Life at Streatham I

Abstract

It was on the 18th day of July 1773 that we were sitting in the blue Room at Streatham and were talking of Writers — Steele’s Essays were mentioned — but they are too thin said Mr Johnson; being mere Observations on Life and Manners without a sufficiency of solid Learning acquired from Books, they have the flavour, like the light French Wines you so often hear commended; but having no Body, they cannot keep. Speaking of Mason Gray etc., he said ‘The Poems they write must I should suppose greatly delight the Authors; they seem to have attained that which themselves consider as the Summit of Excellence, and Man can do no more: yet surely such unmeaning & verbose Language if in the Morning it appears to be in bloom, must fade before Sunset like Cloe’s Wreath.’

Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (later Mrs Piozzi) 1776–1809, ed. Katharine C. Balderston (2nd edn, Oxford, 1951) I, 172–3, 167–8, 183–93, 205–8, 492.