at Streatham Park. To be a guest there was to meet the best people in
England, and to hear such good talk that much of it has not lost its
flavor even yet. Strawberry Hill, Holland House, or any other famous
house of that day, has left but faint memories of itself, compared with
those of Streatham. Boswell, the most sagacious of men in the hunt after
good company, had the good wit and good fortune to get entrance here.
One day, in 1769, Dr. Johnson delivered him "a very polite card" from
Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, inviting him to Streatham. "On the 6th of October,
I complied," he says, "with their obliging invitation, and found, at
an elegant villa six miles from town, every circumstance that can make
society pleasing." Upon the walls of the library hung portraits of the
master and mistress of the house, and of their most familiar friends and
guests, all by Sir Joshua. Madame d'Arblay, in her most entertaining
"Diary," gives a list of them,--and a list is all that is needed of such
famous names. "Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter were in one piece,
over the fireplace, at full length. The rest of the pictures were all
three-quarters. Mr. Thrale was over the door leading to his study.
The general collection then began by Lord Sandys and Lord Westcote,
(Lyttelton,) two early noble friends of Mr. Thrale. Then followed Dr.
Johnson, Mr. Burke, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Baretti,
Sir Robert Chambers, and Sir Joshua Reynolds himself,--all painted in
the highest style of this great master, who much delighted in this his
Streatham Gallery. There was place left but for one more frame when the
acquaintance with Dr. Burney began at Streatham."

A household which had such men for its intimates must have had a more
than common charm in itself, and at Streatham this charm lay chiefly in
the character of its mistress. It was Mrs. Thrale who had the rare power
"to call together the most select company when it pleased her." In 1770
she was thirty years old. A small and not beautiful woman, but with
a variety of expression that more than compensated for the want of
handsome features, with a frank, animated manner, and that highest tact
which sets guests at ease, there was something specially attractive in
her first address. But beyond this she was the pleasantest converser of
all the ladies of the day. In that art in which one "has all mankind for
competitors," there was no one equal to her in her way. Gifted with the
readiest