t grateful thanks,
and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time, and in a blessed
eternity.--Tuesday morn.'

I cannot omit a curious circumstance which occurred at Edensor-inn,
close by Chatsworth, to survey the magnificence of which I had gone a
considerable way out of my road to Scotland. The inn was then kept by
a very jolly landlord, whose name, I think, was Malton. He happened
to mention that 'the celebrated Dr. Johnson had been in his house.' I
inquired WHO this Dr. Johnson was, that I might hear mine host's notion
of him. 'Sir, (said he,) Johnson, the great writer; ODDITY, as they call
him. He's the greatest writer in England; he writes for the ministry; he
has a correspondence abroad, and lets them know what's going on.'

My friend, who had a thorough dependance upon the authenticity of my
relation without any EMBELLISHMENT, as FALSEHOOD or FICTION is too
gently called, laughed a good deal at this representation of himself.

On Wednesday, March 18,* I arrived in London, and was informed by good
Mr. Francis that his master was better, and was gone to Mr. Thrale's at
Streatham, to which place I wrote to him, begging to know when he would
be in town. He was not expected for some time; but next day having
called on Dr. Taylor, in Dean's-yard, Westminster, I found him there,
and was told he had come to town for a few hours. He met me with his
usual kindness, but instantly returned to the writing of something
on which he was employed when I came in, and on which he seemed much
intent. Finding him thus engaged, I made my visit very short.

* 1778.

On Friday, March 20, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs.
Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allotted to me was now
appropriated to a charitable purpose; Mrs. Desmoulins, and I think her
daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his
humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins herself told me,
he allowed her half-a-guinea a week. Let it be remembered, that this was
above a twelfth part of his pension.

His liberality, indeed, was at all periods of his life very remarkable.
Mr. Howard, of Lichfield, at whose father's house Johnson had in his
early years been kindly received, told me, that when he was a boy at
the Charter-House, his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to
Mr. Samuel Johnson, which he accordingly did, and found him in an upper
room, of poor appearance. Johnson received him with much