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diff --git a/15045-8.txt b/15045-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf5fcfe --- /dev/null +++ b/15045-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11304 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains +of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.), by Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) + Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings + +Author: Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi + +Release Date: February 14, 2005 [EBook #15045] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY REMAINS OF MRS. PIOZZI *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Leonard Johnson and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + +[Illustration] + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +LETTERS AND LITERARY REMAINS + +OF + +MRS. PIOZZI (THRALE) + + +EDITED WITH NOTES + +AND + +AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE AND WRITINGS + +BY +A. HAYWARD, ESQ. Q.C. + + * * * * * + +Welcome, Associate Forms, where'er we turn +Fill, Streatham's Hebe, the Johnsonian urn--St. Stephen's + + * * * * * + +In Two Volumes +VOL. I. + +SECOND EDITION + +LONDON +LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS +1861 + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + +TO + +THE SECOND EDITION. + + * * * * * + +THE first edition of a work of this kind is almost necessarily +imperfect; since the editor is commonly dependent for a great deal of +the required information upon sources the very existence of which is +unknown to him till reminiscences are revived, and communications +invited, by the announcement or publication of the book. Some +valuable contributions reached me too late to be properly placed or +effectively worked up; some, too late to be included at all. The +arrangement in this edition will therefore, I trust, be found less +faulty than in the first, whilst the additions are large and +valuable. They principally consist of fresh extracts from Mrs. +Piozzi's private diary ("Thraliana"), amounting to more than fifty +pages; of additional marginal notes on books, and of copious extracts +from letters hitherto unpublished. + +Amongst the effects of her friend Conway, the actor, after his +untimely death by drowning in North America, were a copy of Mrs. +Piozzi's "Travel Book" and a copy of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," +each enriched by marginal notes in her handwriting. Such of those in +the "Travel Book" as were thought worth printing appeared in "The +Atlantic Monthly" for June last, from which I have taken the liberty +of copying the best. The "Lives of the Poets" is now the property of +Mr. William Alexander Smith, of New York, who was so kind as to open +a communication with me on the subject, and to have the whole of the +marginal notes transcribed for my use at his expense. + +Animated by the same liberal wish to promote a literary undertaking, +Mr. J.E. Gray, son of the Rev. Dr. Robert Gray, late Bishop of +Bristol, has placed at my disposal a series of letters from Mrs. +Piozzi to his father, extending over nearly twenty-five years (from +1797 to the year of her death) and exceeding a hundred in number. +These have been of the greatest service in enabling me to complete +and verify the summary of that period of her life. + +So much light is thrown by the new matter, especially by the extracts +from "Thraliana," on the alleged rupture between Johnson and Mrs. +Piozzi, that I have re-cast or re-written the part of the +Introduction relating to it, thinking that no pains should be spared +to get at the merits of a controversy which now involves, not only +the moral and social qualities of the great lexicographer, but the +degree of confidence to be placed in the most brilliant and popular +of modern critics, biographers and historians. It is no impeachment +of his integrity, no detraction from the durable elements of his +fame, to offer proof that his splendid imagination ran away with him, +or that reliance on his wonderful memory made him careless of +verifying his original impressions before recording them in the most +gorgeous and memorable language. + +No one likes to have foolish or erroneous notions imputed to him, and +I have pointed out some of the misapprehensions into which an able +writer in the "Edinburgh Review" (No. 231) has been hurried by his +eagerness to vindicate Lord Macaulay. Moreover, this struck me to be +as good a form as any for re-examining the subject in all its +bearings; and now that it has become common to reprint articles in a +collected shape, the comments of a first-rate review can no longer be +regarded as transitory. + +I gladly seize the present opportunity to offer my best +acknowledgments for kind and valuable aid in various shapes, to the +Marquis of Lansdowne, His Excellency M. Sylvain Van de Weyer (the +Belgian Minister), the Viscountess Combermere, Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. +Monckton Milnes, the Hon. Mrs. Rowley, Miss Angharad Lloyd, and the +Rev. W.H. Owen, Vicar of St. Asaph and Dymerchion. + + 8, St. James's Street: + Oct. 18th, 1861. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + +OF + +THE FIRST VOLUME + + +Origin and Materials of the Work +Object of the Introduction +Origin, Education, and Character of Thrale +Introduction of Johnson to the Thrales +Johnson's Habits at the Period +His Household +His Social Position +Society at Streatham +Blue Stocking Parties +Johnson's Fondness for Female Society +Nature of his Intimacy with Mrs. Thrale +His Verses to her +Her Age +Her Personal Appearance and Handwriting +Portraits of her +Boswell at Streatham +Her Behaviour to Johnson +Her Acquirements +Johnson's Estimate of her +Popular Estimate of her +Manners of her Time +Madame D'Arblay at Streatham +Her Account of Conversations there +Johnson's Politeness +Mrs. Thrale's Domestic Trials +Electioneering with Johnson +Thrale's Embarrassments, and Johnson's Advice +Johnson on Housekeeping and Dress +His Opinions on Marriage +Johnson in the Country +Johnson fond of riding in a Carriage, but a bad Traveller +His Want of Taste for Music or Painting +Tour in Wales +Tour in France +Baretti +Campbell's Diary +Mrs. Thrale's Account of her Quarrel with Baretti +His Account +Alleged Slight to Johnson +Miss Streatfield +Thrale's Infidelity +Madame D'Arblay as an Inmate +Dr. Burney +Mrs. Thrale canvassing Southwark +Attack by Rioters on the Brewhouse +Thrale's Illness and Winter in Grosvenor Square +Proposed Tour +Thrale's Death +His Will +Johnson as Executor +Her Management of the Brewery +Italian Translation +A strange Incident +Mrs. Montagu--Mr. Crutchley +Sale of the Brewery +Mrs. Thrale's Introduction to Piozzi +Scene with him at Dr. Burney's +Her early Impressions of him +Melancholy Reflections +Johnson's Regard for Thrale +Mrs. Thrale's and Johnson's Feelings towards each other +Johnson at Streatham after Thrale's Death +Piozzi--Verses to him +Johnson's Health +Self-Communings +Town Gossip +Verses on Pacchierotti +Fears for Johnson +Reports of her marrying again +Reasons for quitting Streatham +Resolution to quit approved by Johnson +Complaints of Johnson's Indifference +Piozzi--to marry or not to marry +Was Johnson driven out of Streatham +His Farewell to Streatham +His last Year there +Johnson and Mrs. Thrale at Brighton +Conflicting Feelings +Gives up Piozzi +Meditated Journey to Italy +Parting with Piozzi +Unkindness of Daughters +Position as regards Johnson +Objections to him as an Inmate +Parting with Piozzi +Verses to him on his Departure +Her undiminished Regard for Johnson proved by +their Correspondence +Character of Daughters +Madame D'Arblay, Scene with Johnson +Lord Brougham's Commentary +Correspondence with Johnson +Recall of Piozzi +Trip to London +Verses to Piozzi on his Return +Journey with Daughters +Feelings on Piozzi's Return, and Marriage +Objections to her Second Marriage discussed +Correspondence with Madame D'Arblay on the Marriage +Objections of Daughters--Lady Keith +Correspondence with Johnson as to the Marriage +Baretti's Story of her alleged Deceit +Her uniform Kindness to Johnson +Johnson's Feelings and Conduct +Miss Wynn's Commonplace Book +Johnson's unfounded Objections to the Marriage and erroneous + Impressions of Piozzi +Miss Seward's Account of his Loves +Misrepresentation and erroneous Theory of a Critic +Last Days and Death of Johnson +Lord Macaulay's Summary of Mrs. Piozzi's Treatment of Johnson +Life in Italy +Projected Work on Johnson +The Florence Miscellany +Correspondence with Cadell and Publication of the "Anecdotes" +Her alleged Inaccuracy, with Instances +H. Walpole +Peter Pindar +H. Walpole again +Hannah More +Marginal Notes on the "Anecdotes" +Extracts from Dr. Lort's Letters +Her Thoughts on her Return from Italy +Her Reception +Miss Seward's Impressions of her and Piozzi +Publication of the "Letters" +Opinions on them--Madame D'Arblay, Queen Charlotte, Hannah More, and + Miss Seward +Baretti's libellous Attacks +Her Character of him on his Death +"The Sentimental Mother" +"Johnson's Ghost" +The Travel Book +Offer to Cadell +Publication of the Book and Criticisms--Walpole and Miss Seward +Mrs. Piozzi's Theory of Style +Attacked by Walpole and Gifford +The Preface +Extracts +Anecdote of Goldsmith +Publication of her "Synonyms"--Gifford's Attack +Extract +Remarks on the Appearance of Boswell's Life of Johnson +"Retrospection" +Moore's Anecdotes of her and Piozzi +Lord Lansdowne's Visit and Impressions +Adoption and Education of Piozzi's Nephew, afterwards Sir John Salusbury +Life in Wales +Character and Habits of Piozzi +Brynbella +Illness and Death of Piozzi +Miss Thrale's Marriage +The Conway Episode +Anecdotes +Celebration of her Eightieth Birthday +Her Death and Will +Madame D'Arblay's Parallel between Mrs. Piozzi and Madame de Staël +Character of Mrs. Piozzi, Moral and Intellectual + + * * * * * + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY &c. OF MRS. PIOZZI + +VOL. I + + * * * * * + + + + +INTRODUCTION: + +LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MRS. PIOZZI. + + +Dr. Johnson was hailed the colossus of Literature by a generation who +measured him against men of no common mould--against Hume, Robertson, +Gibbon, Warburton, the Wartons, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Gray, +Goldsmith, and Burke. Any one of these may have surpassed the great +lexicographer in some branch of learning or domain of genius; but as +a man of letters, in the highest sense of the term, he towered +pre-eminent, and his superiority to each of them (except Burke) in +general acquirements, intellectual power, and force of expression, +was hardly contested by his contemporaries. To be associated with his +name has become a title of distinction in itself; and some members of +his circle enjoy, and have fairly earned, a peculiar advantage in +this respect. In their capacity of satellites revolving round the sun +of their idolatry, they attracted and reflected his light and heat. +As humble companions of their _Magnolia grandiflora_, they did more +than live with it[1]; they gathered and preserved the choicest of its +flowers. Thanks to them, his reputation is kept alive more by what +has been saved of his conversation than by his books; and his +colloquial exploits necessarily revive the memory of the friends (or +victims) who elicited and recorded them. + +[Footnote 1: "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu près +d'elle."--_Constant_.] + +If the two most conspicuous among these have hitherto gained +notoriety rather than what is commonly understood by fame, a +discriminating posterity is already beginning to make reparation for +the wrong. Boswell's "Letters to Temple," edited by Mr. Francis, with +"Boswelliana," printed for the Philobiblion Society by Mr. Milnes, +led, in 1857, to a revisal of the harsh sentence passed on one whom +the most formidable of his censors, Lord Macaulay, has declared to be +not less decidedly the first of biographers, than Homer is the first +of heroic poets, Shakspeare the first of dramatists, or Demosthenes +the first of orators. The result was favourable to Boswell, although +the vulnerable points of his character were still more glaringly +displayed. The appeal about to be hazarded on behalf of Mrs. Piozzi, +will involve little or no risk of this kind. Her ill-wishers made the +most of the event which so injuriously affected her reputation at the +time of its occurrence; and the marked tendency of every additional +disclosure of the circumstances has been to elevate her. No candid +person will read her Autobiography, or her Letters, without arriving +at the conclusion that her long life was morally, if not +conventionally, irreproachable; and that her talents were sufficient +to confer on her writings a value and attraction of their own, apart +from what they possess as illustrations of a period or a school. When +the papers which form the basis of this work were laid before Lord +Macaulay, he gave it as his opinion that they afforded materials for +a "most interesting and durably popular volume."[1] + +[Footnote 1: His letter, dated August 22, 1859, was addressed to Mr. +T. Longman. The editorship of the papers was not proposed to me till +after his death, and I had never any personal communication with him +on the subject; although in the Edinburgh Review for July 1857, I +ventured, with the same freedom which I have used in vindicating Mrs. +Piozzi, to dispute the paradoxical judgment he had passed on Boswell. +The materials which reached me after I had undertaken the work, and +of which he was not aware, would nearly fill a volume.] + +They comprise:-- + +1. Autobiographical Memoirs. + +2. Letters, mostly addressed to the late Sir James Fellowes. + +3. Fugitive pieces of her composition, most of which have never +appeared in print. + +4. Manuscript notes by her on Wraxall's Memoirs, and on her own +published works, namely: "Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, +LL.D., during the last twenty years of his life," one volume, 1786: +"Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., &c.," in two +volumes, 1788: "Observations and Reflections made in the course of a +journey through France, Italy, and Germany," in two volumes, 1789: +"Retrospection; or, Review of the most striking and important Events, +Characters, Situations, and their Consequences which the last +Eighteen Hundred Years have presented to the View of Mankind," in two +volumes, quarto, 1801. + +The "Autobiographical Memoirs," and the annotated books, were given +by her to the late Sir James Fellowes, of Adbury House, Hants, M.D., +F.R.S., to whom the letters were addressed. He and the late Sir John +Piozzi Salusbury were her executors, and the present publication +takes place in pursuance of an agreement with their personal +representatives, the Rev. G.A. Salusbury, Rector of Westbury, Salop, +and Captain J. Butler Fellowes. + +Large and valuable additions to the original stock of materials have +reached me since the announcement of the work. + +The Rev. Dr. Wellesley, Principal of New Inn Hall, has kindly placed +at my disposal his copy of Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (edition of +1816), plentifully sprinkled with marginal notes by Mrs. Piozzi. + +The Rev. Samuel Lysons, of Hempsted Court, Gloucester, has liberally +allowed me the free use of his valuable collection of books and +manuscripts, including numerous letters from Mrs. Piozzi to his +father and uncle, the Rev. Daniel Lysons and Mr. Samuel Lysons. + +From 1776 to 1809 Mrs. Piozzi kept a copious diary and note-book, +called "Thraliana." Johnson thus alludes to it in a letter of +September 6th, 1777: "As you have little to do, I suppose you are +pretty diligent at the 'Thraliana;' and a very curious collection +posterity will find it. Do not remit the practice of writing down +occurrences as they arise, of whatever kind, and be very punctual in +annexing the dates. Chronology, you know, is the eye of history. Do +not omit painful casualties or unpleasing passages; they make the +variegation of existence; and there are many passages of which I will +not promise, with Æneas, _et hæc olim meminisse juvabit_." +"Thraliana," which at one time she thought of burning, is now in the +possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate +a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me +with some curious passages and much valuable information extracted +from it. + +I shall have many minor obligations to acknowledge as I proceed. + +Unless Mrs. Piozzi's character and social position are freshly +remembered, her reminiscences and literary remains will lose much of +their interest and utility. It has therefore been thought advisable +to recapitulate, by way of introduction, what has been ascertained +from other sources concerning her; especially during her intimacy +with Johnson, which lasted nearly twenty years, and exercised a +marked influence on his tone of mind. + +"This year (1765)," says Boswell, "was distinguished by his (Johnson) +being introduced into the family of Mr. Thrale, one of the most +eminent brewers in England, and member of Parliament for the borough +of Southwark.... Johnson used to give this account of the rise of Mr. +Thrale's father: 'He worked at six shillings a week for twenty years +in the great brewery, which afterwards was his own. The proprietor of +it had an only daughter, who was married to a nobleman. It was not +fit that a peer should continue the business. On the old man's death, +therefore, the brewery was to be sold. To find a purchaser for so +large a property was a difficult matter; and after some time, it was +suggested that it would be advisable to treat with Thrale, a +sensible, active, honest man, who had been employed in the house, and +to transfer the whole to him for thirty thousand pounds, security +being taken upon the property. This was accordingly settled. In +eleven years Thrale paid the purchase money. He acquired a large +fortune, and lived to be a member of Parliament for Southwark. But +what was most remarkable was the liberality with which he used his +riches. He gave his son and daughters the best education. The esteem +which his good conduct procured him from the nobleman who had married +his master's daughter made him be treated with much attention; and +his son, both at school and at the University of Oxford, associated +with young men of the first rank. His allowance from his father, +after he left college, was splendid; not less than a thousand a year. +This, in a man who had risen as old Thrale did, was a very +extraordinary instance of generosity. He used to say, 'If this young +dog does not find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him +remember that he has had a great deal in my own time.'" + +What is here stated regarding Thrale's origin, on the alleged +authority of Johnson, is incorrect. The elder Thrale was the nephew +of Halsey, the proprietor of the brewery whose daughter was married +to a nobleman (Lord Cobham), and he naturally nourished hopes of +being his uncle's successor. In the Abbey Church of St. Albans, there +is a monument to some members of the Thrale family who died between +1676 and 1704, adorned with a shield of arms and a crest on a ducal +coronet. Mrs. Thrale's marginal note on Boswell's account of her +husband's family is curious and characteristic: + +"Edmund Halsey was son to a miller at St. Albans, with whom he +quarrelled, like Ralph in the 'Maid of the Mill,' and ran away to +London with a very few shillings in his pocket.[1] He was eminently +handsome, and old Child of the Anchor Brewhouse, Southwark, took him +in as what we call a broomstick clerk, to sweep the yard, &c. Edmund +Halsey behaved so well he was soon preferred to be a house-clerk, and +then, having free access to his master's table, married his only +daughter, and succeeded to the business upon Child's demise. Being +now rich and prosperous, he turned his eyes homewards, where he +learned that sister Sukey had married a hardworking man at Offley in +Hertfordshire, and had many children. He sent for one of them to +London (my Mr. Thrale's father); said he would make a man of him, and +did so: but made him work very hard, and treated him very roughly, +Halsey being more proud than tender, and his only child, a daughter, +married to Lord Cobham. + +"Old Thrale, however, as these fine writers call him,--then a young +fellow, and, like his uncle, eminent for personal beauty,--made +himself so useful to Mr. Halsey that the weight of the business fell +entirely on him; and while Edmund was canvassing the borough and +visiting the viscountess, Ralph Thrale was getting money both for +himself and his principal: who, envious of his success with a wench +they both liked but who preferred the young man to the old one, died, +leaving him never a guinea, and he bought the brewhouse of Lord and +Lady Cobham, making an excellent bargain, with the money he had +saved." + +[Footnote 1: In "Thraliana" she says: "strolled to London with only +4_s._ 6_d._ in his pocket."] + +When, in the next page but one, Boswell describes Thrale as +presenting the character of a plain independent English squire, she +writes: "No, no! Mr. Thrale's manners presented the character of a +gay man of the town: like Millamant, in Congreve's comedy, he +abhorred the country and everything in it." + +In "Thraliana" after a corresponding statement, she adds: "He (the +elder Thrale) educated his son and three daughters quite in a high +style. His son he wisely connected with the Cobhams and their +relations, Grenvilles, Lyttletons, and Pitts, to whom he lent money, +and they lent assistance of every other kind, so that my Mr. Thrale +was bred up at Stowe, and Stoke and Oxford, and every genteel place; +had been abroad with Lord Westcote, whose expenses old Thrale +cheerfully paid, I suppose, who was thus a kind of tutor to the young +man, who had not failed to profit by these advantages, and who was, +when he came down to Offley to see his father's birthplace, a very +handsome and well accomplished gentleman." + +After expatiating on the advantages of birth, and the presumption of +new men in attempting to found a new system of gentility, Boswell +proceeds: "Mr. Thrale had married Miss Hester Lynch Salusbury, of +good Welsh extraction, a lady of lively talents, improved by +education. That Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family, +which contributed so much to the happiness of his life, was owing to +her desire for his conversation, is a very probable and the general +supposition; but it is not the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate +with Mr. Thrale, having spoken very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was +requested to make them acquainted. This being mentioned to Johnson, +he accepted of an invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was so much +pleased with his reception both by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and they so +much pleased with him, that his invitations to their house were more +and more frequent, till at last he became one of the family, and an +apartment was appropriated to him, both in their house at Southwark +and in their villa at Streatham." + +Long before this was written, Boswell had quarrelled with Mrs. Thrale +(as it is most convenient to call her till her second marriage), and +he takes every opportunity of depreciating her. He might at least, +however, have stated that, instead of sanctioning the "general +supposition" as to the introduction, she herself supplied the account +of it which he adopts. In her "Anecdotes" she says: + +"The first time I ever saw this extraordinary man was in the year +1764, when Mr. Murphy, who had long been the friend and confidential +intimate of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish for Johnson's +conversation, extolling it in terms which that of no other person +could have deserved, till we were only in doubt how to obtain his +company, and find an excuse for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr. +Woodhouse, a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of +common discourse, soon afforded a pretence[1], and Mr. Murphy brought +Johnson to meet him, giving me general caution not to be surprised at +his figure, dress, or behaviour[1].... Mr. Johnson liked his new +acquaintance so much, however, that from that time he dined with us +every Thursday through the winter, and in the autumn of the next year +he followed us to Brighthelmstone, whence we were gone before his +arrival; so he was disappointed and enraged, and wrote us a letter +expressive of anger, which we were very desirous to pacify, and to +obtain his company again if possible. Mr. Murphy brought him back to +us again very kindly, and from that time his visits grew more +frequent, till in the year 1766 his health, which he had always +complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of +his room in the court he inhabited for many weeks together, I think +months." + +[Footnote 1: "He (Johnson) spoke with much contempt of the notice +taken of Woodhouse, the poetical shoemaker. He said that it was all +vanity and childishness, and that such objects were to those who +patronised them, mere mirrors of their own superiority. They had +better, said he, furnish the man with good implements for his trade, +than raise subscriptions for his poems. He may make an excellent +shoemaker, but can never make a good poet. A schoolboy's exercise may +be a pretty thing for a schoolboy, but it is no treat to a +man."--_Maxwell's Collectanea_.] + +The "Anecdotes" were written in Italy, where she had no means of +reference. The account given in "Thraliana" has a greater air of +freshness, and proves Boswell right as to the year. + +"It was on the second Thursday of the month of January, 1765, that I +first saw Mr. Johnson in a room. Murphy, whose intimacy with Mr. +Thrale had been of many years' standing, was one day dining with us +at our house in Southwark, and was zealous that we should be +acquainted with Johnson, of whose moral and literary character he +spoke in the most exalted terms; and so whetted our desire of seeing +him soon that we were only disputing _how_ he should be invited, +_when_ he should be invited, and what should be the pretence. At last +it was resolved that one Woodhouse, a shoemaker, who had written some +verses, and been asked to some tables, should likewise be asked to +ours, and made a temptation to Mr. Johnson to meet him: accordingly +he came, and Mr. Murphy at four o'clock brought Mr. Johnson to +dinner. We liked each other so well that the next Thursday was +appointed for the same company to meet, exclusive of the shoemaker, +and since then Johnson has remained till this day our constant +acquaintance, visitor, companion, and friend." + +In the "Anecdotes" she goes on to say that when she and her husband +called on Johnson one morning in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, he +gave way to such an uncontrolled burst of despair regarding the world +to come, that Mr. Thrale tried to stop his mouth by placing one hand +before it, and desired her to prevail on him to quit his close +habitation for a period and come with them to Streatham. He complied, +and took up his abode with them from before Midsummer till after +Michaelmas in that year. During the next sixteen years a room in each +of their houses was set apart for him. + +The principal difficulty at first was to induce him to live peaceably +with her mother, who took a strong dislike to him, and constantly led +the conversation to topics which he detested, such as foreign news +and politics. He revenged himself by writing to the newspapers +accounts of events which never happened, for the sole purpose of +mystifying her; and probably not a few of his mischievous fictions +have passed current for history. They made up their differences +before her death, and a Latin epitaph of the most eulogistic order +from his pen is inscribed upon her tomb. + +It had been well for Mrs. Thrale and her guests if there had existed +no more serious objection to Johnson as an inmate. At the +commencement of the acquaintance, he was fifty-six; an age when +habits are ordinarily fixed: and many of his were of a kind which it +required no common temper and tact to tolerate or control. They had +been formed at a period when he was frequently subjected to the worst +extremities of humiliating poverty and want. He describes Savage, +without money to pay for a night's lodging in a cellar, walking about +the streets till he was weary, and sleeping in summer upon a bulk or +in winter amongst the ashes of a glass-house. He was Savage's +associate on several occasions of the sort. He told Sir Joshua +Reynolds that, one night in particular, when Savage and he walked +round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, they were not at all +depressed; but in high spirits, and brimful of patriotism, traversed +the square for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and +"resolved they would stand by their country." Whilst at college he +threw away the shoes left at his door to replace the worn-out pair in +which he appeared daily. His clothes were in so tattered a state +whilst he was writing for the "Gentleman's Magazine" that, instead of +taking his seat at Cave's table, he sate behind a screen and had his +victuals sent to him. + +Talking of the symptoms of Christopher Smart's madness, he said, +"Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no +passion for it." + +His deficiency in this respect seems to have made a lasting +impression on his hostess. Referring to a couplet in "The Vanity of +Human Wishes":-- + + "Through all his veins the fever of renown + _Spreads_ from the strong contagion of the gown," + +"he had desired me (says Boswell) to change _spreads_ into _burns._ I +thought this alteration not only cured the fault, but was more +poetical, as it might carry an allusion to the shirt by which +Hercules was inflamed." She has written in the margin: "Every fever +burns I believe; but Bozzy could think only on Nessus' dirty shirt, +or Dr. Johnson's." In another marginal note she disclaims that +attention to the Doctor's costume for which Boswell gives her credit, +when, after relating how he had been called into a shop by Johnson to +assist in the choice of a pair of silver buckles, he adds: "Probably +this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by +associating with whom his external appearance was much improved." She +writes: "it was suggested by Mr. Thrale, not by his wife." + +In general his wigs were very shabby, and their foreparts were burned +away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness +rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's valet had +always a better wig ready, with which he met Johnson at the parlour +door when dinner was announced, and as he went up stairs to bed, the +same man followed him with another. + +One of his applications to Cave for a trifling advance of money is +signed _Impransus_ (Dinnerless); and he told Boswell that he could +fast two days without inconvenience, and had never been hungry but +once. What he meant by hungry is not easy to explain, for his every +day manner of eating was that of a half-famished man. When at table, +he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks were +riveted to his plate, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was +indulged with such in-* tenseness, that the veins of his forehead +swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. Until he +left off drinking fermented liquors altogether, he acted on the maxim +"claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes." He preferred the +strongest because he said it did its work (_i.e._ intoxicate) the +soonest. He used to pour capillaire into his port wine, and melted +butter into his chocolate. His favourite dishes are accurately +enumerated by Peter Pindar: + +MADAME PIOZZI _(loquitur)._ + + "Dear Doctor Johnson loved a leg of pork, + And hearty on it would his grinders work: + He lik'd to eat it so much over done, + That _one_ might shake the flesh from off the bone. + A veal pye too, with sugar crammed and plums, + Was wondrous grateful to the Doctor's gums. + Though us'd from morn to night on fruit to stuff, + He vow'd his belly never had enough." + +Mr. Thackeray relates in his "Irish Sketches" that on his asking for +currant jelly for his venison at a public dinner, the waiter replied, +"It's all gone, your honour, but there's some capital lobster sauce +left." This would have suited Johnson equally well, or better: he was +so fond of lobster sauce that he would call for the sauce-boat and +pour the whole of its remaining contents over his plum pudding. A +clergyman who once travelled with him relates, "The coach halted as +usual for dinner, which seemed to be a deeply interesting business to +Johnson, who vehemently attacked a dish of stewed carp, using his +fingers only in feeding himself." At the dinner when he passed his +celebrated sentence on the leg of mutton--"That it was as bad as bad +could be: ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed"--the +ladies, his fellow-passengers, observed his loss or equanimity with +wonder. + +Two of Mrs. Thrale's marginal notes on Boswell refer to her +illustrious friend's mode of eating. On his reported remark, that "a +dog will take a small bit of meat as readily as a large, when both +are before him," she adds, "which Johnson would never have done." +When Boswell, describing the dinner with Wilkes at Davies', says, "No +man eat more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice and +delicate," she strikes in with--"What was gustful rather: what was +strong that he could taste it, what was tender that he could chew +it." + +When Boswell describes him as occupied for a considerable time in +reading the "Memoirs of Fontenelle," leaning and swinging upon the +low gate into the court (at Streatham) without his hat, her note is: +"I wonder how he liked the story of the asparagus,"--an obvious hint +at his selfish habits of indulgence at table. + +With all this he affected great nicety of palate, and did not like +being asked to a plain dinner. "It was a good dinner enough," he +would remark, "but it was not a dinner to ask a man to." He was so +displeased with the performances of a nobleman's French cook, that he +exclaimed with vehemence, "I'd throw such a rascal into the river;" +and in reference to one of his Edinburgh hosts he said, "As for +Maclaurin's imitation of a made dish, it was a wretched attempt." + +His voice was loud, and his gesticulations, voluntary or involuntary, +singularly uncouth. He had superstitious fancies about crossing +thresholds or squares in the carpet with the right or left leg +foremost, and when he did not appear at dinner might be found vainly +endeavouring to pass a particular spot in the anteroom. He loved late +hours, or more properly (say Mrs. Thrale) hated early ones. Nothing +was more terrifying to him than the idea of going to bed, which he +never would call going to rest, or suffer another to call it so. "I +lie down that my acquaintance may sleep; but I lie down to endure +oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety +and pain." When people could be induced to sit up with him, they were +often amply compensated by his rich flow of mind; but the resulting +sacrifice of health and comfort in an establishment where this +sitting up became habitual, was inevitably great.[1] Instead of being +grateful, he always maintained that no one forbore his own +gratification for the purpose of pleasing another, and "if one did +sit up, it was probably to amuse oneself." Boswell excuses his wife +for not coinciding in his enthusiasm, by admitting that his +illustrious friend's irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as +turning the candles with their ends downwards when they did not burn +bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not +but be displeasing to a lady. He was generally last at breakfast, but +one morning happened to be first and waited some time alone; when +afterwards twitted by Mrs. Thrale with irregularity, he replied, +"Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity." + +[Footnote 1: Dr. Burney states that in 1765 "he very frequently met +Johnson at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, after +sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer +than the patience of the servants subsisted."] + +He was subject to dreadful fits of depression, caused or accompanied +by compunction for venial or fancied sins, by the fear of death or +madness--(the only things he did fear), and by ingrained ineradicable +disease. When Boswell speaks of his "striving against evil," "Ay," +she writes in the margin, "and against the King's evil." + +If his early familiarity with all the miseries of destitution, +aggravated by disease, had increased his natural roughness and +irritability, on the other hand it had helped largely to bring out +his sterling virtues,--his discriminating charity, his genuine +benevolence, his well-timed generosity, his large-hearted sympathy +with real suffering. But he required it to be material and positive, +and scoffed at mere mental or sentimental woes. "The sight of people +who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly +fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to +vanity or softness." He said it was enough to make a plain man sick +to hear pity lavished on a family reduced by losses to exchange a +fine house for a snug cottage; and when condolence was demanded for a +lady of rank in mourning for a baby, he contrasted her with a +washerwoman with half-a-dozen children dependent on her daily labour +for their daily bread.[1] + +[Footnote 1: "It's weel wi' you gentles that can sit in the house wi' +handkerchers at your een when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us +maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as any +hammer."--_The Antiquary_. For this very reason the "gentles" +commonly suffer most.] + +Lord Macaulay thus portrays the objects of Johnson's hospitality as +soon as he had got a house to cover them. "It was the home of the +most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought +together. At the head of the establishment he had placed an old lady +named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and +her poverty. But in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an +asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, +whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room +was found for the daughter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another +destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Mrs. Carmichael, but +whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor called +Levet, who bled and dosed coalheavers and hackney coachmen, and +received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and +sometimes a little copper, completed this menagerie."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Miscellaneous Writings, vol. i. p. 293.] + +Mrs. Williams was the daughter of a physician, and of a good Welsh +family, who did not leave her dependent on Johnson. She is termed by +Madame D'Arblay a very pretty poet, and was treated with uniform +respect by him.[1] All the authorities for the account of Levet were +collected by Hawkins[2]: from these it appears that his patients were +"chiefly of the lowest class of tradesmen," and that, although he +took all that was offered him by way of fee, including meat and +drink, he demanded nothing from the poor, nor was known in any +instance to have enforced the payment of even what was justly his +due. Hawkins adds that he (Levet) had acted for many years in the +capacity of surgeon and apothecary to Johnson under the direction of +Dr. Lawrence. + +[Footnote 1: Miss Cornelia Knight, in her "Autobiography," warmly +vindicates her respectability, and refers to a memoir, by Lady +Knight, in the "European Magazine" for Oct. 1799.] + +[Footnote 2: Life of Johnson, p. 396-400.] + + "When fainting Nature called for aid, + And hovering death prepared the blow, + His vigorous remedy display'd + The power of Art without the show; + + No summons mocked by chill delay, + _No petty gains disdained by pride,_ + The modest wants of every day + The toil of every day supplied." + +Johnson's verses, compared with Lord Macaulay's prose, strikingly +shew how the same subject can be degraded or elevated by the mode of +treatment; and how easily the historian or biographer, who expands +his authorities by picturesque details, may brighten or darken +characters at will. + +To complete the picture of Johnson's interior, it should be added +that the inmates of his house were quarrelling from, morning to night +with one another, with his negro servant, or with himself. In one of +his letters to Mrs. Thrale, he says, "Williams hates everybody: Levet +hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams: Desmoulins hates them +both: Poll (Miss Carmichael) loves none of them." In a conversation +at Streatham, reported by Madame D'Arblay, the _menagerie_ was thus +humorously described:-- + +"_Mrs. Thrale_.--Mr. Levet, I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping +the hospital in health? for he is an apothecary. + +"_Dr. J_.--Levet, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard +for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his mind. + +"_Mr. Thrale_.--But how do you get your dinners drest? + +"_Dr. J_.--Why De Mullin has the chief management of the kitchen; but +our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack. + +"_Mr. T_.--No jack? Why how do they manage without? + +"_Dr. J_.--Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and +larger are done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a profound +gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit to a +house. + +"_Mr. T_.--Well, but you will have a spit, too? + +"_Dr. J_.--No, Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never +use it; and if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed! + +"_Mrs. T_.--But pray, Sir, who is the Poll you talk of? She that you +used to abet in her quarrels with Mrs. Williams, and call out,' At +her again, Poll! Never flinch, Poll!' + +"_Dr. J_.--Why I took to Poll very well at first, but she won't do +upon a nearer examination. + +"_Mrs. T_.--How came she among you, Sir? + +"_Dr. J_.--Why I don't rightly remember, but we could spare her very +well from us. Poll is a stupid slut; I had some hopes of her at +first; but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make +nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle, and I could never persuade her +to be categorical." + +The effect of an unbroken residence with such inmates, on a man of +irritable temper subject to morbid melancholy, may be guessed; and +the merit of the Thrales in rescuing him from it, and in soothing +down his asperities, can hardly be over-estimated. Lord Macaulay +says, they were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated +preferred their house to every other in London; and suggests that +even the peculiarities which seem to unfit him for civilised society, +including his gesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his +mutterings, and the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his +food, increased the interest which his new associates took in him. +His hostess does not appear to have viewed them in that light, and +she was able to command the best company of the intellectual order +without the aid of a "lion," or a bear. If his conversation attracted +many, it drove away many, and silenced more. He accounted for the +little attention paid him by the great, by saying that "great lords +and great ladies do not like to have their mouths stopped," as if +this was peculiar to them as a class. "My leddie," remarks Cuddie in +"Old Mortality," "canna weel bide to be contradicted, as I ken +neabody likes, if they could help themselves." + +Johnson was in the zenith of his fame when literature, politics, and +fashion began to blend together again by hardly perceptible shades, +like the colours in shot-silk, as they had partially done in the +Augustan age of Queen Anne. One marked sign was the formation of the +Literary Club (The Club, as it still claims to be called), which +brought together Fox, Burke, Gibbon, Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, +Reynolds, and Beauclerc, besides blackballing a bishop (the Bishop of +Chester), and a lord-chancellor (Camden).[1] Yet it is curious to +observe within how narrow a circle of good houses the Doctor's +engagements were restricted. Reynolds, Paoli, Beauclerc, Allan +Ramsay, Hoole, Dilly, Strahan, Lord Lucan, Langton, Garrick, and the +Club formed his main reliance as regards dinners; and we find Boswell +recording with manifest symptoms of exultation in 1781: "I dined with +him at a bishop's where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berenger, and +some more company. He had dined the day before at another bishop's." +His reverence for the episcopal bench well merited some return on +their part. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York, +and described his bow to an Archbishop as such a studied elaboration +of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have +seldom or ever been equalled. The lay nobility were not equally +grateful, although his deference for the peerage was extreme. Except +in Scotland or on his travels, he is seldom found dining with a +nobleman. + +[Footnote 1: Canning was blackballed the first time he was proposed. +He was elected in 1798, Mr. Windham being his proposer, and Dr. +Burney his seconder.] + +It is therefore hardly an exaggeration to say that he owed more +social enjoyment to the Thrales than to all the rest of his +acquaintance put together. Holland House alone, and in its best days, +would convey to persons living in our time an adequate conception of +the Streatham circle, when it comprised Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, +Goldsmith, Boswell, Murphy, Dr. Burney and his daughter, Mrs. +Montagu, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord Loughborough, Dunning +(afterwards Lord Ashburton), Lord Mulgrave, Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas +and Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Pepys, Major Holroyd afterwards Lord +Sheffield, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Porteous, the Bishop of +Peterborough and Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Miss Gregory, Miss Streatfield, +&c. As at Holland House, the chief scene of warm colloquial contest +or quiet interchange of mind was the library, a large and handsome +room, which the pencil of Reynolds gradually enriched with portraits +of all the principal persons who had conversed or studied in it. To +supply any deficiencies on the shelves, a hundred pounds, Madame +D'Arblay states, was placed at Johnson's disposal to expend in books; +and we may take it for granted that any new publication suggested by +him was ordered at once. But a bookish couple, surrounded by a +literary set, were surely not exclusively dependent on him for this +description of help, nor laid under any extraordinary obligation by +reason of it. Whilst the "Lives of the Poets" was in progress, Dr. +Johnson "would frequently produce one of the proof sheets to +embellish the breakfast table, which was always in the library, and +was certainly the most sprightly and agreeable meeting of the day." +... "These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud, and +the discussions to which they led were in the highest degree +entertaining."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," &c., by his daughter, Madame +D'Arblay. In three volumes, 1832. Vol. ii. p. 173-178.] + +It was mainly owing to his domestication with the Thrales that he +began to frequent drawing-rooms at an age when the arm-chair at home +or at the club has an irresistible charm for most men of sedentary +pursuits. It must be admitted that the evening parties in which he +was seen, afforded a chance of something better than the "unidead +chatter of girls," with an undue fondness for which he reproached +Langton; for the _Blue Stocking_ clubs had just come into +fashion,--so called from a casual allusion to the blue stockings of +an _habitué_, Mr. Stillingfleet.[1] Their founders were Mrs. Vesey +and Mrs. Montagu; but according to Madame D'Arblay, "more bland and +more gleeful than that of either of them, was the personal celebrity +of Mrs. Thrale. Mrs. Vesey, indeed, gentle and diffident, dreamed not +of any competition, but Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Thrale had long been +set up as rival candidates for colloquial eminence, and each of them +thought the other alone worthy to be her peer. Openly therefore when +they met, they combated for precedence of admiration, with placid +though high-strained intellectual exertion on the one side, and an +exuberant pleasantry or classical allusion or quotation on the other; +without the smallest malice in either." + +[Footnote 1: The first of these was then (about 1768) in the meridian +of its lustre, but had been instituted many years previously at Bath, +It owed its name to an apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet in declining +to accept an invitation to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey's, from +not being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper equipment for +an evening assembly. "Pho, pho," said she, "don't mind dress. Come in +your blue stockings." With which words, humorously repeating them as +he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet +claimed permission for entering according to order. And these words, +ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs. Vesey's +associations. _(Madame D'Arblay.)_ Boswell also traces the term to +Stillingfleet's blue stockings; and Hannah More's "Bas-Bleu" gave it +a permanent place in literature.] + +A different account of the origin of Bluestocking parties was given +by Lady Crewe to a lady who has allowed me to copy her note of the +conversation, made at the time (1816): + +"Lady Crewe told me that her mother (Mrs. Greville), the Duchess of +Portland, and Mrs. Montagu were the first who began the conversation +parties in imitation of the noted ones, _temp._ Madame de Sevigne', +at Rue St. Honore. Madame de Polignac, one of the first guests, came +in blue silk stockings, then the newest fashion in Paris. Mrs. +Greville and all the lady members of Mrs. Montagu's _club_, adopted +the _mode_. A foreign gentleman, after spending an evening at Mrs. +Montagu's _soirée_, wrote to tell a friend of the charming +intellectual party, who had one rule; 'they wear blue stockings as a +distinction.'" + +Wraxall, who makes the same comparison, remarks: "Mrs. Thrale always +appeared to me to possess at least as much information, a mind as +cultivated, and more brilliancy of intellect than Mrs. Montagu, but +she did not descend among men from such an eminence, and she talked +much more, as well as more unguardedly, on every subject. She was the +provider and conductress of Johnson, who lived almost constantly +under her roof, or more properly under that of Mr. Thrale, both in +Town and at Streatham. He did not, however, spare her more than other +women in his attacks if she courted and provoked his animadversions." + +Although he seldom appeared to greater advantage than when under the +combined spell of feminine influence and rank, his demeanour varied +with his mood. On Miss Monkton's (afterwards Countess of Cork) +insisting, one evening, that Sterne's writings were very pathetic, +Johnson bluntly denied it. "I am sure," she rejoined, "they have +affected me." "Why," said Johnson, smiling and rolling himself about, +"that is because, dearest, you're a dunce." When she some time +afterwards mentioned this to him, he said, with equal truth and +politeness, "Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have +said it." + +He did not come off so well on another occasion, when the presence of +women he respected might be expected to operate as a cheek. Talking, +at Mrs. Garrick's, of a very respectable author, he told us, says +Boswell, "a curious circumstance in his life, which was that he had +married a printer's devil. _Reynolds_. 'A printer's devil, Sir! why, +I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in +rags.' _Johnson_. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, +and put clean clothes on her.' Then, looking very serious, and very +earnest. 'And she did not disgrace him;--the woman had a bottom of +good sense.' The word _bottom_ thus introduced was so ludicrous when +contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear +tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of +Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss +Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the +same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of +his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it: he therefore +resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly +around, and called out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' +Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he +could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still +more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say the _woman_ was +_fundamentally_ sensible;' as if he had said, Hear this now, and +laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral." + +This resembles the influence exercised by the "great commoner" over +the House of Commons. An instance being mentioned of his throwing an +adversary into irretrievable confusion by an arrogant expression of +contempt, the late Mr. Charles Butler asked the relator, an +eye-witness, whether the House did not laugh at the ridiculous figure +of the poor member. "No, Sir," was the reply, "we were too much awed +to laugh." + +It was a marked feature in Johnson's character that he was fond of +female society; so fond, indeed, that on coming to London he was +obliged to be on his guard against the temptations to which it +exposed him. He left off attending the Green Room, telling Grarrick, +"I'll come no more behind your scenes, Davy; for the silk stockings +and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities." + +The proneness of his imagination to wander in this forbidden field is +unwittingly betrayed by his remarking at Sky, in support of the +doctrine that animal substances are less cleanly than vegetable: "I +have _often_ thought that, if I kept a seraglio, the ladies should +all wear linen gowns, or cotton, I mean stuffs made of vegetable +substances. I would have no silks: you cannot tell when it is clean: +it will be very nasty before it is perceived to be so; linen detects +its own dirtiness." His virtue thawed instead of becoming more rigid +in the North. "This evening," records Boswell of their visit to an +Hebridean chief, "one of our married ladies, a lively pretty little +woman, good-humouredly sat down upon Dr. Johnson's knee, and being +encouraged by some of the company, put her hands round his neck and +kissed him. 'Do it again,' said he, 'and let us see who will tire +first.' He kept her on his knee some time whilst he and she drank +tea." + +The Rev. Dr. Maxwell relates in his "Collectanea," that "Two young +women from Staffordshire visited him when I was present, to consult +him on the subject of Methodism, to which they were inclined. 'Come,' +said he, 'you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, +and we will talk over that subject:' which they did, and after dinner +he took one of them upon his knee, and fondled her for half an hour +together." [1] + +[Footnote 1: "Amongst his singularities, his love of conversing with +the prostitutes he met in the streets, was not the least. He has been +known to carry some of these unfortunate creatures into a tavern, for +the sake of striving to awaken in them a proper sense of their +condition. I remember, he said, once asking one of them for what +purpose she supposed her Maker had bestowed on her so much beauty. +Her answer was, 'To please the gentlemen, to be sure; for what other +purpose could it be given me?" _(Johnsoniana.)_ He once carried one, +fainting from exhaustion, home on his back.] + +Women almost always like men who like women; or as the phenomenon is +explained by Pope-- + + "Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, + and charms all womankind." + +Johnson, despite of his unwieldy figure, scarred features and uncouth +gestures, was a favourite with the fair, and talked of affairs of the +heart as things of which he was entitled to speak from personal +experience as confidently as of any other moral or social topics. He +told Mrs. Thrale, without the smallest consciousness of presumption +or what Mr. Square would term the unfitness of things, of his and +Lord Lyttleton's having contended for Miss Boothby's preference with +an emulation that occasioned hearty disgust and ended in lasting +animosity. "You may see," he added, when the Lives of the Poets were +printed, "that dear Boothby is at my heart still. She would delight +in that fellow Lyttleton's company though, all that I could do, and I +cannot forgive even his memory the preference given by a mind like +hers." [1] + +[Footnote 1: In point of personal advantages the man of rank and +fashion and the scholar were nearly on a par. + + "But who is this astride the pony, + So long, so lean, so lank, so bony? + Dat be de great orator, Littletony."] + +Mr. Croker surmises that "Molly Aston," not "dear Boothby," must have +been the object of this rivalry[1]; and the surmise is strengthened +by Johnson's calling Molly the loveliest creature he ever saw; adding +(to Mrs. Thrale), "My wife was a little jealous, and happening one +day when walking in the country to meet a fortune-hunting gipsy, Mrs. +Johnson made the wench look at my hand, but soon repented of her +curiosity,'for,' says the gipsy, 'your heart is divided between a +Betty and a Molly: Betty loves you best, but you take most delight in +Molly's company.' When I turned about to laugh, I saw my wife was +crying. Pretty charmer, she had no reason." This pretty charmer was +in her forty-eighth year when he married her, he being then +twenty-seven. He told Beauclerc that it was a love match on both +sides; and Garrick used to draw ludicrous pictures of their mutual +fondness, which he heightened by representing her as short, fat, +tawdrily dressed, and highly rouged. + +[Footnote 1: See "Croker's Boswell," p. 672, and Malone's note in the +prior edition.] + +On the question whether "Molly Aston" or "dear Boothby" was the cause +of his dislike of Lyttleton, one of Mrs. Piozzi's marginal notes is +decisive. "Mrs. Thrale (says Boswell) suggests that he was offended +by Molly Aston's preference of his lordship to him." She retorts: "I +never said so. I believe Lord Lyttleton and Molly Aston were not +acquainted. No, no: it was Miss Boothby whose preference he professed +to have been jealous of, and so I said in the 'Anecdotes.'" + +One of Rochefoucauld's maxims is: "Young women who do not wish to +appear _coquette_, and men of advanced years who do not wish to +appear ridiculous, should never speak of love as of a thing in which +they might take part." Mrs. Thrale relates an amusing instance of +Johnson's adroitness in escaping from the dilemma: "As we had been +saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the +manner in which Mr. Johnson treated it, a lady at my house said, she +would make him talk about love; and took her measures accordingly, +deriding the novels of the day because they treated about love. 'It +is not,' replied our philosopher, 'because they treat, as you call +it, about love, but because they treat of nothing, that they are +despicable: we must not ridicule a passion which he who never felt, +never was happy, and he who laughs at, never deserves to feel--a +passion which has caused the change of empires, and the loss of +worlds--a passion which has inspired heroism and subdued avarice.' He +thought he had already said too much. 