HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [209 



friend and confidential intimate of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to 

 wish for Johnson's conversation, extolling it in terms which that of 

 no other person could have deserved, till we were only in douht 

 how to obtain his company, and find an excuse for the invitation. 

 Mr. Johnson liked his new acquaintance so much, that from that 

 time he dined with us every Thursday through the winter. In 

 1766, his health grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir 

 out of his room in the Court he inhabited for many weeks together. 

 Mr. Thrale soon after prevailed on him to quit his close habitation 

 in the Court, and come with us to Streatham, where I undertook 

 the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness of con- 

 tributing to its restoration." 



This lady related several amusing anecdotes of Johnson, and 

 other celebrated men. Soon after Seattle's Essay on Truth was 

 published, Dr. Goldsmith exclaimed, " Here is such a stir about a 

 fellow that has written one book, and I have written many !" 'Ah, 

 Doctor/ replied Johnson, ' there go two and forty sixpences, you 

 know, to one guinea/ When talking of Richardson, the author of 

 Sir Charles Grandison, " You think I love flattery," says Dr. John- 

 son, " and so I do ; but a little too much always disgusts me : that 

 fellow Richardson, on the contrary," could not be contented to sail 

 quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the 

 froth from every stroke of the oar." When Sir Joshua Reynolds 

 left the room one day, " There goes a man/' said the Doctor, " not 

 to be spoiled by prosperity ." He had a high opinion of the talents 

 of Burke, and said that " you could not stand five minutes with that 

 man beneath a shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you 

 had been standing with the greatest man you had ever yet seen." 



The Doctor had a custom of reading nightly in bed, and the top 

 of all his wigs were burned by the candle to the net- work. Miv 

 Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always ready with which; 

 he met him at the parlour-door when the bell called him down to 

 dinner, and as he went up stairs to sleep in the afternoon, the same 

 attendant followed him with another. He told Mr. Thrale that he 

 never sought to please till past thirty years old, as he considered 

 the matter hopeless, but he had always been studious not to make 

 enemies by apparent preference of himself. Vanity was always the 

 object of his aversion, and his reproof to the vain was sometimes 

 successful. A lady who had dressed herself fantastically for church 

 at Streatham one Sunday morning, was censured by the Doctor, 

 who expressed his disapprobation of her hat, her gown, c. in such 



