210] 



A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



strong terms, that she hastened to change them, and when she! re- 

 turned quite another figure, received his applause, and thanked him 

 for his reproof, to the amazement of her husband, who could scarcely 

 believe his own cars. This anecdote is related by Mrs. Pio/zi, who 

 probably \vas herself the fantastical lady thus reformed by the ani- 

 madversions of our great Moralist. 



The death of Mr. Thrale was a subject of the deepest regret to 

 Dr. Johnson, who in a letter to a friend, written on that occasion, 

 pathetically says, " I saw for the last time that face which for 

 eighteen years had never been turned towards me but with looks of 

 complacency and affection." That the moral precepts of Johnson 

 were highly conducive to the instruction of Mr. Thrale's daughters 

 cannot be doubted by whoever will read his excellent letters to 

 those youngladies,but their mother, after the demise of her husband, 

 hastened with a degree of levity to Bath, for the purpose, as she 

 has acknowledged, of a separation from the instructor of her chil- 

 dren, and the friend of her husband. " I was forced," said she, 

 " to take advantage of my lost law-suit, and plead inability of 

 purse to remain longer in London or its vicinity. I had been crossed 

 in my intentions of going abroad, and found it convenient for every 

 reason of health, peace, aud pecuniary circumstances, to retire to 

 Bath, where I knew Mr. Johnson would not follow me, arid where I 

 could for that reason command some little portion of time for my 

 own use; a thing impossible while I remained at Streatham, or at 

 London, as my horses, servants, and carriage, had long been at his 

 command, who would not rise in the morning till twelve o'clock 

 perhaps, and oblige me to make breakfast for him till the bell rung 

 for dinner, though much displeased if the toilette was neglected, 

 and though much of the time we passed together was spent in 

 blaming or deriding, very justly, my neglect of economy, and waste 

 of that money which might make many families happy." By such 

 ingenious excuses does this lady endeavour to palliate her abandon- 

 ment of her venerable friend; but the Monthly Reviewers bestowed 

 on her a sufficient portion of just castigation, and her subsequent 

 jnatrimouial connection proved that it was not so much the Doctor's 

 everbearing manners, as her own volatility, that induced her to 

 violate that friendship, without which she would have lived and died 

 unmentioned by the biographer. 



The year 1773 is memorable in the life of Johnson for his Journey- 

 to the Western Isles of Scotland. He set out from London in com- 

 pany with his obsequious friend Mr. Boswcll, and arrived at Edin- 



