CHAP, ix.] THE AREEST AND WHAT PRECEDED IT.

time a visitor, with Miss Williams, in Percy's vicarage- 1734.

Little else than a round of visitings, indeed, does the
present year seeni to have been to Johnson; though the call
for his Shakspeare (on which he had so long been engaged)
was never so urgent as now. He passed part of the spring
with his friend Langton in Lincolnshire, where it was long
remembered how suddenly, and to what amazement of the
elders of the family, he had laid himself down on the edge of
a steep hill behind the house, and rolled over and over to the
bottom ;* he had stayed the summer months and part of August
with Percy, at Easton Mauduit vicarage in Northampton-
shire ; f and on his return to town had formed an acquaint-
ance with the Thrales. Is it necessary to describe the tall,
stately, well-informed, worthy brewer, and tory member for
Southwark; or his brisk, vivacious, half-learned, plump little
wife ? Is not their friendship known as the solace of John-
son's later life, and remembered whenever he is named ?
Thrale was fond of the society of men of letters and celebrity;
and Arthur Murphy, who had for some years acted as provider
in that sort to the weekly dinners I at Southwark and Streat-
ham, had the honour of introducing Johnson. Mrs. Thrale

* " Poor, dear Dr. Johnson," said Langton to Mr. Best, some years after John-
son's death, '' when he came to this spot, turned back to look down the hill, and said
he was determined ' to take a roll down.' When we understood what he meant
to do, we endeavoured to dissuade him; hut he was resolute, saying, ' he had
' not had a roll for a long time;' and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever
might be in them—keys, pencil, purse, or penknife, and laying himself parallel
with the edge of the hill, he actually descended, turning himself over and over,
till he came to the bottom." Best's Memorials, 65.
f Bosivett, ii. 269, and 282.

J It was through him "the set" were introduced. He had done the same office
in Garrick's case four years earlier. " You stand engaged," he writes to him in
May 1760, "to Mr. Thrale for Wednesday se'enight. You need not apprehend
" drinking; it is a very easy house, and the scheme of going to Eanelagh will be
" agreeable to him. I am to dine with him to-morrow, in order to adjourn in the
" evening to Eanelagh, so fond is he of that place." Gar. Gor. 1.116.-