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.
Thrale eat voraciously--so voraciously that, encouraged by Jebb and
Pepys, who had charged me to do so, I checked him rather severely,
and Mr. Johnson added these remarkable words: "Sir, after the
denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little
better than suicide." He did not, however, desist, and Sir Philip
said, he eat apparently in defiance of control, and that it was
better for us to say nothing to him. Johnson observed that he thought
so too; and that he spoke more from a sense of duty than a hope of
success. Baretti and these two spent the evening with me, and I was
enumerating the people who were to meet the Indian ambassadors on the
Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and bespoke an elegant
entertainment.
"On the next day, Tuesday the 3rd, Mrs. Hinchliffe called on me in
the morning to go see Webber's drawings of the South Sea rareties. We
met the Smelts, the Ords, and numberless _blues_ there, and displayed
our pedantry at our pleasure. Going and coming, however, I quite
teazed Mrs. Hinchliffe with my low-spirited terrors about Mr. Thrale,
who had not all this while one symptom worse than he had had for
months; though the physicians this Tuesday morning agreed that a
continuation of such dinners as he had lately made would soon
dispatch a life so precarious and uncertain.
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