[284] See post, paragraph before June 22, 1784.

[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 369, says that ’the two last years of Thrale’s life his brewery brought him L30,000 a year neat profit.’

[286] In the fourth edition of his Dictionary, published in 1773, Johnson introduced a second definition of patriot:—­’It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.’  Gibbon (Misc.  Works, ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:—­’Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and is already attempting to pronounce the words, country, liberty, corruption, &c.; with what success time will discover.’  Forty years before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:—­’A patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms.  I could raise fifty of them within the four-and-twenty hours.  I have raised many of them in one night.  It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot.  I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.’  Coxe’s Walpole, i. 659.  See ante, ii. 348, and iii. 66.

[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. Ann.  Reg. xxiv. 217.

[288] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for dates.) It was in the week after Thrale’s death.  It must have been the dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop’s (Shipley of St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests.  Why Boswell recorded none of Johnson’s conversation may be guessed from what she tells.  ‘I was heartily disgusted,’ she says, ’with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.’ (See post, p. 109).  The following morning Johnson called on her.  ‘He reproved me,’ she writes, ’with pretended sharpness for reading Les Pensees de Pascal, alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics.  I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, “Child,” said he, with the most affecting earnestness, “I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.’”

[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:—­’It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion’ Pr. and Med. p. 163.

[290] No. 7.

[291] See ante, iii. 302.

[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first Equerry to his present Majesty.  MALONE.  According to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 156), he was Johnson’s ‘standard of true elegance.’

[293] See ante, iii. 186.