Ninety years ago, one of the pleasantest houses near London, for the society that gathered within it, was Mr., or rather, Mrs. Thrale’s, at Streatham Park.  To be a guest there was to meet the best people in England, and to hear such good talk that much of it has not lost its flavor even yet.  Strawberry Hill, Holland House, or any other famous house of that day, has left but faint memories of itself, compared with those of Streatham.  Boswell, the most sagacious of men in the hunt after good company, had the good wit and good fortune to get entrance here.  One day, in 1769, Dr. Johnson delivered him “a very polite card” from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, inviting him to Streatham.  “On the 6th of October, I complied,” he says, “with their obliging invitation, and found, at an elegant villa six miles from town, every circumstance that can make society pleasing.”  Upon the walls of the library hung portraits of the master and mistress of the house, and of their most familiar friends and guests, all by Sir Joshua.  Madame d’Arblay, in her most entertaining “Diary,” gives a list of them,—­and a list is all that is needed of such famous names.  “Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter were in one piece, over the fireplace, at full length.  The rest of the pictures were all three-quarters.  Mr. Thrale was over the door leading to his study.  The general collection then began by Lord Sandys and Lord Westcote, (Lyttelton,) two early noble friends of Mr. Thrale.  Then followed Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Baretti, Sir Robert Chambers, and Sir Joshua Reynolds himself,—­all painted in the highest style of this great master, who much delighted in this his Streatham Gallery.  There was place left but for one more frame when the acquaintance with Dr. Burney began at Streatham.”

A household which had such men for its intimates must have had a more than common charm in itself, and at Streatham this charm lay chiefly in the character of its mistress.  It was Mrs. Thrale who had the rare power “to call together the most select company when it pleased her.”  In 1770 she was thirty years old.  A small and not beautiful woman, but with a variety of expression that more than compensated for the want of handsome features, with a frank, animated manner, and that highest tact which sets guests at ease, there was something specially attractive in her first address.  But beyond this she was the pleasantest converser of all the ladies of the day.  In that art in which one “has all mankind for competitors,” there was no one equal to her in her way.  Gifted with the readiest of well-stored memories, with a lively wit and sprightly fancy, with a strong desire to please and an ambition to shine, she never failed to win admiration, while her sweetness of temper and delicate consideration for others gained for her a general regard.  For many years she was the friend who did most to make Johnson’s life happy.  He was a constant inmate at Streatham.  “I long thought you,”