'A passion, in short,' added +he, with an altered tone, 'that consumes me away for my pretty Fanny +here, and she 'is very cruel,' speaking of another lady (Miss Burney) +in the room." + +As the high-flown language which he occasionally employed in +addressing or discussing women, has originated a theory that the +basis or essence of his character was romance, it may be as well to +contrast what he said in soberer moods on love. He remarked to Dr. +Maxwell, that "its violence and ill-effects were much exaggerated; +for who knows any real sufferings on that head, more than from the +exorbitancy of any other passion?" On Boswell asking him whether he +did not suppose that there are fifty women in the world with any of +whom a man may be as happy as with any one woman in particular, he +replied, "Ay, Sir, fifty thousand. I believe marriages would in +general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the +lord-chancellor upon a due consideration of the characters and +circumstances without the parties having any choice in the matter." +On another occasion he observed that sensible men rarely married for +love. + +These peculiarities throw light on more questions than one relating +to Johnson's prolonged intimacy and alleged quarrel with Mrs. Thrale. +His gallantry, and the flattering air of deferential tenderness which +he threw into his commerce with his female favourites, may have had +little less to do with his domestication at Streatham than his +celebrity, his learning, or his wit. The most submissive wife will +manage to dislodge an inmate who is displeasing to her, "Aye, a +marriage, man," said Bucklaw to his led captain, "but wherefore +droops thy mighty spirit? The board will have a corner, and the +corner will have a trencher, and the trencher will have a glass +beside it; and the board end shall be filled, and the trencher and +the glass shall be replenished for thee, if all the petticoats in +Lothian had sworn the contrary." "So says many an honest fellow," +said Craigenfelt, "and some of my special friends; but curse me if I +know the reason, the women could never bear me, and always contrived +to trundle me out before the honey-moon was over."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Bride of Lammermoor.] + +It was all very well for Johnson to tell Boswell, "I know no man who +is more master of his wife and family than Thrale. If he holds up a +finger, he is obeyed." The sage never acted on the theory, and +instead of treating the wife as a cipher, lost no opportunity of +paying court to her, though in a manner quite compatible with his own +lofty spirit of independence and self-respect. Thus, attention having +been called to some Italian verses by Baretti, he converted them into +an elegant compliment to her by an improvised paraphrase: + + "Viva! viva la padrona! + Tutta bella, e tutta buona, + La padrona e un angiolella + Tutta buona e tutta bella; + Tutta bella e tutta buona; + Viva! viva la padrona!" + + "Long may live my lovely Hetty! + Always young and always pretty; + Always pretty, always young, + Live my lovely Hetty long! + Always young and always pretty; + Long may live my lovely Hetty!" + +Her marginal note in the copy of the "Anecdotes" presented by her to +Sir James Fellowes in 1816 is:--"I heard these verses sung at Mr. +Thomas's by three voices not three weeks ago." + +It was in the eighth year of their acquaintance that Johnson solaced +his fatigue in the Hebrides by writing a Latin ode to her. "About +fourteen years since," wrote Sir Walter Scott, in 1829, "I landed in +Sky with a party of friends, and had the curiosity to ask what was +the first idea on every one's mind at landing. All answered +separately that it was this ode." Thinking Miss Cornelia Knight's +version too diffuse, I asked Mr. Milnes for a translation or +paraphrase, and he kindly complied by producing these spirited +stanzas: + + "Where constant mist enshrouds the rocks, + Shattered in earth's primeval shocks, + And niggard Nature ever mocks + The labourer's toil, + + I roam through clans of savage men, + Untamed by arts, untaught by pen; + Or cower within some squalid den + O'er reeking soil. + + Through paths that halt from stone to stone, + Amid the din of tongues unknown, + One image haunts my soul alone, + Thine, gentle Thrale! + + Soothes she, I ask, her spouse's care? + Does mother-love its charge prepare? + Stores she her mind with knowledge rare, + Or lively tale? + + Forget me not! thy faith I claim, + Holding a faith that cannot die, + That fills with thy benignant name + These shores of Sky." + +"On another occasion," says Mrs. Thrale, in the "Anecdotes," "I can +boast verses from Dr. Johnson. As I went into his room the morning of +my birthday once and said to him, 'Nobody sends me any verses now, +because I am five-and-thirty years old; and Stella was fed with them +till forty-six, I remember.' My being just recovered from illness and +confinement will account for the manner in which he burst out +suddenly, for so he did without the least previous hesitation +whatsoever, and without having entertained the smallest intention +towards it half a minute before: + + "Oft in danger, yet alive, + We are come to thirty-five; + Long may better years arrive, + Better years than thirty-five. + Could philosophers contrive + Life to stop at thirty-five, + Time his hours should never drive + O'er the bounds of thirty-five. + High to soar, and deep to dive, + Nature gives at thirty-five. + Ladies, stock and tend your hive, + Trifle not at thirty-five; + For howe'er we boast and strive, + Life declines from thirty-five; + He that ever hopes to thrive + Must begin by thirty-five; + And all who wisely wish to wive + Must look on Thrale at thirty-five." + +"'And now,' said he, as I was writing them down, 'you may see what it +is to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the +rhymes run in alphabetical order exactly.' And so they do." + +Byron's estimate of life at the same age, is somewhat different: + + "Too old for youth--too young, at thirty-five + To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore, + I wonder people should he left alive. + But since they are, that epoch is a bore." + +Lady Aldborough, whose best witticisms unluckily lie under the same +merited ban as Rochester's best verses, resolved not to pass +twenty-five, and had her passport made out accordingly till her death +at eighty-five. She used to boast that, whenever a foreign official +objected, she never failed to silence him by the remark, that he was +the first gentleman of his country who ever told a lady she was older +than she said she was. Actuated probably by a similar feeling, and in +the hope of securing to herself the benefit of the doubt, Mrs. Thrale +omitted in the "Anecdotes" the year when these verses were addressed +to her, and a sharp controversy has been raised as to the respective +ages of herself and Dr. Johnson at the time. It is thus summed up by +one of the combatants: + +"In one place Mr. Croker says that at the commencement of the +intimacy between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was +twenty-five years old. In other places he says that Mrs. Thrale's +thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's seventieth. Johnson was +born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year +coincided with Johnson's seventieth, she could have been only +twenty-one years old in 1765. This is not all. Mr. Croker, in another +place, assigns the year 1777 as the date of the complimentary lines +which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth birthday. If this +date be correct Mrs. Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could +have been only twenty-three when her acquaintance commenced. Mr. +Croker, therefore, gives us three different statements as to her age. +Two of the three must be incorrect. We will not decide between +them."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Macaulay's Essays.] + +Mr. Salusbury, referring to a china bowl in his possession, says: +"The slip of paper now in it is in my father's handwriting, and +copied, I have heard him say, from the original slip, which was worn +out by age and fingering. The exact words are, 'In this bason was +baptised Hester Lynch Salusbury, 16th Jan. 1740-41 old style, at +Bodville in Carnarvonshire.'" + +The incident of the verses is thus narrated in "Thraliana": "And this +year, 1777[1], when I told him that it was my birthday, and that I +was then thirty-five years old, he repeated me these verses, which I +wrote down from his mouth as he made them." If she was born in +1740-41, she must have been thirty-six in 1777; and there is no +perfectly satisfactory settlement of the controversy, which many will +think derives its sole importance from the two chief +controversialists. + +[Footnote 1: In one of her Memorandum books, 1776.] + +The highest authorities differ equally about her looks. "My readers," +says Boswell, "will naturally wish for some representation of the +figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well-proportioned, and +stately. As for _Madam_, or _My Mistress_, by which epithets Johnson +used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk." "He +should have added," observes Mr. Croker, "that she was very pretty." +This was not her own opinion, nor that of her cotemporaries, although +her face was attractive from animation and expression, and her +personal appearance pleasing on the whole. Sometimes, when visiting +the author of "Piozziana,"[1] she used to look at her little self, as +she called it, and spoke drolly of what she once was, as if speaking +of some one else; and one day, turning to him, she exclaimed: "No, I +never was handsome: I had always too many strong points in my face +for beauty." On his expressing a doubt of this, and hinting that Dr. +Johnson was certainly an admirer of her personal charms, she replied +that his devotion was at least as warm towards the table and the +table-cloth at Streatham. + +[Footnote 1: "Piozziana; or Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi, +with Remarks. By a Friend." (The Rev. E. Mangin.) Moxon, 1833. These +reminiscences, unluckily limited to the last eight or ten years of +her life at Bath, contain much curious information, and leave a +highly favourable impression of Mrs. Piozzi.] + +One day when he was ill, exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that +death was not far distant, she appeared before him in a dark-coloured +gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake +for an iron-grey. "'Why do you delight,' said he, 'thus to thicken +the gloom of misery that surrounds me? is not here sufficient +accumulation of horror without anticipated mourning?'--'This is not +mourning, Sir!' said I, drawing the curtain, that the light might +fall upon the silk, and show it was a purple mixed with +green.--'Well, well!' replied he, changing his voice; 'you little +creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are +unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?'" + +According to the author of "Piozziana," who became acquainted with +her late in life, "She was short, and though well-proportioned, +broad, and deep-chested. Her hands were muscular and almost coarse, +but her writing was, even in her eightieth year, exquisitely +beautiful; and one day, while conversing with her on the subject of +education, she observed that 'all Misses now-a-days, wrote so like +each other, that it was provoking;' adding, 'I love to see +individuality of character, and abhor sameness, especially in what is +feeble and flimsy.' Then, spreading her hand, she said, 'I believe I +owe what you are pleased to call my good writing, to the shape of +this hand, for my uncle, Sir Robert Cotton, thought it was too manly +to be employed in writing like a boarding-school girl; and so I came +by my vigorous, black manuscript.'" + +It was fortunate that the hand-writing compensated for the hands; and +as she attached great importance to blood and race, that she did not +live to read Byron's "thoroughbred and tapering fingers," or to be +shocked by his theory that "the hand is almost the only sign of blood +which aristocracy can generate." Her Bath friend appeals to a +miniature (engraved for this work) by Roche, of Bath, taken when she +was in her seventy-seventh year. Like Cromwell, who told the painter +that if he softened a harsh line or so much as omitted a wart, he +should never be paid a sixpence,--she desired the artist to paint her +face deeply rouged, which it always was[1], and to introduce a +trivial deformity of the jaw, produced by a horse treading on her as +she lay on the ground after a fall. In this respect she proved +superior to Johnson; who, with all his love of truth, could not bear +to be painted with his defects. He was displeased at being drawn +holding a pen close to his eye; and on its being suggested that +Reynolds had painted himself holding his ear in his hand to catch the +sound, he replied: "He may paint himself as deaf as he pleases, but I +will not be Blinking Sam." + +[Footnote 1: "One day I called early at her house, and as I entered +her drawing-room, she passed me, saying, 'Dear Sir, I will be with +you in a few minutes; but, while I think of it, I must go to my +dressing-closet and paint my face, which I forgot to do this +morning.' Accordingly she soon returned, wearing the requisite +quantity of bloom; which, it must be noticed, was not in the least +like that of youth and beauty. I then said that I was surprised she +should so far sacrifice to fashion, as to take that trouble. Her +answer was that, as I might conclude, her practice of painting did +not proceed from any silly compliance with Bath fashion, or any +fashion; still less, if possible, from the desire of appearing +younger than she was, but from this circumstance, that in early life +she had worn rouge, as other young persons did in her day, as a part +of dress; and after continuing the habit for some years, discovered +that it had introduced a dull yellow colour into her complexion, +quite unlike that of her natural skin, and that she wished to conceal +the deformity."--_Piozziana_.] + +Reynolds' portrait of Mrs. Thrale conveys a highly agreeable +impression of her; and so does Hogarth's, when she sat to him for the +principal figure in "The Lady's Last Stake." She was then only +fourteen; and he probably idealised his model; but that he also +produced a striking likeness, is obvious on comparing his picture +with the professed portraits. The history of this picture (which has +been engraved, at Lord Macaulay's suggestion, for this work) will be +found in the Autobiography and the Letters. + +Boswell's account of his first visit to Streatham gives a tolerably +fair notion of the footing on which Johnson stood there, and the +manner in which the interchange of mind was carried on between him +and the hostess. This visit took place in October, 1769, four years +after Johnson's introduction to her; and Boswell's absence from +London, in which he had no fixed residence during Johnson's life, +will hardly account for the neglect of his illustrious friend in not +procuring him a privilege which he must have highly coveted and would +doubtless have turned to good account. + +"On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation; and +found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circumstance +that can make society pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was +yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be +equally the care of his host and hostess. I rejoiced at seeing him so +happy." + +"Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him +powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it; +his love verses were college verses: and he repeated the song, +'Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains,' &c. in so ludicrous a manner, as +to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such +fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to her guns with great courage, +in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at +last silenced her by saving, 'My dear lady, talk no more of this. +Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.' + +"Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talents for light gay poetry; +and, as a specimen, repeated his song in 'Florizel and Perdita,' and +dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:-- + + "'I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.' + +"_Johnson._--'Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! +Smile with the simple!--what folly is that? And who would feed with +the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and +feed with the rich.'" Boswell adds, that he repeated this sally to +Glarrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a +little irritated by it; on which Mrs. Thrale remarks, "How odd to go +and tell the man!" + +The independent tone she took when she deemed the Doctor +unreasonable, is also proved by Boswell in his report of what took +place at Streatham in reference to Lord Marchmont's offer to supply +information for the Life of Pope: + +"Elated with the success of my spontaneous exertion to procure +material and respectable aid to Johnson for his very favourite work, +'the Lives of the Poets,' I hastened down to Mr. Thrale's, at +Streatham, where he now was, that I might insure his being at home +next day; and after dinner, when I thought he would receive the good +news in the best humour, I announced it eagerly: 'I have been at work +for you to-day, Sir. I have been with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell +you he has a great respect for you, and will call on you to-morrow at +one o'clock, and communicate all he knows about Pope.' _Johnson._ 'I +shall not be in town to-morrow. I don't care to know about Pope.' +_Mrs. Thrale_ (surprised, as I was, and a little angry). 'I suppose, +Sir, Mr. Boswell thought that as you are to write Pope's Life, you +would wish to know about him.' _Johnson._ 'Wish! why yes. If it +rained knowledge, I'd hold out my hand; but I would not give myself +the trouble to go in quest of it.' There was no arguing with him at +the moment. Sometime afterwards he said, 'Lord Marchmont will call +upon me, and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont.' Mrs. Thrale was +uneasy at this unaccountable caprice: and told me, that if I did not +take care to bring about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him, it +would never take place, which would be a great pity." + +The ensuing conversation is a good sample of the freedom and variety +of "talk" in which Johnson luxuriated, and shows how important a part +Mrs. Thrale played in it: + +"Mrs. Thrale told us, that a curious clergyman of our acquaintance +(Dr. Lort is named in the margin) had discovered a licentious stanza, +which Pope had originally in his 'Universal Prayer,' before the +stanza,-- + + "'What conscience dictates to be done, + Or warns us not to do,' &c. + +It was this:-- + + "'Can sins of moment claim the rod + Of everlasting fires? + And that offend great Nature's God + Which Nature's self inspires." + +and that Dr. Johnson observed, it had been borrowed from _Guarini_. +There are, indeed, in _Pastor Fido_, many such flimsy superficial +reasonings as that in the last two lines of this stanza. + +"_Boswell_. 'In that stanza of Pope's, "_rod of fires_" is certainly +a bad metaphor.' _Mrs. Thrale_. 'And "sins of _moment_" is a faulty +expression; for its true import is _momentous_, which cannot be +intended.' _Johnson_. 'It must have been written "of _moments_." Of +_moment_, is _momentous_; of _moments, momentary_. I warrant you, +however, Pope wrote this stanza, and some friend struck it out.' + +"Talking of divorces, I asked if Othello's doctrine was not +plausible:-- + + "'He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen, + Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.' + +Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale joined against this. _Johnson_. 'Ask any +man if he'd wish not to know of such an injury.' _Boswell_. 'Would +you tell your friend to make him unhappy?' _Johnson_. 'Perhaps, Sir, +I should not: but that would be from prudence on my own account. A +man would tell his father.' _Boswell_. 'Yes; because he would not +have spurious children to get any share of the family inheritance.' +_Mrs. Thrale_. 'Or he would tell his brother.' _Boswell_. 'Certainly +his _elder_ brother.... Would you tell Mr. ----?' (naming a gentleman +who assuredly was not in the least danger of so miserable a disgrace, +though married to a fine woman). _Johnson_. 'No, Sir: because it +would do no good; he is so sluggish, he'd never go to Parliament and +get through a divorce.'" _Marginal Note_: "Langton." + +There is every reason to believe that her behaviour to Johnson was +uniformly marked by good-breeding and delicacy. She treated him with +a degree of consideration and respect which he did not always receive +from other friends and admirers. A foolish rumour having got into the +newspapers that he had been learning to dance of Vestris, it was +agreed that Lord Charlemont should ask him if it was true, and his +lordship with (it is shrewdly observed) the characteristic spirit of +a general of Irish volunteers, actually put the question, which +provoked a passing feeling of irritation. Opposite Boswell's account +of this incident she has written, "Was he not right in hating to be +so treated? and would he not have been right to have loved me better +than any of them, because I never did make a Lyon of him?" + +One great charm of her companionship to cultivated men was her +familiarity with the learned languages, as well as with French, +Italian, and Spanish. The author of "Piozziana" says: "She not only +read and wrote Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, but had for sixty years +constantly and ardently studied the Scriptures and the works of +commentators in the original languages." She did not know Greek, and +he probably over-estimated her other acquirements, which Boswell +certainly underestimates when he speaks slightingly of them on the +strength of Johnson's having said: "It is a great mistake to suppose +that she is above him (Thrale) in literary attainments. She is more +flippant, but he has ten times her learning: he is a regular scholar; +but her learning is that of a school-boy in one of the lower forms." +If this were so, it is strange that Thrale should cut so poor a +figure, should seem little better than a nonentity, whilst every +imaginable topic was under animated discussion at his table; for +Boswell was more ready to report the husband's sayings than the +wife's. In a marginal note on one of the printed letters she says: +"Mr. Thrale was a very merry talking man in 1760; but the distress of +1772, which affected his health, his hopes, and his whole soul, +affected his temper too. Perkins called it being planet struck, and I +am not sure he was ever completely the same man again." The notes of +his conversation during the antecedent period are equally meagre.[1] +He is described by Madame D'Arblay as taking a singular amusement in +hearing, instigating, and provoking a war of words, alternating +triumph and overthrow, between clever and ambitious colloquial +combatants. + +[Footnote 1: "Pray, Doctor, said a gentleman to Johnson, is Mr. +Thrale a man of conversation, or is he only wise and silent?' 'Why, +Sir, his conversation does not show the _minute_ hand; but he +generally strikes the hour very correctly.'"--_Johnsoniana_.] + +No one would have expected to find her as much at home in Greek and +Latin authors as a man of fair ability who had received and profited +by an University education, but she could appreciate a classical +allusion or quotation, and translate off-hand a Latin epigram. + +"Mary Aston," said Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit +and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made +this epigram upon her. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw! + + "'Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria, + Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale!' + +"Will it do this way in English, Sir? (said Mrs. Thrale)-- + + "'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you, + If freedom we seek, fair Maria, adieu." + +Mr. Croker's version is:-- + + "'You wish me, fair Maria, to be free, + Then, fair Maria, I must fly from thee.' + +Boswell also has tried his hand at it; and a correspondent of the +"Gentleman's Magazine" suggests that Johnson had in his mind an +epigram on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade in Paris, +habited as a Jesuit, during the height of the contention between the +Jansenists and Molinists concerning free will:-- + + "On s'étonne ici que Calviniste + Eût pris l'habit de Moliniste, + Puisque que cette jeune beauté + Ôte à chacun sa liberté, + N'est ce pas une Janséniste."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "Menagiana," vol. iii. p. 376. Edition of 1716. Equally +happy were Lord Chesterfield's lines to a young lady who appeared at +a Dublin ball, with an orange breastknot:-- + +Mrs. Thrale took the lead even when her husband might be expected to +strike in, as when Johnson was declaiming paradoxically against +action in oratory: "Action can have no effect on reasonable minds. It +may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument." _Mrs. Thrale_. +"What then, Sir, becomes of Demosthenes' saying, Action, action, +action?" _Johnson_. "Demosthenes, Madam, spoke to an assembly of +brutes, to a barbarous people." "The polished Athenians!" is her +marginal protest, and a conclusive one. + +In English literature she was rarely at fault. In + + "Pretty Tory, where's the jest + To wear that riband on thy breast, + When that same breast betraying shows + The whiteness of the rebel rose?" + +White was adopted by the malcontent Irish as the French emblem. +Johnson's epigram may have been suggested by Propertius: + + "Nullus liber erit si quis amare volet."] + +reference to the flattery lavished on Garrick by Lord Mansfield and +Lord Chatham, Johnson had said, "When he whom everybody else +flatters, flatters me, then I am truly happy." _Mrs. Thrale_. "The +sentiment is in Congreve, I think." _Johnson_. "Yes, Madam, in 'The +Way of the World.' + + "'If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see + The heart that others bleed for, bleed for me.'" + +When Johnson is reported saying, "Those who have a style of +distinguished excellence can always be distinguished," she objects: +"It seems not. The lines always quoted as Dryden's, beginning, + + 'To die is landing on some silent shore,' + +are Garth's after all." Johnson would have been still less pleased at +her discovery that a line in his epitaph on Phillips, + + "Till angels wake thee with a note like thine," + +was imitated from Pope's + + "And saints embrace thee with a love like mine." + +In one of her letters to him (June, 1782) she writes: "Meantime let +us be as _merry_ as reading Burton upon _Melancholy_ will make us. +You bid me study that book in your absence, and now, what have I +found? Why, I have found, or fancied, that he has been cruelly +plundered: that Milton's first idea of 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' +were suggested by the verses at the beginning; that Savage's speech +of Suicide in the 'Wanderer' grew up out of a passage you probably +remember towards the 216th page; that Swift's tale of the woman that +holds water in her mouth, to regain her husband's love by silence, +had its source in the same farrago; and that there is an odd +similitude between my Lord's trick upon Sly the Tinker, in +Shakspeare's 'Taming of the Shrew,' and some stuff I have been +reading in Burton." + +It would be easy to heap proof upon proof of the value and variety of +Mrs. Thrale's contributions to the colloquial treasures accumulated +by Boswell and other members of the set; and Johnson's deliberate +testimony to her good qualities of head and heart will far more than +counterbalance any passing expressions of disapproval or reproof with +her mistimed vivacity, or alleged disregard of scrupulous accuracy in +narrative, may have called forth. No two people ever lived much +together for a series of years without many fretful, complaining, +dissatisfied, uncongenial moments,--without letting drop captious or +unkind expressions, utterly at variance with their habitual feelings +and their matured judgments of each other. The hasty word, the +passing sarcasm, the sly hit at an acknowledged foible, should count +for nothing in the estimate, when contrasted with earnest and +deliberate assurances, proceeding from one who was commonly too proud +to flatter, and in no mood for idle compliment when he wrote. + +"Never (he writes in 1773) imagine that your letters are long; they +are always too short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever +content with a single perusal.... My nights are grown again very +uneasy and troublesome. I know not that the country will mend them; +but I hope your company will mend my days. Though I cannot now expect +much attention, and would not wish for more than can be spared from +the poor dear lady (her mother), yet I shall see you and hear you +every now and then; and to see and hear you, is always to hear wit, +and to see virtue." + +He would not suffer her to be lightly spoken of in his presence, nor +permit his name to be coupled jocularly with hers. "I yesterday told +him," says Boswell, when they were traversing the Highlands, "I was +thinking of writing a poetical letter to him, on his return from +Scotland, in the style of Swift's humorous epistle in the character +of Mary Gulliver to her husband, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, on his +return to England from the country of the Houyhnhnms:-- + + "'At early morn I to the market haste, + Studious in ev'ry thing to please thy taste. + A curious _fowl_ and _sparagrass_ I chose; + (For I remember you were fond of those:) + Three shillings cost the first, the last seven groats; + Sullen you turn from both, and call for OATS.' + +He laughed, and asked in whose name I would write it. I said in Mrs. +Thrale's. He was angry. 'Sir, if you have any sense of decency or +delicacy, you won't do that.' _Boswell_. 'Then let it be in Cole's, +the landlord of the Mitre tavern, where we have so often sat +together.' _Johnson_. 'Ay, that may do.'" + +Again, at Inverary, when Johnson called for a gill of whiskey that he +might know what makes a Scotchman happy, and Boswell proposed Mrs. +Thrale as their toast, he would not have _her_ drunk in whiskey. +Peter Pindar has maliciously added to this reproof:-- + + "We supped most royally, were vastly frisky, + When Johnson ordered up a gill of whiskey. + Taking the glass, says I, 'Here's Mistress Thrale,' + 'Drink her in _whiskey_ not,' said he, 'but _ale_.'" + +So far from making light of her scholarship, he frequently accepted +her as a partner in translations from the Latin. The translations +from Boethius, printed in the second volume of the Letters, are their +joint composition. + +After recapitulating Johnson's other contributions to literature in +1766, Boswell says, "'The Fountains,' a beautiful little fairy tale +in prose, written with exquisite simplicity, is one of Johnson's +productions; and I cannot withhold from Mrs. Thrale the praise of +being the author of that admirable poem 'The Three Warnings.'" +_Marginal note_: "How sorry he is!" Both the tale and the poem were +written for a collection of "Miscellanies," published by Mrs. +Williams in that year. The character of Floretta in "The Fountains" +was intended for Mrs. Thrale, and she thus gracefully alludes to it +in a letter to Johnson in Feb. 1782: + +"The newspapers would spoil my few comforts that are left if they +could; but you tell me that's only because I have the reputation, +whether true or false, of being a _wit_ forsooth; and you remember +_poor Floretta_, who was teased into wishing away her spirit, her +beauty, her fortune, and at last even her life, never could bear the +bitter water which was to have washed away her wit; which she +resolved to keep with all its consequences." + +Her fugitive pieces, mostly in verse, thrown off from time to time at +all periods of her life, are numerous; and the best of them that have +been recovered will be included in these volumes. In a letter to the +author of "Piozziana," she says:--"When Wilkes and Liberty were at +their highest tide, I was bringing or losing children every year; and +my studies were confined to my nursery; so, it came into my head one +day to send an infant alphabet to the 'St. James Chronicle':-- + + "'A was an Alderman, factious and proud; + B was a Bellas that blustered aloud, &c.' + +"In a week's time Dr. Johnson asked me if I knew who wrote it? 'Why, +who did write it, Sir?' said I. 'Steevens,' was the reply. Some time +after that, years for aught I know, he mentioned to me Steevens's +veracity! 'No, no;' answered H.L.P., anything but that;' and told my +story; showing him by incontestable proofs that it was mine. Johnson +did not utter a word, and we never talked about it any more. I durst +not introduce the subject; but it served to hinder S. from visiting +at the house: I suppose Johnson kept him away." + +It does not appear that Steevens claimed the Alphabet; which may have +suggested the celebrated squib that appeared in the "New Whig Guide," +and was popularly attributed to Mr. Croker. It was headed "The +Political Alphabet; or, the Young Member's A B C," and begins: + + "A was an Althorpe, as dull as a hog: + B was black Brougham, a surly cur dog: + C was a Cochrane, all stripped of his lace." + +What widely different associations are now awakened by these names! +The sting is in the tail: + + "W was a Warre, 'twixt a wasp and a worm, + But X Y and Z are not found in this form, + Unless Moore, Martin, and Creevey be said + (As the last of mankind) to be X Y and Z." + +Amongst Miss Reynolds' "Recollections" will be found:--"On the +praises of Mrs. Thrale, he (Johnson) used to dwell with a peculiar +delight, a paternal fondness, expressive of conscious exultation in +being so intimately acquainted with her. One day, in speaking of her +to Mr. Harris, author of 'Hermes,' and expatiating on her various +perfections,--the solidity of her virtues, the brilliancy of her wit, +and the strength of her understanding, &c.--he quoted some lines (a +stanza, I believe, but from what author I know not[1]), with which he +concluded his most eloquent eulogium, and of these I retained but the +two last lines:-- + + 'Virtues--of such a generous kind, + Pure in the last recesses of the mind.'" + +[Footnote 1: Dryden's Translation of Persius.] + +The place assigned to Mrs. Thrale by the popular voice amongst the +most cultivated and accomplished women of the day, is fixed by some +verses printed in the "Morning Herald" of March 12th, 1782, which +attracted much attention. They were commonly attributed to Mr. +(afterwards Sir W.W.) Pepys, and Madame d'Arblay, who alludes to them +complacently, thought them his; but he subsequently repudiated the +authorship, and the editor of her Memoirs believes that they were +written by Dr. Burney. They were provoked by the proneness of the +Herald to indulge in complimentary allusions to ladies of the demirep +genus: + + "Herald, wherefore thus proclaim + Nought of women but the _shame_? + Quit, oh, quit, at least awhile, + Perdita's too luscious smile; + Wanton Worsley, stilted Daly, + Heroines of each blackguard alley; + Better sure record in story + Such as shine their sex's glory! + Herald! haste, with me proclaim + Those of literary fame. + Hannah More's pathetic pen, + Painting high th' impassion'd scene; + Carter's piety and learning, + Little Burney's quick discerning; + Cowley's neatly pointed wit, + Healing those her satires hit; + Smiling Streatfield's iv'ry neck, + Nose, and notions--_à la Grecque!_ + Let Chapone retain a place, + And the mother of her Grace[1], + Each art of conversation knowing, + High-bred, elegant Boscawen; + Thrale, in whose expressive eyes + Sits a soul above disguise, + Skill'd with-wit and sense t'impart + Feelings of a generous heart. + Lucan, Leveson, Greville, Crewe; + Fertile-minded Montagu, + Who makes each rising art her care, + 'And brings her knowledge from afar!' + Whilst her tuneful tongue defends + Authors dead, and absent friends; + Bright in genius, pure in fame:-- + Herald, haste, and these proclaim!" + +[Footnote 1: Mrs. Boscawen was the mother of the Duchess of Beaufort +and Mrs. Leveson Gower: + + "All Leveson's sweetness, and all Beaufort's grace."] + +These lines merit attention for the sake of the comparison they +invite. An outcry has recently been raised against the laxity of +modern fashion, in permitting venal beauty to receive open homage in +our parks and theatres, and to be made the subject of prurient gossip +by maids and matrons who should ignore its existence. But we need not +look far beneath the surface of social history to discover that the +irregularity in question is only a partial revival of the practice of +our grandfathers and grandmothers, much as a crinoline may be +regarded as a modified reproduction of the hoop. Junius thus +denounces the Duke of Grafton's indecorous devotion to Nancy Parsons: +"It is not the private indulgence, but the public insult, of which I +complain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been known, if +the First Lord of the Treasury had not led her in triumph through the +Opera House, even in the presence of the Queen." Lord March +(afterwards Duke of Queensberry) was a lord of the bedchamber in the +decorous court of George the Third, when he wrote thus to Selwyn: "I +was prevented from writing to you last Friday, by being at Newmarket +with my little girl (Signora Zamperini, a noted dancer and singer). I +had the whole family and Cocchi. The beauty went with me in my +chaise, and the rest in the old landau." + +We have had Boswell's impression of his first visit to Streatham; and +Madame D'Arblay's account of hers confirms the notion that My +Mistress, not My Master, was the presiding genius of the place. + +"_London, August_ (1778).--I have now to write an account of the most +consequential day I have spent since my birth: namely, my Streatham +visit. + +"Our journey to Streatham was the least pleasant part of the day, for +the roads were dreadfully dusty, and I was really in the fidgets from +thinking what my reception might be, and from fearing they would +expect a less awkward and backward kind of person than I was sure +they would find. + +"Mr. Thrale's house is white, and very pleasantly situated, in a fine +paddock. Mrs. Thrale was strolling about, and came to us as we got +out of the chaise. + +"She then received me, taking both my hands, and with mixed +politeness and cordiality welcomed me to Streatham. She led me into +the house, and addressed herself almost wholly for a few minutes to +my father, as if to give me an assurance she did not mean to regard +me as a show, or to distress or frighten me by drawing me out. +Afterwards she took me up stairs, and showed me the house, and said +she had very much wished to see me at Streatham, and should always +think herself much obliged to Dr. Burney for his goodness in bringing +me, which she looked upon as a very great favour. + +"But though we were some time together, and though she was so very +civil, she did not _hint_ at my book, and I love her much more than +ever for her delicacy in avoiding a subject which she could not but +see would have greatly embarrassed me. + +"When we returned to the music-room, we found Miss Thrale was with my +father. Miss Thrale is a very fine girl, about fourteen years of age, +but cold and reserved, though full of knowledge and intelligence. + +"Soon after, Mrs. Thrale took me to the library; she talked a little +while upon common topics, and then, at last, she mentioned 'Evelina.' + +"I now prevailed upon Mrs. Thrale to let me amuse myself, and she +went to dress. I then prowled about to choose some book, and I saw, +upon the reading-table, 'Evelina.' I had just fixed upon a new +translation of Cicero's 'Lælius,' when the library door was opened, +and Mr. Seward entered. I instantly put away my book, because I +dreaded being thought studious and affected. He offered his service +to find anything for me, and then, in the same breath, ran on to +speak of the book with which I had myself 'favoured the world!' + +"The exact words he began with I cannot recollect, for I was actually +confounded by the attack; and his abrupt manner of letting me know he +was _au fait_ equally astonished and provoked me. How different from +the delicacy of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale!" + +A high French authority has laid down that good breeding consists in +rendering to all what is socially their due. This definition is +imperfect. Good breeding is best displayed by putting people at their +ease; and Mrs. Thrale's manner of putting the young authoress at her +ease was the perfection of delicacy and tact. + +If Johnson's entrance on the stage had been premeditated, it could +hardly have been more dramatically ordered. + +"When we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made my father and me +sit on each side of her. I said that I hoped I did not take Dr. +Johnson's place;--for he had not yet appeared. + +"'No,' answered Mrs. Thrale, 'he will sit by you, which I am sure +will give him great pleasure.' + +"Soon after we were seated, this great man entered. I have so true a +veneration for him, that the very sight of him inspires me with +delight and reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which +he is subject; for he has almost perpetual convulsive movements, +either of his hands, lips, feet, or knees, and sometimes of all +together. + +"Mrs. Thrale introduced me to him, and he took his place. We had a +noble dinner, and a most elegant dessert. Dr. Johnson, in the middle +of dinner, asked Mrs. Thrale what was in some little pies that were +near him. + +"'Mutton,' answered she, 'so I don't ask you to eat any, because I +know you despise it.' + +"'No, Madam, no,' cried he: 'I despise nothing that is good of its +sort; but I am too proud now to eat of it. Sitting by Miss Burney +makes me very proud to-day!' + +"'Miss Burney,' said Mrs. Thrale, laughing, 'you must take great care +of your heart if Dr. Johnson attacks it; for I assure you he is not +often successless.' + +"'What's that you say, Madam?' cried he; 'are you making mischief +between the young lady and me already?' + +"A little while after he drank Miss Thrale's health and mine, and +then added: + +"'Tis a terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies well, without +wishing them to become old women.'" + +Madame D'Arblay's memoirs are sadly defaced by egotism, and gratified +vanity may have had a good deal to do with her unqualified admiration +of Mrs. Thrale; for "Evelina" (recently published) was the unceasing +topic of exaggerated eulogy during the entire visit. Still so acute +an observer could not be essentially wrong in an account of her +reception, which is in the highest degree favourable to her newly +acquired friend. Of her second visit she says: + +"Our journey was charming. The kind Mrs. Thrale would give courage to +the most timid. She did not ask me questions, or catechise me upon +what I knew, or use any means to draw me out, but made it her +business to draw herself out--that is, to start subjects, to support +them herself, and take all the weight of the conversation, as if it +behoved her to find me entertainment. But I am so much in love with +her, that I shall be obliged to run away from the subject, or shall +write of nothing else. + +"When we arrived here, Mrs. Thrale showed me my room, which is an +exceeding pleasant one, and then conducted me to the library, there +to divert myself while she dressed. + +"Miss Thrale soon joined me: and I begin to like her. Mr. Thrale was +neither well nor in spirits all day. Indeed, he seems not to be a +happy man, though he has every means of happiness in his power. But I +think I have rarely seen a very rich man with a light heart and light +spirits." + +The concluding remark, coming from such a source, may supply an +improving subject of meditation or inquiry; if found true, it may +help to suppress envy and promote contentment. Thrale's state of +health, however, accounts for his depression independently of his +wealth, which rested on too precarious a foundation to allow of +unbroken confidence and gaiety. + +"At tea (continues the diarist) we all met again, and Dr. Johnson was +gaily sociable. He gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. +Langton-- + +"'Who,' he said, 'might be very good children if they were let alone; +but the father is never easy when he is not making them do something +which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech, or the +Hebrew alphabet; and they might as well count twenty, for what they +know of the matter: however, the father says half, for he prompts +every other word. But he could not have chosen a man who would have +been less entertained by such means.' + +"'I believe not!' cried Mrs. Thrale: 'nothing is more ridiculous than +parents cramming their children's nonsense down other people's +throats. I keep mine as much out of the way as I can.' + +"'Yours, Madam,' answered he, 'are in nobody's way; no children can +be better managed or less troublesome; but your fault is, a too great +perverseness in not allowing anybody to give them anything. Why +should they not have a cherry, or a gooseberry, as well as bigger +children?' + +"Indeed, the freedom with which Dr. Johnson condemns whatever he +disapproves, is astonishing; and the strength of words he uses would, +to most people, be intolerable; but Mrs. Thrale seems to have a +sweetness of disposition that equals all her other excellences, and +far from making a point of vindicating herself, she generally +receives his admonitions with the most respectful silence." + +But it must not be supposed that this was done without an effort. +When Boswell speaks of Johnson's "accelerating her pulsation," she +adds, "he checked it often enough, to be sure." + +Another of the conversations which occurred during this visit is +characteristic of all parties: + +"We had been talking of colours, and of the fantastic names given to +them, and why the palest lilac should be called a _soupir étouffé_. + +"'Why, Madam,' said he, with wonderful readiness, 'it is called a +stifled sigh because it is checked in its progress, and only half a +colour.' + +"I could not help expressing my amazement at his universal readiness +upon all subjects, and Mrs. Thrale said to him, + +"'Sir, Miss Burney wonders at your patience with such stuff; but I +tell her you are used to me, for I believe I torment you with more +foolish questions than anybody else dares do.' + +"'No, Madam,' said he, 'you don't torment me;--you teaze me, indeed, +sometimes.' + +"'Ay, so I do, Dr. Johnson, and I wonder you bear with my nonsense.' + +"'No, Madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense, and +more wit, than any woman I know!' + +"'Oh,' cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, 'it is my turn to go under the +table this morning, Miss Burney!' + +"'And yet,' continued the Doctor, with the most comical look, 'I have +known all the wits, from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint!' + +"'Bet Flint,' cried Mrs. Thrale; 'pray who is she?' + +"'Oh, a fine character, Madam! She was habitually a slut and a +drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot.' + +"'And, for heaven's sake, how came you to know her?' + +"'Why, Madam, she figured in the literary world, too! Bet Flint wrote +her own life, and called herself Cassandra, and it was in verse. So +Bet brought me her verses to correct; but I gave her a half-a-crown, +and she liked it as well.' + +"'And pray what became of her, Sir?' + +"'Why, Madam, she stole a quilt from the man of the house, and he had +her taken up: but Bet Flint had a spirit not to be subdued; so when +she found herself obliged to go to jail, she ordered a sedan chair, +and bid her footboy walk before her. However, the boy proved +refractory, for he was ashamed, though his mistress was not.' + +"'And did she ever get out of jail again, Sir?' + +"'Yes, Madam; when she came to her trial, the judge acquitted her. +"So now," she said to me, "the quilt is my own, and now I'll make a +petticoat of it."[1] Oh, I loved Bet Flint!' + +"Bless me, Sir!' cried Mrs. Thrale, 'how can all these vagabonds +contrive to get at _you_, of all people?' + +"'Oh the dear creatures!' cried he, laughing heartily, 'I can't but +be glad to see them!'" + +[Footnote 1: This story is told by Boswell, roy. 8vo, edit. p. 688.] + +Madame D'Arblay's notes (in her Diary) of the conversation and mode +of life at Streatham are full and spirited, and exhibit Johnson in +moods and situations in which he was seldom seen by Boswell. The +adroitness with which he divided his attentions amongst the ladies, +blending approval with instruction, and softening contradiction or +reproof by gallantry, gives plausibility to his otherwise paradoxical +claim to be considered a polite man.[1] He obviously knew how to set +about it, and (theoretically at least) was no mean proficient in that +art of pleasing which attracts + + "Rather by deference than compliment, + And wins e'en by a delicate dissent." + +[Footnote 1: "When the company were retired, we happened to be +talking of Dr. Barnard, the provost of Eton, who died about that +time; and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, +and goodness of heart--'He was the only man, too,' says Mr. Johnson, +quite seriously, 'that did justice to my good breeding; and you may +observe that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No +man,' continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, 'no +man is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so +necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so +steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it on +another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I do the necessity of +ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach of it: yet +people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice.'"--_Anecdotes_. "I +think myself a very polite man,"--_Boswell_. 1778.] + +Sir Henry Bulwer (in his "France") says that Louis the Fourteenth was +entitled to be called a man of genius, if only from the delicate +beauty of his compliments. Mrs. Thrale awards the palm of excellence +in the same path to Johnson. "Your compliments, Sir, are made seldom, +but when they are made, they have an elegance unequalled; but then, +when you are angry, who dares make speeches so bitter and so cruel?" +"I am sure," she adds, after a semblance of defence on his part, "I +have had my share of scolding from you." _Johnson_. "It is true, you +have, but you have borne it like an angel, and you have been the +better for it." As the discussion proceeds, he accuses her of often +provoking him to say severe things by unreasonable commendation; a +common mode of acquiring a character for amiability at the expense of +one's intimates, who are made to appear uncharitable by being thus +constantly placed on the depreciating side. + +Some years prior to this period (1778) Mrs. Thrale's mind and +character had undergone a succession of the most trying ordeals, and +was tempered and improved, without being hardened, by them. In +allusion to what she suffered in child-bearing, she said later in +life that she had nine times undergone the sentence of a +convict,--confinement with hard labour. Child after child died at the +age when the bereavement is most affecting to a mother. Her husband's +health kept her in a constant state of apprehension for his life, and +his affairs became embarrassed to the very verge of bankruptcy. So +long as they remained prosperous, he insisted on her not meddling +with them in any way, and even required her to keep to her +drawing-room and leave the conduct of their domestic establishment to +the butler and housekeeper. But when (from circumstances detailed in +the "Autobiography") his fortune was seriously endangered, he wisely +and gladly availed himself of her prudence and energy, and was saved +by so doing. I have now before me a collection of autograph letters +from her to Mr. Perkins, then manager and afterwards one of the +proprietors of the brewery, from which it appears that she paid the +most minute attention to the business, besides undertaking the +superintendence of her own hereditary estate in Wales. On September +28, 1773, she writes to Mr. Perkins, who was on a commercial +journey:-- + +"Mr. Thrale is still upon his little tour; I opened a letter from you +at the counting-house this morning, and am sorry to find you have so +much trouble with Grant and his affairs. How glad I shall be to hear +that matter is settled at all to your satisfaction. His letter and +remittance came while I was there to-day.... Careless, of the 'Blue +Posts,' has turned refractory, and applied to Hoare's people, who +have sent him in their beer. I called on him to-day, however, and by +dint of an unwearied solicitation, (for I kept him at the coach side +a full half-hour) I got his order for six butts more as the final +trial." + +Examples of fine ladies pressing tradesmen for their votes with +compromising importunity are far from rare, but it would be difficult +to find a parallel for Johnson's Hetty doing duty as a commercial +traveller. She was simultaneously obliged to anticipate the +electioneering exploits of the Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe; +and in after life, having occasion to pass through Southwark, she +expresses her astonishment at no longer recognising a place, every +hole and corner of which she had three times visited as a canvasser. + +After the death of Mr. Thrale, a friend of Mr. H. Thornton canvassed +the borough on behalf of that gentleman. He waited on Mrs. Thrale, +who promised her support. She concluded her obliging expressions by +saying:--"I wish your friend success, and I think he will have it: he +may probably come in for two parliaments, but if he tries for a +third, were he an angel from heaven, the people of Southwark would +cry, 'Not _this_ man, but Barabbas.'"[1] + +[Footnote 1: Miss Laetitia Matilda Hawkins vouches for this +story.--"Memoir, &c." vol. i. p.66, note, where she adds:--"I have +heard it said, that into whatever company she (Mrs. T.) fell, she +could be the most agreeable person in it."] + +On one of her canvassing expeditions, Johnson accompanied her, and a +rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing the moralist's hat in a state +of decay, seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the +back with the other, cried out, "Ah, Master Johnson, this is no time +to be thinking about hats." "No, no, Sir," replied the Doctor, "hats +are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and +huzzah with;" accompanying his words with the true election halloo. + +Thrale had serious thoughts of repaying Johnson's electioneering aid +in kind, by bringing him into Parliament. Sir John Hawkins says that +Thrale had two meetings with the minister (Lord North), who at first +seemed inclined to find Johnson a seat, but eventually +discountenanced the project. Lord Stowell told Mr. Croker that Lord +North did not feel quite sure that Johnson's support might not +sometimes prove rather an incumbrance than a help. "His lordship +perhaps thought, and not unreasonably, that, like the elephant in the +battle, he was quite as likely to trample down his friends as his +foes." Flood doubted whether Johnson, being long used to sententious +brevity and the short flights of conversation, would have succeeded +in the expanded kind of argument required in public speaking. Burke's +opinion was, that if he had come early into Parliament, he would have +been the greatest speaker ever known in it. Upon being told this by +Reynolds, he exclaimed, "I should like to try my hand now." On +Boswell's adding that he wished he _had_, Mrs. Thrale writes: +"Boswell had leisure for curiosity: Ministers had not. Boswell would +have been equally amused by his failure as by his success; but to +Lord North there would have been no joke at all in the experiment +ending untowardly." + +He was equally ready with advice and encouragement during the +difficulties connected with the brewery. He was not of opinion with +Aristotle and Parson Adams, that trade is below a philosopher[1]; and +he eagerly buried himself in computing the cost of the malt and the +possible profits on the ale. In October 1772, he writes from +Lichfield: + +[Footnote 1: "Trade, answered Adams, is below a philosopher, as +Aristotle proves in his first chapter of 'Politics,' and unnatural, +as it is managed now."--_Joseph Andrews_.] + +"Do not suffer little things to disturb you. The brew-house must be +the scene of action, and the subject of speculation. The first +consequence of our late trouble ought to be, an endeavour to brew at +a cheaper rate; an endeavour not violent and transient, but steady +and continual, prosecuted with total contempt of censure or wonder, +and animated by resolution not to stop while more can be done. Unless +this can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall +not want help. Surely there is something to be saved; there is to be +saved whatever is the difference between vigilance and neglect, +between parsimony and profusion. The price of malt has risen again. +It is now two pounds eight shillings the quarter. Ale is sold in the +public-houses at sixpence a quart, a price which I never heard of +before." + +In November of the same year, from Ashbourne: + +"DEAR MADAM,--So many days and never a letter!--_Fugere fides, +pietasque pudorque_. This is Turkish usage. And I have been hoping +and hoping. But you are so glad to have me out of your mind.[1] + +"I think you were quite right in your advice about the thousand +pounds, for the payment could not have been delayed long; and a short +delay would have lessened credit, without advancing interest. But in +great matters you are hardly ever mistaken." + +[Footnote 1: This tone of playful reproach, when adopted by Johnson +at a later period, has been cited as a proof of actual +ill-treatment.] + +In May 17, 1773: + +"Why should Mr. T---- suppose, that what I took the liberty of +suggesting was concerted with you? He does not know how much I +revolve his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope +he has let the hint take some hold of his mind." + +In the copy of the printed letters presented by Mrs. Thrale to Sir +James Fellowes, the blank is filled up with the name of Thrale, and +the passage is thus annotated in her handwriting: + +"Concerning his (Thrale's) connection with quack chemists, quacks of +all sorts; jumping up in the night to go to Marlbro' Street from +Southwark, after some advertising mountebank, at hazard of his life," +In "Thraliana": + +"18_th July_, 1778.