own, but from your folly.'

Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune of four
thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable, because he could
not talk in company; so miserable, that he was impelled to lament his
situation in the street to ----[275], whom he hates, and who he knows
despises him. 'I am a most unhappy man (said he). I am invited to
conversations. I go to conversations; but, alas! I have no
conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Man commonly cannot be successful in different
ways. This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year,
the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.'
Mr. Perkins made a shrewd and droll remark: 'If he had got his four
thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the
same time that he was getting his fortune.'

Some other gentlemen came in. The conversation concerning the person
whose character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightingly, as he did not
know his merit, was resumed. Mrs. Thrale said, 'You think so of him,
Sir, because he is quiet, and does not exert himself with force. You'll
be saying the same thing of Mr. ---- there, who sits as quiet--.' This
was not well-bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction.
'Nay, Madam, what right have you to talk thus? Both Mr. ---- and I have
reason to take it ill. _You_ may talk so of Mr. ----; but why do you
make _me_ do it. Have I said anything against Mr. ----? You have _set_
him, that I might shoot him: but I have not shot him.'

One of the gentlemen said, he had seen three folio volumes of Dr.
Johnson's sayings collected by me. 'I must put you right, Sir, (said I;)
for I am very exact in authenticity. You could not see folio volumes,
for I have none: you might have seen some in quarto and octavo. This is
inattention which one should guard against.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a want
of concern about veracity. He does not know that he saw _any_ volumes.
If he had seen them he could have remembered their size[276].'

Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick to-day. I saw him again on Monday
evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger; but
early in the morning of Wednesday, the 4th[277], he expired[278].
Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event: 'I felt almost
the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the
face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with
respect and benignity[279].' Upo