Note 220 — FRIDAY, AUGUST 20.
Reading edition
Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (Piozzi Letters, i. 292):—' I hope I shall quickly come to Streatham...and catch a little gaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:—'That he never caught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habitually everywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On the margin of i. 315 Baretti has written:—'Johnson mused as much on the road to Paris as he did in his garret in London as much at a French opera as in his room at Streatham.'