--Mr. Thrale overbrewed himself last winter and +made an artificial scarcity of money in the family which has +extremely lowered his spirits. Mr. Johnson endeavoured last night, +and so did I, to make him promise that he would never more brew a +larger quantity of beer in one winter than 80,000 barrels[1], but my +Master, mad with the noble ambition of emulating Whitbread and +Calvert, two fellows that he despises,--could scarcely be prevailed +on to promise even _this_, that he will not brew more than four score +thousand barrels a year for five years to come. He did promise that +much, however; and so Johnson bade me write it down in the +'Thraliana';--and so the wings of Speculation are clipped a +little--very fain would I have pinioned her, but I had not strength +to perform the operation." + +[Footnote 1: "If he got but 2_s._ 6_d._ by each barrel, 80,000 half +crowns are £10,000; and what more would mortal man desire than an +income of ten thousand a year--five to spend, and five to lay up?"] + +That Johnson's advice was neither thrown away nor undervalued, may be +inferred from an incident related by Boswell. Mr. Perkins had hung up +in the counting-house a fine proof of the mezzotinto of Dr. Johnson +by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him, somewhat flippantly, "Why +do you put him up in the counting-house?" Mr. Perkins answered, +"Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there." "Sir," said +Johnson, "I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I +believe you speak sincerely." + +He was in the habit of paying the most minute attention to every +branch of domestic economy, and his suggestions are invariably marked +by shrewdness and good sense. Thus when Mrs. Thrale was giving +evening parties, he told her that though few people might be hungry +after a late dinner, she should always have a good supply of cakes +and sweetmeats on a side table, and that some cold meat and a bottle +of wine would often be found acceptable. Notwithstanding the +imperfection of his eyesight, and his own slovenliness, he was a +critical observer of dress and demeanour, and found fault without +ceremony or compunction when any of his canons of taste or propriety +were infringed. Several amusing examples are enumerated by Mrs. +Thrale: + +"I commended a young lady for her beauty and pretty behaviour one +day, however, to whom I thought no objections could have been made. +'I saw her,' said Dr. Johnson, 'take a pair of scissors in her left +hand though; and for all her father is now become a nobleman, and as +you say excessively rich, I should, were I a youth of quality ten +years hence, hesitate between a girl so neglected, and a _negro_.' + +"It was indeed astonishing how he _could_ remark such minuteness with +a sight so miserably imperfect; but no accidental position of a +riband escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his +demands of propriety. When I went with him to Litchfield, and came +downstairs to breakfast at the inn, my dress did not please him, and +he made me alter it entirely before he would stir a step with us +about the town, saying most satirical things concerning the +appearance I made in a riding-habit; and adding, ''Tis very strange +that such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of dress: if I had a +sight only half as good, I think I should see to the centre.' + +"Another lady, whose accomplishments he never denied, came to our +house one day covered with diamonds, feathers, &c., and he did not +seem inclined to chat with her as usual. I asked him why? when the +company was gone. 'Why, her head looked so like that of a woman who +shows puppets,' said he, 'and her voice so confirmed the fancy, that +I could not bear her to-day; when she wears a large cap, I can talk +to her.' + +"When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their clothes, he expressed +his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms: 'A Brussels +trimming is like bread-sauce,' said he, 'it takes away the glow of +colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it; but sauce +was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and trimming is an +ornament to the manteau, or it is nothing. Learn,' said he, 'that +there is propriety or impropriety in every thing how slight soever, +and get at the general principles of dress and of behaviour; if you +then transgress them, you will at least know that they are not +observed.'" + +Madame D'Arblay confirms this account. He had just been finding fault +with a bandeau worn by Lady Lade, a very large woman, standing six +feet high without her shoes: + +"_Dr. J._--The truth is, women, take them in general, have no idea of +grace. Fashion is all they think of. I don't mean Mrs. Thrale and +Miss Burney, when I talk of women!--they are goddesses!--and +therefore I except them. + +"_Mrs. Thrale._--Lady Lade never wore the bandeau, and said she never +would, because it is unbecoming. + +"_Dr. J. (laughing.)_--Did not she? then is Lady Lade a charming +woman, and I have yet hopes of entering into engagements with her! + +"_Mrs. T._--Well, as to that I can't say; but to be sure, the only +similitude I have yet discovered in you, is in size: there you agree +mighty well. + +"_Dr. J._--Why, if anybody could have worn the bandeau, it must have +been Lady Lade; for there is enough of her to carry it off; but you +are too little for anything ridiculous; that which seems nothing upon +a Patagonian, will become very conspicuous upon a Lilliputian, and of +you there is so little in all, that one single absurdity would +swallow up half of you." + +Matrimony was one of his favourite subjects, and he was fond of +laying down and refining on the duties of the married state, with the +amount of happiness and comfort to be found in it. But once when he +was musing over the fire in the drawing-room at Streatham, a young +gentleman called to him suddenly, "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me +to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," replied the Doctor +in a very angry tone, "who is not likely to propagate understanding;" +and so left the room. "Our companion," adds Mrs. Thrale, in the +"Anecdotes," "looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered +the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and, +drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, +joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the +subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so +useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, +and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected +the offence, except to rejoice in its consequences." + +The young gentleman was Mr. Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade; who was +proposed, half in earnest, whilst still a minor, by the Doctor as a +fitting mate for the author of "Evelina." He married a woman of the +town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and +contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died. + +In "Thraliana" she says:--"Lady Lade consulted him about her son, Sir +John. 'Endeavour, Madam,' said he, 'to procure him knowledge; for +really ignorance to a rich man is like fat to a sick sheep, it only +serves to call the rooks about him.' On the same occasion it was that +he observed how a mind unfurnished with subjects and materials for +thinking can keep up no dignity at all in solitude. 'It is,' says he, +'in the state of a mill without grist.'" + +The attractions of Streatham must have been very strong, to induce +Johnson to pass so much of his time away from "the busy hum of men" +in Fleet Street, and "the full tide of human existence" at Charing +Cross. He often found fault with Mrs. Thrale for living so much in +the country, "feeding the chickens till she starved her +understanding." Walking in a wood when it rained, she tells us, "was +the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; for he would say, +after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well +baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment." This is +almost as bad as the foreigner, who complained that there was no ripe +fruit in England but the roasted apples. Amongst other modes of +passing time in the country, Johnson once or twice tried hunting and, +mounted on an old horse of Mr. Thrale's, acquitted himself to the +surprise of the "field," one of whom delighted him by exclaiming, +"Why Johnson rides as well, for ought I see, as the most illiterate +fellow in England." But a trial or two satisfied him-- + + "He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield, + Who after a long chase o'er hills, dales, fields, + And what not, though he rode beyond all price, + Ask'd next day,'If men ever hunted twice?'" + +It is very strange, and very melancholy, was his reflection, that the +paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting +one of them. The mode of locomotion in which he delighted was the +vehicular. As he was driving rapidly in a postchaise with Boswell, he +exclaimed, "Life has not many things better than this." On their way +from Dr. Taylor's to Derby in 1777, he said, "If I had no duties, and +no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in +a postchaise with a pretty woman, but she should be one who could +understand me, and would add something to the conversation." + +Mr. Croker attributes his enjoyment to the novelty of the pleasure; +his poverty having in early life prevented him from travelling post. +But a better reason is given by Mrs. Thrale: + +"I asked him why he doated on a coach so? and received for answer, +that in the first place, the company were shut in with him _there_; +and could not escape, as out of a room; in the next place, he heard +all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf; and +very impatient was he at my occasional difficulty of hearing. On this +account he wished to travel all over the world: for the very act of +going forward was delightful to him, and he gave himself no concern +about accidents, which he said never happened; nor did the +running-away of the horses at the edge of a precipice between Vernon +and St. Denys in France convince him to the contrary: 'for nothing +came of it,' he said, 'except that Mr. Thrale leaped out of the +carriage into a chalk-pit, and then came up again, looking as +_white_!' When the truth was, all their lives were saved by the +greatest providence ever exerted in favour of three human creatures: +and the part Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the likeliest thing +in the world to produce broken limbs and death." + +The drawbacks on his gratification and on that of his fellow +travellers were his physical defects, and his utter insensibility to +the beauty of nature, as well as to the fine arts, in so far as they +were addressed to the senses of sight and hearing. "He delighted," +says Mrs. Thrale, "no more in music than painting; he was almost as +deaf as he was blind; travelling with Dr. Johnson was, for these +reasons, tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was +mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those +different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that +travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he +wished to point them out to his companion: 'Never heed such +nonsense,' would be the reply: 'a blade of grass is always a blade of +grass, whether in one country or another: let us, if we _do_ talk, +talk about something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry; let +us see how these differ from those we have left behind." + +It is no small deduction from our admiration of Johnson, and no +trifling enhancement of his friends' kindness in tolerating his +eccentricities, that he seldom made allowance for his own palpable +and undeniable deficiencies. As well might a blind man deny the +existence of colours, as a purblind man assert that there was no +charm in a prospect, or in a Claude or Titian, because he could see +none. Once, by way of pleasing Reynolds, he pretended to lament that +the great painter's genius was not exerted on stuff more durable than +canvas, and suggested copper. Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of +procuring plates large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish +obstacles are these!" exclaimed Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a +thousand ton of copper: you may paint it all round if you will, I +suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, Sir?" +(to Thrale, who sate by.) + +He always "civilised" to Dr. Burney, who has supplied the following +anecdote: + +"After having talked slightingly of music, he was observed to listen +very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord; and +with eagerness he called to her, 'Why don't you dash away like +Burney?' Dr. Burney upon this said to him, 'I believe, Sir, we shall +make a musician of you at last.' Johnson with candid complacency +replied, 'Sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.'" + +In 1774, the Thrales made a tour in Wales, mainly for the purpose of +revisiting her birthplace and estates. They were accompanied by +Johnson, who kept a diary of the expedition, beginning July 5th and +ending September 24th. It was preserved by his negro servant, and +Boswell had no suspicion of its existence, for he says, "I do not +find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there." The +diary was first published by Mr. Duppa in 1816; and some manuscript +notes by Mrs. Thrale which reached that gentleman too late for +insertion, have been added in Mr. Murray's recent edition of the +Life. The first entry is: + +"_Tuesday, July 5_.--We left Streatham 11 A.M. Price of four horses +two shillings a mile. Barnet 1.40 P.M. On the road I read 'Tully's +Epistles.' At night at Dunstable." At Chester, he records:--"We +walked round the walls, which are complete, and contain one mile, +three quarters, and one hundred and one yards." Mrs. Thrale's comment +is, "Of those ill-fated walls Dr. Johnson might have learned the +extent from any one. He has since put me fairly out of countenance by +saying, 'I have known _my mistress_ fifteen years, and never saw her +fairly out of humour but on Chester wall.' It was because he would +keep Miss Thrale beyond her hour of going to bed to walk on the wall, +where from the want of light, I apprehended some accident to her, +perhaps to him." + +He thus describes Mrs. Thrale's family mansion: + +"_Saturday, July 30._--We went to Bâch y Graig, where we found an old +house, built 1567, in an uncommon and incommodious form--My mistress +chatted about tiring, but I prevailed on her to go to the top--The +floors have been stolen: the windows are stopped--The house was less +than I seemed to expect--The River Clwyd is a brook with a bridge of +one arch, about one third of a mile--The woods have many trees, +generally young; but some which seem to decay--They have been +lopped--The house never had a garden--The addition of another story +would make an useful house, but it cannot be great." + +On the 4th August, they visited Rhuddlan Castle and Bodryddan[1], of +which he says:-- + +[Footnote 1: Now the property of Mr. Shipley Conway, the +great-grandson of Johnson's acquaintance, the Bishop of St. Asaph, +and representative, through females, of Sir John Conway or Conwy, to +whom Rhuddlan Castle, with its domain, was granted by Edward the +First.] + +"Stapylton's house is pretty: there are pleasing shades about it, +with a constant spring that supplies a cold bath. We then went out to +see a cascade. I trudged unwillingly, and was not sorry to find it +dry. The water was, however, turned on, and produced a very striking +cataract."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Bowles, the poet, on the unexpected arrival of a party +to see his grounds, was overheard giving a hurried order to set the +fountain playing and carry the hermit his beard.] + +Mrs. Piozzi remarks on this passage: "He teased Mrs. Cotton about her +dry cascade till she was ready to cry." + +Mrs. Cotton, _née_ Stapylton, married the eldest son of Sir Lynch +Cotton, and was the mother of Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere. She +said that Johnson, despite of his rudeness, was at times delightful, +having a manner peculiar to himself in relating anecdotes that could +not fail to attract both old and young. Her impression was that Mrs. +Thrale was very vexatious in wishing to engross all his attention, +which annoyed him much. This, I fancy, is no uncommon impression, +when we ourselves are anxious to attract notice. + +The range of hills bordering the valley or delta of the Clwyd, is +very fine. On their being pointed out to him by his host, he +exclaimed: "Hills, do you call them?--mere mole-hills to the Alps or +to those in Scotland." On being told that Sir Richard Clough had +formed a plan for making the river navigable to Rhyddlan, he broke +out into a loud fit of laughter, and shouted--"why, Sir, I could +clear any part of it by a leap." He probably had seen neither the +hills nor the river, which might easily be made navigable. + +On two occasions, Johnson incidentally imputes a want of liberality +to Mrs. Thrale, which the general tenor of her conduct belies: + +"_August 2._--We went to Dymerchion Church, where the old clerk +acknowledged his mistress. It is the parish church of Bâch y Graig; a +mean fabric; Mr. Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale's father) was buried in +it.... The old clerk had great appearance of joy, and foolishly said +that he was now willing to die. He had only a crown given him by my +mistress." + +"_August 4._--Mrs. Thrale lost her purse. She expressed so much +uneasiness that I concluded the sum to be very great; but when I +heard of only seven guineas, I was glad to find she had so much +sensibility of money." + +Johnson might have remarked, that the annoyance we experience from a +loss is seldom entirely regulated by the pecuniary value of the thing +lost. + +On the way to Holywell he sets down: "Talk with mistress about +flattery;" on which she notes: "He said I flattered the people to +whose houses we went: I was saucy and said I was obliged to be civil +for two, meaning himself and me.[1] He replied nobody would thank me +for compliments they did not understand. At Gwanynog (Mr. +Middleton's), however, _he_ was flattered, and was happy of course." + +[Footnote 1: Madame D'Arblay reports Mrs. Thrale saying to Johnson at +Streatham, in September, 1778: "I remember, Sir, when we were +travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to +the people; 'Madam,' you said, 'let me have no more of this idle +commendation of nothing. Why is it, that whatever you see, and +whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?' +'Why I'll tell you, Sir,' said I, 'when I am with you, and Mr. +Thrale, and Queeny, I am obliged to be civil for four!'"] + +The other entries referring to the Thrales are: + +"_August_ 22.--We went to visit Bodville, the place where Mrs. Thrale +was born, and the churches called Tydweilliog and Llangwinodyl, which +she holds by impropriation." + +"_August_ 24.--We went to see Bodville. Mrs. Thrale remembered the +rooms, and wandered over them, with recollections of her childhood. +This species of pleasure is always melancholy.... Mr. Thrale purposes +to beautify the churches, and, if he prospers, will probably restore +the tithes. Mrs. Thrale visited a house where she had been used to +drink milk, which was left, with an estate of 200_l._ a year, by one +Lloyd, to a married woman who lived with him." + +"_August_ 26.--_Note_. Queeny's goats, 149, I think." + +Without Mr. Duppa's aid this last entry would be a puzzle for +commentators. His note is: + +"Mr. Thrale was near-sighted, and could not see the goats browsing on +Snowdon, and he promised his daughter, who was a child of ten years +old, a penny for every goat she would show him, and Dr. Johnson kept +the account; so that it appears her father was in debt to her one +hundred and forty-nine pence. _Queeny_ was an epithet, which had its +origin in the nursery, by which (in allusion to _Queen_ Esther) Miss +Thrale (whose name was Esther) was always distinguished by Johnson." +She was named, after her mother, Hester, not Esther. + +On September 13, Johnson sets down: "We came, to Lord Sandys', at +Ombersley, where we were treated with great civility." It was here, +as he told Mrs. Thrale, that for the only time in his life he had as +much wall fruit as he liked; yet she says that he was in the habit of +eating six or seven peaches before breakfast during the fruit season +at Streatham. Swift was also fond of fruit: "observing (says Scott) +that a gentleman in whose garden he walked with some friends, seemed +to have no intention to request them to eat any, the Dean remarked +that it was a saying of his dear grandmother: + + "'Always pull a peach + When it is within your reach;' + +and helping himself accordingly, his example was followed by the +whole company." Thomson, the author of the "Castle of Indolence," was +once seen lounging round Lord Burlington's garden, with his hands in +his waistcoat pockets, biting off the sunny sides of the peaches. + +Johnson's dislike to the Lyttletons was not abated by his visit to +Hagley, of which he says, "We made haste away from a place where all +were offended." Mrs. Thrale's explanation is: "Mrs. Lyttelton, +_ci-devant_ Caroline Bristow, forced me to play at whist against my +liking, and her husband took away Johnson's candle that he wanted to +read by at the other end of the room. Those, I trust, were the +offences." + +He was not in much better humour at Combermere Abbey, the seat of her +relative, Sir Lynch Cotton, which is beautifully situated on one of +the finest lakes in England. He commends the place grudgingly, passes +a harsh judgment on Lady Cotton, and is traditionally recorded to +have made answer to the baronet who inquired what he thought of a +neighbouring peer (Lord Kilmorey): "A dull, commonplace sort of man, +just like you and your brother." + +In a letter to Levet, dated Lleweny, in Denbighshire, August 16, +1774, printed by Boswell, is this sentence: "Wales, so far as I have +yet seen of it, is a very beautiful and rich country, all enclosed +and planted." Her marginal note is: "Yet to please Mr. Thrale, he +feigned abhorrence of it." + +I am indebted to an intelligent and accurate in-formant for a curious +incident of the Welsh tour: + +"Dr. Johnson was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to dine at Maesnynan, +with my relation, Mr. Lloyd, who, with his pretty young daughter +(motherless), received them at the door. All came out of the carriage +except the great lexicographer, who was crouching in what my uncle +jokingly called the Poets' Corner, deeply interested evidently with +the book he was reading. A wink from Mrs. Thrale, and a touch of her +hand, silenced the host. She bade the coachman not move, and desired +the people in the house to let Mr. Johnson read on till dinner was on +the table, when she would go and whistle him to it. She always had a +whistle hung at her girdle, and this she used, when in Wales, to +summon him and her daughters[1], when in or out of doors. Mr. Lloyd +and all the visitors went to see the effect of the whistle, and found +him reading intently with one foot on the step of the carriage, where +he had been (a looker-on said) five minutes." + +[Footnote 1: + + "He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, + For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back."] + +"This scene is well told by Miss Burney, in her 'Camilla'[1] _ex +relatione_ Mrs. Williams (Lady Cotton's sister, who was present) and +Beata Lloyd, whose brother, Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of the Guards, was +the Brummell of his day, celebrated for his manly beauty and +accomplishments. I heard Lord Crewe say that Colonel Lloyd's horse, +and his graceful manner of mounting him, used to attract members of +both Houses (he among them) to _turn out_ to see him mount guard; and +the Princesses were forbidden, when driving out, to go so often that +way and at that time." + +[Footnote 1: Book viii. chap, iv., Dr. Orkborne is described standing +on the staircase of an inn absorbed in the composition of a paragraph +whilst the party are at dinner.] + +Their impressions of one another as travelling companions were +sufficiently favourable to induce the party (with the addition of +Baretti) to make a short tour in France in the autumn of the year +following, 1775, during part of which Johnson kept a diary in the +same laconic and elliptical style. The only allusion to either of his +friends is: + +"We went to Sansterre, a brewer. He brews with about as much malt as +Mr. Thrale, and sells his beer at the same price, though he pays no +duty for malt, and little more than half as much for beer. Beer is +sold retail at sixpence a bottle." + +In a letter to Levet, dated Paris, Oct. 22, 1775, he says: + +"We went to see the king and queen at dinner, and the queen was so +impressed by Miss, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who +she was. I find all true that you have ever told me at Paris. Mr. +Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine +table; but I think our cookery very bad. Mrs. Thrale got into a +convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and +I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars." + +A striking instance of Johnson's occasional impracticability occurred +during this journey: + +"When we were at Rouen together," says Mrs. Thrale, "he took a great +fancy to the Abbe Kofiette, with whom he conversed about the +destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a +blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed +with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become +fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of +Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his +conversation: the talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, +and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much +ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbé rose from his seat +and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with +the company of each other, politely invited the abbé to England, +intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded +him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness +towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a +sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the +company of the Abbé Roffette." + +In a letter dated May 9, 1780, also, Mrs. Thrale alludes to more than +one disagreement in France: + +"When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression? +I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne, +when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have +proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity +perhaps, and so now you begin again: after having taken five years' +breath, you might have done more than this. Say another word, and I +will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys and +how cross you were for nothing--but some how or other, our travels +never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence." + +Joseph Baretti, who now formed one of the family, is so mixed up with +their history that some account of him becomes indispensable. He was +a Piedmontese, whose position in his native country was not of a kind +to tempt him to remain in it, when Lord Charlemont, to whom he had +been useful in Italy, proposed his coming to England. His own story +was that he had lost at play the little property he had inherited +from his father, an architect. The education given him by his parents +was limited to Latin; he taught himself English, French, Spanish, and +Portuguese. His talents, acquirements, and strength of mind must have +been considerable, for they soon earned him the esteem and friendship +of the most eminent members of the Johnsonian circle, in despite of +his arrogance. He came to England in 1753; is kindly mentioned in one +of Johnson's letters in 1754; and when he was in Italy in 1761, his +illustrious friend's letters to him are marked by a tone of +affectionate interest. Ceremony and tenderness are oddly blended in +the conclusion of one of them: + +"May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or some other place +nearer to, Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, SAMUEL +JOHNSON." + +Johnson remarked of Baretti in 1768: "I know no man who carries his +head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in +his mind. He has not indeed many hooks, but with what hooks he has, +he grapples very forcibly." Cornelia Knight was "disgusted by his +satirical madness of manner," although admitting him to be a man of +great learning and information. Madame D'Arblay was more struck by +his rudeness and violence than by his intellectual vigour. +"Thraliana" confirms Johnson's estimate of Baretti's capacity: + +"Will. Burke was tart upon Mr. Baretti for being too dogmatical in +his talk about politics. 'You have,' says he, 'no business to be +investigating the characters of Lord Falkland or Mr. Hampden. You +cannot judge of their merits, they are no countrymen of yours.' +'True,' replied Baretti, 'and you should learn by the same rule to +speak very cautiously about Brutus and Mark Antony; they are my +countrymen, and I must have their characters tenderly treated by +foreigners.' + +"Baretti could not endure to be called, or scarcely thought, a +foreigner, and indeed it did not often occur to his company that he +was one; for his accent was wonderfully proper, and his language +always copious, always nervous, always full of various allusions, +flowing too with a rapidity worthy of admiration, and far beyond the +power of nineteen in twenty natives. He had also a knowledge of the +solemn language and the gay, could be sublime with Johnson, or +blackguard with the groom; could dispute, could rally, could quibble, +in our language. Baretti has, besides, some skill in music, with a +bass voice, very agreeable, besides a falsetto which he can manage so +as to mimic any singer he hears. I would also trust his knowledge of +painting a long way. These accomplishments, with his extensive power +over every modern language, make him a most pleasing companion while +he is in good humour; and his lofty consciousness of his own +superiority, which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him +into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, +till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in +our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, +though shocking enough, is never despicable, but vanity, which he +possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near +sixty ridiculous. + +"France displayed all Mr. Baretti's useful powers--he bustled for us, +he catered for us, he took care of the child, he secured an apartment +for the maid, he provided for our safety, our amusement, our repose; +without him the pleasure of that journey would never have balanced +the pain. And great was his disgust, to be sure, when he caught us, +as he often did, ridiculing French manners, French sentiments, &c. I +think he half cryed to Mrs. Payne, the landlady at Dover, on our +return, because we laughed at French cookery, and French +accommodations. Oh, how he would court the maids at the inns abroad, +abuse the men perhaps! and that with a facility not to be exceeded, +as they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he could in +Spain, I find, and so 'tis plain he could here. I will give one +instance of his skill in our low street language. Walking in a field +near Chelsea, he met a fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and +manner to be a foreigner, said sneeringly, 'Come, Sir, will you show +me the way to France?' 'No, Sir,' says Baretti, instantly, 'but I +will show you the way to Tyburn.' Such, however, was his ignorance in +a certain line, that he once asked Johnson for information who it was +composed the Pater Noster, and I heard him tell Evans[1] the story of +Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in +the Milanese dialect, expecting great credit for his powers of +invention. Evans owned to me that he thought the man drunk, whereas +poor Baretti was, both in eating and drinking, a model of temperance. +Had he guessed Evans's thoughts, the parson's gown would scarcely +have saved him a knouting from the ferocious Italian." + +[Footnote 1: Evans was a clergyman and rector of Southwark.] + +On Oct. 20, 1769, Baretti was tried at the Old Bailey on a charge of +murder, for killing with a pocket knife one of three men who, with a +woman of the town, hustled him in the Haymarket.[1] He was acquitted, +and the event is principally memorable for the appearance of Johnson, +Burke, Grarrick, and Beauclerc as witnesses to character. The +substance of Johnson's evidence is thus given in the "Gentleman's +Magazine": + +[Footnote 1: In his defence, he said:--"I hope it will be seen that +my knife was neither a weapon of offence or defence. I wear it to +carve fruit and sweetmeats, and not to kill my fellow creatures. It +is a general custom in France not to put knives on the table, so that +even ladies wear them in their pockets for general use."] + +"_Dr. J_.--I believe I began to be acquainted with Mr. Baretti about +the year 1753 or 1754. I have been intimate with him. He is a man of +literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets +his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered +with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than +peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.--_Q_. Was he +addicted to pick up women in the streets?--_Dr. J. I_ never knew that +he was.--_Q_. How is he as to eyesight?--_Dr. J._ He does not see me +now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he could be capable of +assaulting any body in the street, without great provocation." + +It would seem that Johnson's sensibility, such as it was, was not +very severely taxed. + +"_Boswell_.--But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends +were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged? + +"_Johnson_.---I should do what I could to bail him; but if he were +once fairly hanged, I should not suffer. + +"_Boswell_.--Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir? + +"_Johnson_.--Yes, Sir, and eat it as if he were eating it with me. +Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow. +Friends have risen up for him on every side, yet if he should be +hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, +that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the +mind." + +Steevens relates that one evening previous to the trial a +consultation of Baretti's friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, +the solicitor. Johnson and Burke were present, and differed as to +some point of the defence. On Steevens observing to Johnson that the +question had been agitated with rather too much warmth, "It may be +so," replied the sage, "for Burke and I should have been of one +opinion if we had had no audience." This is coming very near to-- + + "Would rather that the man should die + Than his prediction prove a lie." + +Two anecdotes of Baretti during his imprisonment are preserved in +"Thraliana": + +"When Johnson and Burke went to see Baretti in Newgate, they had +small comfort to give him, and bid him not hope too strongly. 'Why +what can _he_ fear,' says Baretti, placing himself between 'em, 'that +holds two such hands as I do?' + +"An Italian came one day to Baretti, when he was in Newgate for +murder, to desire a letter of recommendation for the teaching of his +scholars, when he (Baretti) should be hanged. 'You rascal,' replies +Baretti, in a rage, 'if I were not _in my own apartment_, I would +kick you down stairs directly,'" + +The year after his acquittal Baretti published "Travels through +Spain, Portugal, and France;" thus mentioned by Johnson in a Letter +to Mrs, Thrale, dated Lichfield, July 20, 1770: + +"That Baretti's book would please you all, I made no doubt. I know +not whether the world has ever seen such travels before. Those whose +lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write +can seldom ramble." The rate of pay showed that the world was aware +of the value of the acquisition. He gained _500l._ by this book. His +"Frusta Letteraria," published some time before in Italy, had also +attracted much attention, and, according to Johnson, he was the first +who ever received money for copyright in Italy, + +In a biographical notice of Baretti which appeared in the +"Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1789, written by Dr. Vincent, Dean of +Westminster, it is stated that it was not distress which compelled +him to accept Mr. Thrale's hospitality, but that he was overpersuaded +by Johnson, contrary to his own inclination, to undertake the +instruction of the Misses Thrale in Italian. "He was either nine or +eleven years almost entirely in that family," says the Dean, "though +he still rented a lodging in town, during which period he expended +his own _500l._, and received nothing in return for his instruction, +but the participation of a good table, and _150l._ by way of +presents. Instead of his letters to Mrs. Piozzi in the 'European +Magazine,' had he told this plain unvarnished tale, he would have +convicted that lady of avarice and ingratitude, without incurring the +danger of a reply, or exposing his memory to be insulted by her +advocates." + +He was less than three years in the family. As he had a pension of +_80l._ a year, besides the interest of his _500l._, he did not want +money. If he had been allowed to want it, the charge of avarice would +lie at Mr., not Mrs., Thrale's door; and his memory was exposed to no +insult beyond the stigma which (as we shall presently see) his +conduct and language necessarily fixed upon it. All his literary +friends did not entertain the same high opinion of him. An +unpublished letter from Dr. Warton to his brother contains the +following passage: + +"He (Huggins, the translator of Ariosto) abuses Baretti infernally, +and says that he one day lent Baretti a gold watch, and could never +get it afterwards; that after many excuses Baretti, skulked, and then +got Johnson to write to Mr. Huggins a suppliant letter; that this +letter stopped Huggins awhile, while Baretti got a protection from +the Sardinian ambassador; and that, at last, with great difficulty, +the watch was got from a pawnbroker to whom Baretti had sold it." + +This extract is copied from a valuable contribution to the literary +annals of the eighteenth century, for which we are indebted to the +colonial press.[1] It is the diary of an Irish clergyman, containing +strong internal evidence of authenticity, although nothing more is +known of it than that the manuscript was discovered behind an old +press in one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. +That such a person saw a good deal of Johnson in 1775, is proved by +Boswell, whose accuracy is frequently confirmed in return. In one +marginal note Mrs. Thrale says: "He was a fine showy talking man. +Johnson liked him of all things in a year or two." In another: "Dr. +Campbell was a very tall handsome man, and, speaking of some other +_High_-bernian, used this expression: 'Indeed now, and upon my honour, +Sir, I am but a Twitter to him.'"[2] + +[Footnote 1: Diary of a Visit to England in 1775. By an Irishman (the +Rev. Doctor Thomas Campbell, author of "A Philosophical Survey of the +South of Ireland.") And other Papers by the same hand. With Notes by +Samuel Raymond, M.A., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South +Wales. Sydney. Waugh and Cox. 1854.] + +[Footnote 2: He is similarly described in the "Letters," vol. i. p. +329.] + +Several of his entries throw light on the Thrale establishment: + +"_14th._--This day I called at Mr. Thrale's, where I was received +with all respect by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. She is a very learned lady, +and joins to the charms of her own sex, the manly understanding of +ours. The immensity of the brewery astonished me." + +"_16th._--Dined with Mr. Thrale along with Dr. Johnson, and Baretti. +Baretti is a plain sensible man, who seems to know the world well. He +talked to me of the invitation given him by the College of Dublin, +but said it (100_l._ a year and rooms) was not worth his acceptance; +and if it had been, he said, in point of profit, still he would not +have accepted it, for that now he could not live out of London. He +had returned a few years ago to his own country, but he could not +enjoy it; and he was obliged to return to London, to those connexions +he had been making for near thirty years past. He told me he had +several families with whom, both in town and country, he could go at +any time and spend a month: he is at this time on these terms at Mr. +Thrale's, and he knows how to keep his ground. Talking as we were at +tea of the magnitude of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing +in Mr. Thrale's house still more extraordinary;--meaning his wife. +She gulped the pill very prettily,--so much for Baretti! + +"Johnson, you are the very man Lord Chesterfield describes: a +Hottentot indeed, and though your abilities are respectable, you +never can be respected yourself! He has the aspect of an idiot, +without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from any one feature--with +the most awkward garb, and unpowdered grey wig, on one side only of +his head--he is for ever dancing the devil's jig, and sometimes he +makes the most driveling effort to whistle some thought in his absent +paroxysms." + +"_25th._--Dined at Mr. Thrale's where there were ten or more +gentlemen, and but one lady besides Mrs. Thrale. The dinner was +excellent: first course, soups at head and foot, removed by fish and +a saddle of mutton; second course, a fowl they call galena at head, +and a capon larger than some of our Irish turkeys, at foot; third +course, four different sorts of ices, pine-apple, grape, raspberry, +and a fourth; in each remove there were I think fourteen dishes. The +two first courses were served in massy plate. I sat beside Baretti, +which was to me the richest part of the entertainment. He and Mr. and +Mrs. Thrale joined in expressing to me Dr. Johnson's concern that he +could not give me the meeting that day, but desired that I should go +and see him." + +"_April 1st._--Dined at Mr. Thrale's, whom in proof of the magnitude +of London, I cannot help remarking, no coachman, and this is the +third I have called, could find without inquiry. But of this by the +way. There was Murphy, Boswell, and Baretti: the two last, as I +learned just before I entered, are mortal foes, so much so that +Murphy and Mrs. Thrale agreed that Boswell expressed a desire that +Baretti should be hanged upon that unfortunate affair of his killing, +&c. Upon this hint, I went, and without any sagacity, it was easily +discernible, for upon Baretti's entering Boswell did not rise, and +upon Baretti's descry of Boswell he grinned a perturbed glance. +Politeness however smooths the most hostile brows, and theirs were +smoothed. Johnson was the subject, both before and after dinner, for +it was the boast of all but myself, that under that roof were the +Doctor's fast friends. His _bon-mots_ were retailed in such plenty, +that they, like a surfeit, could not lie upon my memory." + +"N.B. The 'Tour to the Western Isles' was written an twenty days, and +the 'Patriot' in three; 'Taxation no Tyranny,' within a week: and not +one of them would have yet seen the light, had it not been for Mrs. +Thrale and Baretti, who stirred him up by laying wagers." + +"_April 8th._--Dined with Thrale, where Dr. Johnson was, and Boswell +(and Baretti as usual). The Doctor was not in as good spirits as he +was at Dilly's. He had supped the night before with Lady ----, Miss +Jeffries, one of the maids of honour, Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c., at +Mrs. Abington's. He said Sir C. Thompson, and some others who were +there, spoke like people who had seen good company, and so did Mrs. +Abington herself, who could not have seen good company." + +Boswell's note, alluding to the same topic, is: + +"On Saturday, April 8, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, where we met +the Irish Dr. Campbell. Johnson had supped the night before at Mrs. +Abington's with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed +much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he +omit to pique his _mistress_ a little with jealousy of her +housewifery; for he said, with a smile, 'Mrs. Abington's jelly, my +dear lady, was better than yours.'" + +The next year is chiefly memorable for the separation from Baretti, +thus mentioned in "Thraliana": + +"Baretti had a comical aversion to Mrs. Macaulay, and his aversions +are numerous and strong. If I had not once written his character in +verse,[1] I would now write it in prose, for few people know him +better: he was--_Dieu me pardonne_, as the French say--my inmate for +very near three years; and though I really liked the man once for his +talents, and at last was weary of him for the use he made of them, I +never altered my sentiments concerning him; for his character is +easily seen, and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and +breathing defiance against all mankind; while his powers of mind +exceed most people's, and his powers of purse are so slight that they +leave him dependent on all. Baretti is for ever in the state of a +stream dammed up: if he could once get loose, he would bear down all +before him. + +"Every soul that visited at our house while he was master of it, went +away abhorring it; and Mrs. Montagu, grieved to see my meekness so +imposed upon, had thoughts of writing me on the subject an anonymous +letter, advising me to break with him. Seward, who tried at last to +reconcile us, confessed his wonder that we had lived together so +long. Johnson used to oppose and battle him, but never with his own +consent: the moment he was cool, he would always condemn himself for +exerting his superiority over a man who was his friend, a foreigner, +and poor: yet I have been told by Mrs. Montagu that he attributed his +loss of our family to Johnson: ungrateful and ridiculous! if it had +not been for his mediation, I would not so long have borne trampling +on, as I did for the last two years of our acquaintance. + +"Not a servant, not a child, did he leave me any authority over; if I +would attempt to correct or dismiss them, there was instant appeal to +Mr. Baretti, who was sure always to be against me in every dispute. +With Mr. Thrale I was ever cautious of contending, conscious that a +misunderstanding there could never answer, as I have no friend or +relation in the world to protect me from the rough treatment of a +husband, should he chuse to exert his prerogatives; but when I saw +Baretti openly urging Mr. Thrale to cut down some little fruit trees +my mother had planted and I had begged might stand, I confess I did +take an aversion to the creature, and secretly resolved his stay +should not be prolonged by my intreaties whenever his greatness chose +to take huff and be gone. As to my eldest daughter, his behaviour was +most ungenerous; he was perpetually spurring her to independence, +telling her she had more sense and would have a better fortune than +her mother, whose admonitions she ought therefore to despise; that +she ought to write and receive her own letters _now_, and not submit +to an authority I could not keep up if she once had the spirit to +challenge it; that, if I died in a lying-in which happened while he +lived here, he hoped Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would +be a pretty companion for Hester, and not tyrannical and overbearing +like me. Was I not fortunate to see myself once quit of a man like +this? who thought his dignity was concerned to set me at defiance, +and who was incessantly telling lies to my prejudice in the ears of +my husband and children? When he walked out of the house on the 6th +day of July, 1776, I wrote down what follows in my table book. + +"_6 July, 1776._--This day is made remarkable by the departure of Mr. +Baretti, who has, since October, 1773, been our almost constant +inmate, companion, and, I vainly hoped, our friend. On the 11th of +November, 1773, Mr. Thrale let him have _50l._ and at our return from +France _50l._ more, besides his clothes and pocket money: in return +to all this, he instructed our eldest daughter--or thought he +did--and puffed her about the town for a wit, a genius, a linguist, +&c. At the beginning of the year 1776, we purposed visiting Italy +under his conduct, but were prevented by an unforeseen and heavy +calamity: that Baretti, however, might not be disappointed of money +as well as of pleasure, Mr. Thrale presented him with 100 guineas, +which at first calmed his wrath a little, but did not, perhaps, make +amends for his vexation; this I am the more willing to believe, as +Dr. Johnson not being angry too, seemed to grieve him no little, +after all our preparations made. + +"Now Johnson's virtue was engaged; and he, I doubt not, made it a +point of conscience not to increase the distresses of a family +already oppressed with affliction. Baretti, however, from this time +grew sullen and captious; he went on as usual notwithstanding, making +Streatham his home, carrying on business there, when he thought he +had any to do, and teaching his pupil at by-times when he chose so to +employ himself; for he always took his choice of hours, and would +often spitefully fix on such as were particularly disagreeable to me, +whom he has now not liked a long while, if ever he did. He professed, +however, a violent attachment to our eldest daughter; said if _she_ +had died instead of her poor brother, he should have destroyed +himself, with many as wild expressions of fondness. Within these few +days, when my back was turned, he would often be telling her that he +would go away and stay a month, with other threats of the same +nature; and she, not being of a caressing or obliging disposition, +never, I suppose, soothed his anger or requested his stay. + +"Of all this, however, I can know nothing but from _her_, who is very +reserved, and whose kindness I cannot so confide in as to be sure she +would tell me all that passed between them; and her attachment is +probably greater to him than me, whom he has always endeavoured to +lessen as much as possible, both in her eyes and--what was worse--her +father's, by telling him how my parts had been over-praised by +Johnson, and over-rated by the world; that my daughter's skill in +languages, even at the age of fourteen, would vastly exceed mine, and +such other idle stuff; which Mr. Thrale had very little care about, +but which Hetty doubtless thought of great importance. Be this as it +may, no angry words ever passed between him and me, except perhaps +now and then a little spar or so when company was by, in the way of +raillery merely. + +"Yesterday, when Sir Joshua and Fitzmaurice dined here, I addressed +myself to him with great particularity of attention, begging his +company for Saturday, as I expected ladies, and said he must come and +flirt with them, &c. My daughter in the meantime kept on telling me +that Mr. Baretti was grown very old and very cross, would not look at +her exercises, but said he would leave this house soon, for it was no +better than Pandæmonium. Accordingly, the next day he packed up his +cloke-bag, which he had not done for three years, and sent it to +town; and while we were wondering what he would say about it at +breakfast, he was walking to London himself, without taking leave of +any one person, except it may be the girl, who owns they had much +talk, in the course of which he expressed great aversion to me and +even to her, who, he said, he once thought well of. + +"Now whether she had ever told the man things that I might have said +of him in his absence, by way of provoking him to go, and so rid +herself of his tuition; whether he was puffed up with the last 100 +guineas and longed to be spending it _all' Italiano;_ whether he +thought Mr. Thrale would call him back, and he should be better +established here than ever; or whether he really was idiot enough to +be angry at my threatening to whip Susan and Sophy for going out of +bounds, although _he_ had given them leave, for Hetty said that was +the first offence he took huff at, I never now shall know, for he +never expressed himself as an offended man to me, except one day when +he was not shaved at the proper hour forsooth, and then I would not +quarrel with him, because nobody was by, and I knew him be so vile a +lyar that I durst not trust his tongue with a dispute. He is gone, +however, loaded with little presents from me, and with a large share +too of my good opinion, though I most sincerely rejoice in his +departure, and hope we shall never meet more but by chance. + +"Since our quarrel I had occasion to talk of him with Tom Davies, who +spoke with horror of his ferocious temper; 'and yet,' says I, 'there +is great sensibility about Baretti: I have seen tears often stand in +his eyes.' 'Indeed,' replies Davies, 'I should like to have seen that +sight vastly, when--even butchers weep.'" + +[Footnote 1: In "The Streatham Portraits." (See Vol. II.)] + +His intractable character appears from his own account of the +rupture: + +"When Madam took it into her head to give herself airs, and treat me +with some coldness and superciliousness, I did not hesitate to set +down at breakfast my dish of tea not half drank, go for my hat and +stick that lay in the corner of the room, turn my back to the house +_insalutato hospite_, and walk away to London without uttering a +syllable, fully resolved never to see her again, as was the case +during no less than four years; nor had she and I ever met again as +friends if she and her husband had not chanced upon me after that +lapse of time at the house of a gentleman near Beckenham, and coaxed +me into a reconciliation, which, as almost all reconciliations prove, +was not very sincere on her side or mine; so that there was a total +end of it on Mr. Thrale's demise, which happened about three years +after."[1] + +[Footnote 1: The European Magazine, 1788.] + +The monotony of a constant residence at Streatham was varied by trips +to Bath or Brighton; and it was so much a matter of course for +Johnson to make one of the party, that when (1776), not expecting him +so soon back from a journey with Boswell, the Thrale family and +Baretti started for Bath without him, Boswell is disposed to treat +their departure without the lexicographer as a slight: + +"This was not showing the attention which might have been expected to +the 'guide, philosopher, and friend;' the _Imlac_ who had hastened +from the country to console a distressed mother, who he understood +was very anxious for his return. They had, I found, without ceremony, +proceeded on their journey. I was glad to understand from him that it +was still resolved that his tour to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale +should take place, of which he had entertained some doubt, on account +of the loss which they had suffered; and his doubts afterwards +appeared to be well founded. He observed, indeed, very justly, that +'their loss was an additional reason for their going abroad; and if +it had not been fixed that he should have been one of the party, he +would force them out; but he would not advise them unless his advice +was asked, lest they might suspect that he recommended what he wished +on his own account.' I was not pleased that his intimacy with Mr. +Thrale's family, though it no doubt contributed much to his comfort +and enjoyment, was not without some degree of restraint[1]: not, as +has been grossly suggested[2], that it was required of him as a task +to talk for the entertainment of them and their company; but that he +was not quite at his ease: which, however, might partly be owing to +his own honest pride--that dignity of mind which is always jealous of +appearing too compliant." + +[Footnote 1: (_Marginal note_). "What restraint can he mean? Johnson +kept every one else under restraint."] + +[Footnote 2: (_Marginal note._) "I do not believe it ever was +suggested."] + +In his first letter of condolence on Mr. Thrale's death, Johnson +speaks of her having enjoyed happiness in marriage, "to a degree of +which, without personal knowledge, I should have thought the +description fabulous." The "Autobiography" and "Thraliana" tell a +widely different tale. The mortification of not finding herself +appreciated by her husband was poignantly increased, during the last +years of his life, by finding another offensively preferred to her. +He was so fascinated by one of her fair friends, as to lose sight +altogether of what was due to appearances or to the feelings of his +wife. + +A full account of the lady in question is given in the "Thraliana": + +"_Miss Streatfield_.--I have since heard that Dr. Collier picked up a +more useful friend, a Mrs. Streatfield, a widow, high in fortune and +rather eminent both for the beauties of person and mind; her +children, I find, he has been educating; and her eldest daughter is +just now coming out into the world with a great character for +elegance and literature.--_20 November, 1776._" + +"_19 May, 1778._--The person who wrote the title of this book at the +top of the page, on the other side--left hand--in the black letter, +was the identical Miss Sophia Streatfield, mentioned in 'Thraliana,' +as pupil to poor dear Doctor Collier, after he and I had parted. By +the chance meeting of some of the currents which keep this ocean of +human life from stagnating, this lady and myself were driven together +nine months ago at Brighthelmstone: we soon grew intimate from having +often heard of each other, and I have now the honour and happiness of +calling her my friend. Her face is eminently pretty; her carriage +elegant; her heart affectionate, and her mind cultivated. There is +above all this an attractive sweetness in her manner, which claims +and promises to repay one's confidence, and which drew from me the +secret of my keeping a 'Thraliana,' &c. &c. &c." + +"_Jan. 1779._--Mr. Thrale is fallen in love, really and seriously, +with Sophy Streatfield; but there is no wonder in that; she is very +pretty, very gentle, soft, and insinuating; hangs about him, dances +round him, cries when she parts from him, squeezes his hand slyly, +and with her sweet eyes full of tears looks so fondly in his +face[1]--and all for love of me as she pretends; that I can hardly, +sometimes, help laughing in her face. A man must not be a _man_ but +an _it_, to resist such artillery. Marriott said very well, + + "'Man flatt'ring man, not always can prevail, + But woman flatt'ring man, can never fail.' + +"Murphy did not use, I think, to have a good opinion of me, but he +seems to have changed his mind this Christmas, and to believe better +of me. I am glad on't to be sure: the suffrage of such a man is well +worth having: he sees Thrale's love of the fair S.S. I suppose: +approves my silent and patient endurance of what I could not prevent +by more rough and sincere behaviour." + +[Footnote 1: + + "And Merlin look'd and half believed her true, + So tender was her voice, so fair her face, + So sweetly gleam'd her eyes behind her tears, + Like sunlight on the plain, behind a shower." + _Idylls of The King.--Vivien._] + +"20 _January_, 1780.--Sophy Streatfield is come to town: she is in +the 'Morning Post' too, I see (to be in the 'Morning Post' is no good +thing). She has won Wedderburne's heart from his wife, I believe, and +few married women will bear _that_ patiently if I do; they will some +of them wound her reputation, so that I question whether it can +recover. Lady Erskine made many odd inquiries about her to me +yesterday, and winked and looked wise at her sister. The dear S.S. +must be a little on her guard; nothing is so spiteful as a woman +robbed of a heart she thinks she has a claim upon. She will not lose +_that_ with temper, which she has taken perhaps no pains at all to +preserve: and I do not observe with any pleasure, I fear, that my +husband prefers Miss Streatfield to me, though I must acknowledge her +younger, handsomer, and a better scholar. Of her chastity, however, I +never had a doubt: she was bred by Dr. Collier in the strictest +principles of piety and virtue; she not only knows she will be always +chaste, but she knows why she will be so.