re
with the professed portraits. The history of this picture (which has
been engraved, at Lord Macaulay's suggestion, for this work) will be
found in the Autobiography and the Letters.

Boswell's account of his first visit to Streatham gives a tolerably
fair notion of the footing on which Johnson stood there, and the
manner in which the interchange of mind was carried on between him
and the hostess. This visit took place in October, 1769, four years
after Johnson's introduction to her; and Boswell's absence from
London, in which he had no fixed residence during Johnson's life,
will hardly account for the neglect of his illustrious friend in not
procuring him a privilege which he must have highly coveted and would
doubtless have turned to good account.

"On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation; and
found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circumstance
that can make society pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was
yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be
equally the care of his host and hostess. I rejoiced at seeing him so
happy."

"Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him
powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it;
his love verses were college verses: and he repeated the song,
'Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains,' &c. in so ludicrous a manner, as
to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such
fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to her guns with great courage,
in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at
last silenced her by saving, 'My dear lady, talk no more of this.
Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.'

"Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talents for light gay poetry;
and, as a specimen, repeated his song in 'Florizel and Perdita,' and
dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:--

"'I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.'

"_Johnson._--'Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David!
Smile with the simple!--what folly is that? And who would feed with
the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and
feed with the rich.'" Boswell adds, that he repeated this sally to
Glarrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a
little irritated by it; on which Mrs. Thrale remarks, "How odd to go
and tell the man!"

The independent tone she took when she deemed the Doctor
unreasonable, is also proved by Boswel