"That which before us lies in daily life."

No wonder Mr. Thrale, whose mind wanted some new object, since he had lost his son, and lost beside the pleasure he had taken in his business, before all knowledge of it was shared with myself, no wonder that he encouraged a sentimental attachment to Sophia Streatfield, who became daily more and more dear to him, and almost necessary. No one who visited us missed seeing his preference of her to me; but she was so amiable and so sweetnatured, no one appeared to blame him for the unusual and unrepressed delight he took in her agreeable society. I was exceedingly oppressed by pregnancy, and saw clearly my successor in the fair S. S. as we familiarly called her in the family, of which she now made constantly a part, and stood godmother to my newborn baby, by bringing which I only helped to destroy my own health, and disappoint my husband, who wanted a son. "Why Mr. Thrale is Peregrinus Domi," said Dr. Johnson; "he lives in Clifford Street, I hear, all winter;" and so he did, leaving his carriage at his sister's door in Hanover Square, that no inquirer might hurt his favorite's reputation; which my behavior likewise tended to preserve from injury, and we lived on together as well as we could. Miss Browne, who sung enchantingly, and had been much abroad; Miss Burney, whose powers of amusement were many and various, were my companions then at Streatham Park, with Doctor Johnson, who wanted me to be living at the Borough, because less inconvenient to him, so he said I passed my winter in Surrey, "feeding my chickens and starving my understanding;" but 1779, and the summer of it was coming, to bring on us a much more serious calamity.

THRALE'S ILLNESS.

"YOUR account of Mr. Thrale's illness is very terrible." -Johnson, June 14, 1770; Letters, Vol. II. p. 47.

My account of Mr. Thrale's illness had every reason to be ter rible. He had slept at Streatham Park, and left it after breakfast, looking as usual.

His sister's husband, Mr. Nesbitt, often mentioned in these Letters and Memoirs, had been dead perhaps a fortnight. He was commercially connected, I knew, with Sir George Colebrook and Sir Something Turner; but that was all I knew,- - and that was nothing. I knew of nothing between Thrale and them till after my return from Italy, and was the more perhaps shocked and amazed when, sitting after dinner with Lady Keith and Doctor Burney and his daughter, I believe, my servant Sam opened the drawing-room door with un air effaré, saying: "My master is come home, but there is something amiss." I started up, and saw a tall, black female figure, who cried, "Don't go into the library, don't go in I say." My rushing by her somewhat rudely was all her prohibition gained; but there sat Mrs. Nesbitt holding her brother's hand, who I perceived knew not a syllable of what was passing. So I called Dr. Burney, begged him to fly in the post-chaise, which was then waiting for him, and send me some physician, Sir R. Jebb or Pepys, or if none else could be found, my old accoucheur, Doctor Bromfield of Gerard Street. "T was he that came; and, convincing me it was an apoplectic seizure, acted accordingly, while the silly ladies went home quite contented I believe only Mrs. Nesbitt said she thought he was delirious; and from her companion I learned that he had dined at their house, had seen the will opened, and had dropped as if lifeless from the dinner-table; when, instead of calling help, they called their carriage, and brought him five or six miles out of town in that condition. Would it not much enrage one? From this dreadful sit

uation medical art relieved Mr. Thrale, but the natural disposition to conviviality degenerated into a preternatural desire for food, like Erisicthon of old

"Cibus omnis in illo

Causa cibi est; semperque locus inanis edendo."

It was a distressing moment, and the distress increasing perpetually, nor could any one persuade our patient to believe, or at least to acknowledge, he ever had been ill. With a person, the very wretched wreck of what it had been, no one could keep him at home. Dinners and company engrossed all his thoughts, and dear Dr. Johnson encouraged him in them, that he might not appear wise, or predicting his friend's certainly accelerated dissolu

tion.

Death of the baby boy I carried in my bosom, was the natural consequence of the scene described here; but I continued to carry him till a quarrel among the clerks, which I was called to pacify, made a complete finish of the child and nearly of me. The men were reconciled though, and my danger accelerated their reconcilement.

DEATH OF THRALE.

"It was by bleeding till he fainted that his life was saved.”. Johnson, Aug. 24, 1780; Letters, Vol. II. p. 185.

Here is another allusion to that famous bleeding which certainly in Southwark did save the life of Mr. Thrale, and by its immediate effects ruined my nerves forever.

Sir Richard, however, said: "We have paid his heavy debt this time, but he must eat prudently in future." No one however could control his appetite, which Sir Lucas Pepys, who was at Brighthelmstone, observing, commanded us to town, and took a house not 100 yards from his own for us, in Grosvenor Square, and I went every day to the Borough, whence Lancaster, a favorite clerk third in command, was run away with £1,850. Thither poor Doctor Delap followed me, begging a prologue to his new play, and I remember composing it in the coach, as I was driving up and down after Lancaster; but my business in Southwark was of far severer import.

Some fellow had incited our master to begin a new and expensive building to the amount of £20,000, after the progress of which he was ever inquisitive, and kept the plan of it in his bedchamber. So little did Dr. Johnson even then comprehend the strict awe I stood in of my first husband, that I well recollect his saying to me, "Madam! you should tear that foolish paper down : why 't is like leaving a wench's love-letter in the apartments of a man whom you would wish to cure of his amorous passion." God knows I durst as well encounter death as disturb Mr. Thrale's love-letters or his building plans. The next grand agony was seeing him send out cards of invitation to a concert and supper on the 5th of April. He had himself charged Piozzi, who was the first to tell me, with care of the musical part of our entertainment, and had himself engaged the Parsees, a set of Orientals, who were shown at all the gay houses, -the lions of

the day. I could but call my coadjutors, Jebb and Pepys; who tried to counteract this frolic, but in vain. They were obliged to compromise the matter by making him promise to leave town for Streatham immediately after the 5th. "Leave London! lose my Ranelagh season!" exclaimed their patient. "Why, Sir, we wished you to be here, that our attendance might be more regular, and less expensive: but since we find you thus unmanageable, you are safest at a distance." Now, Johnson first began to see, or say he saw the danger, but now his lectures upon temperance came all too late. Poor Mr. Thrale answered him only by inquiring when lamprey season would come in? requesting Sir Philip, who was dining with us, to write his brother, the Prebendary of Worcester, a letter, begging from him the first fish of that kind the Severn should produce. I winked at Sir Philip, but he, following us women half up stairs, said: "I understand you, Madam, but must disobey. A friend I have known thirtysix years shall not ask a favor of me in his last stage of life and be refused. What difference can it make?" Tears stood in his eyes, and my own prevented all answer. In effect, that day was Mr. Thrale's last! I saw him in Sir Richard's arms at midnight. Pepys came at ten, and never left the house till early light showed me the way to Streatham: and from thence, hoping still less disturbance, to Brighthelmstone: where we had a dwelling-house of our own, and whither you will see the letters all addressed.

This was thirty-four or thirty-five years ago, yet did I never completely recover my strength of body or of mind again. I am sure I never did! The shocks of 1780 and 1781 are not yet either recovered or forgotten by poor H. L. P.