark election safe, for a disappointment would half kill my husband, and there is