the last; and
finally left it with Mrs. Thrale, as a member of her family, to
reside in her house at Brighton, as her guest, for six weeks.[1] To
talk of conscious ill-treatment or wounded dignity, in the teeth of
facts like these, is laughable.

[Footnote 1: The Edinburgh reviewer says, "Johnson went in Oct. 1782
from Streatham to Brighton, where he lived a kind of boarding-house
life;" and adds, "he was not asked out into company with his
fellow-lodgers." The Thrales had a handsome furnished house at
Brighton, which is mentioned both in the Correspondence and
Autobiography.

It is amusing enough to watch these attempts to shade away the
ruinous effect of the Brighton trip on Lord Macaulay's Streatham
pathos.]

Madame D'Arblay joined the party as Mrs. Thrale's guest on the 26th
October, and on the 28th she writes:

"At dinner, we had Dr. Delap and Mr. Selwyn, who accompanied us in
the evening to a ball; as did also Dr. Johnson, to the universal
amazement of all who saw him there:--but he said he had found it so
dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon
going with us: 'for,' he said, 'it cannot be worse than being alone.'
Strange that he should think so! I am sure I am not of his mind."

On the 29th, she records that Johnson behaved very rudely to Mr.
Pepys, and fairly drove him from the house. The entry for November
10th is remarkable:--"We spent this evening at Lady De Ferrars, where
Dr. Johnson accompanied us, for the first time he has been invited of
our parties since my arrival." On the 20th November, she tells us
that Mrs. and the three Miss Thrales and herself got up early to
bathe. "We then returned home, and dressed by candle-light, and, _as
soon as we could get Dr. Johnson ready_, we set out upon our journey
in a coach and a chaise, and arrived in Argyll Street at dinner time.
Mrs. Thrale has there fixed her tent for this short winter, which
will end with the beginning of April, when her foreign journey takes
place."

One incident of this Brighton trip is mentioned in the "Anecdotes":

"We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in
November 1782, of some people skaiting, with these lines written
under:

'Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas,
Le precipice est sous la glace;
Telle est de nos plaisirs la legere surface,
Glissez, mortels; n'appuyez pas.'

"And I begged translations from every body: Dr. Johnson gave me this:

'O