"_
'Now let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with this. The person thus
represented as being harshly treated, though a very celebrated
lady[1054], was _then_ just come to London from an obscure situation in
the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she met Dr. Johnson.
She very soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain.
"Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam," was his reply. She still _laid it
on_. "Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this;" he rejoined. Not paying
any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At
length, provoked by this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he
exclaimed, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is
worth, before you bestow it so freely[1055]."
'How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all these
circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale either
did not know, or has suppressed.
'She says, in another place[1056], _"One gentleman, however, who dined
at a nobleman's house in his company, and that of_ Mr. Thrale, _to whom
I was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to enter the lists in
defence of_ King William's _character; and having opposed and
contradicted_ Johnson _two or three times, petulantly enough, the master
of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect disagreeable consequences;
to avoid which, he said, loud enough for the Doctor to hear,--'Our
friend here has no meaning now in all this, except just to relate at
club to-morrow how he teized_ Johnson _at dinner to-day; this is all to
do himself_ honour.
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