��Anecdotes.
��some friend who was kind enough to engage him in talk, and favour my retreat x .
The first time I ever saw this extraordinary man was in the year J764 2 , when Mr. Murphy, who had been long the friend and confidential intimate of Mr. Thrale 3 , persuaded him to wish for Johnson's conversation, extolling it in terms which that of no other person could have deserved, till we were only in doubt how to obtain his company, and find an excuse for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of common discourse 4 , soon
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��1 Dr. Burney told Boswell that in the year 1775, 'he very frequently met Dr. Johnson at Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, often sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer than the patience of the servants subsisted.' Life, ii. 407.
2 In her Thraliana she had re corded : ' It was on the second Thursday of the month of January, 1765 that I first saw Mr. Johnson in a room. Murphy ... so whetted our desire of seeing him soon that we were only disputing how he should be invited, when he should be in vited, and what should be the pre tence. At last it was resolved that one Woodhouse, a shoemaker, who had written some verses and been asked to some tables, should like wise be asked to ours, and made a temptation to Mr. Johnson to meet him : accordingly he came [to our house in Southwark] and Mr. Mur phy at four o'clock brought Mr. John son to dinner. We liked each other so well that the next Thursday was appointed for the same company to meet, exclusive of the shoemaker, and since then Johnson has re mained till this day our constant acquaintance, visitor, companion,
��and friend.' Hayward's Piozzi, 2nd ed. i. 13.
Had this passage been published in the first edition I might have spared my readers a note on John son's first acquaintance with the Thrales. Life, i. 520.
3 'They are very old friends,' wrote Miss Burney in 1779, 'and I question if Mr. Thrale loves any man so well.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 210. For Murphy's intro duction to Johnson, see post, p. 306.
4 Mr. R. B. Adam of Buffalo has sent me a copy of the following letter of Woodhouse, dated July 28, 1809. To whom it was written is not ap parent : ' I shall now answer your Request concerning the Anecdote relating to Dr. Johnson and myself, which is simply this I was informed, at the Time, that Dr. Johnson's Curiosity was excited, by what was said of me in the literary World, as a kind of wild Beast from the Country, and express'd a Wish to Mr. Murphy, who was his intimate Friend, to see me. In consequence of which, Mr. Murphy, being ac quainted with Mrs. Thrale, intimated to her that both might be invited to dine there, at the same Time ; for, until then, Dr. Johnson had never seen Mrs. Thrale, who, no Doubt
afforded
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