Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/619

Rh jottings:— "Brighton, July, 1780. I have picked up Piozzi here, the great Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father: he shall teach Hester." And again:—"13th August, 1780. Piozzi is become a prodigious favourite with me. He is so intelligent a creature, so discerning, one can't help wishing for his good opinion; his singing surpasses everybody's for taste, tenderness, and true elegance; his hand on the forte piano, too, is so soft, so sweet, so delicate, every tone goes to the heart, I think, and fills the mind with emotions one would not be without, though inconvenient enough sometimes. He wants nothing from us; he comes for his health, he says; I see nothing ail the man but pride."

Towards the close of this eventful August, soon after their return to London, Mr. Thrale was attacked with apoplexy. Sir Lucas Pepys, being with them at Brighton, had observed symptoms of danger in his patient, and had sent him home, not to Streatham, but to a furnished house in Grosvenor Square, to be within easy reach of himself. It was too late, however; the crisis came, and the brewer's life was saved only by bleeding him till he fainted. Once more Mrs. Thrale's energy for business is called into play. She is at the counting-house daily, chases a clerk who has absconded with money, discovers new ruinous speculations of her husband, and does her best to straighten matters around him. The election too is not far off. In March 1781 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-electecl 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 innuendoes; 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 to make him so." The dying man, heavy half his time with apoplectic sleep, still made love to Sophy, and was intent on enjoying his life. Grosvenor Square was gayer than ever Streatham had been. "Yesterday," writes Mrs. Thrale, "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 contour—who comes up to Mrs. Thrale, you know!"

On Sunday, April 1st, there were at dinner, at Grosvenor Square, Boswell, Johnson, Sir Philip Jennings Clark, M.P., and Mr. Perkins, the head clerk at the brewery. The talk was of the American war; and Johnson's "boisterous vivacity," says Boswell, "entertained us. Presently Mrs. Thrale chanced to praise highly a witty friend of her own. 'Nay, my dear lady,' replied Johnson, 'don't talk so,' and proceeded to turn her friend into ridicule, and to scold her for her habit of blasting by praise. 'Now there is Pepys' (Mr. Thrale's physician); 'you praised that man with such disproportion that I was incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserved. His blood is upon your head. By the same principle your malice defeats itself; for your censure is too violent. And yet,' looking to her," says Boswell, "with a leering smile, 'she is the first woman in the world could she but restrain that wicked tongue of hers; she would be the only woman could she but command that little whirligig. Mr. Perkins must have felt himself much edified by this discriminating censure of his master's wife, while Boswell, no doubt, strained every nerve to fix the delicious words upon his memory. But the end of it all was near. On April 4th, 1781, in the midst of preparations for a magnificent concert and supper, another sudden stroke of apoplexy ended poor Thrale's life, and ended too, in Dr. Johnson's life, its happiest episode.

When the brewer's will was read it was found that Mrs. Thrale had the interest of 50,000l. for her life, with Streatham Park and the town-house in the Borough—the Brighton house falling to the share of the daughters. The business might be carried on conjointly by Mrs. Thrale and the executors, among whom was Dr. Johnson, or sold for what it would bring. Dr. Johnson is said to have wished to keep on the brewery; but Mrs. Thrale was the better man of business of the two, and it was sold; in June 1781, for 135,000l, to