342 Anecdotes.
his first coming to be our constant guest in the country; and several times after that, when he found himself particularly op- pressed with diseases incident to the most vivid and fervent imaginations. I shall for ever consider it as the greatest honour which could be conferred on any one, to have been the con- fidential friend of Dr. Johnson's health; and to have in some measure, with Mr. Thrale's assistance, saved from distress at least, if not from worse, a mind great beyond the comprehension of common mortals, and good beyond all hope of imitation from perishable beings *.
Many of our friends were earnest that he should write the lives of our famous prose authors; but he never made any answer that I can recollect to the proposal, excepting when Sir Richard Musgrave once was singularly warm about it, getting up and intreating him to set about the work immediately; he coldly replied, 'Sit down, Sir[1]!'
When Mr. Thrale built the new library at Streatham, and hung up over the books the portraits of his favourite friends, that of Dr. Johnson was last finished, and closed the number 3. It was
1 Writing of him and her mother
she says: – 'excellent as they both
were, far beyond the excellence of
any other man and woman I ever
yet saw.' Ante, p. 235.
2 Miss Burney describes Musgrave as 'a caricature of Mr. Boswell, who is a caricature of all others of Dr. John- son's admirers. ... The incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in keeping my counte- nance.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 84.
He published in 1802 Memoirs of the Rebellions in Ireland.
3 'The whole of them were sold by auction in the spring of 1816. Ac- cording to Mrs. Piozzi's marked catalogue they fetched the following prices: – Lord Sandys, £36. 15; Lord Lyttelton [W. H. Lyttelton, after- wards Lord Westcote], £43. 1; Mrs. Piozzi and her daughter, £81. 18; Goldsmith (duplicate of the original), £133. 7; Sir J. Reynolds, £128. 2; Sir R. Chambers, £84; David Gar- rick, £183. 15; Baretti, £31. 10; Dr. Burney, £84; Edmund Burke, £252; Dr. Johnson, £378; "Mr. Murphy was offered £102. 18, but I bought it in." Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 171. 'In 1780,' continues Mr. Hayward, 'Reynolds raised the price of his portraits (three-quarter size) from thirty-five to fifty guineas, which, Mrs. Piozzi complains, made the
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