'Pray, Miss Fan,' says Mrs. Hamilton, 'who wrote it?'
'Really I never heard.'
'Cute enough that, Miss Sukey!'
I desired Hetty to miss the verses; for I can't sit them: and I have been obliged to hide the first volume ever since, for fear of a discovery. But I don't know how it will end; for Mrs. Gast has declared she shall buy it, to take it to Burford with her.
TO SAMUEL CRISP
Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson
Streatham, March 1779.
The kindness and honours I meet with from this charming family are greater than I can mention; sweet Mrs. Thrale hardly suffers me to leave her a moment; and Dr. Johnson is another Daddy Crisp to me, for he has a partial goodness to your Fannikin, that has made him sink the comparative shortness of our acquaintance, and treat and think of me as one who had long laid claim to him.
If you knew these two you would love them, or I don't know you so well as I think I do. Dr. Johnson has more fun, and comical humour, and love of nonsense about him, than almost anybody I ever saw: I mean when with those he likes; for otherwise, he can be as severe and as bitter as report relates him. Mrs. Thrale has all that gaiety of disposition and lightness of heart, which commonly belong to fifteen. We are, therefore, merry enough, and I am frequently seized with the same tittering and ridiculous fits as those with which I have so often amazed and amused poor Kitty Cooke.
One thing let me not omit of this charming woman, which I believe will weigh with you in her favour; her political doctrine is so exactly like yours, that it is never started but I exclaim, 'Dear ma'am, if my Daddy Crisp was here, I believe between you, you would croak me mad!' And this sympathy of horrible foresight not a little contributes to incline her to believe the other parts of speech with which I regale her concerning you. She wishes very much to know you, and I am sure you would hit it off comfortably; but I told her what a vile taste you had for shunning all new acquaintance, and shirking almost all your old ones. That I may never be among the latter, heartily hopes my dear daddy's ever affectionate and obliged, F.B.