[1] Mr. Thrale is now by +dint of disease quite out of the question, so I am a disinterested +spectator; but her coquetry is very dangerous indeed, and I wish she +were married that there might be an end on't. Mr. Thrale loves her, +however, sick or well, better by a thousand degrees than he does me +or any one else, and even now desires nothing on earth half so much +as the sight of his Sophia. + + "'E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries! + E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires!' + +"The Saturday before Mr. Thrale was taken ill, Saturday, 19th +February--he was struck Monday, 21st February--we had a large party +to tea, cards, and supper; Miss Streatfield was one, and as Mr. +Thrale sate by her, he pressed her hand to his heart (as she told me +herself), and said 'Sophy, we shall not enjoy this long, and to-night +I will not be cheated of my only comfort.' Poor soul! how shockingly +tender! On the first Fryday that he spoke after his stupor, she came +to see him, and as she sate by the bedside pitying him, 'Oh,' says +he, 'who would not suffer even all that I have endured to be pitied +by you!' This I heard myself." + +[Footnote 1: + + "Besides, her inborn virtue fortify, + They are most firmly good, who best know why."] + +"Here is Sophy Streatfield again, handsomer than ever, and flushed +with new conquests; the Bishop of Chester feels her power, I am sure; +she showed me a letter from him that was as tender and had all the +tokens upon it as strong as ever I remember to have seen 'em; I +repeated to her out of Pope's Homer--'Very well, Sophy,' says I: + + "'Range undisturb'd among the hostile crew, + But touch not Hinchliffe[1], Hinchliffe is my due.' + +Miss Streatfield (says my master) could have quoted these lines in +the Greek; his saying so piqued me, and piqued me because it was +true. I wish I understood Greek! Mr. Thrale's preference of her to me +never vexed me so much as my consciousness--or fear at least--that he +has reason for his preference. She has ten times my beauty, and five +times my scholarship: wit and knowledge has she none." + +[Footnote 1: For Hector. Hinchliffe was Bishop of Peterborough.] + +"_May_, 1781.--Sophy Streatfield is an incomprehensible girl; here +has she been telling me such tender passages of what passed between +her and Mr. Thrale, that she half frights me somehow, at the same +time declaring her attachment to Vyse yet her willingness to marry +Lord Loughborough. Good God! what an uncommon girl! and handsome +almost to perfection, I think: delicate in her manners, soft in her +voice, and strict in her principles: I never saw such a character, +she is wholly out of my reach; and I can only say that the man who +runs mad for Sophy Streatfield has no reason to be ashamed of his +passion; few people, however, seem disposed to take her for +life--everybody's admiration, as Mrs. Byron says, and nobody's +choice. + +"_Streatham, January 1st_, 1782.--Sophy Streatfield has begun the new +year nicely with a new conquest. Poor dear Doctor Burney! _he_ is now +the reigning favourite, and she spares neither pains nor caresses to +turn that good man's head, much to the vexation of his family; +particularly my Fanny, who is naturally provoked to see sport made of +her father in his last stage of life by a young coquet, whose sole +employment in this world seems to have been winning men's hearts on +purpose to fling them away. How she contrives to keep bishops, and +brewers, and doctors, and directors of the East India Company, all in +chains so, and almost all at the same time, would amaze a wiser +person than me; I can only say let us mark the end! Hester will +perhaps see her out and pronounce, like Solon, on her wisdom and +conduct." + +As this lady has excited great interest, and was much with the +Thrales, I will add what I have been able to ascertain concerning +her. She is frequently mentioned in Madame D'Arblay's Diary: + +"_Streatham, Sept_. 1778.--To be sure she (Mrs. Thrale) saw it was +not totally disagreeable to me; though I was really astounded when +she hinted at my becoming a rival to Miss Streatfield in the Doctor's +good graces. + +"'I had a long letter,' she said, 'from Sophy Streatfield t'other +day, and she sent Dr. Johnson her elegant edition of the 'Classics;' +but when he had read the letter, he said 'she is a sweet creature, +and I love her much; but my little Burney writes a better letter.' +Now,' continued she, 'that is just what I wished him to say of you +both.'" + +"_Streatham, Sept_. 1779.--Mr. Seward, you know, told me that she had +tears at command, and I begin to think so too, for when Mrs. Thrale, +who had previously told me I should see her cry, began coaxing her to +stay, and saying, 'If you go, I shall know you don't love me so well +as Lady Gresham,'--she did cry, not loud indeed, nor much, but the +tears came into her eyes, and rolled down her fine cheeks. + +"'Come hither, Miss Burney,' cried Mrs. Thrale; 'come and see Miss +Streatfield cry!' + +"I thought it a mere _badinage_. I went to them, but when I saw real +tears, I was shocked, and saying, 'No, I won't look at her,' ran away +frightened, lest she should think I laughed at her, which Mrs. Thrale +did so openly, that, as I told her, had she served me so, I should +have been affronted with her ever after. + +"Miss Streatfield, however, whether from a sweetness not to be +ruffled, or from not perceiving there was any room for taking +offence, gently wiped her eyes, and was perfectly composed!" + +"_Streatham, June_, 1779.--Seward, said Mrs. Thrale, had affronted +Johnson, and then Johnson affronted Seward, and then the S.S. cried. + +"_Sir Philip_ (_Clerke_).--Well, I have heard so much of these tears, +that I would give the universe to have a sight of them. + +"_Mrs. Thrale_.--Well, she shall cry again, if you like it. + +"_S.S._.--No, pray, Mrs. Thrale. + +"_Sir Philip_.--Oh, pray do! pray let me see a little of it. + +"_Mrs. Thrale_.--Yes, do cry a little Sophy [in a wheedling voice], +pray do! Consider, now, you are going to-day, and it's very hard if +you won't cry a little: indeed, S.S., you ought to cry. + +"Now for the wonder of wonders. When Mrs. Thrale, in a coaxing voice, +suited to a nurse soothing a baby, had run on for some time,--while +all the rest of us, in laughter, joined in the request,--two crystal +tears came into the soft eyes of the S.S., and rolled gently down her +cheeks! Such a sight I never saw before, nor could I have believed. +She offered not to conceal or dissipate them: on the contrary, she +really contrived to have them seen by everybody. She looked, indeed, +uncommonly handsome; for her pretty face was not, like Chloe's, +blubbered; it was smooth and elegant, and neither her features nor +complexion were at all ruffled; nay, indeed, she was smiling all the +time. + +"'Look, look!' cried Mrs. Thrale; 'see if the tears are not come +already.' + +"Loud and rude bursts of laughter broke from us all at once. How, +indeed, could they be restrained?" + +"_Streatham, Sunday, June_ 13, 1779.--After church we all strolled +round the grounds, and the topic of our discourse was Miss +Streatfield. Mrs. Thrale asserted that she had a power of captivation +that was irresistible; that her beauty, joined to her softness, her +caressing manners, her tearful eyes, and alluring looks, would +insinuate her into the heart of any man she thought worth attacking. + +"Sir Philip declared himself of a totally different opinion, and +quoted Dr. Johnson against her, who had told him that, taking away +her Greek, she was as ignorant as a butterfly. + +"Mr. Seward declared her Greek was all against her with him, for +that, instead of reading Pope, Swift, or the Spectator--books from +which she might derive useful knowledge and improvement--it had led +her to devote all her reading time to the first eight books of Homer. + +"'But,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'her Greek, you must own, has made all her +celebrity;--you would have heard no more of her than of any other +pretty girl, but for that.' + +"'What I object to,' said Sir Philip, 'is her avowed preference for +this parson. Surely it is very indelicate in any lady to let all the +world know with whom she is in love!" + +"'The parson,' said the severe Mr. Seward, 'I suppose, spoke +first,--or she would as soon have been in love with you, or with me!' + +"You will easily believe I gave him no pleasant look." + +The parson was the Rev. Dr. Vyse, Rector of Lambeth. He had made an +imprudent marriage early in life, and was separated from his wife, of +whom he hoped to get rid either by divorce or by her death, as she +was reported to be in bad health. Under these circumstances, he had +entered into a conditional engagement with the fair S.S.; but +eventually threw her over, either in despair at his wife's longevity +or from caprice. On the mention of his name by Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi +writes opposite: "whose connection with Sophia Streatfield was +afterwards so much talked about, and I suppose never understood: +certainly not at all by H.L.P." To return to the D'Arblay Diary: + +"_Streatham, June_ 14, 1781.--We had my dear father and Sophy +Streatfield, who, as usual, was beautiful, caressing, amiable, sweet, +and--fatiguing." + +"_Streatham, Aug_. 1781.--Some time after Sophy Streatfield was +talked of,--Oh, with how much impertinence! as if she was at the +service of any man who would make proposals to her! Yet Mr. Seward +spoke of her with praise and tenderness all the time, as if, though +firmly of this opinion, he was warmly her admirer. From such admirers +and such admiration Heaven guard me! Mr. Crutchley said but little; +but that little was bitter enough. + +"'However,' said Mr. Seward, 'after all that can be said, there is +nobody whose manners are more engaging, nobody more amiable than the +little Sophy; and she is certainly very pretty; I must own I have +always been afraid to trust myself with her.' + +"Here Mr. Crutchley looked very sneeringly. + +"'Nay, 'squire,' cried Mr. Seward, 'she is very dangerous, I can tell +you; and if she had you at a fair trial, she would make an impression +that would soften-even your hard heart.' + +"'No need of any further trial,' said he, laughing, 'for she has done +that already; and so soft was the impression that it absolutely all +dissolved!--melted quite away, and not a trace of it left!' + +"Mr. Seward then proposed that she should marry Sir John Miller, who +has just lost his wife; and very gravely said, he had a great mind to +set out for Tunbridge, and carry her with him to Bath, and so make +the match without delay! + +"'But surely,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'if you fail, you will think +yourself bound in honour to marry her yourself?' + +"'Why, that's the thing,' said he; 'no, I can't take the little Sophy +myself; I should have too many rivals; rivals; no, that won't do.' + +"How abominably conceited and _sure_ these pretty gentlemen are! +However, Mr. Crutchley here made a speech that half won my heart. + +"'I wish,' said he, 'Miss Streatfield was here at this moment to cuff +you, Seward!' + +"'Cuff me,' cried he. 'What, the little Sophy!--and why?' + +"'For disposing of her so freely. I think a man deserves to be cuffed +for saying _any_ lady will marry him.' + +"I seconded this speech with much approbation." + +"_London, Jan._ 1783.--Before they went came Miss Streatfield, +looking pale, but very elegant and pretty. She was in high spirits, +and I hope has some reason. She made, at least, speeches that +provoked such surmises. When the Jacksons went,-- + +"'That,' said I, 'is the celebrated Jackson of Exeter; I dare say you +would like him if you knew him.' + +"'I dare say I should,' cried she, simpering; 'for he has the two +requisites for me,--he is tall and thin.' + +"To be sure, this did not at all call for raillery! Dr. Vyse has +always been distinguished by these two epithets. I said, however, +nothing, as my mother was present; but she would not let my looks +pass unnoticed. + +"'Oh!' cried she, 'how wicked you look!--No need of seeing Mrs. +Siddons for expression!--However, you know how much that is my +taste,--tall and thin!--but you don't know how _apropos_ it is just +now!'" + +Nine years after the last entry, we find: + +"_May_ 25, 1792.--We now met Mrs. Porteous; and who should be with +her but the poor pretty S.S., whom so long I had not seen, and who +has now lately been finally given up by her long-sought and very +injurious lover, Dr. Vyse? + +"She is sadly faded, and looked disturbed and unhappy but still +beautiful, though no longer blooming; and still affectionate, though +absent and evidently absorbed. We had a little chat together about +the Thrales. In mentioning our former intimacy with them, 'Ah, +those,' she cried, 'were happy times!' and her eyes glistened. Poor +thing! hers has been a lamentable story!--Imprudence and vanity have +rarely been mixed with so much sweetness, and good-humour, and +candour, and followed with more reproach and ill success. We agreed +to renew acquaintance next winter; at present she will be little more +in town." + +In a letter to Madame D'Arblay, Oct. 20, 1820, Mrs. Piozzi says: +"Fell, the bookseller in Bond Street, told me a fortnight or three +weeks ago, that Miss Streatfield lives where she did in his +neighbourhood, Clifford Street, S.S. still." On the 18th January, +1821: "'The once charming S.S. had inquired for me of Nornaville and +Fell, the Old Bond Street book-sellers, so I thought she meditated +writing, but was deceived." + +The story she told the author of "Piozziana," in proof of Johnson's +want of firmness, clearly refers to this lady: + +"I had remarked to her that Johnson's readiness to condemn any moral +deviation in others was, in a man so entirely before the public as he +was, nearly a proof of his own spotless purity of conduct. She said, +'Yes, Johnson was, on the whole, a rigid moralist; but he could be +ductile, I may say, servile; and I will give you an instance. We had +a large dinner-party at our house; Johnson sat on one side of me, and +Burke on the other; and in the company there was a young female (Mrs. +Piozzi named her), to whom I, in my peevishness, thought Mr. Thrale +superfluously attentive, to the neglect of me and others; especially +of myself, then near my confinement, and dismally low-spirited; +notwithstanding which, Mr. T. very unceremoniously begged of me to +change place with Sophy ----, who was threatened with a sore throat, +and might be injured by sitting near the door. I had scarcely +swallowed a spoonful of soup when this occurred, and was so overset +by the coarseness of the proposal, that I burst into tears, said +something petulant--that perhaps ere long, the lady might be at the +head of Mr. T.'s table, without displacing the mistress of the house, +&c., and so left the apartment. I retired to the drawing-room, and +for an hour or two contended with my vexation, as I best could, when +Johnson and Burke came up. On seeing them, I resolved to give a +_jobation_ to both, but fixed on Johnson for my charge, and asked him +if he had noticed what passed, what I had suffered, and whether +allowing for the state of my nerves, I was much to blame? He +answered, "Why, possibly not; your feelings were outraged." I said, +"Yes, greatly so; and I cannot help remarking with what blandness and +composure you _witnessed_ the outrage. Had this transaction been told +of others, your anger would have known no bounds; but, towards a man +who gives good dinners &c., you were meekness itself!" Johnson +coloured, and Burke, I thought, looked foolish; but I had not a word +of answer from either.'" + +The only excuse for Mr. Thrale is to be found in his mental and +bodily condition at the time, which made it impossible for Johnson or +Burke to interfere without a downright quarrel with him, nor without +making matters worse. This, however, is not the only instance in +which Johnson witnessed Thrale's laxity of morals without reproving +it. Opposite the passage in which Boswell reports Johnson as +palliating infidelity in a husband by the remark, that the man +imposes no bastards on his wife, she writes: "Sometimes he does. +Johnson knew a man who did, and the lady took very tender care of +them." + +Madame D'Arblay was not uniformly such a source of comfort to her as +that lady supposed. The entries in "Thraliana" relating to her show +this: + +"_August,_ 1779.--Fanny Burney has been a long time from me; I was +glad to see her again; yet she makes me miserable too in many +respects, so restlessly and apparently anxious, lest I should give +myself airs of patronage or load her with the shackles of dependance. +I live with her always in a degree of pain that precludes +friendship--dare not ask her to buy me a ribbon--dare not desire her +to touch the bell, lest she should think herself injured--lest she +should forsooth appear in the character of Miss Neville, and I in +that of the widow Bromley. See Murphy's 'Know Your Own Mind.'" + +"Fanny Burney has kept her room here in my house seven days, with a +fever or something that she called a fever; I gave her every medicine +and every slop with my own hand; took away her dirty cups, spoons, +&c.; moved her tables: in short, was doctor, and nurse and maid--for +I did not like the servants should have additional trouble lest they +should hate her for it. And now,--with the true gratitude of a wit, +she tells me that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities +to her. It does? does it?" + +"Miss Burney was much admired at Bath (1780); the puppy-men said, +'She had such a drooping air and such a timid intelligence;' or, 'a +timid air,' I think it was,' and a drooping intelligence;' never sure +was such a collection of pedantry and affectation as rilled Bath when +we were on that spot. How everything else and everybody set off my +gallant bishop. 'Quantum lenta solent inter viburna Cupressi.' Of all +the people I ever heard read verse in my whole life, the best, the +most perfect reader, is the Bishop of Peterboro' (Hinchcliffe.)"[1] + +[Footnote 1: In a marginal note on Boswell, she says: "The people (in +1783) did read shamefully. Yet Mr. Lee, the poet, many years before +Johnson was born, read so gracefully, the players would not accept +his tragedies till they had heard them from other lips: his own (they +said) sweetened all which proceeded from them." Speaker Onslow +equally was celebrated for his manner of reading.] + +"_July 1st_, 1780.--Mrs. Byron, who really loves me, was disgusted at +Miss Burney's carriage to me, who have been such a friend and +benefactress to her: not an article of dress, not a ticket for public +places, not a thing in the world that she could not command from me: +yet always insolent, always pining for home, always preferring the +mode of life in St. Martin's Street to all I could do for her. She is +a saucy-spirited little puss to be sure, but I love her dearly for +all that; and I fancy she has a real regard for me, if she did not +think it beneath the dignity of a wit, or of what she values +more--the dignity of Dr. Burnett's daughter--to indulge it. Such +dignity! the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square![1] In good time!" + +[Footnote 1: Alluding to a character in "Evelina."] + +"1781.--What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be always sending for his +daughter home so! what a monkey! is she not better and happier with +me than she can be anywhere else? Johnson is enraged at the silliness +of their family conduct, and Mrs. Byron disgusted; I confess myself +provoked excessively, but I love the girl so dearly--and the Doctor, +too, for that matter, only that he has such odd notions of +superiority in his own house, and will have his children under his +feet forsooth, rather than let 'em live in peace, plenty, and comfort +anywhere from home. If I did not provide Fanny with every +wearable--every wishable, indeed,--it would not vex me to be served +so; but to see the impossibility of compensating for the pleasures of +St. Martin's Street, makes one at once merry and mortified. + +"Dr. Burney did not like his daughter should learn Latin even of +Johnson, who offered to teach her for friendship, because then she +would have been as wise as himself forsooth, and Latin was too +masculine for Misses. A narrow-souled goose-cap the man must be at +last, agreeable and amiable all the while too, beyond almost any +other human creature. Well, mortal man is but a paltry animal! the +best of us have such drawbacks both upon virtue, wisdom, and +knowledge." + +In what his daughter calls a doggrel list of his friends and his +feats, Dr. Burney has thus mentioned the Thrales: + + "1776.--This year's acquaintance began with the Thrales, + Where I met with great talents 'mongst females and males, + But the best thing it gave me from that time to this, + Was the freedom it gave me to sound the abyss, + At my ease and my leisure, of Johnson's great mind, + Where new treasures unnumber'd I constantly find." + +Highly to her credit, Mrs. Thrale did not omit any part of her own +duties to her husband because he forgot his. In March, 1780, she +writes to Johnson: + +"I am willing to show myself in Southwark, or in any place, for my +master's pleasure or advantage; but have no present conviction that +to be re-elected would be advantageous, so shattered a state as his +nerves are in just now.--Do not you, however, fancy for a moment, +that I shrink from fatigue--or desire to escape from doing my +duty;--spiting one's antagonist is a reason that never ought to +operate, and never does operate with me: I care nothing about a rival +candidate's innuendos, I care only about my husband's health and +fame; and if we find that he earnestly wishes to be once more member +for the Borough--he _shall_ be member, if anything done or suffered +by me will help make him so." + +In the May following she writes: "Meanwhile, Heaven send this +Southwark election safe, for a disappointment would half kill my +husband, and there is no comfort in tiring every friend to death in +such a manner and losing the town at last." + +This was an agitating month. In "Thraliana ": + +"_20th May_, 1780.--I got back to Bath again and staid there till the +riots[1] drove us all away the first week in June: we made a dawdling +journey, cross country, to Brighthelmstone, where all was likely to +be at peace: the letters we found there, however, shewed us how near +we were to ruin here in the Borough: where nothing but the +astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in amusing the mob +with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip Jennings Clerke could +get the troops and pack up the counting-house bills, bonds, &c. and +carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for safety,--could have +saved us from actual undoing. The villains _had_ broke in, and our +brewhouse would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property of +£150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once flourishing +possessors quite undone. + +"Let me stop here to give God thanks for so very undeserved, so +apparent, an interposition of Providence in our favour. + +"I left Mr. Thrale at Brighthelmstone and came to town again to see +what was left to be done: we have now got arms and mean to defend +ourselves by force if further violence is intended. Sir Philip comes +every day at some hour or another--good creature, how kind he is! and +how much I ought to love him! God knows I am not in this case wanting +to my duty. I have presented Perkins, with my Master's permission, +with two hundred guineas, and a silver urn for his lady, with his own +cypher on it and this motto--Mollis responsio, Iram avertit." + +[Footnote 1: The Lord George Gordon Riots.] + +In the spring of 1781, "I found," says Boswell, "on visiting Mr. +Thrale that he was now very ill, and had removed, I suppose by the +solicitation of Mrs. Thrale, to a house in Grosvenor Square." She has +written opposite: "Spiteful again! He went by direction of his +physicians where they could easiest attend to him." + +The removal to Grosvenor Square is thus mentioned in "Thraliana": + +"_Monday, January 29th_, 1781.--So now we are to spend this winter in +Grosvenor Square; my master has taken a ready-furnished lodging-house +there, and we go in to-morrow. He frighted me cruelly a while ago; he +would have Lady Shelburne's house, one of the finest in London; he +would buy, he would build, he would give twenty to thirty guineas a +week for a house. Oh Lord, thought I, the people will sure enough +throw stones at me now when they see a dying man go to such mad +expenses, and all, as they will naturally think, to please a wife +wild with the love of expense. This was the very thing I endeavoured +to avoid by canvassing the borough for him, in hopes of being through +that means tyed to the brewhouse where I always hated to live till +now, that I conclude his constitution lost, and that the world will +say _I_ tempt him in his weak state of body and mind to take a fine +house for me at the flashy end of the town." "He however, dear +creature, is as absolute, ay, and ten times more so, than ever, since +he suspects his head to be suspected, and to Grosvenor Square we are +going, and I cannot be sorry, for it will doubtless be comfortable +enough to see one's friends commodiously, and I have long wished to +quit _Harrow Corner_, to be sure; how could one help it? though I did + + "'Call round my casks each object of desire' + +all last winter: but it was a heavy drag too, and what signifies +resolving _never_ to be pleased? I will make myself comfortable in my +new habitation, and be thankful to God and my husband." + +On February 7, 1781, she writes to Madame D'Arblay: + +"Yesterday I had a conversazione. Mrs. Montagu was brilliant in +diamonds, solid in judgment, critical in talk. Sophy smiled, Piozzi +sung, Pepys panted with admiration, Johnson was good humoured, Lord +John Clinton attentive, Dr. Bowdler lame, and my master not asleep. +Mrs. Ord looked elegant, Lady Rothes dainty, Mrs. Davenant dapper, +and Sir Philip's curls were all blown about by the wind. Mrs. Byron +rejoices that her Admiral and I agree so well; the way to his heart +is connoisseurship it seems, and for a background and contorno, who +comes up to Mrs. Thrale, you know." + +In "Thraliana": + +"_Sunday, March 18th_, 1781.--Well! Now I have experienced the +delights of a London winter, spent in the bosom of flattery, gayety, +and Grosvenor Square; 'tis a poor thing, however, and leaves a void +in the mind, but I have had my compting-house duties to attend, my +sick master to watch, my little children to look after, and how much +good have I done in any way? Not a scrap as I can see; the pecuniary +affairs have gone on perversely: how should they chuse [an omission +here] when the sole proprietor is incapable of giving orders, yet not +so far incapable as to be set aside! Distress, fraud, folly, meet me +at every turn, and I am not able to fight against them all, though +endued with an iron constitution, which shakes not by sleepless +nights or days severely fretted. + +"Mr. Thrale talks now of going to Spa and Italy again; how shall we +drag him thither? A man who cannot keep awake four hours at a stroke +&c. Well! this will indeed be a tryal of one's patience; and who must +go with us on this expedition? Mr. Johnson!--he will indeed be the +only happy person of the party; he values nothing _under_ heaven but +his own mind, which is a spark _from_ heaven, and that will be +invigorated by the addition of new ideas. If Mr. Thrale dies on the +road, Johnson will console himself by learning how it is to travel +with a corpse: and, after all, such reasoning is the true +philosophy--one's heart is a mere incumbrance--would I could leave +mine behind. The children shall go to their sisters at Kensington, +Mrs. Cumyns may take care of them all. God grant us a happy meeting +some _where_ and some _time_! + +"Baretti should attend, I think; there is no man who has so much of +every language, and can manage so well with Johnson, is so tidy on +the road, so active top to obtain good accommodations. He is the man +in the world, I think, whom I most abhor, and who _hates_ and +_professes_ to _hate me_ the most; but what does that signifie? He +will be careful of Mr. Thrale and Hester whom he _does_ love--and he +won't strangle _me_, I suppose. Somebody we _must_ have. Croza would +court our daughter, and Piozzi could not talk to Johnson, nor, I +suppose, do one any good but sing to one,--and how should we _sing +songs in a strange land_? Baretti must be the man, and I will beg it +of him as a favour. Oh, the triumph he will have! and the lyes he +will tell!" Thrale's death is thus described in "Thraliana": + +"On the Sunday, the 1st of April, I went to hear the Bishop of +Peterborough preach at May Fair Chapel, and though the sermon had +nothing in it particularly pathetic, I could not keep my tears within +my eyes. I spent the evening, however, at Lady Rothes', and was +cheerful. Found Sir John Lade, Johnson, and Boswell, with Mr. Thrale, +at my return to the Square. On Monday morning Mr. Evans came to +breakfast; Sir Philip and Dr. Johnson to dinner--so did Baretti. Mr. +Thrale eat voraciously--so voraciously that, encouraged by Jebb and +Pepys, who had charged me to do so, I checked him rather severely, +and Mr. Johnson added these remarkable words: "Sir, after the +denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little +better than suicide." He did not, however, desist, and Sir Philip +said, he eat apparently in defiance of control, and that it was +better for us to say nothing to him. Johnson observed that he thought +so too; and that he spoke more from a sense of duty than a hope of +success. Baretti and these two spent the evening with me, and I was +enumerating the people who were to meet the Indian ambassadors on the +Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and bespoke an elegant +entertainment. + +"On the next day, Tuesday the 3rd, Mrs. Hinchliffe called on me in +the morning to go see Webber's drawings of the South Sea rareties. We +met the Smelts, the Ords, and numberless _blues_ there, and displayed +our pedantry at our pleasure. Going and coming, however, I quite +teazed Mrs. Hinchliffe with my low-spirited terrors about Mr. Thrale, +who had not all this while one symptom worse than he had had for +months; though the physicians this Tuesday morning agreed that a +continuation of such dinners as he had lately made would soon +dispatch a life so precarious and uncertain. When I came home to +dress, Piozzi, who was in the next room teaching Hester to sing, +began lamenting that he was engaged to Mrs. Locke on the following +evening, when I had such a world of company to meet these fine +Orientals; he had, however, engaged Roncaglia and Sacchini to begin +with, and would make a point of coming himself at nine o'clock if +possible. I gave him the money I had collected for his +benefit--35_l_. I remember it was--a banker's note--and burst out o' +crying, and said, I was sure I should not go to it. The man was +shocked, and wondered what I meant. Nay, says I, 'tis mere lowness of +spirits, for Mr. Thrale is very well now, and is gone out in his +carriage to spit cards, as I call'd it--sputar le carte. Just then +came a letter from Dr. Pepys, insisting to speak with me in the +afternoon, and though there was nothing very particular in the letter +considering our intimacy, I burst out o' crying again, and threw +myself into an agony, saying, I was sure Mr. Thrale would dye. + +"Miss Owen came to dinner, and Mr. Thrale came home so well! and in +such spirits! he had invited more people to my concert, or +conversazione, or musical party, of the next day, and was delighted +to think what a show we should make. He eat, however, more than +enormously. Six things the day before, and eight on this day, with +strong beer in such quantities! the very servants were frighted, and +when Pepys came in the evening he said this could not last--either +there must be _legal_[1] restraint or certain death. Dear Mrs. Byron +spent the evening with me, and Mr. Crutchley came from Sunning-hill +to be ready for the morrow's flash. Johnson was at the Bishop of +Chester's. I went down in the course of the afternoon to see after my +master as usual, and found him not asleep, but sitting with his legs +up--_because_, as he express'd it. I kissed him, and said how good he +was to be so careful of himself. He enquired who was above, but had +no disposition to come up stairs. Miss Owen and Mrs. Byron now took +their leave. The Dr. had been gone about twenty minutes when Hester +went down to see her papa, and found him on the floor. What's the +meaning of this? says she, in an agony. I chuse it, replies Mr. +Thrale firmly; I lie so o' purpose. She ran, however, to call his +valet, who was gone out--happy to leave him so particularly _well_, +as he thought. When my servant went instead, Mr. Thrale bid him +begone, in a firm tone, and added that he was very well and chose to +lie so. By this time, however, Mr. Crutchley was run down at Hetty's +intreaty, and had sent to fetch Pepys back. He was got but into Upper +Brook Street, and found his friend in a most violent fit of the +apoplexy, from which he only recovered to relapse into another, every +one growing weaker as his strength grew less, till six o'clock on +Wednesday morning, 4th April, 1781, when he died. Sir Richard Jebb, +who was fetched at the beginning of the distress, seeing death +certain, quitted the house without even prescribing. Pepys did all +that could be done, and Johnson, who was sent for at eleven o'clock, +never left him, for while breath remained he still hoped. I ventured +in once, and saw them cutting his clothes off to bleed him, but I saw +no more." + +[Footnote 1: (_Note_ by Mrs. T.). "I rejected all propositions of the +sort, and said, as he had got the money, he had the best right to +throw it away.... I should always prefer my husband, to my children: +let him do his _own_ way."] + +We learn from Madame D'Arblay's Journal, that, towards the end of +March, 1781, Mr. Thrale had resolved on going abroad with his wife, +and that Johnson was to accompany them, but a subsequent entry states +that the doctors condemned the plan; and "therefore," she adds, "it +is settled that a great meeting of his friends is to take place +before he actually prepares for the journey, and they are to encircle +him in a body, and endeavour, by representations and entreaties, 'to +prevail with him to give it up; and I have little doubt myself but, +amongst us, we shall be able to succeed." This is one of the oddest +schemes ever projected by a set of learned and accomplished gentlemen +and ladies for the benefit of a hypochondriac patient. Its execution +was prevented by his death. A hurried note from Mrs. Thrale +announcing the event, beginning, "Write to me, pray for me," is +endorsed by Madame D'Arblay: "Written a few hours after the death of +Mr. Thrale, which happened by a sudden stroke of apoplexy, on the +morning of a day on which half the fashion of London had been invited +to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square." These +invitations had been sent out by his own express desire: so little +was he aware of his danger. + +Letters and messages of condolence poured in from all sides. Johnson +(in a letter dated April 5th) said all that could be said in the way +of counsel or consolation: + +"I do not exhort you to reason yourself into tranquillity. We must +first pray, and then labour; first implore the blessing of God, and +those means which He puts into our hands. Cultivated ground, has few +weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for +useless regret. + +"We read the will to-day; but I will not fill my first letter with +any other account than that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I +am satisfied; and that the other executors, more used to consider +property than I, commended it for wisdom and equity. Yet, why should +I not tell you that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate +expenses, and two thousand pounds a-year, with both the houses and +all the goods? + +"Let us pray for one another, that the time, whether long or short, +that shall yet be granted us, may be well spent; and that when this +life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a +better may begin which shall never end." + +On April 9th he writes: + +"DEAREST MADAM,--That you are gradually recovering your tranquillity, +is the effect to be humbly expected from trust in God. Do not +represent life as darker than it is. Your loss has been very great, +but you retain more than almost any other can hope to possess. You +are high in the opinion of mankind; you have children from whom much +pleasure may be expected; and that you will find many friends, you +have no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, be it worth more or less, +I hope you think yourself certain, without much art or care. It will +not be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have received; but I +hope to be always ready at your call. Our sorrow has different +effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into +company. _I_ am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such +a friend before. Let me have your prayers and those of my dear +Queeny. + +"The prudence and resolution of your design to return so soon to your +business and your duty deserves great praise; I shall communicate it +on Wednesday to the other executors. Be pleased to let me know +whether you would have me come to Streatham to receive you, or stay +here till the next day." + +Johnson was one of the executors and took pride in discharging his +share of the trust. Mrs. Thrale's account of the pleasure he took in +signing the documents and cheques, is incidentally confirmed by +Boswell: + +"I could not but be somewhat diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a +pompous manner of his new office, and particularly of the concerns of +the brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold. Lord Lucan +tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly +characteristical; that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going +forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in +his button-hole, like an excise-man; and on being asked what he +really considered to be the value of the property which was to be +disposed of, answered, 'We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers +and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of +avarice.'" + +The executors had legacies of 200_l._ each; Johnson, to the surprise +of his friends, being placed on no better footing than the rest. He +himself was certainly disappointed. Mrs. Thrale says that his +complacency towards Thrale was not wholly devoid of interested +motives; and she adds that his manner towards Reynolds and Dr. Taylor +was also softened by the vague expectation of being named in their +wills. One of her marginal notes is: "Johnson mentioned to Reynolds +that he had been told by Taylor he was to be his heir. His fondness +for Reynolds, ay, and for Thrale, had a dash of interest to keep it +warm." Again, on his saying to Reynolds, "I did not mean to offend +you,"--"He never would offend Reynolds: he had his reason." + +Many and heavy as were the reproaches subsequently heaped upon the +widow, no one has accused her of having been found wanting in energy, +propriety, or self-respect at this period. She took the necessary +steps for promoting her own interests and those of her children with +prudence and promptitude. Madame D'Arblay, who was carrying on a +flirtation with one of the executors (Mr. Crutchley), and had +personal motives for watching their proceedings, writes, April +29th:-- + +"Miss Thrale is steady and constant, and very sincerely grieved for +her father. + +"The four executors, Mr. Cator, Mr. Crutchley, Mr. Henry Smith, and +Dr. Johnson, have all behaved generously and honourably, and seem +determined to give Mrs. Thrale all the comfort and assistance in +their power. She is to carry on the business jointly with them. Poor +soul! it is a dreadful toil and worry to her." + +In "Thraliana": + +"_Streatham, 1st May_, 1781.--I have now appointed three days a week +to attend at the counting-house. If an angel from heaven had told me +twenty years ago that the man I knew by the name of _Dictionary +Johnson_ should one day become partner with me in a great trade, and +that we should jointly or separately sign notes, drafts, &c., for +three or four thousand pounds of a morning, how unlikely it would +have seemed ever to happen! Unlikely is no word tho',--it would have +seemed _incredible_, neither of us then being worth a groat, God +knows, and both as immeasurably removed from commerce as birth, +literature, and inclination could get us. Johnson, however, who +desires above all other good the accumulation of new ideas, is but +too happy with his present employment; and the influence I have over +him, added to his own solid judgment and a regard for truth, will at +last find it in a small degree difficult to win him from the dirty +delight of seeing his name in a new character flaming away at the +bottom of bonds and leases." + + * * * * * + +"Apropos to writing verses in a language one don't understand, there +is always the allowance given, and that allowance (like our excise +drawbacks) commonly larger than it ought to be. The following +translation of the verses written with a knife, has been for this +reason uncommonly commended, though they have no merit except being +done quick. Piozzi asked me on Sunday morning if ever I had seen +them, and could explain them to _him_, for that he heard they were +written by his friend Mr. Locke. The book in which they were +reposited was not ferreted out, however, till Monday night, and on +Tuesday morning I sent him verses and translation: we used to think +the original was Garrick's, I remember." + +Translation of the verses written with a knife. + + "Taglia Amore un coltello, + Cara, l'hai sentita dire; + Per l'Amore alla Moda, + Esso poco può soffrire. + Cuori che non mai fur giunti + Pronti stanno a separar, + Cari nodi come i nostri + Non son facili tagliar. + Questo dico, che se spezza + Tua tenera bellezza, + Molto ancor ci resterà; + Della mia buona fede + Il Coltello non s'avvede, + Nè di tua gran bontà. + Che tagliare speranze + Ben tutto si puo, + Per piaceri goduti + Oh, questo poi no? + Dolci segni! + Cari pegni! + Di felècità passata, + Non temer la coltellata, + Resterete--Io loro: + Se del caro ben gradita, + Trovo questa donatura, + Via pur la tagliatura + Sol d'Amore sta ferita." + +"The power of emptying one's head of a great thing and filling it +with little ones to amuse care, is no small power, and I am proud of +being able to write Italian verses while I am bargaining 150,000_l_., +and settling an event of the highest consequence to my own and my +children's welfare. David Barclay, the rich Quaker, will treat for +our brewhouse, and the negotiation is already begun. My heart +palpitates with hope and fear--my head is bursting with anxiety and +calculation; yet I can listen to a singer and translate verses about +a knife." + +"Mrs. Montagu has been here; she says I ought to have a statue +erected to me for my diligent attendance on my compting-house duties. +The _wits_ and the _blues_ (as it is the fashion to call them) will +be happy enough, no doubt, to have me safe at the brewery--_out of +their way_." + +"A very strange thing happened in the year 1776, and I never wrote it +down,--I must write it down now. A woman came to London from a +distant county to prosecute some business, and fell into distress; +she was sullen and silent, and the people with whom her affairs +connected her advised her to apply for assistance to some friend. +What friends can I have in London? says the woman, nobody here knows +anything of me. One can't tell _that_, was the reply. Where have you +lived? I have wandered much, says she, but I am originally from +Litchfield. Who did you know in Litchfield in your youth? Oh, nobody +of any note, I'll warrant: I knew one _David Garrick_, indeed, but I +once heard that he turned strolling player, and is probably dead long +ago; I also knew an obscure man, _Samuel Johnson_, very good he was +too; but who can know anything of poor Johnson? I was likewise +acquainted with _Robert James_, a quack doctor. _He_ is, I suppose, +no very reputable connection if I could find him. Thus did this woman +name and discriminate the three best known characters in +London--perhaps in Europe." + +"'Such,' says Mrs. Montagu, 'is the dignity of Mrs. Thrale's virtue, +and such her superiority in all situations of life, that nothing now +is wanting but an earthquake to show how she will behave on _that_ +occasion.' Oh, brave Mrs. Montagu! She is a monkey, though, to +quarrel with Johnson so about Lyttleton's life: if he was a great +character, nothing said of him in that book can hurt him; if he was +not a great character, they are bustling about nothing." + +"Mr. Crutchley lives now a great deal with me; the business of +executor to Mr. Thrale's will makes much of his attendance necessary, +and it begins to have its full effect in seducing and attaching him +to the house,--Miss Burney's being always about me is probably +another reason for his close attendance, and I believe it is so. What +better could befall Miss Burney, or indeed what better could befall +_him_, than to obtain a woman of honour, and character, and +reputation for superior understanding? I would be glad, however, that +he fell honestly in love with her, and was not trick'd or trapp'd +into marriage, poor fellow; he is no match for the arts of a +novel-writer. A mighty particular character Mr. Crutchley is: +strangely mixed up of meanness and magnificence; liberal and splendid +in large sums and on serious occasions, narrow and confined in the +common occurrences of life; warm and generous in some of his motives, +frigid and suspicious, however, for eighteen hours at least out of +the twenty-four; likely to be duped, though always expecting fraud, +and easily disappointed in realities, though seldom flattered by +fancy. He is supposed by those that knew his mother and her +connections to be Mr. Thrale's natural son, and in many things he +resembles him, but not in person: as he is both ugly and awkward. Mr. +Thrale certainly believed he was his son, and once told me as much +when Sophy Streatfield's affair was in question but nobody could +persuade him to court the S.S. Oh! well does the Custom-house officer +Green say,-- + + "'Coquets! leave off affected arts, + Gay fowlers at a flock of hearts; + Woodcocks, to shun your snares have skill, + You show so plain you strive to kill.'" + +"_3rd June_, 1781.--Well! here have I, with the grace of God and the +assistance of good friends, completed--I really think very +happily--the greatest event of my life. I have sold my brewhouse to +Barclay, the rich Quaker, for 135,000_l_., to be in four years' time +paid. I have by this bargain purchased peace and a stable fortune, +restoration to my original rank in life, and a situation undisturbed +by commercial jargon, unpolluted by commercial frauds, undisgraced by +commercial connections. They who succeed me in the house have +purchased the power of being rich beyond the wish of rapacity[1], and +I have procured the improbability of being made poor by flights of +the fairy, speculation. 'Tis thus that a woman and men of feminine +minds always--I speak popularly--decide upon life, and chuse certain +mediocrity before probable superiority; while, as Eton Graham says +sublimely,-- + + "'Nobler souls, + Fir'd with the tedious and disrelish'd good, + Seek their employment in acknowledg'd ill, + Danger, and toil, and pain.' + +"On this principle partly, and partly on worse, was dear Mr. Johnson +something unwilling--but not much at last--to give up a trade by +which in some years 15,000_l._ or 16,000_l._ had undoubtedly been +got, but by which, in some years, its possessor had suffered agonies +of terror and tottered twice upon the verge of bankruptcy. Well! if +thy own conscience acquit, who shall condemn thee? Not, I hope, the +future husbands of our daughters, though I should think it likely +enough; however, as Johnson says very judiciously, they must either +think right or wrong: if they think right, let us now think with +them; if wrong, let us never care what they think. So adieu to +brewhouse, and borough wintering; adieu to trade, and tradesmen's +frigid approbation; may virtue and wisdom sanctify our contract, and +make buyer and seller happy in the bargain!" + +[Footnote 1: There is a curious similarity here to Johnson's phrase, +"the potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice."] + +After mentioning some friends who disapproved of the sale, she adds: +"Mrs. Montagu has sent me her approbation in a letter exceedingly +affectionate and polite. 'Tis over now, tho', and I'll clear my head +of it and all that belongs to it; I will go to church, give God +thanks, receive the sacrament and forget the frauds, follies, and +inconveniences of a commercial life this day." + +Madame D'Arblay was at Streatham on the day of the sale, and gives a +dramatic colour to the ensuing scene: + +"_Streatham, Thursday_.--This was the great and most important day to +all this house, upon which the sale of the brewery was to be decided. +Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. +Barclay, the Quaker, who was the _bidder_. She was in great agitation +of mind, and told me, if all went well she would wave a white +pocket-handkerchief out of the coach window. + +"Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Five +o'clock followed, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the +lawn, where we sauntered, in eager expectation, till near six, and +then the coach appeared in sight, and a white pocket-handkerchief was +waved from it. I ran to the door of it to meet her, and she jumped +out of it, and gave me a thousand embraces while I gave my +congratulations. We went instantly to her dressing-room, where she +told me, in brief, how the matter had been transacted, and then we +went down to dinner. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley had accompanied +her home." + +The event is thus announced to Langton by Johnson, in a letter +printed by Boswell, dated June 16, 1781: "You will perhaps be glad to +hear that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered of her brewhouse, and that it +seemed to the purchaser so far from an evil that he was content to +give for it 135,000_l_. Is the nation ruined." _Marginal note_: "I +suppose he was neither glad nor sorry." + +Thrale died on the 4th April, 1781, and Mrs. Thrale left Streatham on +the 7th October, 1782. The intervening eighteen months have been made +the subject of an almost unprecedented amount of misrepresentation. +Hawkins, Boswell, Madame D'Arblay, and Lord Macaulay have vied with +each other in founding uncharitable imputations on her conduct at +this period of her widowhood; and it has consequently become +necessary to recapitulate the authentic evidence relating to it. As +Piozzi's name will occur occasionally, he must now be brought upon +the scene. + +He is first mentioned in "Thraliana" thus: + +"_Brighton, July_, 1780.--I have picked up Piozzi here, the great +Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach +Hester." + +A detailed account of the commencement of the acquaintance is given +in one of the autobiographical fragments. She says he was recommended +to her by letter by Madame D'Arblay as "a man likely to lighten the +burthen of life to her," and that both she and Mr. Thrale took to him +at once. Madame D'Arblay is silent as to the introduction or +recommendation; but gives an amusing account of one of their first +meetings: + +"A few months after the Streathamite morning visit to St. Martin's +Street, an evening party was arranged by Dr. Burney, for bringing +thither again Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, at the desire of Mr. and +Mrs. Greville and Mrs. Crewe; who wished, under the quiet roof of Dr. +Burney, to make acquaintance with these celebrated personages." The +conversation flagged, and recourse was had to music-- + +"Piozzi, a first-rate singer, whose voice was deliciously sweet, and +whose expression was perfect, sung in his very best manner, from his +desire to do honour to _il Capo di Casa_; but _il Capo di Casa_ and +his family alone did justice to his strains: neither the Grevilles +nor the Thrales heeded music beyond what belonged to it as fashion: +the expectations of the Grevilles were all occupied by Dr. Johnson; +and those of the Thrales by the authoress of the Ode to Indifference. +When Piozzi, therefore, arose, the party remained as little advanced +in any method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as upon its +first entrance into the room.... + +"Dr. Burney now began to feel considerably embarrassed; though still +he cherished hopes of ultimate relief from some auspicious +circumstance that, sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his +favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents. + +"Vainly, however, he sought to elicit some observations that might +lead to disserting discourse; all his attempts received only quiet, +acquiescent replies, 'signifying nothing.' Every one was awaiting +some spontaneous opening from Dr. Johnson. + +"Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her ease. She feared +not Dr. Johnson; for fear made no part of her composition; and with +Mrs. Greville, as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from +curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in full +carelessness of its event; for though triumphant when victorious, she +had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from envy or +spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification when vanquished. +But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated for Dr. Johnson; +and, therefore, though not without difficulty, constrained herself to +be passive. + +"When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition of Mr. Greville +to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt +a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however +grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and +the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood, +rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg; and, at +length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity that, in the midst +of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as +could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human +faculties; she grew tired of the music, and yet more tired of +remaining, what as little suited her inclinations as her abilities, a +mere cipher in the company; and, holding such a position, and all its +concomitants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above +her control; and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be +thought of her by her fine new acquaintance, she suddenly, but +softly, arose, and stealing on tip-toe behind Signor Piozzi, who was +accompanying himself on the piano-forte to an animated _arria +parlante_, with his back to the company, and his face to the wall; +she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating +them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes, +while languishingly reclining her head; as if she were not less +enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the +transports of harmony than himself. + +"This grotesque ebullition of ungovernable gaiety was not perceived +by Dr. Johnson, who faced the fire, with his back to the performer +and the instrument. But the amusement which such an unlooked for +exhibition caused to the party, was momentary; for Dr. Burney, +shocked lest the poor Signor should observe, and be hurt by this +mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something +between pleasantness and severity, whispered to her, 'Because, Madam, +you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of +all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?' + +"It was now that shone the brightest attribute of Mrs. Thrale, +sweetness of temper. She took this rebuke with a candour, and a sense +of its justice the most amiable: she nodded her approbation of the +admonition; and, returning to her chair, quietly sat down, as she +afterwards said, like a pretty little miss, for the remainder of one +of the most humdrum evenings that she had ever passed. + +"Strange, indeed, strange and most strange, the event considered, was +this opening intercourse between Mrs. Thrale and Signor Piozzi. +Little could she imagine that the person she was thus called away +from holding up to ridicule, would become, but a few years +afterwards, the idol of her fancy and the lord of her destiny! And +little did the company present imagine, that this burlesque scene was +but the first of a drama the most extraordinary of real life, of +which these two persons were to be the hero and heroine: though, when +the catastrophe was known, this incident, witnessed by so many, was +recollected and repeated from coterie to coterie throughout London, +with comments and sarcasms of endless variety."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Dr. Burney, &c., vol. ii, pp. 105--111.] + +Madame D'Arblay mentioned the same circumstance in conversation to +the Rev. W. Harness: yet it seems strange in connection with an entry +in "Thraliana" from which it would appear that her friend was far +from wanting in susceptibility to sweet sounds: + +"13 _August_, 1780.--Piozzi is become a prodigious favourite with me, +he is so intelligent a creature, so discerning, one can't help +wishing for his good opinion; his singing surpasses everybody's for +taste, tenderness, and true elegance; his hand on the forte piano too +is so soft, so sweet, so delicate, every tone goes to the heart, I +think, and fills the mind with emotions one would not be without, +though inconvenient enough sometimes. He wants nothing from us: he +comes for his health he says: I see nothing ail the man but pride. +The newspapers yesterday told what all the musical folks gained, and +set Piozzi down 1200_l_. o' year." + +On the 24th August, 1780, Madame D'Arblay writes: "I have not seen +Piozzi: he left me your letter, which indeed is a charming one, +though its contents puzzled me much whether to make me sad or merry." +Mrs. Thrale was still at Brighton; so that the scene at Dr. Burney's +must have occurred subsequently; when she had already begun to find +Piozzi what the Neapolitan ladies understand by _simpatico_. Madame +D'Arblay's "Memoirs," as I shall have occasion to point out, are by +no means so trustworthy a register of dates, facts, or impressions as +her "Diary." + +Whilst Thrale lived, Mrs. Thrale's regard for Piozzi was certainly +not of a nature to cause scandal or provoke censure, and as it +ripened into love, it may be traced, step by step, from the frankest +and fullest of all possible unveilings of the heart. Rare indeed are +the instances in which such revelations as we find in "Thraliana" +could be risked by either man or woman, without giving scope to +malevolence; and they should not only be judged as a whole and by the +context, but the most favourable construction should be put upon +them. When, in this sort of self-communing, every passing emotion, +every transitory inclination, is set down, it would be unfair and +even foolish to infer that the emotion at once became a passion, or +that the inclination was criminally indulged. + +The next notice of Piozzi occurs in Madame D'Arblay's "Diary" for +July 10th, 1781: + +"You will believe I was not a little surprised to see Sacchini. He is +going to the Continent with Piozzi, and Mrs. Thrale invited them both +to spend the last day at Streatham, and from hence proceed to +Margate.... The first song he sang, beginning 'En quel amabil volto,' +you may perhaps know, but I did not; it is a charming mezza bravura. +He and Piozzi then sung together the duet of the 'Amore Soldato;' and +nothing could be much more delightful; Piozzi taking pains to sing +his very best, and Sacchini, with his soft but delicious whisper, +almost thrilling me by his exquisite and pathetic expression. They +then went through that opera, great part of 'Creso,' some of +'Erifile,' and much of 'Rinaldo.'" + +Piozzi's attentions had attracted Johnson's notice without troubling +his peace. On November 24th, 1781, he wrote from Ashbourne: "Piozzi, +I find, is coming in spite of Miss Harriet's prediction, or second +sight, and when _he_ comes and _I_ come, you will have two about you +that love you; and I question if either of us heartily care how few +more you have. But how many soever they may be, I hope you keep your +kindness for me, and I have a great mind to have Queeny's kindness +too." + +Again, December 3rd, 1781: "You have got Piozzi again, +notwithstanding pretty Harriet's dire denunciations. The Italian +translation which he has brought, you will find no great accession to +your library, for the writer seems to understand very little English. +When we meet we can compare some passages. Pray contrive a multitude +of good things for us to do when we meet. Something that may _hold +all together_; though if any thing makes _me_ love you more, it is +going from you." + +We learn from "Thraliana," that the entanglement with Piozzi was not +the only one of which Streatham was contemporaneously the scene: + +"_August,_ 1781.