Edmund Halsey, who began life by running away from his father,
a miller at St. Albans. Halsey was taken in as a clerk-of-all-work at
the Anchor Brewhouse in Southwark, became a house-clerk, able enough to
please Child, his master, and handsome enough to please his master's
daughter. He married the daughter and succeeded to Child's Brewery, made
much money, and had himself an only daughter, whom he married to a lord.
Henry Thrale's father was a nephew of Halseys, who had worked in the
brewery for twenty years, when, after Halsey's death, he gave security
for thirty thousand pounds as the price of the business, to which a noble
lord could not succeed. In eleven years he had paid the purchase-money,
and was making a large fortune. To this business his son, who was
Johnson's friend, Henry Thrale, succeeded; and upon Thrale's death it was
bought for 150,000 pounds by a member of the Quaker family of Barclay,
who took Thrale's old manager, Perkins, into partnership.

Johnson became, after 1765, familiar in the house of the Thrales at
Streatham. There was much company. Mrs. Thrale had a taste for literary
guests and literary guests had, on their part, a taste for her good
dinners. Johnson was the lion-in-chief. There was Dr. Johnson's room
always at his disposal; and a tidy wig kept for his special use, because
his own was apt to be singed up the middle by close contact with the
candle, which he put, being short-sighted, between his eyes and a book.
Mrs. Thrale had skill in languages, read Latin, French, Italian, and
Spanish. She read literature, could quote aptly, and put knowledge as
well as playful life into her conversation. Johnson's regard for the
Thrales was very real, and it was heartily returned, though Mrs. Thrale
had, like her friend, some weaknesses, in common with most people who
feed lions and wish to pass for wits among the witty.

About fourteen years after Johnson's first acquaintance with the
Thrales--when Johnson was seventy years old and Mrs. Thrale near
forty--the little lady, who had also lost several children, was unhappy
in the thought that she had ceased to be appreciated by her husband. Her
husband's temper became affected by the commercial troubles of 1762, and
Mrs. Thrale became jealous of the regard between him and Sophy
Streatfield, a rich widow's daughter. Under January, 1779, she wrote in
her "Thraliana," "Mr. Thrale has fallen in love, really and seriously,
with Sophy Streatfield;