in all should conspire to keep my present
resolution warm, I certainly would, at the close of the four years
from the sale of the Southwark estate, set out for Italy, with my two
or three eldest girls, and see what the world could show me."

In a marginal note, she adds:

"Travelling with Mr. Johnson _I_ cannot bear, and leaving him behind
_he_ could not bear, so his life or death must determine the
execution or laying aside my schemes. I wish it were within reason to
_hope_ he could live four years."

"_Streatham, 4th January_, 1782.--I have taken a house in Harley
Street for these three months next ensuing, and hope to have some
society,--not company tho': crowds are out of the question, but
people will not come hither on short days, and 'tis too dull to live
all alone so. The world will watch me at first, and think I come o'
husband-hunting for myself or my fair daughters, but when I have
behaved prettily for a while, they will change their mind."

"_Harley Street, 14th January_, 1782.--The first seduction comes from
Pepys. I had a letter to-day desiring me to dine in Wimpole Street,
to meet Mrs. Montagu and a whole _army of blues_, to whom I trust my
refusal will afford very pretty speculation ... and they may settle
my character and future conduct at their leisure. Pepys is a
worthless fellow at last; he and his brother run about the town,
spying and enquiring what Mrs. Thrale is to do this winter, what
friends she is to see, what men are in her confidence, how soon she
will be _married_, &c.; the brother Dr.--the Medico, as we call
him--lays wagers about me, I find; God forgive me, but they'll make
me hate them both, and they are no better than two fools for their
pains, for I was willing to have taken them to my heart."

"They say Pacchierotti, the famous soprano singer, is ill, and _they
say_ Lady Mary Duncan, his frightful old protectress, has made him so
by her _caresses denaturees_. A little envy of the new woman,
Allegrante, has probably not much mended his health, for
Pacchierotti, dear creature, is envious enough. I was, however,
turning over Horace yesterday, to look for the expression _tenui
fronte_[1], in vindication of my assertion to Johnson that low
foreheads were classical, when the 8th Ode of the First Book of
Horace struck me so, I could not help imitating it while the scandal
was warm in my mind:

1.

"'He's sick indeed! and very sick,
For if it is not all a trick
You'd bette