e perhaps the only literary product more generally
insincere than epitaphs, we may believe that Goldsmith too meant what he
said in the dedication of _She Stoops to Conquer_. "It may do me some
honour to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy
with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them that
the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most
unaffected piety."

Though Johnson was thus rich in friendship, two connexions have still
to be noticed which had an exceptional bearing upon his fame and
happiness. In January, 1765, he made the acquaintance of the Thrales.
Mr. Thrale was the proprietor of the brewery which afterwards became
that of Barclay and Perkins. He was married in 1763 to a Miss Hester
Lynch Salisbury, who has become celebrated from her friendship with
Johnson.[1] She was a woman of great vivacity and independence of
character. She had a sensitive and passionate, if not a very tender
nature, and enough literary culture to appreciate Johnson's intellectual
power, and on occasion to play a very respectable part in conversation.
She had far more Latin and English scholarship than fell to the lot of
most ladies of her day, and wit enough to preserve her from degenerating
like some of the "blues," into that most offensive of beings--a feminine
prig. Her marriage had been one of convenience, and her husband's want
of sympathy, and jealousy of any interference in business matters,
forced her, she says, to take to literature as her sole resource. "No
wonder," she adds, "if I loved my books and children." It is, perhaps,
more to be wondered at that her children seem to have had a rather
subordinate place in her affections. The marriage, however, though not
of the happiest, was perfectly decorous. Mrs. Thrale discharged her
domestic duties irreproachably, even when she seems to have had some
real cause of complaint. To the world she eclipsed her husband, a solid
respectable man, whose mind, according to Johnson, struck the hours very
regularly, though it did not mark the minutes.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Thrale was born in 1740 or 1741, probably the latter.
Thrale was born in 1724.]

The Thrales were introduced to Johnson by their common friend, Arthur
Murphy, an actor and dramatist, who afterwards became the editor of
Johnson's works. One day, when calling upon Johnson, they found him in
such a fit of despair that Thrale tried to stop his mouth by placing h