"The next day, he made the following memorandum:
"'October 7.—I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer, with my morning devotions somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the Acts, and then read fortuitously in the Gospels,—which was my parting use of the library.'"
Mr. Croker, whose protest against the groundless insinuations of Boswell should have put subsequent writers on their guard, states in a note:—"He seems to have taken leave of the kitchen as well as the church at Streatham in Latin." The note of his last dinner there, done into English, would run thus:
"Oct. 6th, Sunday, 1782.
"I dined at Streatham on boiled leg of lamb, with spinach, the stuffing of flour and raisins, round of beef, and turkey poult; and after the meat service, figs, grapes, not yet ripe in consequence of the bad season, with peaches, also hard. I took my place at table in no joyful mood, and partook of the food moderately, lest I should finish by intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the funeral of Hadon came into my mind.[1] When shall I revisit Streatham?"
[1] "Si recte memini in mentem venerunt epulæ in exequiis Hadoni celebratæ." I cannot explain this allusion.
The exclamation "When shall I revisit Streatham?" loses much of its pathos when connected with these culinary details.
Madame D'Arblay's description of the last year at Streatham is too important to be much abridged:
"Dr. Burney, when the Cecilian business was arranged[1], again conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. No further reluctance on his part, nor exhortations on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her from that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had so recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. And truly eager was her own haste, when mistress of her time, to try once more to soothe those sorrows and chagrins in which she had most largely participated, by answering to the call, which had never ceased tenderly to pursue her, of return.
"With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, they re-entered the Streatham gates—but they soon perceived that they found not what they had left!