New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-05-02

QutbttU 10 tdht nOllCt.
The way the English people Of the higher cissseS
have of living to be old sometimes brings one ia'o
startling relations with generations that seei"eu "
have passed long since into the domain oi nis'oi!'
Rogers who died the other day, reineih"ereu Try
ing to screw up his courage to the point vi Gaming
ON DIR. johnson, but ran away before ne had got IL
10 the sticking place. The two Miss Berrys,
one of whom Horace WalpOle wished to marry in
his old age and whose names are nseparably con-
peoted with his. lived to about the same recent
period Lady Louisa Stuart the daughter Of
George Ills Earl of Butte died since the year 1880,
and she actually remembered seeing her grand
mother, Lady Mary WOrtley Montague, when she
came home to die in l762-sbe being then child
of FIVE or six years old She was the friend and
correspondent of Scott, and of the few depOsita
Ties of the Waverley secret from the beginning,
and shewrOte the Introductory prehxed to
Lord Wharnclifes edition Of Lady Mary's Works.
The last arrival from England brought the news
Of the death Of another lady whose name will al
ways be remembered as long as Boswell is read,
and may safely say that that Will be as long as
the English language endures. Lord Stowell, we
had been accustomed to think Of as the last OF the
circle who knew johnson personally and well-and
he has been dead one and twenty years. How
many of those who have been introduced by Dos
well to daily intimacy with his ponderous idol,
who feel themselves we'll acquainted with all his
daiy friends who are well familiar with Bolt Court
and the Nitre, and perfectly at home at Streatham,
have imagined that Queeny Thrale, the pet pup",
correspondent and friend of the great poet and
moralist was yet living beneath the sum- And yet
il was true FIVE or six weeks ago. Of course the
fact was familiar to many persons in England, but
we doubt whether it was generally known even
there, and it was probably almost entirely unknown
in this country.
The Dowager Viscountess Keith, nee Hester Ma
ria Tbrale, died about month or ago in the 95th
wear of her age. She must have been born about
the year 1863, and so have been one-and-twenty
wears old at the time when Johnson gave her his
parting blessing on his death-bed, in 1884. OF
course she was old enough to have been admitted
On the footing of grOwn-up young lady to the
memorable society which we identify as belonging
to the Jolmsonian period. Goldsmith died when
she was but eleven years Old and Garrick when she
was but sixteen; but she must have seen and known
them both. as children see and know remarkable
people they are thrown among. But the two
Burkes, aud Sheridan and GibbOn, and Fox and
Sir Joshua and Bennett LangtOn, and Boswell him.
self, and Mrs. Montague, and Fanny Burney, and
all the rest of the men and women of that day IA
nous for fashion or wit, immortal in their own
right, or enjoying an Immortality at second hand
from the association of their names with undylng
Ones-all such she must have known and talked
with on the equal ground of u common society.
Such life seems to bring the old world oddly
enough into contact with the new.
Lady Keith is said to have been person of great
cleyerness and extraordinary literary requirements.
She was also for many years leader OF fashion,
and was one of the founders and original lady
patronesses of Anscks in the days of its golden
est exclusiyeness She married in 1908 the famous
Admiral Lord Keith, who was raised to the peer
age for the conquest of the Cape of Good Hope.
The daughter of d" Thrale the brewer had GER
family an extraordinary life-remarkabe for its
length Of days, for its connection with johnson,
for her marriage to one of the historical heroes of
England, and for a singular duration and extent of
prosperity No person who has lived within these
many years could have had the personal knowledge
of so many famous men as she had or might have
had during life beginning with Goldsmith and
Carrick and coming down to Dickens and Brown
ing. Even Rogers's personal acquaintance with
celebrities did not begin until long after hers, from
the different circumstances of their early life.
And what procession of historical events swept
through the years of a life beginning with the
Peace of Sixty Three-six years before Bonaparte
vas born-and lasting for ten years after the Forty
Eight Her life was certainly not uneyentful, and
if she found it dull, it must have been her own
fault.