[1293] See ante, ii. 246, note 1.
[1294] Mr. Beauclerk's library was sold by publick auction in April and May 1781, for £5011. MALONE. See post, May 8, 1781.
[1295] By a fire in Northumberland-house, where he had an apartment, in which I have passed many an agreeable hour. BOSWELL.
[1296] See post, iv. 31.
[1297] In 1768, on his birthday, Johnson recorded, 'This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy.' Ante, ii. 45, note 1.
[1298] Johnson had dated his letter, 'London, April 25, 1780,' and added, 'now there is a date; look at it.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 109. In his reply he wrote:—'London, May 1, 1780. Mark that—you did not put the year to your last.' Ib. p. 112.
[1299] An Address to the Electors of Southwark. Ib. p. 106. See post, p. 440.
[1300] The author of the Fitzosborne Letters (post, May 5, 1784, note). Miss Burney thus describes this evening:—'We were appointed to meet the Bishop of Chester at Mrs. Montagu's. This proved a very gloomy kind of grandeur; the Bishop waited for Mrs. Thrale to speak, Mrs. Thrale for the Bishop; so neither of them spoke at all. Mrs. Montagu cared not a fig, as long as she spoke herself, and so she harangued away. Meanwhile Mr. Melmoth, the Pliny Melmoth, as he is called, was of the party, and seemed to think nobody half so great as himself. He seems intolerably self-sufficient—appears to look upon himself as the first man in Bath, and has a proud conceit in look and manner, mighty forbidding.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 348.
[1301] Dr. John Hinchliffe. BOSWELL.
[1302] A kind of nick-name given to Mrs. Thrale's eldest daughter, whose name being Esther, she might be assimilated to a Queen. BOSWELL.