FOOTNOTES:
[29] Presto was the Thrales' terrier.
[30] Here, as Boswell says, Johnson "condescended" to a pun, a form of wit he generally despised.
[31] The brewery is now the property of Messrs Barclay and Perkins.
Fanny Burney
A full account of the twenty years' friendship of Johnson and the Thrales would fill a book much larger than this; and in such a volume there would often occur the name of Fanny Burney.
Dr Burney was a musician who had come to London in 1760. He was a member of the Club, and became an intimate friend of Johnson. Frances, who had lived with her father, while her sisters went to school in France, had had a passion for writing since the age of 10, and was eager to meet the great man. She first saw him in 1777 at one of her father's parties, where her sisters were playing a duet. In the midst of their performance Dr Johnson was announced.