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Mrs. Piozzi, by her second marriage, was by her first marriage the Mrs. Thrale in whose house at Streatham Doctor Johnson was, after the year of his first introduction, 1765, in days of infirmity, an honoured and a cherished friend. The year of the beginning of the friendship...
Dr. Johnson had indeed a veneration for the voice of mankind beyond what most people will own; and as he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from hims...
9. Chapter 9His manner of criticising and commending Addison's prose was the same in conversation as we read it in the printed strictures, and many of the expressions used have been heard t...
12. Chapter 12When one day he had at my house taken tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, for a vomit, he was himself the person to direct us what to do for him, and managed with as mu...
8. Chapter 8Dr. Johnson did not, I think, much delight in that kind of conversation which consists in telling stories. "Everybody," said he, "tells stories of me, and I tell stories of nobo...
5. Chapter 5Though Mr. Johnson had but little reverence either for talents or fortune when he found them unsupported by virtue, yet it was sufficient to tell him a man was very pious, or ve...
3. Chapter 3"'You seem, my lord, to be concerned at the judicious apprehension that while you are sapping the foundations of royalty at home, and propagating here the dangerous doctrine of...
7. Chapter 7I asked him upon this if he ever disputed with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her passionately.) "Perpetually," said he: "my wife had a particular reverence for cleanlines...
10. Chapter 10One day, when he was in a humour to record some of them, he told us the following tale:--"A person," said he, "had for these last five weeks often called at my door, but would n...
2. Chapter 2At eight years old he went to school, for his health would not permit him to be sent sooner; and at the age of ten years his mind was disturbed by scruples of infidelity, which...
1. Chapter 1Mrs. Piozzi, by her second marriage, was by her first marriage the Mrs. Thrale in whose house at Streatham Doctor Johnson was, after the year of his first introduction, 1765, in...
4. Chapter 4"Long may live my lovely Hetty! Always young and always pretty, Always pretty, always young, Live my lovely Hetty long! Always young and always pretty! Long may live my lovely H...
6. Chapter 6Of that respectable society I have heard him speak in the highest terms, and with a magnificent panegyric on each member, when it consisted only of a dozen or fourteen friends;...
13. Chapter 13I will add one or two peculiarities more before I lay down my pen. Though at an immeasurable distance from content in the contemplation of his own uncouth form and figure, he di...