owed by your good
wishes, for I am, with great affection,

"Your, &c.

"Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me."

[Footnote 1: Queen Mary left the Scottish for the English coast, on
the Firth of Solway, in a fishing-boat. The incident to which Johnson
alludes is introduced in "The Abbot;" where the scene is laid on the
sea-shore. The unusual though expressive term "irremeable," is
defined in his dictionary, "admitting no return." His authority is
Dryden's Virgil:

"The keeper dream'd, the chief without delay
Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way."

The word is a Latin one anglicised:

"Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undae."]

In a memorandum on this letter, she says:--"I wrote him (No. 6) a
very kind and affectionate farewell."

Before calling attention to the results of this correspondence, I
must notice a charge built upon it by the reviewer, with the
respectable aid of the foul-mouthed and malignant Baretti:

"This letter is now printed for the first time by Mr. Hayward. But he
has omitted to notice the light which is thrown on it by Baretti's
account of the marriage. That account is given in the 'European
Magazine' for 1788. It is very circumstantial, and too long to
transcribe, but the upshot is this: He says that, in order to meet
her returning lover, she left Bath with her daughters as for a
journey to Brighton; quitted them on some pretence at Salisbury, and
posted off to town, _deceiving Dr. Johnson, who continued to direct
to her at Bath as usual_.[1] 'In London she kept herself concealed
for some days in my parish, and not very far distant from my own
habitation, ... in Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital.' 'In a _few
weeks_,' he adds, 'she was in a condition personally to resort to Mr.
Greenland (her lawyer) to settle preliminaries, then returned to Bath
with Piozzi, and there was married.' Now Baretti was a libeller, _and
not to be believed except upon compulsion_; but if he does speak the
truth, then the date, 'Bath, June 30,' of her circular letter, is a
mystification; so is the passage in her letter to Johnson of July
_4_, about 'sending it by the coach to prevent his coming.' Of course
she was mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming, for if he had come he
would have found her flown. According to this supposition, she did
not return to Bath at all, but remained perdue in London, with her
lover, during the whole 'Correspondence.' Is it the true one?

"We cannot but susp