This year was distinguished by his being introduced into the family of Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers in England, and Member of Parliament for the borough of Southwark.  Foreigners are not a little amazed when they hear of brewers, distillers, and men in similar departments of trade, held forth as persons of considerable consequence.  In this great commercial country it is natural that a situation which produces much wealth should be considered as very respectable; and, no doubt, honest industry is entitled to esteem.  But, perhaps, the too rapid advance of men of low extraction tends to lessen the value of that distinction by birth and gentility, which has ever been found beneficial to the grand scheme of subordination.  Johnson used to give this account of the rise of Mr. Thrale’s father:  ’He worked at six shillings a week for twenty years in the great brewery, which afterwards was his own.  The proprietor of it had an only daughter, who was married to a nobleman.  It was not fit that a peer should continue the business.  On the old man’s death, therefore, the brewery was to be sold.  To find a purchaser for so large a property was a difficult matter; and, after some time, it was suggested, that it would be adviseable to treat with Thrale, a sensible, active, honest man, who had been employed in the house, and to transfer the whole to him for thirty thousand pounds, security being taken upon the property.  This was accordingly settled.  In eleven years Thrale paid the purchase-money.  He acquired a large fortune, and lived to be Member of Parliament for Southwark.  But what was most remarkable was the liberality with which he used his riches.  He gave his son and daughters the best education.  The esteem which his good conduct procured him from the nobleman who had married his master’s daughter, made him be treated with much attention; and his son, both at school and at the University of Oxford, associated with young men of the first rank.  His allowance from his father, after he left college, was splendid; no less than a thousand a year.  This, in a man who had risen as old Thrale did, was a very extraordinary instance of generosity.  He used to say, “If this young dog does not find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him remember that he has had a great deal in my own time."’

The son, though in affluent circumstances, had good sense enough to carry on his father’s trade, which was of such extent, that I remember he once told me, he would not quit it for an annuity of ten thousand a year; ’Not (said he,) that I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is an estate to a family.’  Having left daughters only, the property was sold for the immense sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds; a magnificent proof of what may be done by fair trade in no long period of time.