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--to indulge it. Such
dignity! the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square![1] In good time!"
[Footnote 1: Alluding to a character in "Evelina."]
"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."
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 no comfort in tiring every friend to death in
such a manner and losing the town at last."
This was an agitating month. In "Thraliana ":
"_20th May_, 1780.--I got back to Bath again and staid there till the
riots[1] drove us all away the first week in June: we made a dawdling
journey, cross country, to Brighthelmstone, where all was likely to
be at peace: the letters we found there, however, shewed us how near
we were to ruin here in the Borough: where nothing but the
astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in amusing the mob
with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip Jennings Clerke could
get the troops and pack up the counting-house bills, bonds, &c. and
carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for safety,--could have
saved us from actual undoing. The villains _had_ broke in, and our
brewhouse would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property of
£150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once flourishing
possessors quite undone.
"Let me stop here to give God thanks for so very undeserved, so
apparent, an interposition of Providence in our favour.
"I left Mr. Thrale at Brighthelmstone and came to town again to see
what was left to be done: we have now got arms and mean to defend
ourselves by force if further violence is intended. Sir Philip comes
every day at some hour or another--good creature, how kind he is! and
how much I ought to love him! God knows I am not in this case wanting
to my duty. I have presented Perkins, with my Master's permission,
with two hundred guineas, and a silver urn for his lady, with his own
cypher on it and this motto--Mollis responsio, Iram avertit."
[Footnote 1: The Lord George Gordon Riots.]
In the spring of 1781, "I found," says Boswell, "on visiting Mr.
Thrale that he was now very ill, and had removed, I suppose by the
solicitation of Mrs. Thrale, to a house in Grosvenor Square." She has
written opposite: "Spiteful again! He went by direction of his
physicians where they could easiest attend to him."
The removal to Grosvenor Square is thus mentioned in "Thraliana":
"_Monday, January 29th_, 1781.--So now we are to spend this winter in
Grosvenor Square; my master has taken a ready-furnished lodging-house
there, and we go in to-morrow. He frighted me cruelly a while ago; he
would have Lady Shelburne's house, one of the finest in London; he
would buy, he would build, he would give twenty to thirty guineas a
week for a house. Oh Lord, thought I, the people will sure enough
throw stones at me now when they see a dying man go to such mad
expenses, and all, as they will naturally think, to please a wife
wild with the love of expense. This was the very thing I endeavoured
to avoid by canvassing the borough for him, in hopes of being through
that means tyed to the brewhouse where I always hated to live till
now, that I conclude his constitution lost, and that the world will
say _I_ tempt him in his weak state of body and mind to take a fine
house for me at the flashy end of the town." "He however, dear
creature, is as absolute, ay, and ten times more so, than ever, since
he suspects his head to be suspected, and to Grosvenor Square we are
going, and I cannot be sorry, for it will doubtless be comfortable
enough to see one's friends commodiously, and I have long wished to
quit _Harrow Corner_, to be sure; how could one help it? though I did
"'Call round my casks each object of desire'
all last winter: but it was a heavy drag too, and what signifies
resolving _never_ to be pleased? I will make myself comfortable in my
new habitation, and be thankful to God and my husband."
On February 7, 1781, she writes to Madame D'Arblay:
"Yesterday I had a conversazione. Mrs. Montagu was brilliant in
diamonds, solid in judgment, critical in talk. Sophy smiled, Piozzi
sung, Pepys panted with admiration, Johnson was good humoured, Lord
John Clinton attentive, Dr. Bowdler lame, and my master not asleep.
Mrs. Ord looked elegant, Lady Rothes dainty, Mrs. Davenant dapper,
and Sir Philip's curls were all blown about by the wind. Mrs. Byron
rejoices that her Admiral and I agree so well; the way to his heart
is connoisseurship it seems, and for a background and contorno, who
comes up to Mrs. Thrale, you know."
In "Thraliana":
"_Sunday, March 18th_, 1781.--Well! Now I have experienced the
delights of a London winter, spent in the bosom of flattery, gayety,
and Grosvenor Square; 'tis a poor thing, however, and leaves a void
in the mind, but I have had my compting-house duties to attend, my
sick master to watch, my little children to look after, and how much
good have I done in any way? Not a scrap as I can see; the pecuniary
affairs have gone on perversely: how should they chuse [an omission
here] when the sole proprietor is incapable of giving orders, yet not
so far incapable as to be set aside! Distress, fraud, folly, meet me
at every turn, and I am not able to fight against them all, though
endued with an iron constitution, which shakes not by sleepless
nights or days severely fretted.
