[1094] Miss Charlotte Cotterel, married to Dean Lewis. See post, Dec. 21, 1762.
[1095] Reynolds's note-book shows that this year he had close on 150 sitters. Taylor's Reynolds, i. 218.
[1096] He married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him (notwithstanding their place of congress was a small coalshed in Fetter Lane) that she was nearly related to a man of fortune, but was injuriously kept by him out of large possessions. She regarded him as a physician already in considerable practice. He had not been married four months, before a writ was taken out against him for debts incurred by his wife. He was secreted; and his friend then procured him a protection from a foreign minister. In a short time afterwards she ran away from him, and was tried (providentially in his opinion) for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. Her husband was with difficulty prevented from attending the Court, in the hope she would be hanged. She pleaded her own cause and was acquitted. A separation between them took place.' Gent. Mag. lv. 101.
[1097] Richardson had died more than a year earlier,—on July 4, 1761. That Johnson should think it needful at the date of his letter to inform Baretti of the death of so famous a writer shows how slight was the communication between London and Milan. Nay, he repeats the news in his letter of Dec. 21, 1762.
[1098] On Dec. 8, 1765, he wrote to Hector:—'A few years ago I just saluted Birmingham, but had no time to see any friend, for I came in after midnight with a friend, and went away in the morning.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 321. He passed through Birmingham, I conjecture, on his visit to Lichfield.
[1099] Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on July 20, 1767, he says:—'Miss Lucy [Porter, his step-daughter, not his daughter-in-law, as he calls her above] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Everything else recalls to my remembrance years, in which I proposed what I am afraid I have not done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found.' Piozzi Letters, i. 4.
[1100] In his Journey into Wales (Aug. 24, 1774), he describes how Mrs. Thrale visited one of the scenes of her youth. 'She remembered the rooms, and wandered over them with recollection of her childhood. This species of pleasure is always melancholy. The walk was cut down and the pond was dry. Nothing was better.'
[1101] This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to melancholy minds. BOSWELL.
[1102] To Devonshire.
[1103] See ante, p. 322.