104 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



They even seated the studious Johnson on horsebaek 

 and took him hunting ; and, strange to say, he does 

 not merely seem to have only just saved himself from 

 falling off, but is said to have acquitted himself as well 

 as any country squire on that notable occasion. 



But all things have an end, and the day was to come 

 when Johnson should bid a last farewell to Streatham. 

 He had broken with the widowed Mrs. Thrale on the 

 subject of her marriage with Piozzi, and he could no 

 longer bear to see the place. So, in one endearing 

 touch of sentiment, he gave it good-bye, as his diary 

 records : 



" Sunday, went to church at Streatham. Templo 

 valedixi cum osculo." Thus, kissing the old porch of 

 St. Leonard's, the lexicographer departed with heavy 

 heart. Two years later he died. 



This Church of St. Leonard still contains the Latin 

 epitaph he wrote to commemorate the easy virtues of 

 his friend Henry Thrale, who died in 1781, but altera- 

 tions and restorations have changed almost all else. 

 It is, in truth, a dreadful example, externally, of the 

 Early Compo Period, and internally of the Late 

 Churchwarden, or Galleried, Style. 



It is curious to note the learned Doctor's indignation 

 when asked to write an English epitaph for setting up 

 in Westminster Abbey. The great authority on the 

 English language, the compiler of that monumental 

 dictionary, exclaimed that he would not desecrate its 

 walls with an inscription in his own tongue. Thus 

 the pedant ! 



There is one Latin epitaph at Streatham that reads 

 curiously. It is on a tablet by Richard Westmacott 

 to Frederick Howard, who in jmgna Waterlooensi 

 occiso. The battle of Waterloo looks strange in that 

 garb. 



But Latin is frequent here, and free. The tablets 

 that jostle one another down the aisles are abounding 

 in that tongue, and the little brass to an ecclesiastic, 

 nailed upon the woodwork toward the west end of the 

 north aisle, is not free from it. So the shade of the 



