how much they wish to see you in London." He said, "We shall hasten back to Taylor's."

I

Boswell adds, "After dinner, Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. Thrale, on the death of her son. said, it would be very distressing to Thrale, but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think of. JOHNSON. 'No, sir,Thrale will forget it first: she has many things that she may think of; he has many things that he must think of.' This was a very just remark upon the different effects of those light pursuits, which occupy a vacant and easy mind, and those serious engagements, which arrest attention, and keep us from brooding over grief.

"In the evening, we went to the Town-hall, which was converted into a temporary theatre, and saw Theodosius, with The Stratford Jubilee. I was happy to see Dr. Johnson sitting in a conspicuous part of the pit, and receiving affectionate homage from all his acquaintance. We were quite gay and merry. I afterwards mentioned to him, that I condemned myself for being so, when poor Mr. and Mrs. Thrale were in such distress. JOHNSON. "You are wrong, sir; twenty years hence Mr. and Mrs. Thrale will not suffer much pain from the death of their son. Now, sir, you are to consider, that distance of place, as well as distance of time, operates upon the human feelings: I would not have you be gay in the presence of the distressed, because it would shock them; but you may be gay at a distance. Pain for the loss of a friend, or of a relation whom we love, is occasioned by the want which we feel in time, the vacuity is filled with something else; or sometimes the vacuity closes up of itself,"