Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/360

 342 Anecdotes.

��his first coming to be our constant guest in the country; and several times after that, when he found himself particularly op pressed with diseases incident to the most vivid and fervent imaginations. I shall for ever consider it as the greatest honour which could be conferred on any one, to have been the con fidential friend of Dr. Johnson's health ; and to have in some measure, with Mr. Thrale's assistance, saved from distress at least, if not from worse, a mind great beyond the comprehension of common mortals, and good beyond all hope of imitation from perishable beings *.

Many of our friends were earnest that he should write the lives of our famous prose authors ; but he never made any answer that I can recollect to the proposal, excepting when Sir Richard Musgrave once was singularly warm about it, getting up and intreating him to set about the work immediately; he coldly replied, ' Sit down. Sir 2 / '

When Mr. Thrale built the hew library at Streatham, and hung up over the books the portraits of his favourite friends, that of Dr. Johnson was last finished, and closed the number 3. It was

1 Writing of him and her mother 3 'The whole of them were sold by she says: 'excellent as they both auction in the spring of 1816. Ac- were, far beyond the excellence of cording to Mrs. Piozzi's marked any other man and woman I ever catalogue they fetched the following yet saw.' A nte, p. 235. prices: Lord Sandys, ^36. 15 ; Lord

2 Miss Burney describes Musgrave Lyttelton [W. H. Lyttelton, after- as ' a caricature of Mr. Boswell, who is wards Lord Westcote], ^43. I ; Mrs, a caricature of all others of Dr. John- Piozzi and her daughter, ^81. 18; son's admirers. . . . The incense he Goldsmith (duplicate of the original), paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn ^133. 7; Sir J. Reynolds, ^128. 2; manner of listening, by the earnest Sir R. Chambers, ^84 ; David Gar- reverence with which he eyed him, rick, .183. 15; Baretti, ^31. 10; and by a theatric start of admiration Dr. Burney, ^84 ; Edmund Burke, every time he spoke, joined to the ^252 ; Dr. Johnson, ^378 ; " Mr. Doctor's utter insensibility to all Murphy was offered .102. 18, but I these tokens, made me find infinite bought it in." ' Hayvvard's Piozzi, difficulty in keeping my counte- ii. 171. 'In 1780,' continues Mr. nance.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, Hay ward, ' Reynolds raised the price ii. 84. of his portraits (three-quarter size)

He published in 1802 Memoirs of from thirty-five to fifty guineas, which, the Rebellions in Ireland. Mrs. Piozzi complains, made the

almost

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