Perkins called it being planet struck, and I
am not sure he was ever completely the same man again." The notes of
his conversation during the antecedent period are equally meagre.[1]
He is described by Madame D'Arblay as taking a singular amusement in
hearing, instigating, and provoking a war of words, alternating
triumph and overthrow, between clever and ambitious colloquial
combatants.
[Footnote 1: "Pray, Doctor, said a gentleman to Johnson, is Mr.
Thrale a man of conversation, or is he only wise and silent?' 'Why,
Sir, his conversation does not show the _minute_ hand; but he
generally strikes the hour very correctly.'"--_Johnsoniana_.]
No one would have expected to find her as much at home in Greek and
Latin authors as a man of fair ability who had received and profited
by an University education, but she could appreciate a classical
allusion or quotation, and translate off-hand a Latin epigram.
"Mary Aston," said Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit
and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made
this epigram upon her. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw!
"'Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale!'
"Will it do this way in English, Sir? (said Mrs. Thrale)--
"'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you,
If freedom we seek, fair Maria, adieu."
Mr. Croker's version is:--
"'You wish me, fair Maria, to be free,
Then, fair Maria, I must fly from thee.
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