dear Mur[1], the story is black enough now; and it was a very happy day for me that brought you first to my house, and a very happy mistake about the Ramblers.'
Dr. Johnson was always exceeding fond of chemistry; and we made up a sort of laboratory at Streatham one summer, and diverted ourselves with drawing essences and colouring liquors[2]. But the danger Mr. Thrale found his friend in one day when I was driven to London, and he had got the children and servants round him to see some experiments performed, put an end to all our entertainment; so well was the master of the house persuaded, that his short sight would have been his destruction in a moment, by bringing him close to a fierce and violent flame. Indeed it was a perpetual miracle that he did not set himself on fire reading a-bed, as was his constant custom, when exceedingly unable even to keep clear of mischief with our best help; and accordingly the fore-top of all his wigs were [sic] burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's valet-de-chambre, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour-door when the bell had called him down to dinner, and as he went up stairs to
- ↑ 'Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy; Langton, Lanky: Murphy, Mur; Sheridan, Sherry.' Life, ii. 258.
- ↑ He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 24, 1771: – 'Be pleased to make my compliments to Mr. Thrale, and desire that his builders will leave about a hundred loose bricks. I can at present think of no better place for chymistry in fair weather than the pump-side in the kitchen-garden.' Letters, i. 183. For his love of chemistry see Life, i. 140, 436; iii. 398; iv. 237. He defines chymist as a philosopher by fire.
Smollett, writing of the reign of George II, says: – 'Natural philosophy became a general study; and the new doctrine of electricity grew into fashion... The art of chemistry was perfectly understood and assiduously applied to the purposes of sophistication.' History of England, ed. 1800, v. 375. (Johnson defines Sophistication; adulteration.)
Watson, at his chemical lectures at Cambridge (1766-9), had very crowded audiences 'of persons of all ages and degrees in the University.' Life of Bishop Watson, i. 46, 53.
Gibbon, after the publication of the first volume of his History, attended a course of anatomy and some lessons on chemistry. 'The anatomist and chemist,' he says, 'may sometimes track me in their own snow.' Misc. Works, i. 229.
study of alchymy.' Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ed. 1802, ii. 138.