--I begin to wish in good earnest that Miss Burney +should make impression on Mr. Crutchley. I think she honestly loves +the man, who in his turn appears to be in love with some one +else--Hester, I fear, Oh! that would indeed be unlucky! People have +said so a long while, but I never thought it till now; young men and +women will always be serving one so, to be sure, if they live at all +together, but I depended on Burney keeping him steady to herself. +Queeny behaves like an angel about it. Mr. Johnson says the name of +Crutchley comes from _croix lea_, the cross meadow; _lea_ is a +meadow, I know, and _crutch_, a crutch stick, is so called from +having the handle go _crosswise_." + +"_September,_ 1781.--My five fair daughters too! I have so good a +pretence to wish for long life to see them settled. Like the old +fellow in 'Lucian,' one is never at a loss for an excuse. They are +five lovely creatures to be sure, but they love not me. Is it my +fault or theirs?" + +"_12th October_, 1781.--Yesterday was my wedding-day; it was a +melancholy thing to me to pass it without the husband of my youth. + + "'Long tedious years may neither moan, + Sad, deserted, and alone; + May neither long condemned to stay + Wait the second bridal day!!!'[1] + +"Let me thank God for my children, however, my fortune, and my +friends, and be contented if I cannot be happy." + +[Footnote 1: _Note by Mrs. T._: "Samuel Wesley's verses, making part +of an epithalamium."] + +"_15th October_, 1781.--My maid Margaret Rice dreamed last night that +my eldest daughter was going to be married to Mr. Crutchley, but that +Mr. Thrale _himself_ prevented her. An odd thing to me, who think Mr. +Crutchley is his son." + +Although the next day but one after Thrale's death Johnson carried +Boswell to dine at the Queen's Arms' Club, his grief was deep and +durable. Indeed, it is expressed so often and so earnestly as to +rebut the presumption that "my mistress" was the sole or chief tie +which bound him to Streatham. Amongst his Prayers and Meditations is +the following: + +"_Good Friday, April 13th_, 1781.--On Wednesday, 11th, was buried my +dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday, 4th; and with him were +buried many of my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think, on +Wednesday morning, he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his +pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen +years had never been turned upon me but with respect or benignity. +Farewell. May God, that delighteth in mercy, have had mercy on thee! +I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The +decease of him, from whose friendship I had obtained many +opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a +refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with +myself." + +On the same paper is a note: "My first knowledge of Thrale was in +1765. I enjoyed his favours for almost a fourth part of my life." + +On the 20th March, 1782, he wrote thus to Langton: + +"Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The +spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for +fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or +tenderness; for such another friend, the general course of human +things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, +but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a +weakly body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on +the edge of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found +the friends sickly whom I went to see." + +There is ample evidence that he neither felt nor suspected any +diminution of kindness or regard, and continued, till their final +departure from Streatham, to treat it as his home. + +In November she writes, "Do not forget Streatham and its inhabitants, +who are all much yours;" and he replies: + +"Birmingham, Dec. 8th, 1781. + +"DEAR MADAM,--I am come to this place on my way to London and to +Streatham. I hope to be in London on Tuesday or Wednesday, and +Streatham on Thursday, by your kind conveyance. I shall have nothing +to relate either wonderful or delightful. But remember that you sent +me away, and turned me out into the world, and you must take the +chance of finding me better or worse. This you may know at present, +that my affection for you is not diminished, and my expectation from +you is increased. Do not neglect me, nor relinquish me. Nobody will +ever love you better or honour you more." + +"Feb. 16th, 1782. + +"DEAREST LADY,--I am better, but not yet well; but hope springs +eternal. As soon as I can think myself not troublesome, you may be +sure of seeing me, _for such a place to visit nobody ever had_. +Dearest Madam, do not think me worse than I am; be sure, at least, +that whatever happens to me, I am with all the regard that admiration +of excellence and gratitude for kindness can excite, Madam, your" &c. + +In "Thraliana": + +"_23rd February, 1782 (Harley Street)_.--The truth is, Mr. Johnson +has some occult disorder that I cannot understand; Jebb and Bromfield +fancy it is water between the heart and pericardium--I do not think +it is _that_, but I do not know what it is. He apprehends no danger +himself, and he knows more of the matter than any of them all." + +On February 27th, 1782, he writes to Malone: "I have for many weeks +been so much out of order, that I have gone out only in a coach to +Mrs. Thrale's, where I can use all the freedom that sickness +requires." + +On March 20th, 1782, to Mrs. Grastrell and Mrs. Aston: "When Dr. +Falconer saw me, I was at home only by accident, for I lived much +with Mrs. Thrale, and had all the care from her that she could take +or could be taken." + +April 26th, 1782, to Mrs. Thrale: + +"MADAM,--I have been very much out of order since you sent me away; +but why should I tell you, who do not care, nor desire to know? I +dined with Mr. Paradise on Monday, with the Bishop of St. Asaph +yesterday, with the Bishop of Chester I dine to-day, and with the +Academy on Saturday, with Mr. Hoole on Monday, and with Mrs. Garrick +on Thursday, the 2nd of May, and then--what care you? _What then_? + +"The news run, that we have taken seventeen French transports; that +Langton's lady is lying down with her eighth child, all alive; and +Mrs. Carter's Miss Sharpe is going to marry a schoolmaster sixty-two +years old. + +"Do not let Mr. Piozzi nor any body else put me quite out of your +head, and do not think that any body will love you like your" &c. + +"April 30th, 1782. + +"Mrs. Sheridan refused to sing, at the Duchess of Devonshire's +request, a song to the Prince of Wales. They pay for the Theatre +neither principal nor interest; and poor Garrick's funeral expenses +are yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken. Could you have a +better purveyor for a little scandal? But I wish I was at Streatham. +I beg Miss to come early, and I may perhaps reward you with more +mischief." + +She went to Streatham on the 18th April, 1782, and Johnson evidently +with her. In "Thraliana" she writes: + +"_Saturday, 9th May, 1782._--To-day I bring home to Streatham my poor +Dr. Johnson: he went to town a week ago by the way of amusing +himself, and got so very ill that I thought I should never get him +home alive,"--by _home_ meaning Streatham. + +Johnson to Mrs. Thrale: + +"June 4th, 1782. + +"This day I dined upon skate, pudding, goose, and your asparagus, and +could have eaten more, but was prudent. Pray for me, dear Madam; I +hope the tide has turned. The change that I feel is more than I durst +have hoped, or than I thought possible; but there has not yet passed +a whole day, and I may rejoice perhaps too soon. Come and see me, and +when you think best, upon due consideration, take me away." + +From her to him: + +"Streatham, June 14th, 1782. + +"DEAR SIR,--I am glad you confess yourself peevish, for confession +must precede amendment. Do not study to be more unhappy than you are, +and if you can eat and sleep well, do not be frighted, for there can +be no real danger. Are you acquainted with Dr. Lee, the master of +Baliol College? And are you not delighted with his gaiety of manners +and youthful vivacity now that he is eighty-six years old? I never +heard a more perfect or excellent pun than his, when some one told +him how, in a late dispute among the Privy Counsellors, the Lord +Chancellor (Thurlow) struck the table with such violence that he +split it. 'No, no,' replied the Master, drily, 'I can hardly persuade +myself that he _split the table_, though I believe he _divided the +Board_.' Will you send me anything better from Oxford than this? for +there must be no more fastidiousness now; no more refusing to laugh +at a good quibble, when you so loudly profess the want of amusement +and the necessity of diversion." + +From him to her: + +"Oxford, June 17th, 1782. + +"Oxford has done, I think, what for the present it can do, and I am +going slyly to take a place in the coach for Wednesday, and you or my +sweet Queeny will fetch me on Thursday, and see what you can make of +me." + +Hannah More met him during this visit to Oxford, and writes, June +13th, 1782: "Who do you think is my principal cicerone at Oxford? +only Dr. Johnson! and we do so gallant it about." + +Madame D'Arblay, then at Streatham, writes, June 26th, 1782: "Dr. +Johnson, who had been in town some days, returned, and Mr. Crutchley +came also, as well as my father." After describing some lively +conversation, she adds: "I have _very often_, though I mention them +not, long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson, about our dear +deceased master, whom, indeed, he regrets unceasingly; but I love not +to dwell on subjects of sorrow when I can drive them away, especially +to you (her sister), upon this account as you were so much a stranger +to that excellent friend, whom you only lamented for the sake of +those who survived him." He had only returned that very day, and she +had been absent from Streatham, as she states elsewhere, till "the +Cecilian business was arranged," _i.e._ till the end of May. + +On the 24th August, 1782 (this date is material) Johnson writes to +Boswell: + +"DEAR SIR,--Being uncertain whether I should have any call this +autumn into the country, I did not immediately answer your kind +letter. I have no call; but if you desire to meet me at Ashbourne, I +believe I can come thither; if you had rather come to London, I can +stay at Streatham: take your choice." + +This was two days after Mrs. Thrale, with his full concurrence, had +made up her mind to let Streatham. He treats it, notwithstanding, as +at his disposal for a residence so long as she remains in it. + +The books and printed letters from which most of these extracts are +taken, have been all along accessible to her assailants. Those from +"Thraliana," which come next, are new: + +"_25th November_, 1781.--I have got my Piozzi[1] home at last; he +looks thin and battered, but always kindly upon me, I think. He +brought me an Italian sonnet written in his praise by Marco Capello, +which I instantly translated of course; but he, prudent creature, +insisted on my burning it, as he said it would inevitably get about +the town how _he_ was praised, and how Mrs. Thrale translated and +echoed the praises, so that, says he, I shall be torn in pieces, and +you will have some _infamità_ said of you that will make you hate the +sight of me. He was so earnest with me that I could not resist, so +burnt my sonnet, which was actually very pretty; and now I repent I +did not first write it into the Thraliana. Over leaf, however, shall +go the translation, which happens to be done very closely, and the +last stanza is particularly exact. I must put it down while I +remember it: + +1. + + "'Favoured of Britain's pensive sons, + Though still thy name be found, + Though royal Thames where'er he runs + Returns the flattering sound, + +2. + + Though absent thou, on every joy + Her gloom privation flings, + And Pleasure, pining for employ, + Now droops her nerveless wings, + +3. + + Yet since kind Fates thy voice restore + To charm our land again[2],-- + Return not to their rocky shore, + Nor tempt the angry main. + +4. + + Nor is their praise of so much worth, + Nor is it justly given, + That angels sing to them on earth + Who slight the road to heaven.' + +"He tells me--Piozzi does--that his own country manners greatly +disgusted him, after having been used to ours; but Milan is a +comfortable place, I find. If he does not fix himself for life here, +he will settle to lay his bones at Milan. The Marquis D'Araciel, his +friend and patron, who resides there, divides and disputes his heart +with me: I shall be loth to resign it." + +[Footnote 1: This mode of expression did not imply then what it might +now. See _ante_, p. 92, where Johnson writes to "my Baretti."] + +[Footnote 2: "Capello is a Venetian poet."] + +"_17th December, 1781._--Dear Mr. Johnson is at last returned; he has +been a vast while away to see his country folks at Litchfield. My +fear is lest he should grow paralytick,--there are really some +symptoms already discoverable, I think, about the mouth particularly. +He will drive the gout away so when it comes, and it must go +_somewhere_. Queeny works hard with him at the classicks; I hope she +will be _out_ of leading-strings at least before he gets _into_ them, +as poor women say of their children." + +"_1st January, 1782._--Let me not, while censuring the behaviour of +others, however, give cause of censure by my own. I am beginning a +new year in a new character. May it be worn decently yet lightly! I +wish not to be rigid and fright my daughters by too much severity. I +will not be wild and give them reason to lament the levity of my +life. Resolutions, however, are vain. To pray for God's grace is the +sole way to obtain it--'Strengthen Thou, O Lord, my virtue and my +understanding, preserve me from temptation, and acquaint me with +myself; fill my heart with thy love, restrain it by thy fear, and +keep my soul's desires fixed wholly on that place where only true +joys are to be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord,--Amen.'" + +_January_, 1782.--(After stating her fear of illness and other ills.) +"_If_ nothing of all these misfortunes, however, befall one; _if_ for +my sins God should take from me my monitor, my friend, my inmate, my +dear Doctor Johnson; _if_ neither I should marry, nor the brewhouse +people break; _if_ the ruin of the nation should not change the +situation of affairs so that one could not receive regular +remittances from England: and _if_ Piozzi should not pick him up a +wife and fix his abode in this country,--_if_, therefore, and _if_ +and _if_ and _if_ again all should conspire to keep my present +resolution warm, I certainly would, at the close of the four years +from the sale of the Southwark estate, set out for Italy, with my two +or three eldest girls, and see what the world could show me." + +In a marginal note, she adds: + +"Travelling with Mr. Johnson _I_ cannot bear, and leaving him behind +_he_ could not bear, so his life or death must determine the +execution or laying aside my schemes. I wish it were within reason to +_hope_ he could live four years." + +"_Streatham, 4th January_, 1782.--I have taken a house in Harley +Street for these three months next ensuing, and hope to have some +society,--not company tho': crowds are out of the question, but +people will not come hither on short days, and 'tis too dull to live +all alone so. The world will watch me at first, and think I come o' +husband-hunting for myself or my fair daughters, but when I have +behaved prettily for a while, they will change their mind." + +"_Harley Street, 14th January_, 1782.--The first seduction comes from +Pepys. I had a letter to-day desiring me to dine in Wimpole Street, +to meet Mrs. Montagu and a whole _army of blues_, to whom I trust my +refusal will afford very pretty speculation ... and they may settle +my character and future conduct at their leisure. Pepys is a +worthless fellow at last; he and his brother run about the town, +spying and enquiring what Mrs. Thrale is to do this winter, what +friends she is to see, what men are in her confidence, how soon she +will be _married_, &c.; the brother Dr.--the Medico, as we call +him--lays wagers about me, I find; God forgive me, but they'll make +me hate them both, and they are no better than two fools for their +pains, for I was willing to have taken them to my heart." + +"They say Pacchierotti, the famous soprano singer, is ill, and _they +say_ Lady Mary Duncan, his frightful old protectress, has made him so +by her _caresses dénaturées_. A little envy of the new woman, +Allegrante, has probably not much mended his health, for +Pacchierotti, dear creature, is envious enough. I was, however, +turning over Horace yesterday, to look for the expression _tenui +fronte_[1], in vindication of my assertion to Johnson that low +foreheads were classical, when the 8th Ode of the First Book of +Horace struck me so, I could not help imitating it while the scandal +was warm in my mind: + +1. + + "'He's sick indeed! and very sick, + For if it is not all a trick + You'd better look about ye. + Dear Lady Mary, prythee tell + Why thus by loving him too well + You kill your Pacchierotti? + +2. + + Nor sun nor dust can he abide, + Nor careless in a snaffle ride, + The steed we saw him mount ill. + _You_ stript him of his manly force, + When tumbling headlong from his horse + He pressed the plains of Fonthill.[2] + +3. + + Why the full opera should he shun? + Where crowds of critics smiling run, + To applaud their Allegrante. + Why is it worse than viper's sting, + To see them clap, or hear her sing? + Surely he's envious, ain't he? + +4. + + Forbear his house, nor haunt his bed + With that strange wig and fearful head, + Then, though he now so ill is, + We o'er his voice again may doze, + When, cover'd warm with women's clothes, + He acts a young Achilles.'" + +[Footnote 1: Insignem tenui fronte Lycorida Cyri torret amor-- + +But _tenuis_ is _small_ or _narrow_ rather than _low_. One of +Fielding's beauties, Sophia Western, has a low forehead: another, +Fanny, a high one.] + +[Footnote 2: _Note by Mrs. T.:_ "Fonthill, the seat of young +Beckford. They set him o' horseback, and he tumbled off."] + +"_1st February, 1782._--Here is Mr. Johnson ill, very ill indeed, +and--I do not see what ails him; 'tis repelled gout, I fear, fallen +on the lungs and breath of course. What shall we do for him? If I +lose _him_, I am more than undone; friend, father, guardian, +confident!--God give me health and patience. What shall I do?" + +"_Harley Street, 13th April, 1782._--When I took off my mourning, the +watchers watched me very exactly, 'but they whose hands were +mightiest have found nothing:' so I shall leave the town, I hope, in +a good disposition towards me, though I am sullen enough with the +town for fancying me such an amorous idiot that I am dying to enjoy +every filthy fellow. God knows how distant such dispositions are from +the heart and constitution of H.L.T. Lord Loughboro', Sir Richard +Jebb, Mr. Piozzi, Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Johnson, every man that comes to +the house, is put in the papers for me to marry. In good time, I +wrote to-day to beg the 'Morning Herald' would say no more about me, +good or bad." + +"_Streatham, 17th April, 1782._--I am returned to Streatham, pretty +well in health and very sound in heart, notwithstanding the watchers +and the wager-layers, who think more of the charms of their sex by +half than I who know them better. Love and friendship are distinct +things, and I would go through fire to serve many a man whom nothing +less than fire would force me to go to bed to. Somebody mentioned my +going to be married t'other day, and Johnson was joking about it. I +suppose, Sir, said I, they think they are doing me honour with these +imaginary matches, when, perhaps the man does not exist who would do +me honour by marrying me! This, indeed, was said in the wild and +insolent spirit of Baretti, yet 'tis nearer the truth than one would +think for. A woman of passable person, ancient family, respectable +character, uncommon talents, and three thousand a year, has a right +to think herself any man's equal, and has nothing to seek but return +of affection from whatever partner she pitches on. To marry for love +would therefore be rational in me, who want no advancement of birth +or fortune, and _till I am in love_, I will not marry, nor perhaps +then." + +"_22nd August, 1782._--An event of no small consequence to our little +family must here be recorded in the 'Thraliana.' After having long +intended to go to Italy for pleasure, we are now settling to go +thither for convenience. The establishment of expense here at +Streatham is more than my income will answer; my lawsuit with Lady +Salusbury turns out worse in the event and infinitely more costly +than I could have dreamed on; 8000_l._ is supposed necessary to the +payment of it, and how am I to raise 8000_l_.? My trees will (after +all my expectations from them) fetch but 4000_l_., the money lent +Perkins on his bond 1600_l_., the Hertfordshire copyholds may perhaps +be worth 1000_l_., and where is the rest to spring from? I must go +abroad and save money. To show Italy to my girls, and be showed it by +Piozzi, has long been my dearest wish, but to leave Mr. Johnson +shocked me, and to take him appeared impossible. His recovery, +however, from an illness we all thought dangerous, gave me courage to +speak to him on the subject, and this day (after having been let +blood) I mustered up resolution to tell him the necessity of changing +a way of life I had long been displeased with. I added that I had +mentioned the matter to my eldest daughter, whose prudence and solid +judgment, unbiassed by passion, is unequalled, as far as my +experience has reached; that she approved the scheme, and meant to +partake it, though of an age when she might be supposed to form +connections here in England--attachments of the tenderest nature; +that she declared herself free and resolved to follow my fortunes, +though perfectly aware temptations might arise to prevent me from +ever returning--a circumstance she even mentioned herself. + +"Mr. Johnson thought well of the project, and wished me to put it +early in execution: seemed less concerned at parting with me than I +wished him: thought his pupil Miss Thrale quite right in forbearing +to marry young, and seemed to entertain no doubt of living to see us +return rich and happy in two or three years' time. He told Hester in +my absence that he would not go with me if I asked him. See the +importance of a person to himself. I fancied Mr. Johnson could not +have existed without me, forsooth, as we have now lived together for +above eighteen years. I have so fondled him in sickness and in +health. Not a bit of it. He feels nothing in parting with me, nothing +in the least; but thinks it a prudent scheme, and goes to his books +as usual. This is philosophy and truth; he always said he hated a +_feeler_.... + +"The persecution I endure from men too who want to marry me--in good +time--is another reason for my desiring to be gone. I wish to marry +none of them, and Sir Philip's teazing me completed my mortification; +to see that one can rely on _nobody!_ The expences of this house, +however, which are quite past my power to check, is the true and +rational cause of our departure. In Italy we shall live with twice +the respect and at half the expence we do here; the language is +familiar to me and I love the Italians; I take with me all I love in +the world except my two baby daughters, who will be left safe at +school; and since Mr. Johnson cares nothing for the loss of my +personal friendship and company, there is no danger of any body else +breaking their hearts. My sweet Burney and Mrs. Byron will perhaps +think they are sorry, but my consciousness that no one _can_ have the +cause of concern that Johnson has, and my conviction that he has _no +concern at all_, shall cure me of lamenting friends left behind." + +In the margin of this entry she has written, "I begin to see (now +everything shows it) that Johnson's connection with me is merely an +interested one; he _loved_ Mr. Thrale, I believe, but only wished to +find in me a careful nurse and humble friend for his sick and his +lounging hours; yet I really thought he could not have _existed_ +without _my conversation_ forsooth! He cares more for my roast beef +and plum pudden, which he now devours too dirtily for endurance; and +since he is glad to get rid of me, I'm sure I have good cause to +desire the getting rid of him." + +No great stress should be laid on this ebullition of mortified +self-love; but it occurs oddly enough at the very time when, +according to Lord Macaulay, she was labouring to produce the very +feeling that irritated her. + +"_August 28th_, 1782.--He (Piozzi) thinks still more than he says, +that I shall give him up; and if Queeney made herself more amiable to +me, and took the proper methods--I suppose I should." + +"_20 September_ 1782, _Streatham_.--And now I am going to leave +Streatham (I have let the house and grounds to Lord Shelburne, the +expence of it eat me up) for three years, where I lived--never +happily indeed, but always easily: the more so perhaps from the total +absence of love and ambition-- + + "'Else these two passions by the way + Might chance to show us scurvy play.'" + +Ten days later (October 1st) she thus argues out the question of +marriage: + +"Now! that dear little discerning creature, Fanny Burney, says I'm in +love with Piozzi: very likely; he is so amiable, so honourable, so +much above his situation by his abilities, that if + + "'Fate had not fast bound her + With Styx nine times round her, + Sure musick and love were victorious.' + +But if he is ever so worthy, ever so lovely, he is _below me_ +forsooth! In what is he below me? In virtue? I would I were above +him. In understanding? I would mine were from this instant under the +guardianship of his. In birth? To be sure he is below me in birth, +and so is almost every man I know or have a chance to know. But he is +below me in fortune: is mine sufficient for us both?--more than amply +so. Does he deserve it by his conduct, in which he has always united +warm notions of honour with cool attention to oeconomy, the spirit of +a gentleman with the talents of a professor? How shall any man +deserve fortune, if he does not? But I am the guardian of five +daughters by Mr. Thrale, and must not disgrace _their_ name and +family. Was then the man my mother chose for me of higher extraction +than him I have chosen for myself? No,--but his fortune was +higher.... I wanted fortune then, perhaps: do I want it now?--Not at +all; but I am not to think about myself; I married the first time to +please my mother, I must marry the second time to please my daughter. +I have always sacrificed my own choice to that of others, so I must +sacrifice it again: but why? Oh, because I am a woman of superior +understanding, and must not for the world degrade myself from my +situation in life. But if I _have_ superior understanding, let me at +least make use of it for once, and rise to the rank of a human being +conscious of its own power to discern good from ill. The person who +has uniformly acted by the will of others has hardly that dignity to +boast. + +"But once again: I am guardian to five girls; agreed: will this +connection prejudice their bodies, souls, or purse? My marriage may +assist _my_ health, but I suppose it will not injure _theirs_. Will +his company or companions corrupt their morals? God forbid; if I did +not believe him one of the best of our fellow beings, I would reject +him instantly. Can it injure their fortunes? Could he impoverish (if +he would) five women, to whom their father left _20,000l._ each, +independent almost of possibilities?--To what then am I guardian? to +their pride and prejudice? and is anything else affected by the +alliance? Now for more solid objections. Is not the man of whom I +desire protection, a foreigner? unskilled in the laws and language of +our country? Certainly. Is he not, as the French say, _Arbitre de mon +sort?_ and from the hour he possesses my person and fortune, have I +any power of decision how or where I may continue or end my life? Is +not the man, upon the continuance of whose affection my whole +happiness depends, _younger_ than myself[1], and is it wise to place +one's happiness on the continuance of _any_ man's affection? Would it +not be painful to owe his appearance of regard more to his honour +than his love? and is not my person, already faded, likelier to fade +sooner, than his? On the other hand, is his life a good one? and +would it not be lunacy even to risque the wretchedness of losing all +situation in the world for the sake of living with a man one loves, +and then to lose both companion and consolation? When I lost Mr. +Thrale, every one was officious to comfort and to soothe me; but +which of my children or quondam friends would look with kindness upon +Piozzi's widow? If I bring children by him, must they not be +Catholics, and must not I live among people the _ritual_ part of +whose religion I disapprove? + +"These are _my_ objections, these _my_ fears: not those of being +censured by the world, as it is called, a composition of vice and +folly, though 'tis surely no good joke to be talked of + + "'By each affected she that tells my story, + And blesses her good stars that _she_ was prudent.' + +"These objections would increase in strength, too, if my present +state was a happy one, but it really is not. I live a quiet life, but +not a pleasant one. My children govern without loving me; my servants +devour and despise me; my friends caress and censure me; my money +wastes in expences I do not enjoy, and my time in trifles I do not +approve. Every one is made insolent, and no one comfortable; my +reputation unprotected, my heart unsatisfied, my health unsettled. I +will, however, resolve on nothing. I will take a voyage to the +Continent in spring, enlarge my knowledge and repose my purse. Change +of place may turn the course of these ideas, and external objects +supply the room of internal felicity. If he follow me, I may reject +or receive at pleasure the addresses of a man who follows on _no +explicit promise_, nor much probability of success, for I would +really wish to marry no more without the consent of my children (such +I mean as are qualified to give their opinions); and how should _Miss +Thrales_ approve of my marrying _Mr. Piozzi_? Here then I rest, and +will torment my mind no longer, but commit myself, as he advises, to +the hand of Providence, and all will end _all' ottima perfezzione_. + +"Written at Streatham, 1st October, 1782." + +[Footnote 1: _Note by Mrs. Piozzi_: "He was half a year _older_ when +our registers were both examined."] + +"_October, 1782._--There is no mercy for me in this island. I am more +and more disposed to try the continent. One day the paper rings with +my marriage to Johnson, one day to Crutchley, one day to Seward. I +give no reason for such impertinence, but cannot deliver myself from +it. Whitbred, the rich brewer, is in love with me too; oh, I would +rather, as Ann Page says, be set breast deep in the earth[1] and +bowled to death with turnips. + +"Mr. Crutchley bid me make a curtsey to my daughters for keeping me +out of a goal (_sic_), and the newspapers insolent as he! How shall I +get through? How shall I get through? I have not deserved it of any +of them, as God knows. + +"Philip Thicknesse put it about Bath that I was a poor girl, a mantua +maker, when Mr. Thrale married me. It is an odd thing, but Miss +Thrales like, I see, to have it believed." + +[Footnote 1: Anne Page says, "quick in the earth."] + +The general result down to this point is that, whatever the +disturbance in Mrs. Thrale's heart and mind, Johnson had no ground of +complaint, nor ever thought he had, which is the essential point in +controversy. In other words, he was not driven, hinted, or manoeuvred +out of Streatham. Yet almost all his worshippers have insisted that +he was. Hawkins, after mentioning the kind offices undertaken by +Johnson (which constantly took him to Streatham) says:--"Nevertheless +it was observed by myself, and other of Johnson's friends, that soon +after the decease of Mr. Thrale, his visits to Streatham became less +and less frequent, and that he studiously avoided the mention of the +place or the family." This statement is preposterous, and is only to +be partially accounted for by the fact that Hawkins, as his daughter +informs us, had no personal acquaintance with Mrs. Thrale or +Streatham. Boswell, who was in Scotland when Johnson and Mrs. Thrale +left Streatham together, gratuitously infers that he left it alone, +angry and mortified, in consequence of her altered manner: + +"The death of Mr. Thrale had made a very material alteration with +respect to Johnson's reception in that family. The manly authority of +the husband no longer curbed the lively exuberance of the lady; and +as her vanity had been fully gratified, by having the Colossus of +Literature attached to her for many years, she gradually became less +assiduous to please him. Whether her attachment to him was already +divided by another object, I am unable to ascertain; but it is plain +that Johnson's penetration was alive to her neglect or forced +attention; for on the 6th of October this year we find him making a +'parting use of the library' at Streatham, and pronouncing a prayer +which he composed on leaving Mr. Thrale's family. + +"'Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by Thy grace, that I +may, with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and +conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may +resign them with holy submission, equally trusting in Thy protection +when Thou givest, and when Thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, O +Lord! have mercy upon me! To Thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I +commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so +pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in Thy presence +everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.' + +"One cannot read this prayer without some emotions not very +favourable to the lady whose conduct occasioned it. + +"The next day, he made the following memorandum: + +"'_October 7._--I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used +the foregoing prayer, with my morning devotions somewhat, I think, +enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell +in the Acts, and then read fortuitously in the Gospels,--which was my +parting use of the library.'" + +Mr. Croker, whose protest against the groundless insinuations of +Boswell should have put subsequent writers on their guard, states in +a note:--"He seems to have taken leave of the kitchen as well as the +church at Streatham in Latin." The note of his last dinner there, +done into English, would run thus: + +"Oct. 6th, Sunday, 1782. + +"I dined at Streatham on boiled leg of lamb, with spinach, the +stuffing of flour and raisins, round of beef, and turkey poult; and +after the meat service, figs, grapes, not yet ripe in consequence of +the bad season, with peaches, also hard. I took my place at table in +no joyful mood, and partook of the food moderately, lest I should +finish by intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the +funeral of Hadon came into my mind.[1] When shall I revisit +Streatham?" + +[Footnote 1: "Si recte memini in mentem venerunt epulæ in exequiis +Hadoni celebratæ." I cannot explain this allusion.] + +The exclamation "When shall I revisit Streatham?" loses much of its +pathos when connected with these culinary details. + +Madame D'Arblay's description of the last year at Streatham is too +important to be much abridged: + +"Dr. Burney, _when the Cecilian business was arranged_[1], again +conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. No further reluctance on his +part, nor exhortations on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her +from that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had so +recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. And truly eager was +her own haste, when mistress of her time, to try once more to soothe +those sorrows and chagrins in which she had most largely +participated, by answering to the call, which had never ceased +tenderly to pursue her, of return. + +"With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, they re-entered +the Streatham gates--but they soon perceived that they found not what +they had left! + +"Changed, indeed, was Streatham! Gone its chief, and changed his +relict! unaccountably, incomprehensibly, indefinably changed! She was +absent and agitated; not two minutes could she remain in a place; she +scarcely seemed to know whom she saw; her speech was so hurried it +was hardly intelligible; her eyes were assiduously averted from those +who sought them; and her smiles were faint and forced." + +[Footnote 1: This may mean when the arrangements were made for the +publication, or when the book was published. It was published about +the beginning of June, 1782.] + +"The mystery, however, soon ceased; the solicitations of the most +affectionate sympathy could not long be urged in vain;--the mystery +passed away--not so the misery! That, when revealed, was but to both +parties doubled, from the different feelings set in movement by its +disclosure. + +"The astonishing history of the enigmatical attachment which impelled +Mrs. Thrale to her second marriage, is now as well known as her name: +but its details belong not to the history of Dr. Burney; though the +fact too deeply interested him, and was too intimately felt in his +social habits, to be passed over in silence in any memoirs of his +life. + +"But while ignorant yet of its cause, more and more struck he became +at every meeting, by a species of general alienation which pervaded +all around at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had seemed +galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and ended almost without notice: +and all others,--Dr. Johnson not excepted,--were cast into the same +gulph of general neglect, or forgetfulness;--all,--save singly this +Memorialist!--to whom, the fatal secret once acknowledged, Mrs. +Thrale clung for comfort; though she saw, and generously pardoned, +how wide she was from meeting approbation. + +"In this retired, though far from tranquil manner, _passed many +months; during which_, with the acquiescent consent of the Doctor, +his daughter, wholly devoted to her unhappy friend, _remained +uninterruptedly at sad and altered Streatham;_ sedulously avoiding, +what at other times she most wished, a _tête-à-tête_ with her father. +Bound by ties indissoluble of honour not to betray a trust that, in +the ignorance of her pity, she had herself unwittingly sought, even +to him she was as immutably silent, on this subject, as to all +others--save, singly, to the eldest daughter of the house: whose +conduct, through scenes of dreadful difficulty, notwithstanding her +extreme youth, was even exemplary; and to whom the self-beguiled, yet +generous mother, gave full and free permission to confide every +thought and feeling to the Memorialist." + + * * * * * + +"Various incidental circumstances began, at length, to open the +reluctant eyes of Dr. Burney to an impelled, though clouded +foresight, of the portentous event which might latently be the cause +of the alteration of all around at Streatham. He then naturally +wished for some explanation with his daughter, though he never +forced, or even claimed her confidence; well knowing, that +voluntarily to give it him had been her earliest delight. + +"But in taking her home with him one morning, to pass a day in St. +Martin's Street, he almost involuntarily, in driving from the +paddock, turned back his head towards the house, and, in a tone the +most impressive, sighed out: 'Adieu, Streatham!--Adieu!'" + + * * * * * + +"_A few weeks earlier_, the Memorialist had passed a nearly similar +scene with Dr. Johnson. Not, however, she believes, from the same +formidable species of surmise; but from the wounds inflicted upon his +injured sensibility, through the palpably altered looks, tone, and +deportment, of the bewildered lady of the mansion; who, cruelly aware +what would be his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches against +her projected union, wished to break up their residing under the same +roof before it should be proclaimed. + +"This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. Johnson, a sort of +restless petulancy, of which she was sometimes hardly conscious, at +others, nearly reckless; but which hurt him far more than she +purposed, _though short of the point at which she aimed_, of +precipitating a change of dwelling that would elude its being cast, +either by himself or the world, upon a passion that her understanding +blushed to own, even while she was sacrificing to it all of inborn +dignity that she had been bred to hold most sacred. + +"Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entanglement it was +impossible he should conjecture, attributed her varying humours to +the effect of wayward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward power: +and imagined that caprices, which he judged to be partly feminine, +_and partly wealthy_, would soberise themselves away in being +unnoticed." + +"But at length, as she became more and more dissatisfied with her own +situation, and impatient for its relief, she grew less and less +scrupulous with regard to her celebrated guest: she slighted his +counsel; did not heed his remonstrances; avoided his society; was +ready at a moment's hint to lend him her carriage when he wished to +return to Bolt Court; but awaited a formal request to accord it for +bringing him back. + +"The Doctor then began to be stung; his own aspect became altered; +and depression, with indignant uneasiness, sat upon his venerable +front. + +"It was at this moment that, finding the Memorialist was going one +morning to St. Martin's Street, he desired a cast thither in the +carriage, and then to be set down at Bolt Court. + +"Aware of his disturbance, and far too well aware how short it was of +what it would become when the cause of all that passed should be +detected, it was in trembling that the Memorialist accompanied him to +the coach, filled with dread of offending him by any reserve, should +he force upon her any inquiry; and yet impressed with the utter +impossibility of betraying a trusted secret. + +"His look was stern, though dejected, as he followed her into the +vehicle; but when his eye, which, however short-sighted, was quick to +mental perception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, all +sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest +emotion, that seemed to claim her sympathy, though to revolt from her +compassion; while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he +directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and, +when they faced it from the coach window, as they turned into +Streatham Common, tremulously exclaiming: 'That house ... is lost to +_me_--for ever!' + +"During a moment he then fixed upon her an interrogative eye, that +impetuously demanded: 'Do you not perceive the change I am +experiencing?' + +"A sorrowing sigh was her only answer. + +"Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave her to her +taciturnity. + +"He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or to bear any other +subject; and neither of them uttered a single word till the coach +stopt in St. Martin's Street, and the house and the carriage door +were opened for their separation! He then suddenly and expressively +looked at her, abruptly grasped her hand, and, with an air of +affection, though in a low, husky voice, murmured rather than said: +'Good morning, dear lady!' but turned his head quickly away, to avoid +any species of answer." + +"She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquiescence in her declining +the confidential discourse upon which he had indubitably meant to +open, relative to this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort +to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere +participation in his feelings; while he allowed for the grateful +attachment that bound her to a friend so loved; who, to her at least, +still manifested a fervour of regard that resisted all change; alike +from this new partiality, and from the undisguised, and even +strenuous opposition of the Memorialist to its indulgence." + +The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, by his daughter, published in 1832, +together with her Diary and Letters, supplied the materials of Lord +Macaulay's celebrated article on Madame D'Arblay in the "Edinburgh +Review" for January, 1843, since reprinted amongst his Essays. He +describes the Memoirs as a book "which it is impossible to read +without a sensation made up of mirth, shame, and loathing," and +adds:--"The two works are lying side by side before us; and we never +turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without a sense of relief. The +difference is as great as the difference between the atmosphere of a +perfumer's shop, scented with lavender water and jasmine soap, and +the air of a heath on a fine morning in May."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Critical and Historical Essays (one volume edition), +1851, p. 652. The Memoirs were composed between 1828 and 1832, more +than forty years after the occurrence of the scenes I have quoted +from them.] + +The passages I have quoted amply establish the justice of this +comparison, for they are utterly irreconcileable with the unvarnished +statements of the Diary; from which we learn that "Cecilia" was +published about the beginning of June, when Johnson was absent from +Streatham; that the Diarist had left Streatham prior to August 12th, +and did not return to it again that year. How could she have passed +many months there after she was entrusted with the great secret, +which (as stated in "Thraliana") she only guessed in September or +October? + +How again could Johnson have attributed Mrs. Thrale's conduct to +caprices "partly wealthy," when he knew that one main source of her +troubles was pecuniary; or how can his alleged sense of ill-treatment +be reconciled with his own letters? That he groaned over the terrible +disturbance of his habits involved in the abandonment of Streatham, +is likely enough; but as the only words he uttered were, "That house +is lost to _me_ for ever," and "Good morning, dear lady," the +accompanying look is about as safe a foundation for a theory of +conduct or feeling as Lord Burleigh's famous nod in "The Critic." The +philosopher was at this very time an inmate of Streatham, and +probably returned that same evening to register a sample of its +hospitality. At all events, we know that, spite of hints and +warnings, sighs and groans, he stuck to Streatham to the last; and +finally left it with Mrs. Thrale, as a member of her family, to +reside in her house at Brighton, as her guest, for six weeks.[1] To +talk of conscious ill-treatment or wounded dignity, in the teeth of +facts like these, is laughable. + +[Footnote 1: The Edinburgh reviewer says, "Johnson went in Oct. 1782 +from Streatham to Brighton, where he lived a kind of boarding-house +life;" and adds, "he was not asked out into company with his +fellow-lodgers." The Thrales had a handsome furnished house at +Brighton, which is mentioned both in the Correspondence and +Autobiography. + +It is amusing enough to watch these attempts to shade away the +ruinous effect of the Brighton trip on Lord Macaulay's Streatham +pathos.] + +Madame D'Arblay joined the party as Mrs. Thrale's guest on the 26th +October, and on the 28th she writes: + +"At dinner, we had Dr. Delap and Mr. Selwyn, who accompanied us in +the evening to a ball; as did also Dr. Johnson, to the universal +amazement of all who saw him there:--but he said he had found it so +dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon +going with us: 'for,' he said, 'it cannot be worse than being alone.' +Strange that he should think so! I am sure I am not of his mind." + +On the 29th, she records that Johnson behaved very rudely to Mr. +Pepys, and fairly drove him from the house. The entry for November +10th is remarkable:--"We spent this evening at Lady De Ferrars, where +Dr. Johnson accompanied us, for the first time he has been invited of +our parties since my arrival." On the 20th November, she tells us +that Mrs. and the three Miss Thrales and herself got up early to +bathe. "We then returned home, and dressed by candle-light, and, _as +soon as we could get Dr. Johnson ready_, we set out upon our journey +in a coach and a chaise, and arrived in Argyll Street at dinner time. +Mrs. Thrale has there fixed her tent for this short winter, which +will end with the beginning of April, when her foreign journey takes +place." + +One incident of this Brighton trip is mentioned in the "Anecdotes": + +"We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in +November 1782, of some people skaiting, with these lines written +under: + + 'Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas, + Le precipice est sous la glace; + Telle est de nos plaisirs la légère surface, + Glissez, mortels; n'appuyez pas.' + +"And I begged translations from every body: Dr. Johnson gave me this: + + 'O'er ice the rapid skater flies, + With sport above and death below; + Where mischief lurks in gay disguise, + Thus lightly touch and quickly go.' + +"He was, however, most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the +course of the season I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the +same thing; and said, it was a piece of treachery, and done to make +every body else look little when compared to my favourite friends the +_Pepyses_, whose translations were unquestionably the best."[1] + +[Footnote 1: By Sir Lucas: + + "O'er the ice, as o'er pleasure, you lightly should glide, + Both have gulphs which their flattering surfaces hide." + +By Sir William: + + "Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide, + And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go: + Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide, + But pause not, press not on the gulph below."] + +Madame D'Arblay's Diary describes the outward and visible state of +things at Brighton. "Thraliana" lays bare the internal history, the +struggles of the understanding and the heart: + +"At Brighthelmstone, whither I went when I left Streatham, 7th +October 1782, I heard this comical epigram about the Irish +Volunteers: + + "'There's not one of us all, my brave boys, but would rather + Do ought than offend great King George our good father; + But our country, you know, my dear lads, is our _mother_, + And that is a much surer side than the other.'" + +"I had looked ill, or perhaps appeared to feel so much, that my +eldest daughter would, out of tenderness perhaps, force me to an +explanation. I could, however, have evaded it if I would; but my +heart was bursting, and partly from instinctive desire of unloading +it--partly, I hope, from principle, too--I called her into my room +and fairly told her the truth; told her the strength of my passion +for Piozzi, the impracticability of my living without him, the +opinion I had of his merit, and the resolution I had taken to marry +him. Of all this she could not have been ignorant before. I confessed +my attachment to him and her together with many tears and agonies one +day at Streatham; told them both that I wished I had two hearts for +their sakes, but having only one I would break it between them, and +give them each _ciascheduno la metà!_ After that conversation she +consented to go abroad with me, and even appointed the place (Lyons), +to which Piozzi meant to follow us. He and she talked long together +on the subject; yet her never mentioning it again made me fear she +was not fully apprized of my intent, and though her concurrence might +have been more easily obtained when left only to my influence in a +distant country, where she would have had no friend to support her +different opinion--yet I scorned to take such mean advantage, and +told her my story _now_, with the winter before her in which to take +her measures--her guardians at hand--all displeased at the journey: +and to console her private distress I called into the room to her my +own bosom friend, my beloved Fanny Burney, whose interest as well as +judgment goes all against my marriage; whose skill in life and +manners is superior to that of any man or woman in this age or +nation; whose knowledge of the world, ingenuity of expedient, +delicacy of conduct, and zeal in the cause, will make her a +counsellor invaluable, and leave me destitute of every comfort, of +every hope, of every expectation. + +"Such are the hands to which I have cruelly committed thy cause--my +honourable, ardent, artless Piozzi!! Yet I should not deserve the +union I desire with the most disinterested of all human hearts, had I +behaved with less generosity, or endeavoured to gain by cunning what +is withheld by prejudice. Had I set my heart upon a scoundrel, I +might have done virtuously to break it and get loose; but the man I +love, I love for his honesty, for his tenderness of heart, his +dignity of mind, his piety to God, his duty to his mother, and his +delicacy to me. In being united to this man only can I be happy in +this world, and short will be my stay in it, if it is not passed with +him." + +"_Brighthelmstone, 16th November 1782_.--For him I have been +contented to reverse the laws of nature, and request of my child that +concurrence which, at my age and a widow, I am not required either by +divine or human institutions to ask even of a parent. The life I gave +her she may now more than repay, only by agreeing to what she will +with difficulty prevent; and which, if she does prevent, will give +her lasting remorse; for those who stab _me_ shall hear me groan: +whereas if she will--but how can she?--gracefully or even +compassionately consent; if she will go abroad with me upon the +chance of his death or mine preventing our union, and live with me +till she is of age-- ... perhaps there is no heart so callous by +avarice, no soul so poisoned by prejudice, no head so feather'd by +foppery, that will forbear to excuse her when she returns to the rich +and the gay--for having saved the life of a mother thro' compliance, +extorted by anguish, contrary to the received opinions of the world." + +"_Brighthelmstone, 19th November, 1782_.--What is above written, +though intended only to unload my heart by writing it, I shewed in a +transport of passion to Queeney and to Burney. Sweet Fanny Burney +cried herself half blind over it; said there was no resisting such +pathetic eloquence, and that, if she was the daughter instead of the +friend, she should be tempted to attend me to the altar; but that, +while she possessed her reason, nothing should seduce her to approve +what reason itself would condemn: that children, religion, situation, +country, and character--besides the diminution of fortune by the +certain loss of 800_l._ a year, were too much to sacrifice for any +_one man_. If, however, I were resolved to make the sacrifice, _a la +bonne heure!_ it was an astonishing proof of an attachment very +difficult for mortal man to repay." + +"I will talk no more about it." + +What comes next was written in London: + +"_Nov. 27, 1782_.--I have given my Piozzi some hopes--dear, generous, +prudent, noble-minded creature; he will hardly permit himself to +believe it ever can be--_come quei promessi miracoli_, says he, _che +non vengono mai_. For rectitude of mind and native dignity of soul I +never saw his fellow." + +"_Dec. 1, 1782_.--The guardians have met upon the scheme of putting +our girls in Chancery. I was frighted at the project, not doubting +but the Lord Chancellor would stop us from leaving England, as he +would certainly see no joke in three young heiresses, his wards, +quitting the kingdom to frisk away with their mother into Italy: +besides that I believe Mr. Crutchley proposed it merely for a +stumbling-block to my journey, as he cannot bear to have Hester out +of his sight. + +"Nobody much applauded my resolution in going, but Johnson and Cator +said they would not concur in stopping me by violence, and Crutchley +was forced to content himself with intending to put the ladies under +legal protection as soon as we should be across the sea. This measure +I much applaud, for if I die or marry in Italy their fortunes will be +safer in Chancery than any how else. Cator[1] said _I_ had a right to +say that going to Italy would benefit the children as much as _they_ +had to say it would _not_; but I replied that as I really did not +mean anything but my own private gratification by the voyage, nothing +should make me say I meant _their_ good by it; and that it would be +like saying I eat roast beef to mend my daughters' complexions. The +result of all is that we certainly _do go_. I will pick up what +knowledge and pleasure I can here this winter to divert myself, and +perhaps my _compagno fidele_ in distant climes and future times, with +the recollection of England and its inhabitants, all which I shall be +happy and content to leave _for him_." + +[Footnote 1: _Note by Mrs. T.:_ "Cator said likewise that the +attorney's bill ought to be paid by the ladies as a bill of Mr. +Thrale's, but I replied that perhaps I might marry and give my estate +away, and if so it would be unjust that they should pay the bill +which related to that estate only. Besides, if I should leave it to +Hester, says I, ... why should Susan and Sophy and Cecilia and +Harriet pay the lawyer's bill for their sister's land? He agreed to +this plea, and I will live on bread and water, but I will pay Norris +myself. 'Tis but being a better huswife in pins."] + +Madame D'Arblay writes, Friday, December 27th, 1782: + +"I dined with Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson, who was very comic and +good-humoured.... Mrs. Thrale, who was to have gone with me to Mrs. +Orde's, gave up her visit in order to stay with Dr. Johnson. Miss +Thrale, therefore, and I went together." + +I return to "Thraliana": + +"_January_, 1783.--A fit of jealousy seized me the other day: some +viper had stung me up to a notion that my Piozzi was fond of a Miss +Chanon. I call'd him gently to account, and after contenting myself +with slight excuses, told him that, whenever we married, I should, +however, desire to see as little as possible of the lady _chez +nous_." + +There is a large gap in "Thraliana" just in the most interesting part +of the story of her parting with Piozzi in 1783, and his recall. + +"_January 29, 1783_.