the purpose of conversation, cards, and a cup of tea. Dr. Johnson was frequently to be seen in society of this kind as well as at his club and the dinners of his gentleman friends; and for some years he was almost a constant guest in one particular household, that of Mrs. Thrale at Streatham, of which I must tell you.

Mrs. Thrale was the wife of a wealthy brewer and was noted for her vivacity, cleverness, and powers of entertaining company. She was the friend of all the great literary men and women of the day. She was good-humored, obliging and witty, but wanting in depth or tenderness of feeling. To her friends she was everything while her affection lasted; and to Dr. Johnson both she and her husband were for years all that kind and indulgent friends could be.

"Thrale Hall," at Streatham, was near enough to London to make the drive in and out easy in a few hours; and the great family coach with its liveried. servants was often seen in Fleet Street near Bolt Court waiting to fetch Dr. Johnson to the hospitable country-house. His room there was constantly in readiness; a plate was always laid for him at table, and he was considered so much one of the household that people who wanted to see him went oftener in search of him to Streatham than to his own house in Bolt Court.

Every attention was paid to him by the Thrales and their household. The Doctor's carelessness in

dress was such that Mrs. Thrale wisely provided some fine additions to his wardrobe which were kept for him at The Hall; and at the dinner hour, as he passed from the library to the dining-room, a servant stationed in the vestibule gravely lifted his old brown wig from his head and replaced it with a fresh one the old wig being laid on his dressing-table for use on the following day.

To Streatham came, as I have said, all the literary celebrities of the day. Among others Miss Fanny Burney, a young lady whose fame in 1778 was something extraordinary. She was the daughter of Doctor Burney, the musical critic, and had written a novel called Evelina; or a Young Lady's Introduction to the World, which was published anonymously, not even her own parents knowing that she was the author. She sent it privately to an obscure bookseller named Lowndes, who paid her a small sum for it, and waited in fear and trembling for its appearance in the world.

The book was hardly on his counters for sale before it became the great topic of the hour. Edmund Burke sat up all night to read it; Dr. Johnson went about wildly asking every friend he met who was the author; and Miss Burney's own family read it aloud