120 Extracts from
��at Streatham x , he received the visits of his friends, and, to the most intimate of them, sometimes gave not inelegant dinners.
Being at ease in his circumstances, and free from that solicitude which had embittered the former part of his life, he sunk into ) indolence, till his faculties seemed to be impaired : deafness grew upon him ; long intervals of mental absence interrupted his con versation, and it was difficult to engage his attention to any subject 2 . His friends, from these symptoms, concluded, that his lamp was emitting its last rays, but the lapse of a short period gave them ample proofs to the contrary 3 . (Page 531.)
That this celebrated friendship [between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Thrale] subsisted so long as it did, was a subject of wonder to most of Johnson's intimates, for such were his habits of living, that he was by no means a desirable inmate. His unmanly
^thirst for tea made him very troublesome. At Streatham, he would suffer the mistress of the house to sit up and make it for
^ him, till two or three hours after midnight 4 . When retired to rest, he indulged himself in the dangerous practice of reading in bed 5 . It was a very hard matter to get him decently dressed by dinner-time, even when select companies were invited ; and no one could be sure, that in his table-conversation with strangers, he would not, by contradiction, or the general asperity of his behaviour, offend them 6 .
These irregularities were not only borne with by Mr. Thrale, but he seemed to think them amply atoned for by the honour he derived from such a guest as no table in the three kingdoms could produce ; but, he dying, it was not likely that the same sentiments and opinions should descend to those of his family who were left behind. (Page 561.)
1 Life, i. 493. 2 Life, iii. 98.
' My friend bade me welcome, but 3 By the Lives of the Poets.
struck me quite dumb, 4 This is a gross exaggeration of
With tidings that Johnson and Burke what Mrs. Piozzi wrote. Ante, i. 329.
would not come ; Hawkins apparently never visited
"For I knew it," he cried, "both the Thrales (see Miss Hawkins's
eternally fail, Memoirs, i. 65 .), so that his account
The one with his speeches, and is second-hand,
t'other with Thrale." ' 5 Ante, i. 307.
Goldsmith's Haunch of Venison. 6 Ante, i. 242.
The
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