��A necdotes.
��ascendency at all over Mr. Johnson, except just in the things that concerned his health, it grew extremely perplexing and difficult to live in the house with him when the master of it was no more x ; the worse indeed, because his dislikes grew capricious ; and he could scarce bear to have any body come to the house whom it was absolutely necessary for me to see 2 . Two gentlemen, I per fectly well remember, dining with us at Streatham in the Sum mer 1782, when Elliot's brave defence of Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse, one of these men naturally enough begun some talk about red-hot balls thrown with surprizing dexterity and effect 3 : which Dr. Johnson having listened some time to, 4 1 would advise you, Sir (said he with a cold sneer) never to relate this story again : you really can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it.' Our guest being bred a Quaker 4 , and I believe a man of an extremely gentle dis position, needed no more reproofs for the same folly ; so if he ever did speak again, it was in a low voice to the friend who came with him. The check was given before dinner 5 , and after
��cloaths, Mr. Thrale says, must be made like other people's, and they are gone to the taylor.' Letters, i. 322. 'I will send directions to the taylor to make me some cloaths ac cording to Mr. Thrale's direction.' Ib. ii. 39.
1 ' I know no man (said Johnson) who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale. If he but holds up his finger he is obeyed.' Life, i. 494.
2 Miss Burney writing of his con duct at Brighton in the late autumn of 1782 says: 'He has been in a terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 177. See also Life, iv. 159, n. 3.
3 It was in the autumn of 1782 that the news of the defence reached Eng land. Horace Walpole wrote on Oct. I
��(Letters, viii. 286) : ' I have this minute received a letter from General Conway with these words : " I have a piece of good news to tell you, which is the complete and entire defeat of the long-meditated attack on Gibraltar, which began on the 1 3th [of September] at 3 p.m., and before midnight all the famous bat teries were either burnt or sunk by our red-hot balls." '
4 This Quaker cannot have been Mr. Barclay the purchaser of the brewery, for ' he had never observed any rudeness or violence on the part of Johnson.' Croker's Bos-well, ed. 1844, x. 123. Johnson told Boswell 'that he liked individuals among the Quakers, but not the sect.' Life, ii. 458.
5 According to Barclay, ' Johnson, like many other men, was always in much better humour after dinner than before.' Croker's Eoswett t x. 123.
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