'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No
death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My
part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless
kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another.
April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into
solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I
have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself
like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with
my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,'
wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not,
long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased
master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale
was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.'
_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew
her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr.
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