Note 1071 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 6)

Mrs. Piozzi (Anec.p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (ante, ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote—and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it—more than three years passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for.