“With patches, paint, and jewels on,
Sure Phillis is not twenty-one
But if at night you Phillis see,
The dame at least is forty-three!”

I don’t recollect the verses exactly, but such was their purport.

“However,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Lady Ladd took it very good-naturedly, and only said, ’I know enough of that forty-three—­I don’t desire to hear any more of it.’”

Miss Moss, a pretty girl, who played and sung, to the great fatigue of Mrs. Thrale; Mr. Rose Fuller, Mr. Embry, Mr. Seward, Dr. Johnson, the three Thrales, and myself, close the party.

In the evening the company divided pretty much into parties, and almost everybody walked upon the gravel-walk before the windows.  I was going to have joined some of them, when Dr. Johnson stopped me, and asked how I did.

“I was afraid, sir,” cried I “you did not intend to know me again, for you have not spoken to me before since your return from town.”

“My dear,” cried he, taking both my hands, “I was not of You, I am so near sighted, and I apprehended making some Mistake.”  Then drawing me very unexpectedly towards him, he actually kissed me!

To be sure, I was a little surprised, having no idea of such 110

facetiousness from him, However, I was glad nobody was in the room but MrsThrale, who stood close to us, and Mr. Embry, who was lounging on a sofa at the furthest end of the room.  Mrs. Thrale laughed heartily, and said she hoped I was contented with his amends for not knowing me sooner.

A little after she said she would go and walk with the rest, if she did not fear for my reputation in being left with the doctor”

“However, as Mr. Embry is yonder, I think he’ll take some care of you,” she added.

“Ay, madam,” said the doctor, “we shall do very well; but I assure you I sha’n’t part with Miss Burney!”

And he held me by both hands; and when MrsThrale went, he drew me a chair himself facing the window, close to his own; and thus t`ete-`a-t`ete we continued almost all the evening.  I say t`ete-`a-t`ete, because Mr, Embry kept at an humble distance, and offered us no interruption And though Mr, Seward soon after came in, he also seated himself at a distant corner, not presuming, he said, to break in upon us!  Everybody, he added, gave way to the doctor.

Our conversation chiefly was upon the Hebrides, for he always talks to me of Scotland, out of sport; and he wished I had been of that tour—­quite gravely, I assure you!

The P—­ family came in to tea.  When they were gone Mrs. Thrale complained that she was quite worn out with that tiresome silly woman Mrs. P—­, who had talked of her family and affairs till she was sick to death of hearing her.

“Madam,” said Dr. Johnson, “why do you blame the woman for the only sensible thing she could do—­talking of her family and her affairs?  For how should a woman who is as empty as a drum, talk upon any other subject?  If you speak to her of the sun, she does not know it rises in the east;—­if you speak to her of the moon, she does not know it changes at the full ;—­if you speak to her of the queen, she does not know she is the king’s wife.—­how, then, can you blame her for talking of her family and affairs?” (31) Fanny Burney’s step-mother.-Ed.