remarkable, and to fill quarto note books with minutes of what
Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of
which was afterwards constructed the most interesting
biographical work in the world.

Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connection
less important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his
happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one
of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and
cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit,
was married to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain,
pert young women, who are perpetually doing or saying what is not
exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always
agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson;
and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were
astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation.
They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated,
preferred their house to any other in London. Even the
peculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilised society,
his gesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings,
the strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous
eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of
melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his
occasional ferocity, increased the interest which his new
associates took in him. For these things were the cruel marks
left behind by a life which had been one long conflict with
disease and with adversity. In a vulgar hack writer such
oddities would have excited only disgust. But in a man of
genius, learning, and virtue their effect was to add pity to
admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had an apartment at the