"Mr. Thrale talks now of going to Spa and Italy again; how shall we
drag him thither? A man who cannot keep awake four hours at a stroke
&c. Well! this will indeed be a tryal of one's patience; and who must
go with us on this expedition? Mr. Johnson!--he will indeed be the
only happy person of the party; he values nothing _under_ heaven but
his own mind, which is a spark _from_ heaven, and that will be
invigorated by the addition of new ideas. If Mr. Thrale dies on the
road, Johnson will console himself by learning how it is to travel
with a corpse: and, after all, such reasoning is the true
philosophy--one's heart is a mere incumbrance--would I could leave
mine behind. The children shall go to their sisters at Kensington,
Mrs. Cumyns may take care of them all. God grant us a happy meeting
some _where_ and some _time_!
"Baretti should attend, I think; there is no man who has so much of
every language, and can manage so well with Johnson, is so tidy on
the road, so active top to obtain good accommodations. He is the man
in the world, I think, whom I most abhor, and who _hates_ and
_professes_ to _hate me_ the most; but what does that signifie? He
will be careful of Mr. Thrale and Hester whom he _does_ love--and he
won't strangle _me_, I suppose. Somebody we _must_ have. Croza would
court our daughter, and Piozzi could not talk to Johnson, nor, I
suppose, do one any good but sing to one,--and how should we _sing
songs in a strange land_? Baretti must be the man, and I will beg it
of him as a favour. Oh, the triumph he will have! and the lyes he
will tell!" Thrale's death is thus described in "Thraliana":
"On the Sunday, the 1st of April, I went to hear the Bishop of
Peterborough preach at May Fair Chapel, and though the sermon had
nothing in it particularly pathetic, I could not keep my tears within
my eyes. I spent the evening, however, at Lady Rothes', and was
cheerful. Found Sir John Lade, Johnson, and Boswell, with Mr. Thrale,
at my return to the Square. On Monday morning Mr. Evans came to
breakfast; Sir Philip and Dr. Johnson to dinner--so did Baretti. Mr.
Thrale eat voraciously--so voraciously that, encouraged by Jebb and
Pepys, who had charged me to do so, I checked him rather severely,
and Mr. Johnson added these remarkable words: "Sir, after the
denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little
better than suicide." He did not, however, desist, and Sir Philip
said, he eat apparently in defiance of control, and that it was
better for us to say nothing to him. Johnson observed that he thought
so too; and that he spoke more from a sense of duty than a hope of
success. Baretti and these two spent the evening with me, and I was
enumerating the people who were to meet the Indian ambassadors on the
Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and bespoke an elegant
entertainment.
"On the next day, Tuesday the 3rd, Mrs. Hinchliffe called on me in
the morning to go see Webber's drawings of the South Sea rareties. We
met the Smelts, the Ords, and numberless _blues_ there, and displayed
our pedantry at our pleasure. Going and coming, however, I quite
teazed Mrs. Hinchliffe with my low-spirited terrors about Mr. Thrale,
who had not all this while one symptom worse than he had had for
months; though the physicians this Tuesday morning agreed that a
continuation of such dinners as he had lately made would soon
dispatch a life so precarious and uncertain. When I came home to
dress, Piozzi, who was in the next room teaching Hester to sing,
began lamenting that he was engaged to Mrs. Locke on the following
evening, when I had such a world of company to meet these fine
Orientals; he had, however, engaged Roncaglia and Sacchini to begin
with, and would make a point of coming himself at nine o'clock if
possible. I gave him the money I had collected for his
benefit--35_l_. I remember it was--a banker's note--and burst out o'
crying, and said, I was sure I should not go to it. The man was
shocked, and wondered what I meant. Nay, says I, 'tis mere lowness of
spirits, for Mr. Thrale is very well now, and is gone out in his
carriage to spit cards, as I call'd it--sputar le carte. Just then
came a letter from Dr. Pepys, insisting to speak with me in the
afternoon, and though there was nothing very particular in the letter
considering our intimacy, I burst out o' crying again, and threw
myself into an agony, saying, I was sure Mr. Thrale would dye.
"Miss Owen came to dinner, and Mr. Thrale came home so well! and in
such spirits! he had invited more people to my concert, or
conversazione, or musical party, of the next day, and was delighted
to think what a show we should make. He eat, however, more than
enormously. Six things the day before, and eight on this day, with
strong beer in such quantities! the very servants were frighted, and
when Pepys came in the evening he said this could not last--either
there must be _legal_[1] restraint or certain death. Dear Mrs. Byron
spent the evening with me, and Mr. Crutchley came from Sunning-hill
to be ready for the morrow's flash. Johnson was at the Bishop of
Chester's. I went down in the course of the afternoon to see after my
master as usual, and found him not asleep, but sitting with his legs
up--_because_, as he express'd it. I kissed him, and said how good he
was to be so careful of himself. He enquired who was above, but had
no disposition to come up stairs. Miss Owen and Mrs. Byron now took
their leave. The Dr. had been gone about twenty minutes when Hester
went down to see her papa, and found him on the floor. What's the
meaning of this? says she, in an agony. I chuse it, replies Mr.
