Lynch Salisbury, who has become celebrated from her friendship with
Johnson.[1] She was a woman of great vivacity and independence of
character. She had a sensitive and passionate, if not a very tender
nature, and enough literary culture to appreciate Johnson's intellectual
power, and on occasion to play a very respectable part in conversation.
She had far more Latin and English scholarship than fell to the lot of
most ladies of her day, and wit enough to preserve her from degenerating
like some of the "blues," into that most offensive of beings--a feminine
prig. Her marriage had been one of convenience, and her husband's want
of sympathy, and jealousy of any interference in business matters,
forced her, she says, to take to literature as her sole resource. "No
wonder," she adds, "if I loved my books and children." It is, perhaps,
more to be wondered at that her children seem to have had a rather
subordinate place in her affections. The marriage, however, though not
of the happiest, was perfectly decorous. Mrs. Thrale discharged her
domestic duties irreproachably, even when she seems to have had some
real cause of complaint. To the world she eclipsed her husband, a solid
respectable man, whose mind, according to Johnson, struck the hours very
regularly, though it did not mark the minutes.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Thrale was born in 1740 or 1741, probably the latter.
Thrale was born in 1724.]

The Thrales were introduced to Johnson by their common friend, Arthur
Murphy, an actor and dramatist, who afterwards became the editor of
Johnson's works. One day, when calling upon Johnson, they found him in
such a fit of despair that Thrale tried to stop his mouth by placing his
hand before it. The pair then joined in begging Johnson to leave his
solitary abode, and come to them at their country-house at Streatham. He
complied, and for the next sixteen years a room was set apart for him,