Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure
he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_,
i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be
quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph
on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had
laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is
improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom
which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the
revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find
the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV
of France.
[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well
acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772,
Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if
he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late
trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this
can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want
help.
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