The event next narrated in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, proved deeply
affecting to the happiness and gaiety of his social circles; for now
a catastrophe, which for some time had seemed impending, and which,
though variously fluctuating, had often struck with terror, or damped
with sorrow, the liveliest spirits and gayest scenes of Streatham,
suddenly took place; and cut short for ever the honours and the peace
of that erst illustrious dwelling.
Mr. Thrale, for many years, in utter ignorance what its symptoms were
foreboding, had been harbouring, through an undermining indulgence
of immoderate sleep after meals, a propensity to paralysis. The
prognostics of distemper were then little observed but by men of
science; and those were rarely called in till something fatal was
apprehended. It is, probably, only since the time that medical and
surgical lectures have been published as well as delivered; and
simplified from technical difficulties, so as to meet and to enlighten
the unscientific intellect of the herd of mankind, that the world at
large seems to have learned the value of early attention to incipient
malady.
Even Dr. Johnson was so little aware of the insalubrity of Mr. Thrale’s
course of life, that, without interposing his powerful and never
disregarded exhortations, he often laughingly said, “Mr. Thrale will
out-sleep the seven sleepers!”
Strange it may seem, at this present so far more enlightened day upon
these subjects, that Dr. Johnson, at least, should not have been
alarmed at this lethargic tendency; as the art of medicine, which, for
all that belongs to this world, stands the highest in utility, was,
abstractedly, a study upon which he loved to ruminate, and a subject
he was addicted to discuss. But this instance of complete vacuity of
practical information upon diseases and remedies in Dr. Johnson, will
cease to give surprise, when it is known that, near the middle of his
life, and in the fullest force of his noble faculties, upon finding
himself assailed by a severe fit of the gout in his ancle, he sent
for a pail of cold water, into which he plunged his leg during the
worst of the paroxysm—a feat of intrepid ignorance—incongruous as
sounds the word ignorance in speaking of Dr. Johnson—that probably he
had cause to rue during his whole after-life; for the gout, of which
he chose to get rid in so succinct a manner—a feat in which he often
exulted—might have carried off many of the direful obstructions, and
asthmatic seizures and sufferings, of which his latter years were
wretchedly the martyrs.
Thus, most unfortunately, without representation, opposition, or
consciousness, Mr. Thrale went on in a self-destroying mode of conduct,
till,
“Uncall’d—unheeded—unawares—”
he was struck with a fit of apoplexy.
Yet even this stroke, by the knowledge and experience of his medical
advisers,[36] might perhaps have been parried, had Mr. Thrale been
imbued with earlier reverence for the arts of recovery. But he slighted
them all; and fearless, or, rather, incredulous of danger, he attended
to no prescription. He simply essayed the waters of Tunbridge; and made
a long sojourn at Bath. All in vain! The last and fatal seizure was
inflicted at his own town house, in Grosvenor Square, in the spring of
1781: and at an instant when such a blow was so little expected, that
all London, amongst persons of fashion, talents, or celebrity, had been
invited to a splendid entertainment, meant for the night of that very
dawn which rose upon the sudden earthly extinction of the lamented and
respected chief of the mansion.