death to the latter. She died at 63, and is buried in Bromley Parish Church. According to the Latin inscription Johnson composed for her gravestone, she was beautiful, accomplished, ingenious, and pious ('formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae'). Johnson called the marriage "a love-match on both sides," and always recalled her affectionately and with grief, especially on the anniversary of her death. The chief descriptions of her, however, come from unsympathetic accounts by Johnson's contemporaries and biographers such as his ex-pupil David Garrick, Hester Thrale and Thomas B. Macaulay: the last described her as "a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces." The nineteenth- and twentieth-century writer and essayist Alice Meynell judged her less harshly, attacking these critics for prejudice. Notes References External links Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson by Hester Thrale Mrs Johnson by Alice Meynell Dandiprat, jobberknowl and fart Christopher Howse, April 10, 2005, Arts Telegraph The Early Years Graham Nicholls, 13 November 2002, The Johnson Society (Lichfield) lecture PastWords: Samuel Johnson at his prayers Elizabeth Johnson (née Jarvis) at the National Portrait Gallery, London Samuel Johnson 1689 births 1752 deaths 18th-century English people