3. When the executors first met, he
wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till
I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and
suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself
to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I
often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his
wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a
farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several
calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising
his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424)
about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his
extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr.
Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in
some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted,
and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3.

[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You
have, L500 for your immediate expenses, and, L2000 a year, with both the
houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on
June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson L200 a
year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very
inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290.

[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went
early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker,
who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if
all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the
coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs.
Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager
expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a
white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34.
The brewery was sold for L135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781.

[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784.

[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the
two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him L30,000 a year
neat profit.'

[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773,
Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes
used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_,
ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1