' _The Observer_,
No. 25.
[225] Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a
dinner at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (_post_, p. 82), 'one of
Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she writes, 'have I
seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a
voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my _Life of
Lord Lyttelton_. What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man!
Here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel
had been carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great
spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no more of
it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a pause,
said:--"Well, Madam, you _shall_ hear no more of it; yet I will defend
myself in every part and in every atom."... Thursday morning, Dr.
Johnson went to town for some days, but not before Mrs. Thrale read him
a very serious lecture upon giving way to such violence; which he bore
with a patience and quietness that even more than made his peace with
me.
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