[1323] June 2. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on June 9.
[1324] See post, p. 435.
[1325] On this day (June 6) Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale at Bath, did not mention the riots. He gives the date very fully—'London, No. 8, Bolt-court, Fleet-street, June 6, 1780,' and adds:—'Mind this, and tell Queency [Miss Thrale].' Piozzi Letters, ii. 141. Miss Burney, who was with the Thrales, writes:—'Dr. Johnson has written to Mrs. Thrale, without even mentioning the existence of this mob; perhaps, at this very moment, he thinks it "a humbug upon the nation," as George Bodens called the Parliament.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 401. When Johnson wrote, the mob had not risen to its height of violence. Mrs. Thrale in her answer, giving the date, 'Bath, 3 o'clock on Saturday morning, June 10, 1780,' asks, 'Oh! my dear Sir, was I ever particular in dating a letter before? and is this a time to begin to be particular when I have been up all night in trembling agitation? Miss Burney is frighted, but she says better times will come; she made me date my letter so, and persists in hoping that ten years hence we shall all three read it over together and be merry. But, perhaps, you will ask, "who is consternated,"? as you did about the French invasion.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 146.
[1326] 'Lord Mansfield's house,' wrote Dr. Franklin from Paris (Memoirs, iii. 62), 'is burnt with all his furniture, pictures, books, and papers. Thus he who approved the burning American houses has had fire brought home to him.'
[1327] Baretti in a marginal note on mass-house, says, 'So illiberal was Johnson made by religion that he calls here the chapel a mass-house…. Yet he hated the Presbyterians. That was a nasty blot in his character.'
[1328] Horace Walpole this night (June 7) wrote:—'Yet I assure your Ladyship there is no panic. Lady Aylesbury has been at the play in the Haymarket, and the Duke and my four nieces at Ranelagh this evening.' Letters, vii. 388. The following Monday he wrote:—'Mercy on us! we seem to be plunging into the horrors of France, in the reigns of Charles VI. and VII.!—yet, as extremes meet, there is at this moment amazing insensibility. Within these four days I have received five applications for tickets to see my house!' Ib. p. 395.
[1329] Written on June 10.
[1330] In the original, 'was this day with a party of soldiers.'
[1331] In the original, 'We are all again.'
[1332] Written on June 12.