n's conversation,
extolling it in terms which that of no other person could have deserved,
till we were only in doubt how to obtain his company, and find an excuse
for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse, a shoemaker, whose
verses were at that time the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a
pretence, and Mr. Murphy brought Johnson to meet him, giving me general
cautions not to be surprised at his figure, dress, or behaviour. What I
recollect best of the day's talk was his earnestly recommending Addison's
works to Mr. Woodhouse as a model for imitation. "Give nights and days,
sir," said he, "to the study of Addison, if you mean either to be a good
writer, or what is more worth, an honest man." When I saw something like
the same expression in his criticism on that author, lately published, I
put him in mind of his past injunctions to the young poet, to which he
replied, "that he wished the shoemaker might have remembered them as
well." Mr. Johnson liked his new acquaintance so much, however, that,
from that time he dined with us every Thursday through the winter, and in
the autumn of the next year he followed us to Brighthelmstone, whence we
were gone before his arrival; so he was disappointed and enraged, and
wrote us a letter expressive of anger, which we were very desirous to
pacify, and to obtain his company again, if possible. Mr. Murphy brought
him back to us again very kindly, and from that time his visits grew more
frequent, till in the year 1766 his health, which he had always
complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his
room in the court he inhabited for many _weeks_ together--I think
_months_.

Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that
he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which he said
was nearly distracted; and though he charged _us_ to make him odd solemn
promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him
one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers
of Dr. Delap, who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected
with grief, and well remember my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand
to shut his mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so wildly proclaim
what he could at last persuade no one to believe, and what, if true,
would have been so very unfit to reveal.

Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me
prevail on him t