Note 622 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 4)

Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his Diary:—'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's Life, p. 553. This was not 'a formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of one of her little girls:—'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours, and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be, that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the mercy of a thousand accidents.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 255. He was sadly thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away.