The intended dinner of Mrs. Montagu being mentioned, Dr. Johnson laughingly told us that he had received the most flattering note that he had ever read, or that anybody else had ever read, of invitation from that lady. ‘So have I, too!’ cried Mrs. Thrale. ‘So, if a note from Mrs. Montagu is to be boasted of, I beg mine may not be forgotten.’ ‘Your note, madam,’ cried Dr. Johnson, smiling, ‘can bear no comparison with mine; for I am at the head of all the philosophers—she says.’ ‘And I,’ returned Mrs. Thrale, ‘have all the Muses in my train.’ ‘A fair battle!’ cried my father. ‘Come, compliment for compliment, and see who will hold out longest!’ ‘I am afraid for Mrs. Thrale,’ said Mr. Seward; ‘for I know that Mrs. Montagu exerts all her forces when she sings the praises of Dr. Johnson.’ ‘Oh yes,’ cried Mrs. Thrale, ‘she has often praised him till he has been ready to faint.’ ‘Well,’ said my father, ‘you two ladies must get him fairly between you to-day, and see which can lay on the paint the thickest—Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Thrale.’ ‘I had rather,’ said the Doctor very composedly, ‘go to Bach’s concert!’” Not long after the morning call described in our last extract, Johnson spent an evening in St. Martin’s Street, for the purpose of being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Greville. The Doctor came with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. Signor Piozzi was there, invited to amuse the company by his musical skill. But the account of the second visit reads much less pleasantly than that of the first. This is due in great part to the different behaviour of the principal guests. Burney’s old patron, Greville, had for years been going steadily down hill, through indulgence in play and other extravagances. The loss of his fortune, perhaps, inclined him to assert more stiffly the claims of his rank. At any rate, in presence of the Thrales and Johnson, he thought it necessary to appear superior to the brewer’s wealth and the author’s fame. Johnson seems to have only half perceived his disdain; but the Doctor was not in a mood for talking, and Greville made no attempt to draw him out. Nor are the actors only changed on this subsequent occasion; the narrator is changed also. Instead of a letter by Fanny Burney, dashed off in the hey-day of youth and spirits, we have a formal account by her later self, Madame d’Arblay, composed in the peculiar style which makes a great part of the ‘Memoirs’ such difficult reading. However, as this account records Mrs. Thrale’s first meeting with the man who was destined to exercise a fatal influence on her after-life, we give a portion of it here: