will get, though your oisters have sometimes miscarried \ Write

when you can. T

1 am,

My dear,

Your humble servant, Dec. 2, 1779. SAM: JOHNSON.

To [THE REV. ALLEN 2 ]. SIR, [1780.]

Mr. William Shaw, the gentleman from whom you will receive this, is a studious and literary man ; he is a stranger, and will be glad to be introduced into proper company ; and he is my friend, and any civility you shall shew him will be an obligation on, gj r

Your most obedient servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

��TO MISS THRALE 3 .

DEAREST LOVE, [Winter of 1782-3.]

I am engaged to dinner to morrow, of which I forgot

1 Johnson sent her oysters the 3 From the original in the posses- following spring. Letter -s, ii. 134. sion of Mr. R. B. Adam of Buffalo. It

2 From the original in the posses- was sold by auction on Feb. 28, sion of Mr. R, B. Adam of Buffalo. 1893, for ^3 5^.

First published in Memoirs of the Johnson wrote to Boswell on Dec. Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, 7, 1782: 'Mrs. Thrale and the 1785, p. 156, where it is stated that three Misses are now for the winter 'upon Mr. Shaw's going to settle in in Argyll-street.' Ib. iv. 157. Bos- Kent in 1780 as a curate, the Doctor well found him there in March, 1783. wrote this letter to Mr. Allen, the Ib. p. 164. Miss Thrale was John- Vicar of St. Nicholas, Rochester, in son's Queeney. Ib. iii. 422. She his favour.' Mr. Shaw published a married Admiral Viscount Keith. Gaelick Grammar and Dictionary. Letters , i. 133, n. I. On Nov. 12, He also published two pamphlets 1781, Johnson wrote to her mother: on the Ossian controversy. See ' I have a mind to look on Queeney Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. 1871, p. as my own dear girl.' Ib. ii. 234. 1738. He sometimes complains of her neg- In 1777 Johnson tried to get him lect. He wrote, during an illness, on appointed chaplain 'to one of the Dec. 20, 1782: 'Queeney never new-raised regiments.' Life y iii. 214 ; sent me a kind word.' Ib. ii. 279 ; iv. 252. on July 5, 1783 : ' I think Queeney's

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