His
personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated
courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one
of Wilkes's happiest repartees.
Opposite a passage descriptive of Johnson's conversation she has
written: "We used to say to one another familiarly at Streatham Park,
'Come, let us go into the library, and make Johnson speak Ramblers.'"
Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy:
"December 16th, 1786.
"I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi, dated Vienna, November 4, in
which she says that, after visiting Prague and Dresden, she shall
return home by Brussels, whither I have written to her; and I imagine
she will be in London early in the new year. Miss Thrale is at her
own house at Brighthelmstone, accompanied by a very respectable
companion, an officer's widow, recommended to her as such.[1] There
is a new life of Johnson published by a Dr. Towers, a Dissenting
minister and Dr. Kippis's associate in the Biographia Britannica, for
which work I take it for granted this life is to be hashed up again
when the letter 'J' takes its turn. There is nothing new in it; and
the author gives Johnson and his biographers all fair play, except
when he treats of his political opinions and pamphlets. I was glad to
hear that Johnson confessed to Dr. Fordyce, a little before his
death, that he had offended both God and man by his pride of
understanding.[2] Sir John Hawkins' Life of him is also finished, and
will be published with the works in February next.
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