[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman' (ante, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii.323, 352. For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's Review of Mme. D'Arblay's Diary. Essays, ed. 1874, iv.104.
[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:—'Her curiosity was universal, her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's Boswell, p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu (ante, p. 64).
[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'If excision should be delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' Piozzi Letters, ii.312.
[745] Rather more than seven years ago. Ante, ii.82, note 2.
[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL.
[747] See ante, p. 163, and Boswell's Hebrides, Nov 2.
[748] Dated Oct. 27. Piozzi Letters, ii.321.
[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (Letters, ii.387), he said to Mrs. Siddons:—'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem of your garment."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 246. In Johnson's Works, ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.'
[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you must see Mrs. Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 198.
[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of a stick.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 319.