y behaved so well he was soon preferred to be a house-clerk, and
then, having free access to his master's table, married his only
daughter, and succeeded to the business upon Child's demise. Being
now rich and prosperous, he turned his eyes homewards, where he
learned that sister Sukey had married a hardworking man at Offley in
Hertfordshire, and had many children. He sent for one of them to
London (my Mr. Thrale's father); said he would make a man of him, and
did so: but made him work very hard, and treated him very roughly,
Halsey being more proud than tender, and his only child, a daughter,
married to Lord Cobham.

"Old Thrale, however, as these fine writers call him,--then a young
fellow, and, like his uncle, eminent for personal beauty,--made
himself so useful to Mr. Halsey that the weight of the business fell
entirely on him; and while Edmund was canvassing the borough and
visiting the viscountess, Ralph Thrale was getting money both for
himself and his principal: who, envious of his success with a wench
they both liked but who preferred the young man to the old one, died,
leaving him never a guinea, and he bought the brewhouse of Lord and
Lady Cobham, making an excellent bargain, with the money he had
saved."

[Footnote 1: In "Thraliana" she says: "strolled to London with only
4_s._ 6_d._ in his pocket."]

When, in the next page but one, Boswell describes Thrale as
presenting the character of a plain independent English squire, she
writes: "No, no! Mr. Thrale's manners presented the character of a
gay man of the town: like Millamant, in Congreve's comedy, he
abhorred the country and everything in it."

In "Thraliana" after a corresponding statement, she adds: "He (the
elder Thrale) educated his son and three daughters quite in a high
style. His son he wisely connected with the Cobhams and their
relations, Grenvilles, Lyttletons, and Pitts, to whom he lent money,
and they lent assistance of every other kind, so that my Mr. Thrale
was bred up at Stowe, and Stoke and Oxford, and every genteel place;
had been abroad with Lord Westcote, whose expenses old Thrale
cheerfully paid, I suppose, who was thus a kind of tutor to the young
man, who had not failed to profit by these advantages, and who was,
when he came down to Offley to see his father's birthplace, a very
handsome and well accomplished gentleman."

After expatiating on the advantages of birth, and the presumption of
new men in attempting to found a new