--Adieu to all that's dear, to all that's lovely; +I am parted from my life, my soul, my Piozzi. If I can get health and +strength to write my story here, 'tis all I wish for now--oh misery! +[Here are four pages missing.] The cold dislike of my eldest daughter +I thought might wear away by familiarity with his merit, and that we +might live tolerably together, or, at least, part friends--but no; +her aversion increased daily, and she communicated it to the others; +they treated _me_ insolently, and _him_ very strangely--running away +whenever he came as if they saw a serpent--and plotting with their +governess--a cunning Italian--how to invent lyes to make me hate him, +and twenty such narrow tricks. By these means the notion of my +partiality took air, and whether Miss Thrale sent him word slily or +not I cannot tell, but on the 25th January, 1783, Mr. Crutchley came +hither to conjure me not to go to Italy; he had heard such things, he +said, and by _means_ next to _miraculous_. The next day, Sunday, +26th, Fanny Burney came, said I must marry him instantly or give him +up; that my reputation would be lost else. + +"I actually groaned with anguish, threw myself on the bed in an agony +which my fair daughter beheld with frigid indifference. She had +indeed never by one tender word endeavoured to dissuade me from the +match, but said, coldly, that if I _would_ abandon my children I +_must_; that their father had not deserved such treatment from me; +that I should be punished by Piozzi's neglect, for that she knew he +hated me; and that I turned out my offspring to chance for his sake, +like puppies in a pond to swim or drown according as Providence +pleased; that for her part she must look herself out a place like the +other servants, for my face would she never see more.' 'Nor write to +me?' said I. 'I shall not, madam,' replied she with a cold sneer, +'easily find out your address; for you are going you know not +whither, I believe.' + +"Susan and Sophy said nothing at all, but they taught the two young +ones to cry 'Where are you going, mama? will you leave us and die as +our poor papa did?' There was no standing _that_., so I wrote my +lover word that my mind was all distraction, and bid him come to me +the next morning, 27th January--my birthday--and spent the Sunday +night in torture not to be described. My falsehood to my Piozzi, my +strong affection for him, the incapacity I felt in myself to resign +the man I so adored, the hopes I had so cherished, inclined me +strongly to set them all at defiance, and go with him to church to +sanctify the promises I had so often made him; while the idea of +abandoning the children of my first husband, who left me so nobly +provided for, and who depended on my attachment to his offspring, +awakened the voice of conscience, and threw me on my knees to pray +for _His_ direction who was hereafter to judge my conduct. His grace +illuminated me, His power strengthened me, and I flew to my +daughter's bed in the morning and told her my resolution to resign my +own, my dear, my favourite purpose, and to prefer my children's +interest to my love. She questioned my ability to make the sacrifice; +said one word from him would undo all my--[Here two pages are +missing]. + +"I told Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley three days ago that I had +determined--seeing them so averse to it--that I would not go abroad, +but that, if I did not leave England, I _would_ leave London, where I +had not been treated to my mind, and where I had flung away much +unnecessary money with little satisfaction; that I was greatly in +debt, and somewhat like distress'd: that borrowing was always bad, +but of one's children worst: that Mr. Crutchley's objection to their +lending me their money when I had a mortgage to offer as security, +was unkind and harsh: that I would go live in a little way at Bath +till I had paid all my debts and cleared my income: that I would no +more be tyrannized over by people who hated or people who plundered +me, in short that I would retire and save my money and lead this +uncomfortable life no longer. They made little or no reply, and I am +resolved to do as I declared. I will draw in my expenses, lay by +every shilling I can to pay off debts and mortgages, and perhaps--who +knows? I may in six or seven years be freed from all incumbrances, +and carry a clear income of 2500_l._ a year and an estate of 500_l._ +in land to the man of my heart. May I but live to discharge my +obligations to those who _hate me_; it will be paradise to discharge +them to him who _loves me_." + +"_April, 1783_.--I will go to Bath: nor health, nor strength, nor my +children's affections, have I. My daughter does not, I suppose, much +delight in this scheme [viz, retrenchment of expenses and removal to +Bath], but why should I lead a life of delighting her, who would not +lose a shilling of interest or an ounce of pleasure to save my life +from perishing? When I was near losing my existence from the +contentions of my mind, and was seized with a temporary delirium in +Argyll Street, she and her two eldest sisters laughed at my distress, +and observed to dear Fanny Burney, that it was _monstrous droll_. +_She_ could hardly suppress her indignation. + +"Piozzi was ill.... A sore throat, Pepys said it was, with four +ulcers in it: the people about me said it had been lanced, and I +mentioned it slightly before the girls.' Has he cut his own throat?' +says Miss Thrale in her quiet manner. This was less inexcusable +because she hated him, and the other was her sister; though, had she +exerted the good sense I thought her possessed of, she would not have +treated him so: had she adored, and fondled, and respected him as he +deserved from her hands, and from the heroic conduct he shewed in +January when he gave into her hands, that dismal day, all my letters +containing promises of marriage, protestations of love, &c., who +knows but she might have kept us separated? But never did she once +caress or thank me, never treat him with common civility, except on +the very day which gave her hopes of our final parting. Worth while +to be sure it was, to break one's heart for her! The other two are, +however, neither wiser nor kinder; all swear by her I believe, and +follow her footsteps exactly. Mr. Thrale had not much heart, but his +fair daughters have none at all."[1] + +[Footnote 1: This is the very accusation they brought against her.] + +Johnson was not called in to counsel on these matters of the heart, +but he was not cast off or neglected. Madame D'Arblay lands him in +Argyll Street on the 20th November, 1782. We hear of him at Mrs. +Thrale's house or in her company repeatedly from Madame D'Arblay and +Dr. Lort. "Johnson," writes Dr. Lort, January 28th, 1783, "is much +better. I saw him the other evening at Madame Thrale's in very good +spirits." Boswell says: + +"On Friday, March 21, (1783) having arrived in London the night +before, I was glad to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house, in Argyle +Street, appearances of friendship between them being still kept up. I +was shown into his room; and after the first salutation he said, 'I +am glad you are come; I am very ill'.... + +"He sent a message to acquaint Mrs. Thrale that I was arrived. I had +not seen her since her husband's death. She soon appeared, and +favoured me with an invitation to stay to dinner, which I accepted. +There was no other company but herself and three of her daughters, +Dr. Johnson, and I. She too said she was very glad I was come; for +she was going to Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. +Johnson before I came. This seemed to be attentive and kind; and I, +_who had not been informed of any change, imagined all to be as well +as formerly_. He was little inclined to talk at dinner, and went to +sleep after it; but when he joined us in the drawing-room he seemed +revived, and was again himself." + +This is quite decisive so far as Boswell is concerned, and disposes +at once of all his preceding insinuations to her disadvantage. He had +not seen her before since Thrale's death; and now, finding them +together and jealously scrutinising their tone and manner towards +each, he imagined all to be as well as formerly.[1] That they were on +the point of living apart, and of keeping up their habitual +interchange of mind exclusively by letters, is no proof that either +was capriciously or irrecoverably estranged. + +[Footnote 1: "Now on March 21, 1783, fifteen months before the +marriage in question, Boswell speaks of the severance of the old +friendship as effected: 'appearances of friendship,' he says, 'were +still maintained between them.' Boswell was at feud with the lady +when he wrote, as we all know. But his evidence is surely sufficient +as to the fact of the rupture, though not as to its causes."--_(Edin. +Rev._ p. 510.) Boswell's concluding evidence, that to the best of his +knowledge and observation, there was no change or rupture, is +suppressed!] + +The pleasures of intimacy in friendship depend far more on external +circumstances than people of a sentimental turn of mind are willing +to concede; and when constant companionship ceases to suit the +convenience of both parties, the chances are that it will be dropped +on the first favourable opportunity. Admiration, esteem, or affection +may continue to be felt for one whom, from altered habits or new +ties, we can no longer receive as an inmate or an established member +of the family. Johnson was now in his seventy-fourth year, haunted by +the fear of death, and fond of dwelling nauseously on his ailments +and proposed remedies. From what passed at Brighton, it would seem +that there were moods in which he was positively unbearable, and +could not be received in a house without driving every one else out +of it. In a roomy mansion like Streatham he might be endured, because +he could be kept out of the way; but in an ordinary town-house or +small establishment, such a guest would resemble an elephant in a +private menagerie. + +There is also a very great difference, when arrangements are to be +made for the domestication of a male visitor, between a family with a +male head, and one consisting exclusively of females. Let any widow +with daughters make the case her own, and imagine herself +domesticated in Argyll or Harley Street with the lexicographer. The +manly authority of Thrale was required to keep Johnson in order quite +as much as to steady the imputed flightiness of the lady; and his +idolaters must really remember that she was a sentient being, with +feelings and affections which she was fully entitled to consult in +arranging her scheme of life. When Lord Macaulay and his school +tacitly assume that these are to weigh as dust in the balance against +the claims of learning, they argue like sundry upholders of the +temporal sovereignty of the Pope, who contend that his subjects +should complacently endure any amount of oppression rather than +endanger (what they deem) the vital interests of the Church. When it +is maintained that the discomfort was amply repaid by the glory he +conferred, we are reminded of what the Strasbourg goose undergoes for +fame: "Crammed with food, deprived of drink, and fixed near a great +fire, before which it is nailed with its feet upon a plank, this +goose passes, it must be owned, an uncomfortable life. The torment +would indeed be intolerable, if the idea of the lot which awaits him +did not serve as a consolation. But when he reflects that his liver, +bigger than himself, loaded with truffles, and clothed in a +scientific _patè_, will, through the instrumentality of M. Corcellet, +diffuse all over Europe the glory of his name, he resigns himself to +his destiny, and suffers not a tear to flow."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Almanach des Gourmands.] + +Her case for a separation _de corps_ is thus stated in the "Anecdotes +": + +"All these exactnesses in a man who was nothing less than exact +himself, made him extremely impracticable as an inmate, though most +instructive as a companion, and useful as a friend. Mr. Thrale too +could sometimes overrule his rigidity, by saying coldly, 'There, +there, now we have had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson, we will +not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you please,'--or +some such speech; but when there was nobody to restrain his dislikes, +it was extremely difficult to find any body with whom he could +converse, without living always on the verge of a quarrel, or of +something too like a quarrel to be pleasing. I came into the room, +for example, one evening, where he and a gentleman, whose abilities +we all respected exceedingly, were sitting; a lady who had walked in +two minutes before me had blown 'em both into a flame, by whispering +something to Mr. S----d, which he endeavoured to explain away, so as +not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. 'And have +a care, Sir,' said he, just as I came in; 'the old lion will not bear +to be tickled.'[1] The other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the +confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth, + + 'So! you've displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting + With most admir'd disorder.' + +"Such accidents, however, occurred too often, and I was forced to +take advantage of my lost lawsuit, and plead inability of purse to +remain longer in London or its vicinage. I had been crossed in my +intentions of going abroad, and found it convenient, for every reason +of health, peace, and pecuniary circumstances, to retire to Bath, +where I knew Mr. Johnson would not follow me, and where I could for +that reason command some little portion of time for my own use; a +thing impossible while I remained at Streatham or at London, as my +hours, carriage, and servants, had long been at his command, who +would not rise in the morning till twelve o'clock perhaps, and oblige +me to make breakfast for him till the bell rung for dinner, though +much displeased if the toilet was neglected, and though much of the +time we passed together was spent in blaming or deriding, very +justly, my neglect of economy, and waste of that money which might +make many families happy. The original reason of our connexion, his +_particularly disordered health and spirits_[2], had been long at an +end, and he had no other ailments than old age and general infirmity, +which every professor of medicine was ardently zealous and generally +attentive to palliate, and to contribute all in their power for the +prolongation of a life so valuable. + +"Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his +conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put +upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or +seventeen years, made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson; but the +perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in the first +years of our friendship, and irksome in the last, nor could I pretend +to support it without help, when my coadjutor was no more. To the +assistance we gave him, the shelter our house afforded to his uneasy +fancies, and to the pains we took to soothe or repress them, the +world perhaps is indebted for the three political pamphlets, the new +edition and correction of his Dictionary, and for the Poets' Lives, +which he would scarce have lived, I think, and kept his faculties +entire, to have written, had not incessant care been exerted at the +time of his first coming to be our constant guest in the country; and +several times after that, when he found himself particularly +oppressed with diseases incident to the most vivid and fervent +imaginations. I shall for ever consider it as the greatest honour +which could be conferred on any one, to have been the confidential +friend of Dr. Johnson's health; and to have in some measure, with Mr. +Thrale's assistance, saved from distress at least, if not from worse, +a mind great beyond the comprehension of common mortals and good +beyond all hope of imitation from perishable beings." + +[Footnote 1: This must be the quarrel between Johnson and Seward at +which Miss Streatfield cried. _(Antè,_ p. 116.)] + +[Footnote 2: These words are underlined in the manuscript.] + +This was written in Italy in 1785, when, painfully alive to the +insults heaped upon her on Johnson's account, she may be excused for +dwelling on what she had endured for his sake. But if, as may be +inferred from her statement, some of the cordiality shewn him during +the palmy days of their intimacy was forced, this rather enhances +than lessens the merit of her services, which thus become elevated +into sacrifices. The question is not how she uniformly felt, but how +she uniformly behaved to him; and the fact of her being obliged to +retire to Bath to get out of his way proves that there had been no +rupture, no coolness, no serious offence given or taken on either +side, up to April, 1783; just one year-and-a-half after the alleged +expulsion from Streatham. + +There were ample avowable reasons for her retirement, and no +suspicion could have crossed Johnson's mind that he was an +incumbrance, or he would not have been found at her house by Boswell, +as he was found on the 21st March, 1783, when she said "she was going +to Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. Johnson before I +came." Considering the heart-rending struggle in which she was +engaged at this time, with the aggravated infliction of an +unsympathising and dogmatic friend, the wonder is how she retained +her outward placidity at all. + +"_Sunday Morning, 6th April_, 1783.--I have been very busy preparing +to go to Bath and save my money; the Welch settlement has been +examined and rewritten by Cator's desire in such a manner that a will +can revoke it or charge the estate, or anything. I signed my +settlement yesterday, and, before I slept, wrote my will, charging +the estate with pretty near _3000l_. But what signifies it? My +daughters deserve no thanks from my tenderness and they want no +pecuniary help from my purse--let me provide in some measure, for my +dear, my absent Piozzi.--God give me strength to part with him +courageously.--I expect him every instant to breakfast with me for +the _last time_.--Gracious Heavens, what words are these! Oh no, for +mercy may we but meet again! and without diminished kindness. Oh my +love, my love! + +"We did meet and part courageously. I persuaded him to bring his old +friend Mecci, who goes abroad with him and has long been his +confidant, to keep the meeting from being too tender, the separation +from being too poignant--his presence was a restraint on our conduct, +and a witness of our vows, which we renewed with fervour, and will +keep sacred in absence, adversity, and age. When all was over I flew +to my dearest, loveliest friend, my Fanny Burney, and poured all my +sorrows into her tender bosom." + +"_Bath, April 14th, 1783._--Here I am, settled in my plan of economy, +with three daughters, three maids and a man," &c. + +Piozzi left England the night of the 8th May, 1783. + + "Come, friendly muse! some rhimes discover + With which to meet my dear at Dover, + Fondly to bless my wandering lover + And make him dote on dirty Dover. + Call each fair wind to waft him over, + Nor let him linger long at Dover, + But there from past fatigues recover, + And write his love some lines from Dover. + Too well he knows his skill to move her, + To meet him two years hence at Dover, + When happy with her handsome rover + She'll bless the day she din'd at Dover." + +"_Russell Street, Bath, Thursday, 8th May_, 1783.--I sent him these +verses to divert him on his passage. Dear angel! _this day_ he leaves +a nation to which he was sent for my felicity perhaps, I hope for his +own. May I live but to make him happy, and hear him say 'tis _me_ +that make him so!"-- + +In a note on the passage in which he states that Johnson studiously +avoided all mention of Streatham or the family after Thrale's death, +Hawkins says:--"It seems that between him and the widow there was a +formal taking of leave, for I find in his Diary the following note: +'1783, April 5th, I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I +had some expostulations with her. She said she was likewise affected. +I commended the Thrales with great good will to God; may my petitions +have been heard.'" This being the day before her parting interview +with Piozzi, no doubt she was much affected: and as the newspapers +had already taken up the topic of her engagement, the expostulations +probably referred to it. + +Preceding commentators were not bound to know what is now learned +from "Thraliana"; but they were bound to know what might always have +been learned from Johnson's printed letters; and the tone of these +from the separation in April, 1783, to the marriage in July, 1784, is +identically the same as at any period of the intimacy which can be +specified. There are the same warm expressions of regard, the same +gratitude for acknowledged kindness, the same alternations of hope +and disappointment, the same medical details, and the same reproaches +for silence or fancied coldness, in which he habitually indulged +towards all his female correspondents. Shew me a complaint or +reproach, and I will instantly match it with one from a period when +the intimacy was confessedly and notoriously at its height. If her +occasional explosions of irritability are to be counted, what +inference is to be drawn from Johnson's depreciatory remarks on her, +and indeed on everybody, so carefully treasured up by Hawkins and +Boswell? + +On June 13th, 1783, he writes to her: + +"Your last letter was very pleasing; it expressed kindness to me, and +some degree of placid acquiescence in your present mode of life, +_which is, I think, the best which is at present within your reach_. + +"My powers and attention have for a long time been almost wholly +employed upon my health, I hope not wholly without success, but +solitude is very tedious." + +She replies: + +"Bath, June 15th, 1783. + +"I believe it is too true, my dear Sir, that you think on little +except yourself and your own health, but then they are subjects on +which every one else would think too--and that is a great +consolation. + +"I am willing enough to employ all my thoughts upon _myself_, but +there is nobody here who wishes to think with or about me, so I am +very sick and a little sullen, and disposed now and then to say, like +king David, 'My lovers and my friends have been put away from me, and +my acquaintance hid out of my sight.' If the last letter I wrote +showed some degree of placid acquiescence in a situation, which, +however displeasing, is the best I can get at just now, I pray God to +keep me in that disposition, and to lay no more calamity upon me +which may again tempt me to murmur and complain. _In the meantime +assure yourself of my undiminished kindness and veneration: they have +been long out of accident's power either to lessen or increase."_.... + +"That _you_ should be solitary is a sad thing, and a strange one too, +when every body is willing to drop in, and for a quarter of an hour +at least, save you from a _tête-à-tête_ with yourself. I never could +catch a moment when you were alone whilst we were in London, and Miss +Thrale says the same thing." + +A few days afterwards, June 19th, he writes: + +"I am sitting down in no cheerful solitude to write a narrative which +would once have affected you with tenderness and sorrow, but which +you will perhaps pass over now with the careless glance of frigid +indifference. For this diminution of regard, however, I know not +whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot +know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of human +life done you what good I could, and have never done you evil." + +Two days before, he had suffered a paralytic stroke, and lost the +power of speech for a period. After minutely detailing his ailments +and their treatment by his medical advisers, he proceeds: + +"How this will be received by you I know not. I hope you will +sympathise with me; but perhaps + + "My mistress gracious, mild, and good, + Cries! Is he dumb? 'Tis time he should. + +"But can this be possible? I hope it cannot. I hope that what, when I +could speak, I spoke of you, and to you, will be in a sober and +serious hour remembered by you; and surely it cannot be remembered +but with some degree of kindness. I have loved you with virtuous +affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let not all our +endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great distress your +pity and your prayers. _You see, I yet turn to you with my complaints +as a settled and unalienable friend_; do not, do not drive me from +you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred. + +"O God! give me comfort and confidence in Thee; forgive my sins; and +if it be thy good pleasure, relieve my diseases for Jesus Christ's +sake. Amen. + +_"I am almost ashamed of this querulous letter, but now it is +written, let it go."_ + +The Edinburgh reviewer quotes the first paragraph of this letter to +prove Johnson's consciousness of change on her side, and omits all +mention of the passages in which he turns to her as "a settled and +unalienable friend," and apologises for his querulousness! + +Some time before (November 1782), she had written to him: + +"My health is growing very bad, to be sure. I will starve still more +rigidly for a while, and watch myself carefully; but more than six +months will I not bestow upon that subject; you shall not have in me +a valetudinary correspondent, _who is always writing such letters, +that to read the labels tied on bottles by an apothecary's boy would +be more eligible and amusing_; nor will I live, like Flavia in 'Law's +Serious Call,' who spends half her time and money on herself, with +sleeping draughts, and waking draughts, and cordials and broths. My +desire is always to determine against my own gratification, so far as +shall be possible for my body to co-operate with my mind, and you +will not suspect me of wearing blisters, and living wholly upon +vegetables for sport. If that will do, the disorder may be removed; +but if health is gone, and gone for ever, we will act as Zachary +Pearce the famous bishop of Rochester did, when he lost the wife he +loved so--call for one glass to the health of her who is departed, +never more to return--and so go quietly back to the usual duties of +life, and forbear to mention her again from that time till the last +day of it." + +Instead of acting on the same principle, he perseveres in addressing +his "ideal Urania" as if she had been a consulting physician: + +"London, June 20th, 1783. + +"DEAREST MADAM,--I think to send you for some time a regular diary. +You will forgive the gross images which disease must necessarily +present. Dr. Lawrence said that medical treatises should be always in +Latin. The two vesicatories did not perform well," &c. &c. + +"June 23, 1783. + +"_Your offer, dear Madam, of coming to me, is charmingly kind_; but I +will lay it up for future use, and then let it not be considered as +obsolete; _a time of dereliction may come, when I may have hardly any +other friend_, but in the present exigency I cannot name one who has +been deficient in civility or attention. What man can do for man has +been done for me. Write to me very often." + +That the offer was serious and heartfelt, is clear from "Thraliana": + +"_Bath, June 24th_, 1783.--A stroke of the palsy has robbed Johnson +of his speech, I hear. Dreadful event! and I at a distance. Poor +fellow! A letter from himself, _in his usual style_, convinces me +that none of his faculties have failed, and his physicians say that +all present danger is over." + +He writes: + +"June 24th, 1783. + +"Both Queeny's letter and yours gave me, to-day, great pleasure. +Think as well and as kindly of me as you can, but do not flatter me. +Cool reciprocations of esteem are the great comforts of life; +hyberbolical praise only corrupts the tongue of the one, and the ear +of the other." + +"June 28th, 1783. + +"Your letter is just such as I desire, and as from you I hope always +to deserve." + +Her own state of mind at this time may be collected from "Thraliana": + +"_June, _1783.--Most sincerely do I regret the sacrifice I have made +of health, happiness, and the society of a worthy and amiable +companion, to the pride and prejudice of three insensible girls, who +would see nature perish without concern ... were their gratification +the cause. + +"The two youngest have, for ought I see, hearts as impenetrable as +their sister. They will all starve a favourite animal--all see with +unconcern the afflictions of a friend; and when the anguish I +suffered on their account last winter, in Argyll Street, nearly took +away my life and reason, the younger ridiculed as a jest those +agonies which the eldest despised as a philosopher. When all is said, +they are exceeding valuable girls--beautiful in person, cultivated in +understanding, and well-principled in religion: high in their +notions, lofty in their carriage, and of intents equal to their +expectations; wishing to raise their own family by connections with +some more noble ... and superior to any feeling of tenderness which +might clog the wheels of ambition. What, however, is my state? who am +condemned to live with girls of this disposition? to teach without +authority; to be heard without esteem; to be considered by them as +their superior in fortune, while I live by the money borrowed from +them; and in good sense, when they have seen me submit my judgment to +theirs at the hazard of my life and wits. Oh, 'tis a pleasant +situation! and whoever would wish, as the Greek lady phrased it, to +teize himself and repent of his sins, let him borrow his children's +money, be in love against their interest and prejudice, forbear to +marry by their advice, and then shut himself up and live with +them."[1] + +[Footnote 1: After Buckingham had been some time married to Fairfax's +daughter, he said it was like marrying the devil's daughter and +keeping house with your father-in-law.] + +Is it possible to misconstrue such a letter as the following from +Johnson to her, now that the querulous and desponding tone of the +writer is familiar to us? + +"London, Nov. 13th, 1783. + +"DEAR MADAM,--Since you have written to me with the attention and +tenderness of ancient time, your letters give me a great part of the +pleasure which a life of solitude admits. You will never bestow any +share of your good-will on one who deserves better. Those that have +loved longest, love best. A sudden blaze of kindness may by a single +blast of coldness be extinguished, but that fondness which length of +time has connected with many circumstances and occasions, though it +may for a while be suppressed by disgust or resentment, with or +without a cause, is hourly revived by accidental recollection.[1] To +those that have lived long together, every thing heard and every +thing seen recals some pleasure communicated, or some benefit +conferred, some petty quarrel, or some slight endearment. Esteem of +great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered, may embroider a +day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with +the texture of life. A friend may be often found and lost, but an +_old friend_ never can be found, and Nature has provided that he +cannot easily be lost." + +[Footnote 1: + + "Yet, oh yet thyself deceive not: + Love may sink by slow decay, + But by sudden wrench believe not + Hearts can thus be torn away."--BYRON.] + +The date of the following scene, as described by Madame D'Arblay in +the "Memoirs," is towards the end of November, 1783: + +"Nothing had yet publicly transpired, with certainty or authority, +relative to the projects of Mrs. Thrale, who had now been nearly a +year at Bath[1]; though nothing was left unreported, or unasserted, +with respect to her proceedings. Nevertheless, how far Dr. Johnson +was himself informed, or was ignorant on the subject, neither Dr. +Burney nor his daughter could tell; and each equally feared to learn. + +"Scarcely an instant, however, was the latter left alone in Bolt +Court, ere she saw the justice of her long apprehensions; for while +she planned speaking upon some topic that might have a chance to +catch the attention of the Doctor, a sudden change from kind +tranquillity to strong austerity took place in his altered +countenance; and, startled and affrighted, she held her peace.... + +"Thus passed a few minutes, in which she scarcely dared breathe; +while the respiration of the Doctor, on the contrary, was of +asthmatic force and loudness; then, suddenly turning to her, with an +air of mingled wrath and woe, he hoarsely ejaculated: 'Piozzi!' + +"He evidently meant to say more; but the effort with which he +articulated that name robbed him of any voice for amplification, and +his whole frame grew tremulously convulsed. + +"His guest, appalled, could not speak; but he soon discerned that it +was grief from coincidence, not distrust from opposition of +sentiment, that caused her taciturnity. This perception calmed him, +and he then exhibited a face 'in sorrow more than anger.' His +see-sawing abated of its velocity, and, again fixing his looks upon +the fire, he fell into pensive rumination. + +"At length, and with great agitation, he broke forth with: 'She cares +for no one! You, only--You, she loves still!--but no one--and nothing +else!--You she still loves----' + +"A half smile now, though of no very gay character, softened a little +the severity of his features, while he tried to resume some +cheerfulness in adding: 'As ... she loves her little finger!' + +"It was plain by this burlesque, or, perhaps, playfully literal +comparison, that he meant now, and tried, to dissipate the solemnity +of his concern. + +"The hint was taken; his guest started another subject; and this he +resumed no more. He saw how distressing was the theme to a hearer +whom he ever wished to please, not distress; and he named Mrs. Thrale +no more! Common topics took place, till they were rejoined by Dr. +Burney, whom then, and indeed always, he likewise spared upon this +subject." + +[Footnote 1: About six months.] + +After quoting this description at length, Lord Brougham remarks: + +"Now Johnson was, perhaps unknown to himself, in love with Mrs. +Thrale, but for Miss Burney's thoughtless folly there can be no +excuse. And her father, a person of the very same rank and profession +with Mr. Piozzi, appears to have adopted the same senseless cant, as +if it were less lawful to marry an Italian musician than an English. +To be sure, Miss Burney says, that Mrs. Thrale was lineally descended +from Adam de Saltsburg, who came over with the Conqueror. But +assuredly that worthy, unable to write his name, would have held Dr. +Johnson himself in as much contempt as his fortunate rival, and would +have regarded his alliance as equally disreputable with the +Italian's, could his consent have been asked."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Lives of Men of Letters, &c, vol. ii.] + +If the scene took place at all, it must have taken place within a few +days after the profession of satisfied and unaltered friendship +contained in Johnson's letter of November 13th. His next letter is to +Miss Thrale: + +"Nov. 18th, 1783. + +"Dear Miss,--Here is a whole week, and nothing heard from your house. +Baretti said what a wicked house it would be, and a wicked house it +is. Of you, however, I have no complaint to make, for I owe you a +letter. Still I live here by my own self, and have had of late very +bad nights; but then I have had a pig to dinner, which Mr. Perkins +gave me. Thus life is chequered." + +On February 24th, 1784, Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy: + +"Poor Dr. Johnson has had a very bad winter, attended by Heberden and +Brocklesby, who neither of them expected he would have survived the +frost: that being gone, he still remains, and I hope will now +continue, at least till the next severe one. It has indeed carried +off a great many old people." + +Johnson to Mrs. Thrale: + +"March 10th, 1784. + +"Your kind expressions gave me great pleasure; do not reject me from +your thoughts. Shall we ever exchange confidence by the fireside +again?" + +He was so absorbed with his own complaints as to make no allowance +for hers. Yet her health was in a very precarious state, and in the +autumn of the same year, his complaints of silence and neglect were +suspended by the intelligence that her daughter Sophia was lying at +death's door. On March 27th, 1784, she writes: + +"You tell one of my daughters that you know not with distinctness the +cause of my complaints. I believe she who lives with me knows them no +better; one very dreadful one is however removed by dear Sophia's +recovery. It is kind in you to quarrel no more about expressions +which were not meant to offend; but unjust to suppose, I have not +lately thought myself dying. Let us, however, take the Prince of +Abyssinia's advice, _and not add to the other evils of life the +bitterness of controversy._ If courage is a noble and generous +quality, let us exert it _to_ the last, and _at_ the last: if faith +is a Christian virtue, let us willingly receive and accept that +support it will most surely bestow--and do permit me to repeat those +words with which I know not why you were displeased: _Let us leave +behind us the best example that we can_. + +"All this is not written by a person in high health and happiness, +but by a fellow-sufferer, who has more to endure than she can tell, +or you can guess; and now let us talk of the Severn salmons, which +will be coming in soon; I shall send you one of the finest, and shall +be glad to hear that your appetite is good." + +Johnson to Mrs. Thrale: + +"April 21st, 1784. + +"The Hooles, Miss Burney, and Mrs. Hull (Wesley's sister), feasted +yesterday with me very cheerfully on your noble salmon. Mr. Allen +could not come, and I sent him a piece, and a great tail is still +left." + +"April 26th, 1784. + +"Mrs. Davenant called to pay me a guinea, but I gave two for you. +Whatever reasons you have for frugality, it is not worth while to +save a guinea a year by withdrawing it from a public charity." + +"Whilst I am writing, the post has brought me your kind letter. Do +not think with dejection of your own condition: a little patience +will probably give you health: it will certainly give you riches, and +all the accommodations that riches can procure." + +Up to this time she had put an almost killing restraint on her +inclinations, and had acted according to Johnson's advice in +everything but the final abandonment of Piozzi; yet Boswell reports +him as saying, May 16th: "Sir, she has done everything wrong since +Thrale's bridle was off her neck." + +The next extracts are from "Thraliana": + +"_Bath, Nov. 30th, 1783._--Sophia will live and do well; I have saved +my daughter, perhaps obtained a friend. They are weary of seeing me +suffer so, and the eldest beg'd me yesterday not to sacrifice my life +to her convenience. She now saw my love of Piozzi was incurable, she +said. Absence had no effect on it, and my health was going so fast +she found that I should soon be useless either to her or him. It was +the hand of God and irresistible, she added, and begged me not to +endure any longer such unnecessary misery. + +"So now we may be happy if we will, and now I trust _some_ [_(sic) +query "no?_"] other cross accident will start up to torment us; I +wrote my lover word that he might come and fetch me, but the Alps are +covered with snow, and if his prudence is not greater than his +affection--my life will yet be lost, for it depends on his safety. +Should he come at my call, and meet with any misfortune on the road +... death, with accumulated agonies, would end me. May Heaven avert +such insupportable distress!" + +"_Dec._ 1783.--My dearest Piozzi's Miss Chanon is in distress. I will +send her 10_l_. Perhaps he loved her; perhaps she loved _him_; +perhaps both; yet I have and will have confidence in his honour. I +will not suffer love or jealousy to narrow a heart devoted to _him_. +He would assist her if he were in England, and _she_ shall not suffer +for his absence, tho' I _do_. She and her father have reported many +things to my prejudice; she will be ashamed of herself when she sees +me forgive and assist her. O Lord, give me grace so to return good +for evil as to obtain thy gracious favour who died to procure the +salvation of thy professed enemies. 'Tis a good Xmas work!" + +"_Bath, Jan. 27th_, 1784.--On this day twelvemonths ... oh +dreadfullest of all days to me I did I send for my Piozzi and tell +him we must part. The sight of my countenance terrified Dr. Pepys, to +whom I went into the parlour for a moment, and the sight of the +agonies I endured in the week following would have affected anything +but interest, avarice, and pride personified, ... with such, however, +I had to deal, so my sorrows were unregarded. Seeing them continue +for a whole year, indeed, has mollified my strong-hearted companions, +and they _now_ relent in earnest and wish me happy: I would now +therefore be _loath to dye_, yet how shall I recruit my constitution +so as to live? The pardon certainly did arrive the very instant of +execution--for I was ill beyond all power of description, when my +eldest daughter, bursting into tears, bid me call home the man of my +heart, and not expire by slow torture in the presence of my children, +who had my life in their power. 'You are dying _now_,' said she. 'I +know it,' replied I, 'and I should die in peace had I but seen him +_once again_.' 'Oh send for him,' said she, 'send for him quickly!' +'He is at Milan, child,' replied I, 'a thousand miles off!' 'Well, +well,' returns she, 'hurry him back, or I myself will send him an +express.' At these words I revived, and have been mending ever since. +This was the first time that any of us had named the name of Piozzi +to each other since we had put our feet into the coach to come to +Bath. I had always thought it a point of civility and prudence never +to mention what could give nothing but offence, and cause nothing but +disgust, while they desired nothing less than a revival of old +uneasiness; so we were all silent on the subject, and Miss Thrale +thought him dead." + +According to the Autobiography, the daughters did not conclusively +relent till the end of April or the beginning of May, when a missive +was dispatched for Piozzi, and Mrs. Thrale went to London to make the +requisite preparations. + + _Mrs. Thrale to Miss F. Burney_. + + "Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, + "Tuesday Night, May, 1784. + +"I am come, dearest Burney. It is neither dream nor fiction; though I +love you dearly, or I would not have come. Absence and distance do +nothing towards wearing out real affection; so you shall always find +it in your true and tender H.L.T. + +"I am somewhat shaken bodily, but 'tis the mental shocks that have +made me unable to bear the corporeal ones. 'Tis past ten o'clock, +however, and I must lay myself down with the sweet expectation of +seeing my charming friend in the morning to breakfast. I love Dr. +Burney too well to fear him, and he loves me too well to say a word +which should make me love him less." + + +_Journal (Madame D'Arblay's) Resumed_. + +"May 17.--Let me now, my Susy, acquaint you a little more connectedly +than I have done of late how I have gone on. The rest of that week I +devoted almost wholly to sweet Mrs. Thrale, whose society was truly +the most delightful of cordials to me, however, at times mixed with +bitters the least palatable. + +"One day I dined with Mrs. Grarrick to meet Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Carter, +Miss Hamilton, and Dr. and Miss Cadogan; and one evening I went to +Mrs. Vesey, to meet almost everybody,--the Bishop of St. Asaph, and +all the Shipleys, Bishop Chester and Mrs. Porteous, Mrs. and Miss +Ord, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Miss Palmer, Mrs. Buller, all the +Burrows, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Grarrick, and Miss More, +and some others. But all the rest of my time I gave wholly to dear +Mrs. Thrale, who lodged in Mortimer Street, and who saw nobody else. +Were I not sensible of her goodness, and full of incurable affection +for her, should I not be a monster? + + * * * * * + +"I parted most reluctantly with my dear Mrs. Thrale, whom, when or +how, I shall see again, Heaven only knows! but in sorrow we +parted--on _my_ side in real affliction." + +The excursion is thus mentioned in "Thraliana": "_28th May_, +1784.--Here is the most sudden and beautiful spring ever seen after a +dismal winter: so may God grant me a renovation of comfort after my +many and sharp afflictions. I have been to London for a week to visit +Fanny Burney, and to talk over my intended (and I hope approaching) +nuptials, with Mr. Borghi: a man, as far as I can judge in so short +an acquaintance with him, of good sense and real honour:--who loves +my Piozzi, _likes_ my conversation, and wishes to serve us sincerely. +He has recommended Duane to take my power of attorney, and Cator's +loss will be the less felt. Duane's name is as high as the Monument, +and his being known familiarly to Borghi will perhaps quicken his +attention to our concerns. + +"Dear Burney, who loves me _kindly_ but the world _reverentially_, +was, I believe, equally pained as delighted with my visit: ashamed to +be seen in my company, much of her fondness for me must of course be +diminished; yet she had not chatted freely so long with anybody but +Mrs. Philips, that my coming was a comfort to her. We have told all +to her father, and he behaved with the utmost propriety. + +"Nobody likes my settling at Milan except myself and Piozzi; but I +think 'tis nobody's affair but our own: it seems to me quite +irrational to expose ourselves to unnecessary insults, and by going +straight to Italy all will be avoided." + +The crisis is told in "Thraliana": + +"_10th June_, 1784.--I sent these lines to meet Piozzi on his return. +They are better than those he liked so last year at Dover: + + "Over mountains, rivers, vallies, + See my love returns to Calais, + After all their taunts and malice, + Ent'ring safe the gates of Calais, + While delay'd by winds he dallies, + Fretting to be kept at Calais, + Muse, prepare some sprightly sallies + To divert my dear at Calais, + Say how every rogue who rallies + Envies him who waits at Calais + For her that would disdain a Palace + Compar'd to Piozzi, Love, and Calais." + +"_24th June_, 1784.--He is set out sure enough, here are letters from +Turin to say so.... Now the Misses _must_ move; they are very loath +to stir: from affection perhaps, or perhaps from art--'tis difficult +to know.--Oh 'tis, yes, it is from tenderness, they want me to go +with them to see Wilton, Stonehenge, &c.--I _will_ go with them to be +sure." + +"_27th June, Sunday_.--We went to Wilton, and also to Fonthill; they +make an admirable and curious contrast between ancient magnificence +and modern glare: Gothic and Grecian again, however. A man of taste +would rather possess Lord Pembroke's seat, or indeed a single room in +it; but one feels one should live happier at Beckford's.--My +daughters parted with me at last prettily enough _considering_ (as +the phrase is). We shall perhaps be still better friends apart than +together. Promises of correspondence and kindness were very sweetly +reciprocated, and the eldest wished for Piozzi's safe return very +obligingly. + +"I fancy two days more will absolutely bring him to Bath. The present +moments are critical and dreadful, and would shake stronger nerves +than mine! Oh Lord, strengthen me to do Thy will I pray." + +"_28th June_.--I am not _yet sure of_ seeing him again--not _sure_ he +lives, not _sure_ he loves me _yet_.... Should anything happen now!! +Oh, I will not trust myself with such a fancy: it will either kill me +or drive me distracted." + +"_Bath, 2nd July_, 1784.--The happiest day of my whole life, I +think--Yes, quite the happiest: my Piozzi came home yesterday and +dined with me; but my spirits were too much agitated, my heart was +too much dilated. I was too _painfully_ happy _then_; my sensations +are more quiet to-day, and my felicity less tumultuous." + +Written in the margin of the last entry--"We shall go to London about +the affairs, and there be married in the Romish Church." + +"_25th July_, 1784.--I am returned from church the happy wife of my +lovely faithful Piozzi ... subject of my prayers, object of my +wishes, my sighs, my reverence, my esteem.--His nerves have been +horribly shaken, yet he lives, he loves me, and will be mine for +ever. He has sworn, in the face of God and the whole Christian +Church; Catholics, Protestants, all are witnesses." + +In one of her memorandum books she has set down: + +"We were married according to the Romish Church in one of our +excursions to London, by Mr. Smith, Padre Smit as they called him, +chaplain to the Spanish Ambassador.... Mr. Morgan tacked us together +at St. James's, Bath, 25th July, 1784, and on the first day I think +of September, certainly the first week, we took leave of England." + +When her first engagement with Piozzi became known, the newspapers +took up the subject, and rang the changes on the amorous disposition +of the widow, and the adroit cupidity of the fortune-hunter. On the +announcement of the marriage, they recommenced the attack, and people +of our day can hardly form a notion of the storm of obloquy that +broke upon her, except from its traces, which have never been erased. +To this hour, we may see them in the confirmed prejudices of writers +like Mr. Croker and Lord Macaulay, who, agreeing in little else, +agree in denouncing "this miserable _més_alliance" with one who +figures in their pages sometimes as a music-master, sometimes as a +fiddler, never by any accident in his real character of a +professional singer and musician of established reputation, pleasing +manners, ample means, and unimpeachable integrity. The repugnance of +the daughters to the match was reasonable and intelligible, but to +appreciate the tone taken by her friends, we must bear in mind the +social position of Italian singers and musical performers at the +period. "Amusing vagabonds" are the epithets by which Lord Byron +designates Catalani and Naldi, in 1809[1]; and such is the light in +which they were undoubtedly regarded in 1784. Mario would have been +treated with the same indiscriminating illiberality as Piozzi. + +[Footnote 1: + + "Well may the nobles of our present race + Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face; + Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, + And worship Catalani's pantaloons." + +"Naldi and Catalani require little notice; for the visage of the one +and the salary of the other will enable us long to recollect these +amusing vagabonds."--_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Artists in +general, and men of letters by profession, did not rank much higher +in the fine world. (See Miss Berry's "England and France," vol. ii. +p. 42.) A German author, non-noble, had a _liaison_ with a Prussian +woman of rank. On her husband's death he proposed marriage, and was +indignantly refused. The lady was conscious of no degradation from +being his mistress, but would have forfeited both caste and +self-respect by becoming his wife.] + +Did those who took the lead in censuring or repudiating Mrs. Piozzi, +ever attempt to enter into her feelings, or weigh her conduct with +reference to its tendency to promote her own happiness? Could they +have done so, had they tried? Rarely can any one so identify himself +or herself with another as to be sure of the soundness of the counsel +or the justice of the reproof. She was neither impoverishing her +children (who had all independent fortunes) nor abandoning them. She +was setting public opinion at defiance, which is commonly a foolish +thing to do; but what is public opinion to a woman whose heart is +breaking, and who finds, after a desperate effort, that she is +unequal to the sacrifice demanded of her? She accepted Piozzi +deliberately, with full knowledge of his character; and she never +repented of her choice. + +The Lady Cathcart, whose romantic story is mentioned in "Castle +Rackrent," was wont to say:--"I have been married three times; the +first for money, the second for rank, the third for love; and the +third was worst of all." Mrs. Piozzi's experience would have led to +an opposite conclusion. Her love match was a singularly happy one; +and the consciousness that she had transgressed conventional +observances or prejudices, not moral rules, enabled her to outlive +and bear down calumny.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The _pros_ and _cons_ of the main question at issue are +well stated in _Corinne_: "Ah, pour heureux,' interrompit le Comte +d'Erfeuil, 'je n'en crois rien: on n'est heureux que par ce qui est +convenable. La société a, quoi qu'on fasse, beaucoup d'empire sur le +bonheur; et ce qu'elle n'approuve pas, il ne faut jamais le faire.' +'On vivrait done toujours pour ce que la société dira de nous,' +reprit Oswald; 'et ce qu'on pense et, ce qu'on sent ne servirait +jamais de guide.' 'C'est très bien dit,' reprit le comte, +'très-philosophiquement pensé; mais avec ces maximes là, l'on se +perd; et quand l'amour est passé, le blâme de l'opinion reste. Moi +qui vous paraîs léger, je ne ferai jamais rien qui puisse m'attirer +la désapprobation du monde. On peut se permettre de petites libertés, +d'aimables plaisanteries, qui annoncent de l'indépendance dans la +manière d'agir; car, quand cela touche au sérieux.'--'Mais le +sérieux, repondit Lord Nelvil, 'c'est l'amour et le +bonheur.'"--_Corinne_, liv. ix. ch. 1.] + +In reference to these passages, the Edinburgh reviewer remarks: + +"Nothing can be more reasonable; and we should certainly live in a +more peaceful (if not more entertaining) world, if nobody in it +reproved another until he had so far identified himself with the +culprit as to be sure of the justice of the reproof; perhaps, also, +if a fiddler were rated higher in society than a duke without +accomplishments, and a carpenter far higher than either. But neither +reasoning nor gallantry will alter the case, nor prevail over the +world's prejudice against unequal marriages, any more than its +prejudices in favour of birth and fashion. It has never been quite +established to the satisfaction of the philosophic mind, why the rule +of society should be that 'as the husband, so the wife is,' and why a +lady who contracts a marriage below her station is looked on with far +severer eyes than a gentleman _qui s'encanaille_ to the same degree. +But these things are so,--as the next dame of rank and fortune, and +widow of an M.P., who, rashly relying on Mr. Hayward's assertion that +the world has grown wiser, espouses a foreign 'professional,' will +assuredly find to her cost, although she may escape the ungenerous +public attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with +literary men." + +In 1784 they hanged for crimes which we should think adequately +punished by a short imprisonment; as they hooted and libelled for +transgressions or errors which, whatever their treatment by a portion +of our society, would certainly not provoke the thunders of our +press. I think (though I made no assertion of the kind) that the +world has grown wiser; and the reviewer admits as much when he says +that his supposititious widow "may escape the ungenerous public +attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with literary +men." But where do I recommend unequal marriages, or dispute the +claims of birth and fashion, or maintain that a fiddler should be +rated higher than a duke without accomplishments, and a carpenter +_far_ higher than either? All this is utterly beside the purpose; and +surely there is nothing reprehensible in the suggestion that, before +harshly reproving another, we should do our best to test the justice +of the reproof by trying to make the case our own. Goethe proposed to +extend the self-same rule to criticism. One of his favourite canons +was that a critic should always endeavour to place himself +temporarily in the author's point of view. If the reviewer had done +so, he might have avoided several material misapprehensions and +misstatements, which it is difficult to reconcile with the friendly +tone of the article or the known ability of the writer. + +Envy at Piozzi's good fortune sharpened the animosity of assailants +like Baretti, and the loss of a pleasant house may have had a good +deal to do with the sorrowing indignation of her set. Her meditated +social extinction amongst them might have been commemorated in the +words of the French epitaph: + + "Ci git une de qui la vertu + Etait moins que la table encensée; + On ne plaint point la femme abattue, + Mais bien la table renversée." + +Which may be freely rendered: + + "Here lies one who adulation + By dinners more than virtues earn'd; + Whose friends mourned not her reputation-- + But her table--overturned." + +Madame D'Arblay has recorded what took place between Mrs. Piozzi and +herself on the occasion: + +_Miss F. Burney to Mrs. Piozzi_. + +"Norbury Park, Aug. 10, 1784. + +"When my wondering eyes first looked over the letter I received last +night, my mind instantly dictated a high-spirited vindication of the +consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus +abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me +leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, +and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the cooler +judgment of future reflection. Committing myself, therefore, to that +period, I determined simply to assure you, that if my last letter +hurt either you or Mr. Piozzi, I am no less sorry than surprised; and +that if it offended you, I sincerely beg your pardon. + +"Not to that time, however, can I wait to acknowledge the pain an +accusation so unexpected has caused me, nor the heartfelt +satisfaction with which I shall receive, when you are able to write +it, a softer renewal of regard. + +"May Heaven direct and bless you! + +"F.B. + +"N.B. This is the sketch of the answer which F.B. most painfully +wrote to the unmerited reproach of not sending _cordial +congratulations_ upon a marriage which she had uniformly, openly, and +with deep and avowed affliction, thought wrong." + +_Mrs. Piozzi to Miss Burney_. + + "'Wellbeck Street, No. 33, Cavendish Square. + "'Friday, Aug. 13, 1784. + +"'Give yourself no serious concern, sweetest Burney, All is well, and +I am too happy myself to make a friend otherwise; quiet your kind +heart immediately, and love my husband if you love his and your + +"'H.L. PIOZZI.' + +"N.B. To this kind note, F.B. wrote the warmest and most affectionate +and heartfelt reply; but never received another word! And here and +thus stopped a correspondence of six years of almost unequalled +partiality, and fondness on her side; and affection, gratitude, +admiration, and sincerity on that of F.B., who could only conjecture +the cessation to be caused by the resentment of Piozzi, when informed +of her constant opposition to the union." + +If F.B. thought it wrong, she knew it to be inevitable, and in the +conviction that it was so, she and her father had connived at the +secret preparations for it in the preceding May. + +A very distinguished friend, whose masterly works are the result of a +consummate study of the passions, after dwelling on the +"impertinence" of the hostility her marriage provoked, writes: "She +was evidently a very vain woman, but her vanity was sensitive, and +very much allied to that exactingness of heart which gives charm and +character to woman. I suspect it was this sensitiveness which made +her misunderstood by her children." The justness of this theory of +her conduct is demonstrated by the self-communings in "Thraliana;" +and she misunderstood them as much as they misunderstood her. By her +own showing she had little reason to complain of what they _did_ in +the matter of the marriage; it was what they said, or rather did not +say, that irritated her. She yearned for sympathy, which was sternly, +chillingly, almost insultingly withheld. + +In 1800, she wrote thus to Dr. Gray: "What a good example have you +set them (his children)! going to visit dear mama at Twickenham--long +may they keep their parents, pretty creatures! and long may they have +sense to know and feel that no love is like parental affection,--the +only good perhaps which cannot be flung away."