THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. ORIGINALLY IN THE LIBRARY AT STREATHAM. SOLD IN 1816 FOR £378. PASSED EVENTUALLY INTO THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
Engraved by Doughty
Mrs. Thrale’s own notes are amusing. She was glad to bid adieu to the brewhouse and to the Borough—the business had been a great burden. Her daughters were provided for, and she did not much care for money for herself. By the bargain she had purchased peace, and, as she said, “restoration to her original rank in life”; recording in her journal, “Now that it is all over I’ll go to church and give God thanks and forget the frauds, follies and inconveniences of commercial life; as for Dr. Johnson, his honest heart was cured of its incipient passion for trade by letting him into some and only some of its mysteries.”
A final word on the subject of the Thrale brewhouse, which still exists. A year or two ago I spent a morning looking for Deadman’s Place, which has disappeared, but the great enterprise dominates the whole district, which is redolent with the odor of malt and hops. Johnson’s connection with the business is immortalized by his portrait—the famous one so generally known—being used as its trademark. The original picture is in the National Gallery, but an excellent copy hangs in the directors’ room of the brewery. The furnishings of this room are of the simplest. I doubt if they would fetch at auction a five-pound note, were it not for the fact that Johnson’s chair and desk are among them. In this room a business running annually into millions is transacted. The English love to leave old things as they are. With them history is always in the making.
