gone on perversely: how should they chuse [an omission
here] when the sole proprietor is incapable of giving orders, yet not
so far incapable as to be set aside! Distress, fraud, folly, meet me
at every turn, and I am not able to fight against them all, though
endued with an iron constitution, which shakes not by sleepless
nights or days severely fretted.

"Mr. Thrale talks now of going to Spa and Italy again; how shall we
drag him thither? A man who cannot keep awake four hours at a stroke
&c. Well! this will indeed be a tryal of one's patience; and who must
go with us on this expedition? Mr. Johnson!--he will indeed be the
only happy person of the party; he values nothing _under_ heaven but
his own mind, which is a spark _from_ heaven, and that will be
invigorated by the addition of new ideas. If Mr. Thrale dies on the
road, Johnson will console himself by learning how it is to travel
with a corpse: and, after all, such reasoning is the true
philosophy--one's heart is a mere incumbrance--would I could leave
mine behind. The children shall go to their sisters at Kensington,
Mrs. Cumyns may take care of them all. God grant us a happy meeting
some _where_ and some _time_!

"Baretti should attend, I think; there is no man who has so much of
every language, and can manage so well with Johnson, is so tidy on
the road, so active top to obtain good accommodations. He is the man
in the world, I think, whom I most abhor, and who _hates_ and
_professes_ to _hate me_ the most; but what does that signifie? He
will be careful of Mr. Thrale and Hester whom he _does_ love--and he
won't strangle _me_, I suppose. Somebody we _must_ have. Croza would
court our daughter, and Piozzi could not talk to Johnson, nor, I
suppose, do one any good but sing to one,--and how should we _sing
songs in a strange land_? Baretti must be the man, and I will beg it
of him as a favour. Oh, the triumph he will have! and the lyes he
will tell!" Thrale's death is thus described in "Thraliana":

"On the Sunday, the 1st of April, I went to hear the Bishop of
Peterborough preach at May Fair Chapel, and though the sermon had
nothing in it particularly pathetic, I could not keep my tears within
my eyes. I spent the evening, however, at Lady Rothes', and was
cheerful. Found Sir John Lade, Johnson, and Boswell, with Mr. Thrale,
at my return to the Square. On Monday morning Mr. Evans came to
breakfast; Sir Philip and Dr. Johnson to dinner--so did Baretti. Mr.
Th