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "We may have many friends in life, but we can only have +one mother: a discovery, says Gray, which I never made till it was +too late."--ROGERS.] + +Madame D'Arblay states that her father was not disinclined to admit +Mrs. Piozzi's right to consult her own notions of happiness in the +choice of a second husband, had not the paramount duty of watching +over her unmarried daughters interfered. But they might have +accompanied her to Italy as was once contemplated; and had they done +so, they would have seen everything and everybody in it under the +most favourable auspices. The course chosen for them by the eldest +was the most perilous of the two submitted for their choice. The +lady, Miss Nicholson, whom their mother had so carefully selected as +their companion, soon left them; or according to another version was +summarily dismissed by Miss Thrale (afterwards Viscountess Keith), +who fortunately was endowed with high principle, firmness, and +energy. She could not take up her abode with either of her guardians, +one a bachelor under forty, the other the prototype of Briggs, the +old miser in "Cæcilia." She could not accept Johnson's hospitality in +Bolt Court, still tenanted by the survivors of his menagerie; where, +a few months later, she sate by his death-bed and received his +blessing. She therefore called to her aid an old nurse-maid, named +Tib, who had been much trusted by her father, and with this homely +but respectable duenna, she shut herself up in the house at Brighton, +limited her expenses to her allowance of 200_l._ a-year, and +resolutely set about the course of study which seemed best adapted to +absorb attention and prevent her thoughts from wandering. Hebrew, +Mathematics, Fortification, and Perspective have been named to me by +one of trusted friends as specimens of her acquirements and her +pursuits. + + "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we may." + +In that solitary abode at Brighton, and in the companionship of Tib, +may have been laid the foundation of a character than which few, +through the changeful scenes of a long and prosperous life, have +exercised more beneficial influence or inspired more genuine esteem. +On coming of age, and being put into possession of her fortune, she +hired a house in London, and took her two eldest sisters to live with +her. They had been at school whilst she was living at Brighton. The +fourth and youngest, afterwards Mrs. Mostyn, had accompanied the +mother. On the return of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi, Miss Thrale made a +point of paying them every becoming attention, and Piozzi was +frequently dining with her. Latterly, she used to speak of him as a +very worthy sort of man, who was not to blame for marrying a rich and +distinguished woman who took a fancy to him. The other sisters seem +to have adopted the same tone; and so far as I can learn, no one of +them is open to the imputation of filial unkindness, or has suffered +from maternal neglect in a manner to bear out Dr. Burney's +forebodings by the result. Occasional expressions of querulousness +are matters of course in family differences, and are seldom totally +suppressed by the utmost exertion of good feeling and good sense. + +Johnson's idolised wife was, at the lowest estimate, twenty-one years +older than himself when he married her; and her sons were so +disgusted by the connection, that they dropped the acquaintance. Yet +it never crossed his mind that "Hetty" had as much right to please +herself as "Tetty." Of the six letters that passed between him and +Mrs. Piozzi on the subject of the marriage, only two (Nos. 1 and 5) +have hitherto been made public; and the incompleteness of the +correspondence has caused the most embarrassing confusion in the +minds of biographers and editors, too prone to act on the maxim that, +wherever female reputation is concerned, we should hope for the best +and believe the worst. Hawkins, apparently ignorant that she had +written to Johnson, to announce her intention, says, "He was made +uneasy by a report" which induced him to write a strong letter of +remonstrance, of which what he calls an _adumbration_ was published +in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December 1784. Mr. Croker, avoiding +a similar error, says:--"In the lady's own (part) publication of the +correspondence, this letter (No. 1) is given as from Mrs. Piozzi, and +is signed with the initial of her name: Dr. Johnson's answer is also +addressed to Mrs. Piozzi, and both the letters allude to the matter +as _done_; yet it appears by the periodical publications of the day, +that the marriage did not take place until the 25th July. The editor +knew not how to account for this but by supposing that Mrs. Piozzi, +to avoid Johnson's importunity, had stated that as done which was +only _settled to be done_." + +The matter of fact is made plain by the circular (No. 2) which states +that "Piozzi is coming back from Italy." He arrived on July 1st, +after a fourteen months' absence, which proved both his loyalty and +the sincerity of the struggle in her own heart and mind. Her letter +(No. 1) as printed, is not signed with the initial of her name; and +both Dr. Johnson's autograph letters are addressed to _Mrs. Thrale_. +But she has occasioned the mistake into which so many have fallen, by +her mode of heading these when she printed the two-volume edition of +"Letters" in 1788. By the kindness of Mr. Salusbury I am now enabled +to print the whole correspondence, with the exception of her last +letter, which she describes. + + +No. 1. + +_Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson_. + +"Bath, June 30. + +"My Dear Sir,--The enclosed is a circular letter which I have sent to +all the guardians, but our friendship demands somewhat more; it +requires that I should beg your pardon for concealing from you a +connexion which you must have heard of by many, but I suppose never +believed. Indeed, my dear Sir, it was concealed only to save us both +needless pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would +have killed me to take, and I only tell it you now because all is +irrevocably settled and out of your power to prevent. I will say, +however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some +anxious moments, and though perhaps I am become by many privations +the most independent woman in the world, I feel as if acting without +a parent's consent till you write kindly to + +"Your faithful servant." + + +No. 2. _Circular_. + +"Sir,--As one of the executors of Mr. Thrale's will and guardian to +his daughters, I think it my duty to acquaint you that the three +eldest left Bath last Friday (25th) for their own house at +Brighthelmstone in company with an amiable friend, Miss Nicholson, +who has sometimes resided with us here, and in whose society they +may, I think, find some advantages and certainly no disgrace. I +waited on them to Salisbury, Wilton, &c., and offered to attend them +to the seaside myself, but they preferred this lady's company to +mine, having heard that Mr. Piozzi is coming back from Italy, and +judging perhaps by our past friendship and continued correspondence +that his return would be succeeded by our marriage. + +"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant. + +"Bath, June 30, 1784." + + +No. 3.[1] + +[Footnote 1: What Johnson termed an "adumbration" of this letter +appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for Dec. 1784: + +"MADAM,--If you are already ignominiously married, you are lost +beyond all redemption;--if you are not, permit me one hour's +conversation, to convince you that such a marriage must not take +place. If, after a whole hour's reasoning, you should not be +convinced, you will still be at liberty to act as you think proper. I +have been extremely ill, and am still ill; but if you grant me the +audience I ask, I will instantly take a post-chaise and attend you at +Bath. Pray do not refuse this favour to a man who hath so many years +loved and honoured you."] + +"MADAM,--If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously +married: if it is yet undone, let us _once_ more _talk_ together. If +you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your +wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may +your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I +who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and _served +you_[1], I who long thought you the first of womankind, entreat that, +before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you. I was, I +once was, Madam, most truly yours, + +"SAM. JOHNSON. + +"July 2, 1784. + +"I will come down, if you permit it." + +[Footnote 1: The four words which I have printed in italics are +indistinctly written, and cannot be satisfactorily made out.] + + +No. 4. + +"July 4, 1784. + +"SIR,--I have this morning received from you so rough a letter in +reply to one which was both tenderly and respectfully written, that I +am forced to desire the conclusion of a correspondence which I can +bear to continue no longer. The birth of my second husband is not +meaner than that of my first; his sentiments are not meaner; his +profession is not meaner, and his superiority in what he professes +acknowledged by all mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is +ignominious; the character of the man I have chosen has no other +claim to such an epithet. The religion to which he has been always a +zealous adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has +not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with +dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is indeed +the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied as +snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth +protect it. + +"I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent +your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so) you mean +only that celebrity which is a consideration of a much lower kind. I +care for that only as it may give pleasure to my husband and his +friends. + +"Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always +commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship +_never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty +years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your +wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard_; but +till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us converse no +more. God bless you." + + +No. 5. + +_To Mrs. Piozzi_. + +"London, July 8, 1784. + +"DEAR MADAM,--What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no +pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me: I therefore +breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at +least sincere. + +"I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may be happy +in this world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a +better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness I am +very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of +a life radically wretched. + +"Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. +Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with +more dignity than in Italy, and with more security; your rank will be +higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to +detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is +for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to +Italy. + +"I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my +heart by giving it. + +"When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in +England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, +attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable +stream[1] that separated the two kingdoms, walked by her side into +the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with +earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own affection pressed +her to return. The Queen went forward.--If the parallel reaches thus +far, may it go no farther.--The tears stand in my eyes. + +"I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good +wishes, for I am, with great affection, + +"Your, &c. + +"Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me." + +[Footnote 1: Queen Mary left the Scottish for the English coast, on +the Firth of Solway, in a fishing-boat. The incident to which Johnson +alludes is introduced in "The Abbot;" where the scene is laid on the +sea-shore. The unusual though expressive term "irremeable," is +defined in his dictionary, "admitting no return." His authority is +Dryden's Virgil: + + "The keeper dream'd, the chief without delay + Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way." + +The word is a Latin one anglicised: + + "Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undæ."] + +In a memorandum on this letter, she says:--"I wrote him (No. 6) a +very kind and affectionate farewell." + +Before calling attention to the results of this correspondence, I +must notice a charge built upon it by the reviewer, with the +respectable aid of the foul-mouthed and malignant Baretti: + +"This letter is now printed for the first time by Mr. Hayward. But he +has omitted to notice the light which is thrown on it by Baretti's +account of the marriage. That account is given in the 'European +Magazine' for 1788. It is very circumstantial, and too long to +transcribe, but the upshot is this: He says that, in order to meet +her returning lover, she left Bath with her daughters as for a +journey to Brighton; quitted them on some pretence at Salisbury, and +posted off to town, _deceiving Dr. Johnson, who continued to direct +to her at Bath as usual_.[1] 'In London she kept herself concealed +for some days in my parish, and not very far distant from my own +habitation, ... in Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital.' 'In a _few +weeks_,' he adds, 'she was in a condition personally to resort to Mr. +Greenland (her lawyer) to settle preliminaries, then returned to Bath +with Piozzi, and there was married.' Now Baretti was a libeller, _and +not to be believed except upon compulsion_; but if he does speak the +truth, then the date, 'Bath, June 30,' of her circular letter, is a +mystification; so is the passage in her letter to Johnson of July +_4_, about 'sending it by the coach to prevent his coming.' Of course +she was mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming, for if he had come he +would have found her flown. According to this supposition, she did +not return to Bath at all, but remained perdue in London, with her +lover, during the whole 'Correspondence.' Is it the true one? + +"We cannot but suspect that it is, and that the solution of the whole +of this little domestic mystery is to be found in a passage in the +'Autobiographical Memoir,' vol. i. p. 277. There were _two_ +marriages:-- + +"'Miss Nicholson went with us to Stonehenge, Wilton, &c., _whence I +returned to Bath_ to wait for Piozzi. He was here on the eleventh day +after he got Dobson's letter. In twenty-six more we were married _in +London_ by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, and returned hither to +be married by Mr. Morgan, of Bath, at St. James's Church, July 25, +1784.' + +"Now in order to make this account tally with Baretti's we must allow +for a slight exertion of that talent for 'white lies' on the lady's +part, of which her friends, Johnson included, used half playfully and +half in earnest to accuse her. And we are afraid Baretti's story does +appear, on the face of it, the more probable of the two. It does seem +more likely, since they were to be married in London (of which +Baretti knew nothing), that she met Piozzi secretly in London on his +arrival, than that she performed the awkward evolutions of returning +from Salisbury to Bath to wait for him there, then going to London in +company with him to be married, and then back to Bath to be married +over again. But if this be so, then the London marriage most likely +took place almost immediately on the meeting of the enamoured couple, +and while the 'Correspondence' was going on. In which case the words +in the 'Memoir' 'in twenty-six days,' &c., were apparently intended, +by a little bit of feminine adroitness, to appear to apply to this +first marriage,--of the suddenness of which she may have been +ashamed,--while they really apply to the conclusion of the whole +affair by the _second_. Will any one have the Croker-like curiosity +to inquire whether any record remains of the dates of marriages +celebrated by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain?"[2] + +[Footnote 1: These words, italicised by the reviewer, contain the +pith of the charge, which has no reference to her visit to London six +weeks before.] + +[Footnote 2: Edinb. Review, No. 230, p. 522.] + +Why Croker-like curiosity? Was there anything censurable in the +curiosity which led an editor to ascertain whether a novel like +"Evelina" was written by a girl of eighteen or a woman of twenty-six? +But Lord Macaulay sneered at the inquiry[1], and his worshippers must +go on sneering like their model--_vitiis imitabile_. The certificate +of the London marriage (now before me) shews that it was solemnised +on the 23rd July, by a clergyman named Richard Smith, in the presence +of three attesting witnesses. This, and the entries in "Thraliana," +prove Baretti's whole story to be false. "Now Baretti was a libeller, +and not to be believed except upon compulsion;" meaning, I suppose, +without confirmatory evidence strong enough to dispense with his +testimony altogether. He was notorious for his _black_ lies. Yet he +is believed eagerly, willingly, upon no compulsion, and without any +confirmatory evidence at all. + +[Footnote 1: The following passage is reprinted in the corrected +edition of Lord Macaulay's Essays:--"There was no want of low minds +and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her (Miss Burney's) +first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage +Wolcot; the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did +not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in +order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed +her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer +of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him +with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, +some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of +better books." There is reason to believe that the entry Mr. Croker +copied was that of the baptism of an elder sister of the same name +who died before the birth of the famous Fanny.] + +The internal evidence of the improbability of the story has +disappeared in the reviewer's paraphrase. Baretti says that at +Salisbury "she suddenly declared that a letter she found of great +importance demanded her immediate presence _in London_.... But +Johnson did not know the least tittle of this transaction, and he +continued to direct his letters to Bath as usual, expressing, no +doubt, an immense wonder _at her pertinacious silence_." So she told +her daughters that she was going to London, whilst she deceived +Johnson, who was sure to learn the truth from them; and he was +wondering at her pertinacious silence at the very time when he was +receiving letters from her, dated Bath! Why, having formally +announced her determination to marry Piozzi, she should not give him +the meeting in London if she chose, fairly passes my comprehension. + +Whilst the reviewer thinks he is strengthening one point, he is +palpably weakening another. She would not have been "mortally afraid +of the Doctor's coming," if she had already thrown him off and +finally broken with him? That she was afraid, and had reason to be +so, is quite consistent with my theory, quite inconsistent with Lord +Macaulay's and the critic's. Johnson's letter (No. 3) is that of a +coarse man who had always been permitted to lecture and dictate with +impunity. Her letter (No. 4) is that of a sensitive woman, who, for +the first time, resents with firmness and retorts with dignity. The +sentences I have printed in italics speak volumes. "Never did I +oppose your will, or control your wish, nor can your unmitigated +severity itself lessen my regard." There is a shade of submissiveness +in her reply, yet, on receiving it, he felt as a falcon might feel if +a partridge were to shew fight. Nothing short of habitual deference +on her part, and unrepressed indulgence of temper on _his_, can +account for or excuse his not writing before this unexpected check as +he wrote after it. If he had not been systematically humoured and +flattered, he would have seen at a glance that he had "no pretence to +resent," and have been ready at once to make the best return in his +power for "that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life +radically wretched." She wrote him a kind and affectionate farewell; +and there (so far as we know) ended their correspondence. But in +"Thraliana" she sets down: + +"_Milan, 27th Nov_. 1784.--I have got Dr. Johnson's picture here, and +expect Miss Thrale's with impatience. I do love them dearly, as ill +as they have used me, and always shall. Poor Johnson did not _mean_ +to use me ill. He only grew upon indulgence till patience could +endure no further." + +In a letter to Mr. S. Lysons from Milan, dated December 7th, 1784, +which proves that she was not frivolously employed, she says: + +"My next letter shall talk of the libraries and botanical gardens, +and twenty other clever things here. I wish you a comfortable +Christmas, and a happy beginning of the year 1785. Do not neglect Dr. +Johnson: you will never see any other mortal so wise or so good. I +keep his picture in my chamber, and his works on my chimney." + + "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong, + But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." + +What he said of her can only be learned from her bitter enemies or +hollow friends, who have preserved nothing kindly or creditable. + +Hawkins states that a letter from Johnson to himself contained these +words:--"Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice +(meaning her love of her children or her pride) would have saved her +from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to +exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or +pity." + +Madame D'Arblay gives two accounts of the last interview she ever had +with Johnson,--on the 25th November, 1784. In the "Diary" she sets +down: + +"I had seen Miss T. the day before." + +"'So,' said he, 'did I.' + +"I then said, 'Do you ever, Sir, hear, from her mother?' + +"'No,' cried he, 'nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. +If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly.[1] I have +burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to +hear of her name. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind.'" + +[Footnote 1: If this was true, it is strange that he did not destroy +the letter (No. 4) which gave him so sudden and mortifying a check. +Miss Hawkins says in her Memoirs: "It was I who discovered the +letter. I carried it to my father; he enclosed and sent it to her, +_there never having been any intercourse between them_." Anything +from Hawkins about Streatham and its inmates must therefore have been +invention or hearsay.] + +In the "Memoirs," describing the same interview, she says:--"We +talked then of poor Mrs. Thrale, but only for a moment, for I saw him +greatly incensed, and with such severity of displeasure, that I +hastened to start another subject, and he solemnly enjoined me to +mention that no more." + +This was only eighteen days before he died, and he might be excused +for being angry at the introduction of any agitating topic. It would +stain his memory, not hers, to prove that, belying his recent +professions of tenderness and gratitude, he directly or indirectly +encouraged her assailants. + +"I was tempted to observe," says the author of "Piozziana," "that I +thought, as I still do, that Johnson's anger on the event of her +second marriage was excited by some feeling of disappointment; and +that I suspected he had formed some hope of attaching her to himself. +It would be disingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer. +I forget it; but the impression on my mind is that she did not +contradict me." Sir James Fellowes' marginal note on this passage is: +"This was an absurd notion, and I can undertake to say it was the +last idea that ever entered her head; for when I once alluded to the +subject, she ridiculed the idea: she told me she always felt for +Johnson the same respect and veneration as for a Pascal."[1] + +[Footnote 1: When Sheridan was accused of making love to Mrs. +Siddons, he said he should as soon think of making love to the +Archbishop of Canterbury.] + +On the margin of the passage in which Boswell says, "Johnson wishing +to unite himself with this rich widow was much talked of, but I +believe without foundation,"--she has written, "I believe so too!!" +The report sufficed to bring into play the light artillery of the +wits, one of whose best hits was an "Ode to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel +Johnson, LL.D., on their approaching Nuptials," beginning: + + "If e'er my fingers touched the lyre, + In satire fierce, in pleasure gay, + Shall not my Thralia's smiles inspire, + Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? + + "My dearest lady, view your slave, + Rehold him as your very _Scrub_: + Ready to write as author grave, + Or govern well the brewing tub. + + "To rich felicity thus raised, + My bosom glows with amorous fire; + Porter no longer shall be praised, + 'Tis I Myself am _Thrale's Entire_." + +She has written opposite these lines, "Whose fun was this? It is +better than the other." The other was: + + "Cervisial coctor's viduate dame, + Opinst thou this gigantick frame, + Procumbing at thy shrine, + Shall catinated by thy charms, + A captive in thy ambient arms + Perennially be thine." + +She writes opposite: "Whose silly fun was this? Soame Jenyn's?" + +The following paragraph is copied from the note-book of the late Miss +Williams Wynn[1], who had recently been reading a large collection of +Mrs. Piozzi's letters addressed to a Welsh neighbour: + +[Footnote 1: Daughter of Sir Watkyn Wynn (the fourth baronet) and +granddaughter of George Grenville, the Minister. She was +distinguished by her literary taste and acquirements, as well as +highly esteemed for the uprightness of her character, the excellence +of her understanding, and the kindness of her heart. Her journals and +note-books, carefully kept during a long life passed in the best +society, are full of interesting anecdotes and curious extracts from +rare books and manuscripts. They are now in the possession of her +niece, the Honourable Mrs. Rowley.] + +"_London, March_, 1825.--I have had an opportunity of talking to old +Sir William Pepys on the subject of his old friend, Mrs. Piozzi, and +from his conversation am more than ever impressed with the idea that +she was one of the most inconsistent characters that ever existed. +Sir William says he never met with any human being who possessed the +talent of conversation in such a degree. I naturally felt anxious to +know whether Piozzi could in any degree add to this pleasure, and +found, as I expected, that he could not even understand her. + +"Her infatuation for him seems perfectly unaccountable. Johnson in +his rough (I may here call it brutal) manner said to her, 'Why Ma'am, +he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old dog too.' Sir +William says he really believes that she combated her inclination for +him as long as possible; so long, that her senses would have failed +her if she had attempted to resist any longer. She was perfectly +aware of her degradation. One day, speaking to Sir William of some +persons whom he had been in the habit of meeting continually at +Streatham during the lifetime of Mr. Thrale, she said, not one of +them has taken the smallest notice of me ever since: they dropped me +before I had done anything wrong. Piozzi was literally at her elbow +when she said this." + +The reviewer quotes the remark, "She was perfectly aware of her +degradation," as resting on the personal responsibility of Miss Wynn, +"who knew her in later life in Wales." The context shews that Miss +Wynn (who did not know her) was simply repeating the impressions of +Sir William Pepys, one of the bitterest opponents of the marriage, to +whom she certainly never said anything derogatory to her second +husband. The uniform tenor of her letters and her conduct shew that +she never regarded her second marriage as discreditable, and always +took a high and independent, instead of a subdued or deprecating, +tone with her alienated friends. A bare statement of the treatment +she received from them is surely no proof of conscious degradation. + +In a letter to a Welsh neighbour, near the end of her life, some time +in 1818, she says: + +"Mrs. Mostyn (her youngest daughter) has written again on the road +back to Italy, where she likes the Piozzis above all people, she +says, _if they were not so proud of their family_. Would not that +make one laugh two hours before one's own death? But I remember when +Lady Egremont raised the whole nation's ill will here, while the +Saxons were wondering how Count Bruhle could think of marrying a lady +born Miss Carpenter. The Lombards doubted in the meantime of my being +a gentlewoman by birth, because my first husband was a brewer. A +pretty world, is it not? A Ship of Fooles, according to the old poem; +and they will upset the vessel by and by." + +This is not the language of one who wished to apologise for a +misalliance. + +As to Piozzi's assumed want of youth and good looks, Johnson's +knowledge of womankind, to say nothing of his self-love, should have +prevented him from urging this as an insuperable objection. He might +have recollected the Roman matron in Juvenal, who considers the world +well lost for an old and disfigured prize-fighter; or he might have +quoted Spenser's description of one-- + + "Who rough and rude and filthy did appear, + Unseemly man to please fair lady's eye, + Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear, + When fairer faces were bid standen by: + Oh! who can tell the bent of woman's phantasy?" + +Madame Campan, speaking of Caroline of Naples, the sister of Marie +Antoinette, says, she had great reason to complain of the insolence +of a Spaniard named Las Casas, whom the king, her father-in-law, had +sent to persuade her to remove M. Acton[1] from the conduct of +affairs and from about her person. She had told him, to convince him +of the nature of her sentiments, that she would have Acton painted +and sculptured by the most celebrated artists of Italy, and send his +bust and his portrait to the King of Spain, to prove to him that the +desire of fixing a man of superior capacity could alone have induced +her to confer the favour he enjoyed. Las Casas had dared to reply, +that she would be taking useless trouble; that a man's ugliness did +not always prevent him from pleasing, and that the King of Spain had +too much experience to be ignorant that the caprices of a woman were +inexplicable. Johnson may surely be allowed credit for as much +knowledge of the sex as the King of Spain. + +[Footnote 1: M. Acton, as Madame Campan calls him, was a member of +the ancient English family of that name. He succeeded to the +baronetcy in 1791, and was the grandfather of Sir John E.E. Dalberg +Acton, Bart., M.P., &c.] + +Others were simultaneously accusing her of marrying a young man to +indulge a sensual inclination. The truth is, Piozzi was a few months +older than herself, and was neither ugly nor disagreeable. Madame +D'Arblay has been already quoted as to his personal appearance, and +Miss Seward (October, 1787) writes: + +"I am become acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi. Her conversation is +that bright wine of the intellects which has no lees. Dr. Johnson +told me truth when he said she had more colloquial wit than most of +our literary women; it is indeed a fountain of perpetual flow. But he +did not tell me truth when he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, +without particular skill in his profession. Mr. Piozzi is a handsome +man, in middle life, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and +with very eminent skill in his profession. Though he has not a +powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings with transcending grace and +expression. I am charmed with his perfect expression on his +instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must vibrate through his +frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his song." + +The concluding sentence contains what Partridge would call a _non +sequitur_, for the finest musical sensibility may coexist with the +most commonplace qualities. But the lady's evidence is clear on the +essential point; and another passage from her letters may assist us +in determining the precise nature of Johnson's feelings towards Mrs. +Piozzi, and the extent to which his later language and conduct +regarding her were influenced by pique: + +"Love is the great softener of savage dispositions. Johnson had +always a metaphysic passion for one princess or another: first, the +rustic Lucy Porter, before he married her nauseous mother; next the +handsome, but haughty, Molly Aston; next the sublimated, methodistic +Hill Boothby, who read her bible in Hebrew; and lastly, the more +charming Mrs. Thrale, with the beauty of the first, the learning of +the second, and with more worth than a bushel of such sinners and +such saints. It is ridiculously diverting to see the old elephant +forsaking his nature before these princesses: + + "'To make them mirth, use all his might, and writhe, + His mighty form disporting.' + +"_This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs. Thrale was, however, +composed perhaps of cupboard love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled +and gratified, from morn to night, by incessant homage_. The two +first ingredients are certainly oddly heterogeneous; but Johnson, in +religion and politics, in love and in hatred, was composed of such +opposite and contradictory materials, as never before met in the +human mind. This is the reason why folk are never weary of talking, +reading, and writing about a man-- + + "'So various that he seem'd to be, + Not one, but all mankind's epitome.'" + +After quoting the sentence printed in italics, the reviewer says: "On +this hint Mr. Hayward enlarges, nothing loth." I quoted the entire +letter without a word of comment, and what is given as my "enlarging" +is an _olla podrida_ of sentences torn from the context in three +different and unconnected passages of this Introduction. The only one +of them which has any bearing on the point shews, though garbled, +that, in attributing motives, I distinguished between Johnson and his +set. + +Having thus laid the ground for fixing on me opinions I had nowhere +professed, the reviewer asks, "Had Mr. Hayward, when he passed such +slighting judgment on the motives of the venerable sage who awes us +still, no fear before his eyes of the anathema aimed by Carlyle at +Croker for similar disparagement? 'As neediness, and greediness, and +vain glory are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a +Johnson, acts, or can think of acting, on any other principle. +Whatever, therefore, cannot be referred to the two former categories, +Need and Greed, is without scruple ranged under the latter.'"[1] + +[Footnote 1: Edinb, Review, No. 230, p. 511.] + +This style of criticism is as loose as it is unjust; for one main +ingredient in Miss Seward's mixture is Platonic love, which cannot be +referred to either of the three categories. Her error lay in not +adding a fourth ingredient,--the admiration which Johnson undoubtedly +felt for the admitted good qualities of Mrs. Thrale. But the lady was +nearer the truth than the reviewer, when he proceeds in this strain: + +"We take an entirely different view at once of the character and the +feelings of Johnson. Rude, uncouth, arrogant as he was--spoilt as he +was, which is far worse, by flattery and toadying and the silly +homage of inferior worshippers--selfish as he was in his eagerness +for small enjoyments and disregard of small attentions--that which +lay at the very bottom of his character, that which constitutes the +great source of his power in life, and connects him after death with +the hearts of all of us, is his spirit of imaginative romance. He was +romantic in almost all things--in politics, in religion, in his +musings on the supernatural world, in friendship for men, and in love +for women." + + * * * * * + +"Such was his fancied 'padrona,' his 'mistress,' his 'Thralia +dulcis,' a compound of the bright lady of fashion and the ideal +Urania who rapt his soul into spheres of perfection." + +Imaginative romance in politics, in religion, and in musings on the +supernatural world, is here only another term for prejudice, +intolerance, bigotry, and credulity--for rabid Toryism, High Church +doctrines verging on Romanism, and a confirmed belief in ghosts. +Imaginative romance in love and friendship is an elevating, +softening, and refining influence, which, especially when it forms +the basis of character, cannot co-exist with habitual rudeness, +uncouthness, arrogance, love of toadying, selfishness, and disregard +of what Johnson himself called the minor morals. Equally +heterogeneous is the "compound of the bright lady of fashion and the +ideal Urania." A goddess in crinoline would be a semi-mundane +creature at best; and the image unluckily suggests that Johnson was +unphilosophically, not to say vulgarly, fond of rank, fashion, and +their appendages. + +His imagination, far from being of the richest or highest kind, was +insufficient for the attainment of dramatic excellence, was +insufficient even for the nobler parts of criticism. Nor had he much +to boast of in the way of delicacy of perception or sensibility. His +strength lay in his understanding; his most powerful weapon was +argument: his grandest quality was his good sense. + +Thurlow, speaking of the choice of a successor to Lord Mansfield, +said, "I hesitated long between the intemperance of Kenyon, and the +corruption of Buller; not but what there was a d----d deal of +corruption in Kenyon's intemperance, and a d----d deal of +intemperance in Buller's corruption." Just so, we may hesitate long +between the romance and the worldliness of Johnson, not but what +there was a d----d deal of romance in his worldliness, and a d----d +deal of worldliness in his romance. + +The late Lord Alvanley, whose heart was as inflammable as his wit was +bright, used to tell how a successful rival in the favour of a +married dame offered to retire from the field for _5001_., saying, "I +am a younger son: her husband does not give dinners, and they have no +country house: no _liaison_ suits me that does not comprise both." At +the risk of provoking Mr. Carlyle's anathema, I now avow my belief +that Johnson was, nay, boasted of being, open to similar influences; +and as for his "ideal Uranias," no man past seventy idealises women +with whom he has been corresponding for years about his or their +"natural history," to whom he sends recipes for "lubricity of the +bowels," with an assurance that it has had the best effect upon his +own.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Letters, vol. ii. p. 397. The letter containing the +recipe actually begins "My dear Angel." Had Johnson forgotten Swift's +lines on Celia? or the repudiation of the divine nature by Ermodotus, +which occurs twice in Plutarch? The late Lord Melbourne complained +that two ladies of quality, sisters, told him too much of their +"natural history."] + +Rough language, too, although not incompatible with affectionate +esteem, can hardly be reconciled with imaginative romance-- + + "Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, + But why did you kick me down stairs?" + +"His ugly old wife," says the reviewer, "was an angel." Yes, an angel +so far as exalted language could make her one; and he had always +half-a-dozen angels or goddesses on his list. "_Je change d'objet, +mais la passion reste_." For this very reason, I repeat, his +affection for Mrs. Piozzi was not a deep, devoted, or absorbing +feeling at any time; and the gloom which settled upon the evening of +his days was owing to his infirmities and his dread of death, not to +the loosening of cherished ties, nor to the compelled solitude of a +confined dwelling in Bolt Court. The plain matter of fact is that, +during the last two years of his life, he was seldom a month together +at his own house, unless when the state of his health prevented him +from enjoying the hospitality of his friends. When the fatal marriage +was announced, he was planning what Boswell calls a jaunt into the +country; and in a letter dated Lichfield, Oct. 4, 1784, he says: "I +passed the first part of the summer at Oxford (with Dr. Adams); +afterwards I went to Lichfield, then to Ashbourne (Dr. Taylor's), and +a week ago I returned to Lichfield." + +In the journal which he kept for Dr. Brocklesby, he writes, Oct. 20: +"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books to +which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir +Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to public life; and I +hope still to keep my station, till God shall bid me _Go in peace_." +Boswell reports him saying about this time, "Sir, I look upon every +day to be lost when I do not make a new acquaintance." + +After another visit to Dr. Adams, at Pembroke College, he returned on +the 16th Nov. to London, where he died on the 13th Dec. 1784. The +proximate cause of his death was dropsy; and there is not the +smallest sign of its having been accelerated or embittered by +unkindness or neglect. + +Whoever has accompanied me thus far will be fully qualified to form +an independent opinion of Lord Macaulay's dashing summary of Mrs. +Piozzi's imputed ill-treatment of Johnson: + +"Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age +were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never +thought without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life +was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel +price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never be replaced. +The strange dependants to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in +spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off +one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the +noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no +more; and it would have been well if his wife had been laid beside +him. But she survived to be the laughing-stock of those who had +envied her, and to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved +her beyond any thing in the world, tears far more bitter than he +would have shed over her grave. + +"With some estimable, and many agreeable qualities, she was not made +to be independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own +was necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained by her +husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in +trifles, but always the undisputed master of his house, her worst +offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of +pettishness ending in sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was +left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile +fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a +music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody but herself could discover +anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, +struggled hard against this degrading passion. But the struggle +irritated her nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her +health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson could not +approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her +manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and sometimes +petulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham: she +never pressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received +him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a welcome +guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. He read, +for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the library +which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he +commended the house and its inmates to the Divine protection, and, +with emotions which choked his voice and convulsed his powerful +frame, left for ever that beloved home for the gloomy and desolate +house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still +remained to him were to run out. + +"Here, in June 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, however, +he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired his +intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon him. His +asthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made their +appearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heard +that the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of +sixteen years of his life, had married an Italian fiddler; that all +London was crying shame upon her; and that the newspapers and +magazines were filled with allusions to the Ephesian matron and the +two pictures in Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to +forget her existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial of +her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile fled from +the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land +where she was unknown, hastened across Mount Cenis, and learned, +while passing a merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties at +Milan, that the great man with whose name hers is inseparably +associated, had ceased to exist."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "Encyclopædia Britannica," last edition. The Essay on +Johnson is reprinted in the first volume of Lord Macaulay's +"Miscellaneous Writings."] + +"Splendid recklessness," is the happy expression used by the +"Saturday Review" in characterising this account of the alleged +rupture with its consequences; and no reader will fail to admire the +rhetorical skill with which the expulsion from Streatham with its +library formed by himself, the chapter in the Greek testament, the +gloomy and desolate home, the music-master in whom nobody but herself +could see anything to admire, the few and evil days, the emotions +that convulsed the frame, the painful and melancholy death, and the +merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties, have been grouped +together with the view of giving picturesqueness, impressive unity, +and damnatory vigour to the sketch. "Action, action, action," says +the orator; "effect, effect, effect," says the historian. Give +Archimedes a place to stand on, and he would move the world. Give +Fouché a line of a man's handwriting, and he would engage to ruin +him. Give Lord Macaulay the semblance of an authority, an insulated +fact or phrase, a scrap of a journal, or the tag end of a song, and +on it, by the abused prerogative of genius, he would construct a +theory of national or personal character, which should confer undying +glory or inflict indelible disgrace. + +Johnson was never driven or expelled from Mrs. Piozzi's house or +family: if very intelligible hints were given, they certainly were +not taken; the library was not formed by him; the Testament may or +may not have been Greek; his powerful frame shook with no convulsions +but what may have been occasioned by the unripe grapes and hard +peaches; he did not leave Streatham for his gloomy and desolate house +behind Fleet Street; the few and evil days (two years, nine weeks) +did not run out in that house; the music-master was generally admired +and esteemed; and the merry Christmas of concerts and +lemonade-parties is simply another sample of the brilliant +historian's mode of turning the abstract into the concrete in such a +manner as to degrade or elevate at will. An Italian concert is not a +merry meeting; and a lemonade-party, I presume, is a party where +(instead of _eau-sucrée_ as at Paris) the refreshment handed about is +lemonade: not an enlivening drink at Christmas. In a word, all these +graphic details are mere creations of the brain, and the general +impression intended to be conveyed by them is false, substantially +false; for Mrs. Piozzi never behaved otherwise than kindly and +considerately to Johnson at any time. + +Her life in Italy has been sketched in her best manner by her own +lively pen in the "Autobiography" and what she calls the "Travel +Book," to be presently mentioned. Scattered notices of her +proceedings occur in her letters to Mr. Lysons, and in the printed +correspondence of her cotemporaries. + +On the 19th October, 1784, she writes to Mr. Lysons from Turin: + +"We are going to Alexandria, Genoa, and Pavia, and then to Milan for +the winter, as Mr. Piozzi finds friends everywhere to delay us, and I +hate hurry and fatigue; it takes away all one's attention. Lyons was +a delightful place to me, and we were so feasted there by my +husband's old acquaintances. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland too +paid us a thousand caressing civilities where we met with them, and +we had no means of musical parties neither. The Prince of Sisterna +came yesterday to visit Mr. Piozzi, and present me with the key of +his box at the opera for the time we stay at Turin. Here's honour and +glory for you! When Miss Thrale hears of it, she will write perhaps; +the other two are very kind and affectionate." + +In "Thraliana": + +"_3rd November_, 1784.--Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. +Baretti, full of the most flagrant and bitter insults concerning my +late marriage with Mr. Piozzi, against whom, however, he can bring no +heavier charge than that he disputed on the road with an innkeeper +concerning the bill in his last journey to Italy; while he accuses me +of murder and fornication in the grossest terms, such as I believe +have scarcely ever been used even to his old companions in Newgate, +whence he was released to scourge the families which cherished, and +bite the hands that have since relieved him. Could I recollect any +provocation I ever gave the man, I should be less amazed, but he +heard, perhaps, that Johnson had written me a rough letter, and +thought he would write me a brutal one: like the Jewish king, who, +trying to imitate Solomon without his understanding, said, 'My father +whipped you with whips, but I will whip you with scorpions.'" + +"Milan, Dec. 7. + +"I correspond constantly and copiously with such of my daughters as +are willing to answer my letters, and I have at last received one +cold scrap from the eldest, which I instantly and tenderly replied +to. Mrs. Lewis too, and Miss Nicholson, have had accounts of my +health, for I found _them_ disinterested and attached to me: those +who led the stream, or watched which way it ran, that they might +follow it, were not, I suppose, desirous of my correspondence, and +till they are so, shall not be troubled with it." + +Miss Nicholson was the lady left with the daughters, and Mrs. Piozzi +could have heard no harm of her from them or others when she wrote +thus. The same inference must be drawn from the allusions to this +lady at subsequent periods. After stating that she "dined at the +minister's o' Tuesday, and he called all the wise men about me with +great politeness indeed"--"Once more," she continues, "keep me out of +the newspapers if you possibly can: they have given me many a +miserable hour, and my enemies many a merry one: but I have not +deserved public persecution, and am very happy to live in a place +where one is free from unmerited insolence, such as London abounds +with. + + "'Illic credulitas, illic temerarius error.' + +God bless you, and may you conquer the many-headed monster which I +could never charm to silence." In "Thraliana," she says: + +"_January_, 1785.--I see the English newspapers are full of gross +insolence to me: all burst out, as I guessed it would, upon the death +of Dr. Johnson. But Mr. Boswell (who I plainly see is the author) +should let the _dead_ escape from his malice at least. I feel more +shocked at the insults offered to Mr. Thrale's memory than at those +cast on Mr. Piozzi's person. My present husband, thank God! is well +and happy, and able to defend himself: but dear Mr. Thrale, that had +fostered these cursed wits so long! to be stung by their malice even +in the grave, is too cruel:-- + + "'Nor church, nor churchyards, from such fops are free.'"[1]--POPE. + +[Footnote 1: Probably misquoted for-- + + "No place is sacred, not the church is free." + +_Prologue to the Satires_.] + +The license of our press is a frequent topic of complaint. But here +is a woman who had never placed herself before the public in any way +so as to give them a right to discuss her conduct or affairs, not +even as an author, made the butt of every description of offensive +personality for months, with the tacit encouragement of the first +moralist of the age. + +January 20th, 1785, she writes from Milan:--"The Minister, Count +Wilsick, has shown us many distinctions, and we are visited by the +first families in Milan. The Venetian Resident will, however, be soon +sent to the court of London, and give a faithful account, as I am +sure, to all their _obliging_ inquiries." + +In "Thraliana": + +"_25th Jan_., 1785.--I have recovered myself sufficiently to think +what will be the consequence to me of Johnson's death, but must wait +the event, as all thoughts on the future in this world are vain. Six +people have already undertaken to write his life, I hear, of which +Sir John Hawkins, Mr. Boswell, Tom Davies, and Dr. Kippis are four. +Piozzi says he would have me add to the number, and so I would, but +that I think my anecdotes too few, and am afraid of saucy answers if +I send to England for others. The saucy answers _I_ should disregard, +but my heart is made vulnerable by my late marriage, and I am certain +that, to spite me, they would insult my husband. + +"Poor Johnson! I see they will leave _nothing untold_ that I laboured +so long to keep secret; and I was so very delicate _in trying to +conceal his [fancied][1] insanity_ that I retained no proofs of it, +or hardly any, nor even mentioned it in these books, lest by my dying +first _they_ might be printed and the secret (for such I thought it) +discovered. I used to tell him in jest that his biographers would be +at a loss concerning some orange-peel he used to keep in his pocket, +and many a joke we had about the lives that would be published. +Rescue me out of their hands, my dear, and do it yourself, said he; +Taylor, Adams, and Hector will furnish you with juvenile anecdotes, +and Baretti will give you all the rest that you have not already, for +I think Baretti is a lyar only when he speaks of himself. Oh, said I, +Baretti told me yesterday that you got by heart six pages of +Machiavel's History once, and repeated them thirty years afterwards +word for word. Why this is a _gross_ lye, said Johnson, I never read +the book at all. Baretti too told me of you (said I) that you once +kept sixteen cats in your chamber, and yet they scratched your legs +to such a degree, you were forced to use mercurial plaisters for some +time after. Why this (replied Johnson) is an unprovoked lye indeed; I +thought the fellow would not have broken through divine and human +laws thus to make puss his heroine, but I see I was mistaken." + +[Footnote 1: Sic in the MS. See _antè_, p. 202.] + +On February 3rd, 1785, Horace Walpole writes from London to Sir +Horace Mann at Florence:--"I have lately been lent a volume of poems +composed and printed at Florence, in which another of our exheroines, +Mrs. Piozzi, has a considerable share; her associates three of the +English bards who assisted in the little garland which Ramsay the +painter sent me. The present is a plump octavo; and if you have not +sent me a copy by our nephew, I should be glad if you could get one +for me: not for the merit of the verses, which are moderate enough +and faint imitations of our good poets; but for a short and sensible +and genteel preface by La Piozzi, from whom I have just seen a very +clever letter to Mrs. Montagu, to disavow a jackanapes who has lately +made a noise here, one Boswell, by Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. In a day +or two we expect another collection by the same Signora." + +Her associates were Greathead, Merry, and Parsons. The volume in +question was "The Florence Miscellany." "A copy," says Mr. Lowndes, +"having fallen into the hands of W. Grifford, gave rise to his +admirable satire of the 'Baviad and Moeviad.'" + +In his Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell makes Johnson say +of Mrs. Montagu's "Essay on Shakespeare": "Reynolds is fond of her +book, and I wonder at it; for neither I, nor Beauclerc, nor Mrs. +Thrale could get through it." This is what Mrs. Piozzi wrote to +disavow, so far as she was personally concerned. In a subsequent +letter from Vienna, she says: "Mrs. Montagu has written to me very +sweetly." The other collection expected from her was her "Anecdotes +of the late Samuel Johnson, during the last Twenty Years of his Life. +Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand, 1786." + +She opened the matter to Mr. Cadell in the following terms: + +"Florence, 7th June, 1785. + +"_Sir_.,--As you were at once the bookseller and friend of Dr. +Johnson, who always spoke of your character in the kindest terms, I +could wish you likewise to be the publisher of some Anecdotes +concerning the last twenty years of his life, collected by me during +the many days I had opportunity to spend in his instructive company, +and digested into method since I heard of his death. As I have a +large collection of his letters in England, besides some verses, +known only to myself, I wish to delay printing till we can make two +or three little volumes, not unacceptable, perhaps, to the public; +but I desire my intention to be notified, for divers reasons, and, if +you approve of the scheme, should wish it to be immediately +advertized. My return cannot be in less than twelve months, and we +may be detained still longer, as our intention is to complete the +tour of Italy; but the book is in forwardness, and it has been seen +by many English and Italian friends." + +On July 27th, 1785, she writes from Florence: + +"We celebrated our wedding anniversary two days ago with a +magnificent dinner and concert, at which the Prince Corsini and his +brother the Cardinal did us the honour of assisting, and wished us +joy in the tenderest and politest terms. Lord and Lady Cowper, Lord +Pembroke, and _all_ the English indeed, doat on my husband, and show +us every possible attention." + +On the 18th July, 1785, she writes again to Mr. Cadell:--"I am +favoured with your answer and pleased with the advertisement, but it +will be impossible to print the verses till my return to England, as +they are all locked up with other papers in the Bank, nor should I +choose to put the key (which is now at Milan) in any one's hand +except my own." + +She therefore proposes that the "Anecdotes" shall be printed first, +and published separately. On the 20th October, 1785, she writes from +Sienna: + +"I finished my 'Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson' at Florence, and taking +them with me to Leghorn, got a clear transcript made there, such as I +hope will do for you to print from; though there may be some errors, +perhaps many, which have escaped me, as I am wholly unused to the +business of sending manuscripts to the press, and must rely on you to +get everything done properly when, it comes into your hands." + +Such was the surviving ascendency of Johnson, or such the placability +of her disposition, that, but for Piozzi's remonstrances, she would +have softened down her "Anecdotes" to an extent which would have +destroyed much of their sterling value. + +Mr. Lysons made the final bargain with Cadell, and had full power to +act for her. She writes thus to Cadell: + +"Rome, 28th March, 1786. + +"SIR,--I hasten to tell you that I am perfectly pleased and contented +with the alterations made by my worthy and amiable friends in the +'Anecdotes of Johnson's Life.' Whatever is done by Sir Lucas Pepys is +certainly well done, and I am happy in the thoughts of his having +interested himself about it. Mr. Lysons was very judicious and very +kind in going to the Bishop of Peterboro', and him and Dr. Lort for +advice. There is no better to be had in the world, I believe; and it +is my desire that they should be always consulted about any future +transactions of the same sort relating to, Sir, your most obedient +servant, + +"H. L. PIOZZI."