Thrale firmly; I lie so o' purpose. She ran, however, to call his
valet, who was gone out--happy to leave him so particularly _well_,
as he thought. When my servant went instead, Mr. Thrale bid him
begone, in a firm tone, and added that he was very well and chose to
lie so. By this time, however, Mr. Crutchley was run down at Hetty's
intreaty, and had sent to fetch Pepys back. He was got but into Upper
Brook Street, and found his friend in a most violent fit of the
apoplexy, from which he only recovered to relapse into another, every
one growing weaker as his strength grew less, till six o'clock on
Wednesday morning, 4th April, 1781, when he died. Sir Richard Jebb,
who was fetched at the beginning of the distress, seeing death
certain, quitted the house without even prescribing. Pepys did all
that could be done, and Johnson, who was sent for at eleven o'clock,
never left him, for while breath remained he still hoped. I ventured
in once, and saw them cutting his clothes off to bleed him, but I saw
no more."
[Footnote 1: (_Note_ by Mrs. T.). "I rejected all propositions of the
sort, and said, as he had got the money, he had the best right to
throw it away.... I should always prefer my husband, to my children:
let him do his _own_ way."]
We learn from Madame D'Arblay's Journal, that, towards the end of
March, 1781, Mr. Thrale had resolved on going abroad with his wife,
and that Johnson was to accompany them, but a subsequent entry states
that the doctors condemned the plan; and "therefore," she adds, "it
is settled that a great meeting of his friends is to take place
before he actually prepares for the journey, and they are to encircle
him in a body, and endeavour, by representations and entreaties, 'to
prevail with him to give it up; and I have little doubt myself but,
amongst us, we shall be able to succeed." This is one of the oddest
schemes ever projected by a set of learned and accomplished gentlemen
and ladies for the benefit of a hypochondriac patient. Its execution
was prevented by his death. A hurried note from Mrs. Thrale
announcing the event, beginning, "Write to me, pray for me," is
endorsed by Madame D'Arblay: "Written a few hours after the death of
Mr. Thrale, which happened by a sudden stroke of apoplexy, on the
morning of a day on which half the fashion of London had been invited
to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square." These
invitations had been sent out by his own express desire: so little
was he aware of his danger.
Letters and messages of condolence poured in from all sides. Johnson
(in a letter dated April 5th) said all that could be said in the way
of counsel or consolation:
"I do not exhort you to reason yourself into tranquillity. We must
first pray, and then labour; first implore the blessing of God, and
those means which He puts into our hands. Cultivated ground, has few
weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for
useless regret.
"We read the will to-day; but I will not fill my first letter with
any other account than that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I
am satisfied; and that the other executors, more used to consider
property than I, commended it for wisdom and equity. Yet, why should
I not tell you that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate
expenses, and two thousand pounds a-year, with both the houses and
all the goods?
"Let us pray for one another, that the time, whether long or short,
that shall yet be granted us, may be well spent; and that when this
life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a
better may begin which shall never end."
On April 9th he writes:
"DEAREST MADAM,--That you are gradually recovering your tranquillity,
is the effect to be humbly expected from trust in God. Do not
represent life as darker than it is. Your loss has been very great,
but you retain more than almost any other can hope to possess. You
are high in the opinion of mankind; you have children from whom much
pleasure may be expected; and that you will find many friends, you
have no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, be it worth more or less,
I hope you think yourself certain, without much art or care. It will
not be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have received; but I
hope to be always ready at your call. Our sorrow has different
effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into
company. _I_ am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such
a friend before. Let me have your prayers and those of my dear
Queeny.
"The prudence and resolution of your design to return so soon to your
business and your duty deserves great praise; I shall communicate it
on Wednesday to the other executors. Be pleased to let me know
whether you would have me come to Streatham to receive you, or stay
here till the next day."
Johnson was one of the executors and took pride in discharging his
share of the trust. Mrs. Thrale's account of the pleasure he took in
signing the documents and cheques, is incidentally confirmed by
Boswell:
"I could not but be somewhat diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a
pompous manner of his new office, and particularly of the concerns of
the brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold. Lord Lucan
tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly
characteristical; that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going
forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in
his button-hole, like an excise-man; and on being asked what he
really considered to be the value of the property which was to be
disposed of, answered, 'We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers
and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of
avarice.'"
The executors had legacies of 200_l._ each; Johnson, to the surprise
of his friends, being placed on no better footing than the rest. He
himself was certainly disappointed. Mrs. Thrale says that his
complacency towards Thrale was not wholly devoid of interested
motives; and she adds that his manner towards Reynolds and Dr. Taylor
was also softened by the vague expectation of being named in their
wills. One of her marginal notes is: "Johnson mentioned to Reynolds
that he had been told by Taylor he was to be his heir. His fondness
for Reynolds, ay, and for Thrale, had a dash of interest to keep it
warm." Again, on his saying to Reynolds, "I did not mean to offend
you,"--"He never would offend Reynolds: he had his reason."
Many and heavy as were the reproaches subsequently heaped upon the
widow, no one has accused her of having been found wanting in energy,
propriety, or self-respect at this period. She took the necessary
steps for promoting her own interests and those of her children with
prudence and promptitude. Madame D'Arblay, who was carrying on a
flirtation with one of the executors (Mr. Crutchley), and had
personal motives for watching their proceedings, writes, April
29th:--
"Miss Thrale is steady and constant, and very sincerely grieved for
her father.
"The four executors, Mr. Cator, Mr. Crutchley, Mr. Henry Smith, and
Dr. Johnson, have all behaved generously and honourably, and seem
determined to give Mrs. Thrale all the comfort and assistance in
their power. She is to carry on the business jointly with them. Poor
soul! it is a dreadful toil and worry to her."
In "Thraliana":
"_Streatham, 1st May_, 1781.--I have now appointed three days a week
to attend at the counting-house. If an angel from heaven had told me
twenty years ago that the man I knew by the name of _Dictionary
Johnson_ should one day become partner with me in a great trade, and
that we should jointly or separately sign notes, drafts, &c., for
three or four thousand pounds of a morning, how unlikely it would
have seemed ever to happen! Unlikely is no word tho',--it would have
seemed _incredible_, neither of us then being worth a groat, God
knows, and both as immeasurably removed from commerce as birth,
literature, and inclination could get us. Johnson, however, who
desires above all other good the accumulation of new ideas, is but
too happy with his present employment; and the influence I have over
him, added to his own solid judgment and a regard for truth, will at
last find it in a small degree difficult to win him from the dirty
delight of seeing his name in a new character flaming away at the
bottom of bonds and leases."
* * * * *
"Apropos to writing verses in a language one don't understand, there
is always the allowance given, and that allowance (like our excise
drawbacks) commonly larger than it ought to be. The following
translation of the verses written with a knife, has been for this
reason uncommonly commended, though they have no merit except being
done quick. Piozzi asked me on Sunday morning if ever I had seen
them, and could explain them to _him_, for that he heard they were
written by his friend Mr. Locke. The book in which they were
reposited was not ferreted out, however, till Monday night, and on
Tuesday morning I sent him verses and translation: we used to think
the original was Garrick's, I remember."
Translation of the verses written with a knife.
"Taglia Amore un coltello,
Cara, l'hai sentita dire;
Per l'Amore alla Moda,
Esso poco può soffrire.
Cuori che non mai fur giunti
Pronti stanno a separar,
Cari nodi come i nostri
Non son facili tagliar.
Questo dico, che se spezza
Tua tenera bellezza,
Molto ancor ci resterà;
Della mia buona fede
Il Coltello non s'avvede,
Nè di tua gran bontà.
Che tagliare speranze
Ben tutto si puo,
Per piaceri goduti
Oh, questo poi no?
Dolci segni!
Cari pegni!
Di felècità passata,
Non temer la coltellata,
Resterete--Io loro:
Se del caro ben gradita,
Trovo questa donatura,
Via pur la tagliatura
Sol d'Amore sta ferita."
"The power of emptying one's head of a great thing and filling it
with little ones to amuse care, is no small power, and I am proud of
being able to write Italian verses while I am bargaining 150,000_l_.,
and settling an event of the highest consequence to my own and my
children's welfare. David Barclay, the rich Quaker, will treat for
our brewhouse, and the negotiation is already begun. My heart
palpitates with hope and fear--my head is bursting with anxiety and
calculation; yet I can listen to a singer and translate verses about
a knife."
"Mrs. Montagu has been here; she says I ought to have a statue
erected to me for my diligent attendance on my compting-house duties.
The _wits_ and the _blues_ (as it is the fashion to call them) will
be happy enough, no doubt, to have me safe at the brewery--_out of
their way_."