[1] + +[Footnote 1: The letters to Mr. Cadell were published in the +"Gentleman's Magazine" for March and April, 1852.] + +The early portions of "Thraliana" were evidently amongst the papers +locked up in the Bank, and she consequently wrote most of the +Anecdotes from memory, which may account for some minor +discrepancies, like that relating to the year in which she made the +acquaintance with Johnson. + +The book attracted great attention; and whilst some affected to +discover in it the latent signs of wounded vanity and pique, others +vehemently impugned its accuracy. Foremost amongst her assailants +stood Boswell, who had an obvious motive for depreciating her, and he +attempts to destroy her authority, first, by quoting Johnson's +supposed imputations on her veracity; and secondly, by individual +instances of her alleged departure from truth. + +Thus, Johnson is reported to have said:--"It is amazing, Sir, what +deviations there are from precise truth, in the account which is +given of almost everything. I told Mrs. Thrale, You have so little +anxiety about truth that you never tax your memory with the exact +thing." + +Her proneness to exaggerated praise especially excited his +indignation, and he endeavours to make her responsible for his +rudeness on the strength of it. + +"Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long (now North). +_Johnson_. 'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr. Long's character is +very _short_. It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of genteel +appearance, and that is all. I know nobody who blasts by praise as +you do: for whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set +against a character. They are provoked to attack it. Now there is +Pepys; you praised that man with such disproportion, that I was +incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserves. _His blood is +upon your head_. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; +for your censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a +leering smile) she is the first woman in the world, could she but +restrain that wicked tongue of hers;--she would be the only woman, +could she but command that little whirligig.'" + +Opposite the words I have printed in italics she has written: "An +expression he would not have used; no, not for worlds." + +In Boswell's note of a visit to Streatham in 1778, we find:-- + +"Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very +earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost +conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth even in the +most minute particulars. 'Accustom your children,' said he, +'constantly to this: if a thing happened at one window, and they, +when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it +pass, but instantly check them: you do not know where deviation from +truth will end.' _Boswell_. 'It may come to the door: and when once +an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be +varied so as to be totally different from what really happened.' Our +lively hostess, whose fancy was impatient of the rein, fidgeted at +this, and ventured to say 'Nay, this is too much. If Dr. Johnson +should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the +restraint only twice a day: but little variations in narrative must +happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching.' +_Johnson_. 'Well, Madam, and you _ought_ to be perpetually watching. +It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional +lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.'" + +Now for the illustrative incident, which occurred during the same +visit:-- + +"I had before dinner repeated a ridiculous story told me by an old +man, who had been a passenger with me in the stage-coach to-day. Mrs. +Thrale, having taken occasion to allude to it in talking to me, +called it, 'The story told you by the old _woman_.' 'Now, Madam,' +said I, 'give me leave to catch you in the fact: it was not an old +_woman_, but an old _man_, whom I mentioned as having told me this.' +I presumed to take an opportunity, in the presence of Johnson, of +showing this lively lady how ready she was, unintentionally, to +deviate from exact authenticity of narration." + +In the margin: "Mrs. Thrale knew there was no such thing as an Old +Man: when a man gets superannuated, they call him an Old Woman." + +The remarks on the value of truth attributed to Johnson are just and +sound in the main, but when they are pointed against character, they +must be weighed in reference to the very high standard he habitually +insisted upon. He would not allow his servant to say he was not at +home when he was. "A servant's strict regard for truth," he +continued, "must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may +know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such +nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, +have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for +himself?" + +One of his townspeople, Mr. Wickens, of Lichfield, was walking with +him in a small meandering shrubbery formed so as to hide the +termination, and observed that it might be taken for an extensive +labyrinth, but that it would prove a deception, though it was, +indeed, not an unpardonable one. "Sir," exclaimed Johnson, "don't +tell me of deception; a lie, Sir, is a lie, whether it be a lie to +the eye or a lie to the ear." Whilst he was in one of these +paradoxical humours, there was no pleasing him; and he has been known +to insult persons of respectability for repeating current accounts of +events, sounding new and strange, which turned out to be literally +true; such as the red-hot shot at Gibraltar, or the effects of the +earthquake at Lisbon. Yet he could be lax when it suited him, as +speaking of epitaphs: "The writer of an epitaph should not be +considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance +must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. In lapidary +inscriptions a man is not upon oath." Is he upon oath in narrating an +anecdote? or could he do more than swear to the best of his +recollection and belief, if he was. Boswell's notes of conversations +are wonderful results of a peculiar faculty, or combination of +faculties, but the utmost they can be supposed to convey is the +substance of what took place, in an exceedingly condensed shape, +lighted up at intervals by the _ipsissima verba_, of the speaker. + +"Whilst he went on talking triumphantly," says Boswell, "I was fixed +in admiration, and said to Mrs. Thrale, 'O for short-hand to take +this down!' 'You'll carry it all in your head,' said she; 'a long +head is as good as short-hand.'" On his boasting of the efficiency of +his own system of short-hand to Johnson, he was put to the test and +failed. + +Mrs. Piozzi at once admits and accounts for the inferiority of her +own collection of anecdotes, when she denounces "a trick which I have +seen played on common occasions, of sitting steadily down at the +other end of the room, to write at the moment what should be said in +company, either _by_ Dr. Johnson or _to_ him, I never practised +myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred, +and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that were it commonly +adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society, and a +conversation assembly room would become tremendous as a court of +justice." This is a hit at Boswell, who (as regards Johnson himself) +had full licence to take notes the best way he could. Madame +D'Arblay's are much fuller, and bear a suspicious resemblance to the +dialogues in her novels. + +In a reply to Boswell, dated December 14th, 1793, Miss Seward +pointedly remarks: + +"Dr. Johnson's frequently-expressed contempt for Mrs. Thrale on +account of that want of veracity which he imputes to her, at least as +Mr. Boswell has recorded, either convicts him of narrating what +Johnson never said, or Johnson himself of that insincerity of which +there are too many instances, amidst all the recorded proofs of his +unprovoked personal rudeness, to those with whom he conversed; for, +this repeated contempt was coeval with his published letters, which +express such high and perfect esteem for that lady, which declare +that 'to hear her, was to hear Wisdom, that to see her, was to see +Virtue.'" + +Lord Macaulay and his advocate in the "Edinburgh Review," who speak +of Mrs. Piozzi's "white lies," have not convicted her of one; and Mr. +Croker bears strong testimony to her accuracy. + +Mrs. Piozzi prefaces some instances of Johnson's rudeness and +harshness by the remark, that "he did not hate the persons he treated +with roughness, or despise them whom he drove from him by apparent +scorn. He really loved and respected many whom he would not suffer to +love him." Boswell echoes the remark, multiplies the instances, and +then accuses her of misrepresenting their friend. After mentioning a +discourteous reply to Robertson the historian, which was subsequently +confirmed by Boswell, she proceeds to show that Johnson was no +gentler to herself or those for whom he had the greatest regard. +"When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin, killed in +America, 'Prithee, my dear (said he), have done with canting: how +would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations +were at once spitted like larks and roasted for Presto's +supper?'--Presto was the dog that lay under the table." To this +Boswell opposes the version given by Baretti: + +"Mrs. Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid down her +knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, 'O, my dear Johnson! do you +know what has happened? The last letters from abroad have brought us +an account that our poor cousin's head was taken off by a +cannon-ball.' Johnson, who was shocked both at the fact and her light +unfeeling manner of mentioning it, replied, 'Madam, it would give +_you_ very little concern if all your relations were spitted like +those larks, and dressed for Presto's supper." + +This version, assuming its truth, aggravates the personal rudeness of +the speech. But her marginal notes on the passage are: "Boswell +appealing to Baretti for a testimony of the truth is comical enough! +I never addressed him (Johnson) so familiarly in my life. I never did +eat any supper, and there were no larks to eat." + +"Upon mentioning this story to my friend Mr. Wilkes," adds Boswell, +"he pleasantly matched it with the following sentimental anecdote. He +was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris to sup with him and a +lady who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was +going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much +for her, she was in such distress, and that he meant to make her a +present of 200 louis d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of +Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every +pathetic air of grief, but ate no less than three French pigeons, +which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. +Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, "Excessive +sorrow is exceeding dry," but I never heard "Excessive sorrow is +exceeding hungry." Perhaps one hundred will do. The gentleman took +the hint." Mrs. Piozzi's marginal ebullition is: "Very like my hearty +supper of larks, who never eat supper at all, nor was ever a hot dish +seen on the table after dinner at Streatham Park." + +Two instances of inaccuracy, announced as particularly worthy of +notice, are supplied by "an eminent critic," understood to be Malone, +who begins by stating, "I have often been in his (Johnson's) company, +and never _once_ heard him say a severe thing to any one; and many +others can attest the same." Malone had lived very little with +Johnson, and to appreciate his evidence, we should know what he and +Boswell would agree to call a severe thing. Once, on Johnson's +observing that they had "good talk" on the "preceding evening," "Yes, +Sir," replied Boswell, "you tossed and gored several persons." Do +tossing and goring come within the definition of severity? In another +place he says, "I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned;" and Miss +Reynolds relates that "One day at her own table he spoke so very +roughly to her, that every one present was surprised that she could +bear it so placidly; and on the ladies withdrawing, I expressed great +astonishment that Dr. Johnson should speak so harshly to her, but to +this she said no more than 'Oh, dear, good man.'" + +One of the two instances of Mrs. Piozzi's inaccuracy is as +follows:--"He once bade a very celebrated lady (Hannah More) who +praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an +emphasis (which always offended him) consider what her flattery was +worth before she choaked _him_ with it." + +Now, exclaims Mr. Malone, let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with +this: + +"The person thus represented as being harshly treated, though a very +celebrated lady, was _then_ just come to London from an obscure +situation in the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she +met Dr. Johnson. She very soon began to pay her court to him in the +most fulsome strain. 'Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam,' was his +reply. She still _laid it on_. 'Pray, Madam, let us have no more of +this,' he rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she +continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this indelicate +and _vain_ obtrusion of compliments, he exclaimed, 'Dearest lady, +consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow +it so freely.' + +"How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all +those circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale +either did not know, or has suppressed!" + +How do we know that these circumstances really belong to it? what +essential difference do they make? and how do they prove Mrs. +Thrale's inaccuracy, who expressly states the nature of the probable, +though certainly most inadequate, provocation. + +The other instance is a story which she tells on Mr. Thrale's +authority, of an argument between Johnson and a gentleman, which the +master of the house, a nobleman, tried to cut short by saying loud +enough for the doctor to hear, "Our friend has no meaning in all +this, except just to relate at the Club to-morrow how he teased +Johnson at dinner to-day; this is all to do himself honour." "No, +upon my word," replied the other, "I see no honour in it, whatever +you may do." "Well, Sir," returned Mr. Johnson sternly, "if you do +not see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace." Malone, on the +authority of a nameless friend, asserts that it was not at the house +of a nobleman, that the gentleman's remark was uttered in a low tone, +and that Johnson made no retort at all. As Mrs. Piozzi could hardly +have invented the story, the sole question is, whether Mr. Thrale or +Malone's friend was right. She has written in the margin: "It was the +house of Thomas Fitzmaurice, son to Lord Shelburne, and Pottinger the +hero."[1] + +"Mrs. Piozzi," says Boswell, "has given a similar misrepresentation +of Johnson's treatment of Garrick in this particular (as to the +Club), as if he had used these contemptuous expressions: 'If Garrick +does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely one ought to sit in a society +like ours-- + + "'Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player.'" + +The lady retorts, "He did say so, and Mr. Thrale stood astonished." +Johnson was constantly depreciating the profession of the stage.[2] + +[Footnote 1: "Being in company with Count Z----, at Lord ----'s +table, the Count thinking the Doctor too dogmatical, observed, he did +not at all think himself honoured by the conversation.' And what is +to become of me, my lord, who feel myself actually +disgraced?"--_Johnsoniana_, p. 143, first edition.] + +[Footnote 2: "_Boswell_. There, Sir, you are always heretical, you +never will allow merit to a player. _Johnson_. Merit, Sir, what +merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer or a +ballad-singer?"--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_, p. 556.] + +Whilst finding fault with Mrs. Piozzi for inaccuracy in another +place, Boswell supplies an additional example of Johnson's habitual +disregard of the ordinary rules of good breeding in society:-- + +"A learned gentleman [Dr. Vansittart], who, in the course of +conversation, wished to inform us of this simple fact, that the +council upon the circuit of Shrewsbury were much bitten by fleas, +took, I suppose, seven or eight minutes in relating it +circumstantially. He in a plenitude of phrase told us, that large +bales of woollen cloth were lodged in the town-hall; that by reason +of this, fleas nestled there in prodigious numbers; that the lodgings +of the council were near the town-hall; and that those little animals +moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in +great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious +narrative, and then burst out (playfully however), 'It is a pity, +Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a +time, that a lion must have served you a twelve-month.'" + +He complains in a note that Mrs. Piozzi, to whom he told the +anecdote, has related it "as if the gentleman had given the natural +history of the mouse." But, in a letter to Johnson she tells _him_ "I +have seen the man that saw the mouse," and he replies "Poor V----, he +is a good man, &c.;" so that her version of the story is the best +authenticated. Opposite Boswell's aggressive paragraph she has +written: "I saw old Mitchell of Brighthelmstone affront him (Johnson) +terribly once about fleas. Johnson, being tired of the subject, +expressed his impatience of it with coarseness. 'Why, Sir,' said the +old man, 'why should not Flea bite o'me be treated as Phlebotomy? It +empties the capillary vessels.'" + +Boswell's Life of Johnson was not published till 1791; but the +controversy kindled by the Tour to the Hebrides and the Anecdotes, +raged fiercely enough to fix general attention and afford ample scope +for ridicule: "The Bozzi &c. subjects," writes Hannah More in April +1786, "are not exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of +them. Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. _That_, the +Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace, spoil all conversation, and +destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys' last night." In one of +Walpole's letters about the same time we find: + +"All conversation turns on a trio of culprits--Hastings, Fitzgerald, +and the Cardinal de Rohan.... So much for tragedy. Our comic +performers are Boswell and Dame Piozzi. The cock biographer has fixed +a direct lie on the hen, by an advertisement in which he affirms that +he communicated his manuscript to Madame Thrale, and that she made no +objection to what he says of her low opinion of Mrs. Montagu's book. +It is very possible that it might not be her real opinion, but was +uttered in compliment to Johnson, or for fear he should spit in her +face if she disagreed with him; but how will she get over her not +objecting to the passage remaining? She must have known, by knowing +Boswell, and by having a similar intention herself, that his +'Anecdotes' would certainly be published: in short, the ridiculous +woman will be strangely disappointed. As she must have heard that +_the whole first impression of her book was sold the first day_, no +doubt she expected on her landing, to be received like the governor +of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm. +She, and Boswell, and their Hero, are the joke of the public. A Dr. +Walcot, _soi-disant_ Peter Pindar, has published a burlesque eclogue, +in which Boswell and the Signora are the interlocutors, and all the +absurdest passages in the works of both are ridiculed. The +print-shops teem with satiric prints in them: one in which Boswell, +as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the bear, has this witty +inscription, 'My Friend _delineavit_.' But enough of these +mountebanks." + +What Walpole calls the absurdest passages are precisely those which +possess most interest for posterity; namely, the minute personal +details, which bring Johnson home to the mind's eye. Peter Pindar, +however, was simply labouring in his vocation when he made the best +of them, as in the following lines. His satire is in the form of a +Town Eclogue, in which Bozzy and Madame Piozzi contend in anecdotes, +with Hawkins for umpire: + +BOZZY. + + "One Thursday morn did Doctor Johnson wake, + And call out 'Lanky, Lanky,' by mistake-- + But recollecting--'Bozzy, Bozzy,' cry'd-- + For in _contractions_ Johnson took a pride!" + +MADAME PIOZZI. + + "I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down; + As such a tale was current through the town,-- + Says I, 'Do tell me, Doctor, what befell.'-- + 'Why, dearest lady, there is nought to _tell_; + 'I ponder'd on the _proper'st_ mode to _treat_ him-- + 'The dog was impudent, and so I beat him! + 'Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs; + '_Others_, that I belabour'd, held their tongues.'" + + "Did any one, that he was _happy_, cry-- + Johnson would tell him plumply, 'twas a lie. + A Lady told him she was really so; + On which he sternly answer'd, 'Madam, no! + 'Sickly you are, and ugly--foolish, poor; + 'And therefore can't he happy, I am sure. + ''Twould make a fellow hang himself, whose ear + 'Were, from such creatures, forc'd such stuff to hear.'" + +BOZZY. + + "Lo, when we landed on the Isle of Mull, + The megrims got into the Doctor's skull: + With such bad humours he began to fill, + I thought he would not go to Icolmkill: + But lo! those megrims (wonderful to utter!) + Were banish'd all by tea and bread and butter!" + +At last they get angry, and tell each other a few +home truths:-- + +BOZZY. + + "How could your folly tell, so void of truth, + That miserable story of the youth, + Who, in your book, of Doctor Johnson begs + Most seriously to know if cats laid eggs!" + +MADAME PIOZZI. + + "_Who_ told of Mistress Montagu the lie-- + So palpable a falsehood?--Bozzy, fie!" + +BOZZY. + + "_Who_, madd'ning with an anecdotic itch, + Declar'd that Johnson call'd his mother _b-tch?_" + +MADAME PIOZZI. + + "_Who_, from M'Donald's rage to save his snout, + Cut twenty lines of defamation out?" + +BOZZY. + + "_Who_ would have said a word about Sam's wig, + Or told the story of the peas and pig? + Who would have told a tale so very flat, + Of Frank the Black, and Hodge the mangy cat?" + +MADAME PIOZZI. + + "Good me! you're grown at once confounded _tender_; + Of Doctor Johnson's fame a _fierce_ defender: + I'm sure you've mention'd many a pretty story + Not much redounding to the Doctor's glory. + _Now_ for a _saint_ upon us you would palm him-- + First _murder_ the poor man, and then _embalm him!_" + +BOZZY. + + "Well, Ma'am! since all that Johnson said or wrote, + You hold so sacred, how have you forgot + To grant the wonder-hunting world a reading + Of Sam's Epistle, just before your _wedding_: + Beginning thus, (in strains not form'd to flatter) + 'Madam, + '_If that most ignominious matter + 'Be not concluded_'--[1] + Farther shall I say? + No--we shall have it from _yourself_ some day, + To justify your passion for the _Youth_, + With all the charms of eloquence and truth." + +MADAME PIOZZI. + + "What was my marriage, Sir, to _you_ or _him?_ + _He_ tell me what to do!--a pretty whim! + _He_, to _propriety_, (the beast) _resort!_ + As well might _elephants preside_ at _court_. + Lord! let the world to _damn_ my match _agree;_ + Good God! James Boswell, what's _that world_ to _me?_ + The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale, + Fed on her pork, poor souls! and swill'd her ale, + May _sicken_ at Piozzi, nine in ten-- + Turn up the nose of scorn--good God! what then? + For _me_, the Dev'l may fetch their souls so _great_; + _They_ keep their homes, and _I_, thank God, my meat. + When they, poor owls! shall beat their cage, a jail, + I, unconfin'd, shall spread my peacock tail; + Free as the birds of air, enjoy my ease, + Choose my own food, and see what climes I please. + _I_ suffer only--if I'm in the wrong: + So, now, you prating puppy, hold your tongue." + +[Footnote 1: This evidently referred to the "adumbration" of +Johnson's letter (No. 4), _antè_, p. 239.] + +Walpole's opinion of the book itself had been expressed in a +preceding letter, dated March 28th, 1786: + +"Two days ago appeared Madame Piozzi's Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. I am +lamentably disappointed--in her, I mean: not in him. I had conceived +a favourable opinion of her capacity. But this new book is wretched; +a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish in a very vulgar style, +and too void of method even for such a farrago. . . The Signora talks +of her doctor's _expanded_ mind and has contributed her mite to show +that never mind was narrower. In fact, the poor woman is to be +pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out[1], but +have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his +brutalities as wit, and his worst conundrums as humour. Judge! The +Piozzi relates that a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he +replied: 'In Ireland: it was a bog planted with palm trees.'" + +[Footnote 1: See _antè_, p. 202 and 270.] + +Walpole's statement, that the whole first impression was sold the +first day, is confirmed by one of her letters, and may be placed +alongside of a statement of Johnson's reported in the book. Clarissa +being mentioned as a perfect character, "on the contrary (said he) +you may observe that there is always something which she prefers to +truth. Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the +romances; but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of +perhaps the only book, which, being printed off betimes one morning, +a new edition was called for before night." + +When the king sent for a copy of the "Anecdotes" on the evening of +the publication, there was none to be had. + +In April, 1786, Hannah More writes: + +"Mrs. Piozzi's book is much in fashion. It is indeed entertaining, +but there are two or three passages exceedingly unkind to Garrick +which filled me with indignation. If Johnson had been envious enough +to utter them, she might have been prudent enough to suppress them." + +In a preceding letter she had said: + +"Boswell tells me he is printing anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, not his +_life_, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his _pyramid_, I +besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed +friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said +roughly, he would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to +please anybody." The retort will serve for both Mrs. Piozzi and +himself. + +Mrs. Piozzi writes from Venice, May 20th, 1786: "Cadell says he never +yet published a work the sale of which was so rapid, and that +rapidity of so long continuance. I suppose the fifth edition will +meet me at my return." + +"Milan, July 6th, 1786. + +"If Cadell would send me some copies, I should be very much obliged +to him. _'Tis like living without a looking-glass never to see one's +own book so_." + +The copy of the "Anecdotes" in my possession has two inscriptions on +the blank leaves before the title-page. The one is in Mrs. Piozzi's +handwriting: "This little dirty book is kindly accepted by Sir James +Fellowes from his obliged friend, H.L. Piozzi, 14th February, 1816;" +the other: "This copy of the 'Anecdotes' was found at Bath, covered +with dirt, the book having been long out of print[1], and after being +bound was presented to me by my excellent friend, H.L.P. (signed) +J.F." + +[Footnote 1: The "Anecdotes" were reprinted by Messrs. Longman in +1856, and form part of their "Traveller's Library."] + +It is enriched by marginal notes in her handwriting, which enable us +to fill up a few puzzling blanks, besides supplying some information +respecting men and books, which will be prized by all lovers of +literature. + +One of the anecdotes runs thus: "I asked him once concerning the +conversation powers of a gentleman with whom I was myself +unacquainted. 'He talked to me at the Club one day (replies our +Doctor) concerning Catiline's conspiracy; so I withdrew my attention, +and thought about Tom Thumb.'" + +In the margin is written "Charles James Fox." Mr. Croker came to the +conclusion that the gentleman was Mr. Vesey. Boswell says that Fox +never talked with any freedom in the presence of Johnson, who +accounted for his reserve by suggesting that a man who is used to the +applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of a private +company. But the real cause was his sensitiveness to rudeness, his +own temper being singularly sweet. By an odd coincidence he occupied +the presidential chair at the Club on the evening when Johnson +emphatically declared patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel. + +Again: "On an occasion of less consequence, when he turned his back +on Lord Bolingbroke in the rooms of Brighthelmstone, he made this +excuse: 'I am not obliged, Sir,' said he to Mr. Thrale, who stood +fretting, 'to find reasons for respecting the rank of him who will +not condescend to declare it by his dress or some other visible mark: +what are stars and other signs of superiority made for?' The next +evening, however, he made us comical amends, by sitting by the same +nobleman, and haranguing very loudly about the nature, and use, and +abuse, of divorces. Many people gathered round them to hear what was +said, and when my husband called him away, and told him to whom he +had been talking, received an answer which I will not write down." + +The marginal note is: "He said: 'Why, Sir, I did not know the man. If +he will put on no other mark of distinction, let us make him wear his +horns.'" Lord Bolingbroke had divorced his wife, afterwards Lady +Diana Beauclerc, for infidelity. + +A marginal note naming the lady of quality (Lady Catherine Wynne) +mentioned in the following anecdote, verifies Mr. Croker's +conjectural statement concerning her: + +"For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's +seat in Wales, with less attention than he had long been accustomed +to, he had a rougher denunciation: 'That woman,' cries Johnson, 'is +like sour small beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the +wretched country she lives in: like that, she could never have been a +good thing, and even that bad thing is spoiled.' It was in the same +vein of asperity, and I believe with something like the same +provocation, that he observed of a Scotch lady, 'that she resembled a +dead nettle; were she alive,' said he, 'she would sting.'" + +From similar notes we learn that the "somebody" who declared Johnson +"a tremendous converser" was George Grarrick; and that it was Dr. +Delap, of Sussex, to whom, when lamenting the tender state of his +_inside_, he cried out: "Dear Doctor, do not be like the spider, man, +and spin conversation thus incessantly out of thy own bowels." + +On the margin of the page in which Hawkins Browne is commended as the +most delightful of conversers, she has written: "Who wrote the +'Imitation of all the Poets' in his own ludicrous verses, praising +the pipe of tobacco. Of Hawkins Browne, the pretty Mrs. Cholmondeley +said she was soon tired; because the first hour he was so dull, there +was no bearing him; the second he was so witty, there was no bearing +him; the third he was so drunk, there was no bearing him." [1] + +[Footnote 1: Query, whether this is the gentleman immortalised by +Peter Plymley: "In the third year of his present Majesty (George +III.) and in the thirtieth of his own age, Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown, +then upon his travels, danced one evening at the court of Naples. His +dress was a volcano silk, with lava buttons. Whether (as the +Neapolitan wits said) he had studied dancing under Saint Vitus, or +whether David, dancing in a linen vest, was his model, is not known; +but Mr. Brown danced with such inconceivable alacrity and vigour, +that he threw the Queen of Naples into convulsions of laughter, which +terminated in a miscarriage, and changed the dynasty of the +Neapolitan throne."] + +In the "Anecdotes" she relates that one day in Wales she meant to +please Johnson with a dish of young peas. "Are they not charming?" +said I, while he was eating them. "Perhaps," said he, "they would be +so--to a pig;" meaning (according to the marginal note), because they +were too little boiled. Pennant, the historian, used to tell this as +having happened at Mrs. Cotton's, who, according to him, called out, +"Then do help yourself, Mr. Johnson." But the well-known high +breeding of the lady justifies a belief that this is one of the many +repartees which, if conceived, were never uttered at the time.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I have heard on good authority that Pennant afterwards +owned it as his own invention.] + +When a Lincolnshire lady, shewing Johnson a grotto, asked him: "Would +it not be a pretty cool habitation in summer?" he replied: "I think +it would, Madam, _for a toad_." Talking of Gray's Odes, he said, +"They are forced plants, raised in a hotbed; and they are poor +plants: they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, who +had been running down ode-writing in general, as a bad species of +poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been literally cucumbers, they had +been better things than odes." "Yes, Sir," said Johnson, "_for a +hog_." + +To return to the Anecdotes: + +"Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he despised none +more, I think, than the man who marries for maintenance: and of a +friend who made his alliance on no higher principles, he said once, +'Now has that fellow,' it was a nobleman of whom we were speaking, +'at length obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and for that +certainty, like his brother dog in the fable, he will get his neck +galled for life with a collar.'" The nobleman was Lord Sandys. + +"He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one +person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slily, or, +as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise +one's friend with an unexpected favour; 'which, ten to one,' says he, +'fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such +a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that +superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh! never be seduced +by such silly pretences,' continued he; 'if a wench wants a good +gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more +delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor +scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that +could digest iron.'" This lady was Mrs. Montagu. + +"I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at +themselves in a glass--'They do not surprise me at all by so doing,' +said Johnson: 'they see reflected in that glass, men who have risen +from almost the lowest situations in life; one to enormous riches, +the other to everything this world can give--rank, fame, and fortune. +They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the +exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them; +and I see not why they should avoid the mirror.'" The one, she +writes, was Mr. Cator, the other, Wedderburne. Another great lawyer +and very ugly man, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, was remarkable for the +same peculiarity, and had his walls covered with looking-glasses. His +personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated +courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one +of Wilkes's happiest repartees. + +Opposite a passage descriptive of Johnson's conversation she has +written: "We used to say to one another familiarly at Streatham Park, +'Come, let us go into the library, and make Johnson speak Ramblers.'" + +Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy: + +"December 16th, 1786. + +"I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi, dated Vienna, November 4, in +which she says that, after visiting Prague and Dresden, she shall +return home by Brussels, whither I have written to her; and I imagine +she will be in London early in the new year. Miss Thrale is at her +own house at Brighthelmstone, accompanied by a very respectable +companion, an officer's widow, recommended to her as such.[1] There +is a new life of Johnson published by a Dr. Towers, a Dissenting +minister and Dr. Kippis's associate in the Biographia Britannica, for +which work I take it for granted this life is to be hashed up again +when the letter 'J' takes its turn. There is nothing new in it; and +the author gives Johnson and his biographers all fair play, except +when he treats of his political opinions and pamphlets. I was glad to +hear that Johnson confessed to Dr. Fordyce, a little before his +death, that he had offended both God and man by his pride of +understanding.[2] Sir John Hawkins' Life of him is also finished, and +will be published with the works in February next. From all these I +suppose Boswell will borrow largely to make up his quarto life;--and +so our modern authors proceed, preying on one another, and +complaining sorely of each other." + +[Footnote 1: The Hon. Mrs. Murray, afterwards Mrs. Aust!] + +[Footnote 2: He used very different language to Langton.] + +"March 8th, 1787. + +"I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi from Brussels, intimating +that she should soon be in England, and I expect every day to hear of +her arrival. I do not believe that she purchased a marquisate abroad; +but it is said, with some probability, that she will here get the +King's license, or an act of Parliament, to change her name to +Salusbury, her maiden name. Sir John Hawkins, I am told, bears hard +upon her in his 'Life of Johnson.'" + +"March 21st, 1787. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi are arrived at an hotel in Pall Mall, and are +about to take a house in Hanover Square; they were with me last +Saturday evening, when I asked some of her friends to meet her; she +looks very well, and seems in good spirits; told me she had been that +morning at the bank to get 'Johnson's Correspondence' amongst other +papers, which she means forthwith to commit to the press. There is a +bookseller has printed two supplementary volumes to Hawkins' eleven, +consisting almost wholly of the 'Lilliputian Speeches.' Hawkins has +printed a Review of the 'Sublime and Beautiful' as Johnson's, which +Murphy says was his." + +"March 13th, 1787. + +"Mrs. Piozzi and her _caro sposo_ seem very happy here at a good +house in Hanover Square, where I am invited to a rout next week, the +first I believe she has attempted, and then will be seen who of her +old acquaintance continue such. She is now printing Johnson's Letters +in 2 vols. octavo, with some of her own; but if they are not ready +before the recess they will not be published till next winter. Poor +Sir John Hawkins, I am told, is pulled all to pieces in the Review." +Sir John was treated according to his deserts, and did not escape +whipping. One of the severest castigations was inflicted by Porson. + +Before mentioning her next publication, I will show from "Thraliana" +her state of mind when about to start for England, and her +impressions of things and people on her return: + +"1786.--It has always been my maxim never to influence the +inclination of another: Mr. Thrale, in consequence, lived with me +seventeen and a half years, during which time I tried but twice to +persuade him to _do_ anything, and but once, and that in vain, to let +anything alone. Even my daughters, as soon as they could reason, were +always allowed, and even encouraged, by me to reason their own way, +and not suffer their respect or affection for me to mislead their +judgment. Let us keep the mind clear if we can from prejudices, or +truth will never be found at all.[1] The worst part of this +disinterested scheme is, that other people are not of my mind, and if +I resolve not to use my lawful influence to make my children love me, +the lookers-on will soon use their unlawful influence to make them +hate me: if I scrupulously avoid persuading my husband to become a +Lutheran or be of the English church, the Romanists will be diligent +to teach him all the narrowness and bitterness of their own unfeeling +sect, and soon persuade him that it is not delicacy but weakness +makes me desist from the combat. Well! let me do right, and leave the +consequences in His hand who alone sees every action's motive and the +true cause of every effect: let me endeavour to please God, and to +have only my own faults and follies, not those of another, to answer +for." + +[Footnote 1: "Clear your mind of _cant_."--JOHNSON.] + +"1787, _May_ 1_st_.--It was not wrong to come home after all, but +very right. The Italians would have said we were afraid to face +England, and the English would have said we were confined abroad in +prisons or convents or some stuff. I find Mr. Smith (one of our +daughter's guardians) told that poor baby Cecilia a fine staring tale +how my husband locked me up at Milan and fed me on bread and water, +to make the child hate Mr. Piozzi. Good God! What infamous +proceeding was this! My husband never saw the fellow, so could not +have provoked him." + +"_May_ 19_th_.--We bad a fine assembly last night indeed: in my best +days I never had finer: there were near a hundred people in the rooms +which were besides much admired." + +"1788, _January_ 1_st_.--How little I thought this day four years +that I should celebrate this 1st of January, 1788, here at Bath, +surrounded with friends and admirers? The public partial to _me_, and +almost every individual whose kindness is worth wishing for, +sincerely attached to my husband." + +"Mrs. Byron is converted by Piozzi's assiduity, she really likes him +now: and sweet Mrs. Lambert told everybody at Bath she was in love +with him." + +"I have passed a delightful winter in spite of them, caressed by my +friends, adored by my husband, amused with every entertainment that +is going forward: what need I think about three sullen Misses? ... +and yet!"---- + +"_August_ 1_st_--Baretti has been grossly abusive in the 'European +Magazine' to me: _that_ hurts me but little; what shocks me is that +those treacherous Burneys should abet and puff him. He is a most +ungrateful because unprincipled wretch; but I _am_ sorry that +anything belonging to Dr. Burney should be so monstrously wicked." + +"1789, _January_ 17_th_.--Mrs. Siddons dined in a coterie of my +unprovoked enemies yesterday at Porteous's. She mentioned our +concerts, and the Erskines lamented their absence from one we gave +two days ago, at which Mrs. Garrick was present and gave a good +report to the _Blues_. Charming Blues! blue with venom I think; I +suppose they begin to be ashamed of their paltry behaviour. Mrs. +Grarrick, more prudent than any of them, left a loophole for +returning friendship to fasten through, and it _shall_ fasten: that +woman has lived a _very wise life_, regular and steady in her +conduct, attentive to every word she speaks and every step she +treads, decorous in her manners and graceful in her person. My fancy +forms the Queen just like Mrs. Grarrick: they are countrywomen and +have, as the phrase is, had a hard card to play; yet never lurched by +tricksters nor subdued by superior powers, they will rise from the +table unhurt either by others or themselves ... having played a +_saving game. I_ have run risques to be sure, that I have; yet-- + + "'When after some distinguished leap + She drops her pole and seems to slip, + Straight gath'ring all her active strength, + She rises higher half her length;' + +and better than _now_ I have never stood with the world in general, I +believe. May the books just sent to press confirm the partiality of +the Public!" + +"1789, _January_.--I have a great deal more prudence than people +suspect me for: they think I act by chance while I am doing nothing +in the world unintentionally, and have never, I dare say, in these +last fifteen years uttered a word to husband, or child, or servant, +or friend, without being very careful what it should be. Often have I +spoken what I have repented after, but that was want of _judgment_, +not of _meaning_. What I said I meant to say at the time, and thought +it best to say, ... I do not err from haste or a spirit of rattling, +as people think I do: when I err, 'tis because I make a false +conclusion, not because I make no conclusion at all; when I rattle, I +rattle on purpose." + +"1789, _May_ 1_st_.--Mrs. Montagu wants to make up with me again. I +dare say she does; but I will not be taken and left even at the +pleasure of those who are much nearer and dearer to me than Mrs. +Montagu. We want no flash, no flattery. I never had more of either in +my life, nor ever lived half so happily: Mrs. Montagu wrote creeping +letters when she wanted my help, or foolishly _thought_ she did, and +then turned her back upon me and set her adherents to do the same. I +despise such conduct, and Mr. Pepys, Mrs. Ord, &c. now sneak about +and look ashamed of themselves--well they may!" + +"1790, _March_ 18_th_.--I met Miss Burney at an assembly last +night--'tis six years since I had seen her: she appeared most fondly +rejoyced, in good time! and Mrs. Locke, at whose house we stumbled on +each other, pretended that she had such a regard for me, &c. I +answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humour: and we +talked of the King and Queen, his Majesty's illness and recovery ... +and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference." + +"I saw _Master Pepys_[1] too and Mrs. Ord; and only see how foolish +and how mortified the people do but look." + +[Footnote 1: This is Sir W. Pepys mentioned _antè_, p. 252.] + +"Barclay and Perkins live very genteelly. I dined with them at our +brewhouse one day last week. I felt so oddly in the old house where I +had lived so long." + +"The Pepyses find out that they have used me very ill.... I hope they +find out too that I do not care, Seward too sues for reconcilement +underhand ... so they do all; and I sincerely forgive them--but, like +the linnet in 'Metastasio'-- + + "'Cauto divien per prova + Nè più tradir si fà.' + + "'When lim'd, the poor bird thus with eagerness strains, + Nor regrets his torn wing while his freedom he gains: + The loss of his plumage small time will restore, + And once tried the false twig--it shall cheat him no more.'" + +"1790, _July_ 28_th_.--We have kept our seventh wedding day and +celebrated our return to _this house_[1] with prodigious splendour +and gaiety. Seventy people to dinner.... Never was a pleasanter day +seen, and at night the trees and front of the house were illuminated +with coloured lamps that called forth our neighbours from all the +adjacent villages to admire and enjoy the diversion. Many friends +swear that not less than a thousand men, women, and children might +have been counted in the house and grounds, where, though all were +admitted, nothing was stolen, lost, or broken, or even damaged--a +circumstance almost incredible; and which gave Mr. Piozzi a high +opinion of English gratitude and respectful attachment." + +[Footnote 1: Streatham.] + +"1790, _December 1st_.--Dr. Parr and I are in correspondence, and his +letters are very flattering: I am proud of his notice to be sure, and +he seems pleased with my acknowledgments of esteem: he is a +prodigious scholar ... but in the meantime I have lost Dr. Lort."[1] + +[Footnote 1: He died November 5th, 1790.] + +In the Conway Notes, she thus sums up her life from March 1787 to +1791: + +"On first reaching London, we drove to the Royal Hotel in Pall Mall, +and, arriving early, I proposed going to the Play. There was a small +front box, in those days, which held only two; it made the division, +or connexion, with the side boxes, and, being unoccupied, we sat in +it, and saw Mrs. Siddons act Imogen, I well remember, and Mrs. +Jordan, Priscilla Tomboy. Mr. Piozzi was amused, and the next day was +spent in looking at houses, counting the cards left by old +acquaintances, &c. The lady-daughters came, behaved with cold +civility, and asked what I thought of _their_ decision concerning +Cecilia, then at school. No reply was made, or a gentle one; but she +was the first cause of contention among us. The lawyers gave her into +my care, and we took her home to our new habitation in Hanover +Square, which we opened with music, cards, &c., on, I think, the 22nd +March. Miss Thrales refused their company; so we managed as well as +we could. Our affairs were in good order, and money ready for +spending. The World, as it is called, appeared good-humoured, and we +were soon followed, respected, and admired. The summer months sent us +about visiting and pleasuring, ... and after another gay London +season, Streatham Park, unoccupied by tenants, called us as if +_really home_. Mr. Piozzi, with more generosity than prudence, spent +two thousand pounds on repairing and furnishing it in 1790;--and we +had danced all night, I recollect, when the news came of Louis +Seize's escape from, and recapture by, his rebel subjects.'" + +The following are some of the names most frequently mentioned in her +Diary as visiting or corresponding with her after her return from +Italy: Lord Fife, Dr. Moore, the Kembles, Dr. Currie, Mrs. Lewis +(widow of the Dean of Ossory), Dr. Lort, Sir Lucas Pepys, Mr. Selwin, +Sammy Lysons (_sic_), Sir Philip Clerke, Hon. Mrs. Byron, Mrs. +Siddons, Arthur Murphy, Mr. and Mrs. Whalley, the Greatheads, Mr. +Parsons, Miss Seward, Miss Lee, Dr. Barnard (Bishop of Killaloe, +better known as Dean of Derry), Hinchcliffe (Bishop of Peterborough), +Mrs. Lambert, the Staffords, Lord Huntingdon, Lady Betty Cobb and her +daughter Mrs. Gould, Lord Dudley, Lord Cowper, Lord Pembroke, Marquis +Araciel, Count Marteningo, Count Meltze, Mrs. Drummond Smith, Mr. +Chappelow, Mrs. Hobart, Miss Nicholson, Mrs. Locke, Lord Deerhurst. + +Resentment for her imputed unkindness to Johnson might have been +expected to last longest at his birthplace. But Miss Seward writes +from Lichfield, October 6th, 1787: + +"Mrs. Piozzi completely answers your description: her conversation is +indeed that bright wine of the intellects which has no lees.... I +shall always feel indebted to him (Mr. Perkins) for eight or nine +hours of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi's society. They passed one evening here, +and I the next with them at their inn." + +Again to Miss Helen Williams, Lichfield, December, 25th, 1787: + +"Yes, it is very true, on the evening he (Colonel Barry) mentioned to +you, when Mrs. Piozzi honoured this roof, his conversation greatly +contributed to its Attic spirit. Till that day I had never conversed +with her. There has been no exaggeration, there could be none, in the +description given you of Mrs. Piozzi's talents for conversation; at +least in the powers of classic allusion and brilliant wit." + +Mrs. Piozzi's next publication was "Letters To and From the late +Samuel Johnson, LL.D., &c." In the Preface she speaks of the +"Anecdotes" having been received with a degree of approbation she +hardly dared to hope, and exclaims, "May these Letters in some +measure pay my debt of gratitude! they will not surely be the +_first_, the _only_ thing written by Johnson, with which our nation +has not been pleased." ... "The good taste by which our countrymen +are distinguished, will lead them to prefer the native thoughts and +unstudied phrases scattered over these pages to the more laboured +elegance of his other works; as bees have been observed to reject +roses, and fix upon the wild fragrance of a neighbouring heath." + +Whenever Johnson took pen in hand, the chances were, that what he +produced would belong to the composite order; the unstudied phrases +were reserved for his "talk;" and he wished his Letters to be +preserved.[1] The main value of these consists in the additional +illustrations they afford of his conduct in private life, and of his +opinions on the management of domestic affairs. The lack of literary +and public interest is admitted and excused: + +[Footnote 1: "Do you keep my letters? I am not of your opinion that I +shall not like to read them hereafter."--_Letters_, vol. i. p. 295.] + +"None but domestic and familiar events can be expected from a private +correspondence; no reflexions but such as they excite can be found +there; yet whoever turns away disgusted by the insipidity with which +this, and I suppose every correspondence must naturally and almost +necessarily begin--will here be likely to lose some genuine pleasure, +and some useful knowledge of what our heroic Milton was himself +contented to respect, as + + "'That which before thee lies in daily life.' + +"And should I be charged with obtruding trifles on the public, I +might reply, that the meanest animals preserved in amber become of +value to those who form collections of natural history; that the fish +found in Monte Bolca serve as proofs of sacred writ; and that the +cart-wheel stuck in the rock of Tivoli, is now found useful in +computing the rotation of the earth." + +In "Thraliana" she thus refers to the reception of the book: + +"The Letters are out. They were published on Saturday, 8th of March. +Cadell printed 2,000 copies, and says 1,100 are already sold. My +letter to Jack Rice on his marriage (Vol. i. p. 96), seems the +universal favourite. The book is well spoken of on the whole; yet +Cadell murmurs. I cannot make out why." + +This entry is not dated; the next is dated March 27th, 1788. + +"This collection," says Boswell, "as a proof of the high estimation +set on any thing that came from his pen, was sold by that lady for +the sum of 500_l_." She has written on the margin: "How spiteful." + +Boswell states that "Horace Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable +character after reading his Letters to Mrs. Thrale, but never was one +of the true admirers of that great man." Madame D'Arblay came to an +opposite conclusion; in her Diary, January 9th, 1788, she writes: + +"To-day Mrs. Schwellenberg did me a real favour, and with real good +nature, for she sent me the letters of my poor lost friends, Dr. +Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, which she knew me to be almost pining to +procure. The book belongs to the Bishop of Carlisle, who lent it to +Mr. Turbulent, from whom it was again lent to the Queen, and so +passed on to Mrs. S. It is still unpublished. With what a sadness +have I been reading! What scenes has it revived! What regrets +renewed! These letters have not been more improperly published in the +whole than they are injudiciously displayed in their several parts. +She has given all, every word, and thinks that perhaps a justice to +Dr. Johnson, which, in fact, is the greatest injury to his memory. + +"The few she has selected of her own do her, indeed, much credit; she +has discarded all that were trivial and merely local, and given only +such as contain something instructive, amusing, or ingenious." + +She admits only four of Johnson's letters to be worthy of his exalted +powers: one upon Death, in considering its approach, as we are +surrounded, or not, by mourners; another upon the sudden death of +Mrs. Thrale's only son. Her chief motive for "almost pining" for the +book, steeped as she was in egotism, may be guessed: + +"Our name once occurred; how I started at its sight! 'Tis to mention +the party that planned the first visit to our house." + +She says she had so many attacks upon "her (Mrs. Piozzi's) subject," +that at last she fairly begged quarter. Yet nothing she could say +could put a stop to, "How can you defend her in this? how can you +justify her in that? &c. &c." "Alas! that I cannot defend her is +precisely the reason I can so ill bear to speak of her. How +differently and how sweetly has the Queen conducted herself upon this +occasion. Eager to see the Letters, she began reading them with the +utmost avidity. A natural curiosity arose to be informed of several +names and several particulars, which she knew I could satisfy; yet +when she perceived how tender a string she touched, she soon +suppressed her inquiries, or only made them with so much gentleness +towards the parties mentioned, that I could not be distressed in my +answers; and even in a short time I found her questions made in so +favourable a disposition, that I began secretly to rejoice in them, +as the means by which I reaped opportunity of clearing several points +that had been darkened by calumny, and of softening others that had +been viewed wholly through false lights. To lessen disapprobation of +a person, and so precious to me in the opinion of another, so +respectable both in rank and virtue, was to me a most soothing task, +&c." + +This is precisely what many will take the liberty to doubt; or why +did she shrink from it, or why did she not afford to others the +explanations which proved so successful with the Queen? + +The day following (Jan. 10th), her feelings were so worked upon by +the harsh aspersions on her friend, that she was forced, she tells +us, abruptly to quit the room; leaving not her own (like Sir Peter +Teazle) but her friend's character behind her: + +"I returned when I could, and the subject was over. When all were +gone, Mrs. Schwellenberg said, 'I have told it Mr. Fisher, that he +drove you out from the room, and he says he won't do it no more.' + +"She told me next, that in the second volume I also, was mentioned. +Where she may have heard this I cannot gather, but it has given me a +sickness at heart, inexpressible. It is not that I expect severity; +for at the time of that correspondence, at all times indeed previous +to the marriage with Piozzi, if Mrs. Thrale loved not F. B., where +shall we find faith in words, or give credit to actions. But her +present resentment, however unjustly incurred, of my constant +disapprobation of her conduct, may prompt some note, or other mark, +to point out her change of sentiment. But let me try to avoid such +painful expectations; at least not to dwell upon them. O, little does +she know how tenderly at this moment I could run into her arms, so +often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable. +And it was sincere then, I am satisfied; pride, resentment of +disapprobation, and consciousness if unjustifiable proceedings--these +have now changed her; but if we met, and she saw and believed my +faithful regard, how would she again feel all her own return! Well, +what a dream I am making!" + +The ingrained worldliness of the diarist is ill-concealed by the mask +of sensibility. The correspondence that passed between the ladies +during their temporary rupture (_antè_, p. 230) shews that there was +nothing to prevent her from flying into her friend's arms, could she +have made up her mind to be seen on open terms of affectionate +intimacy with one who was repudiated by the Court. In a subsequent +conversation with which the Queen honoured her on the subject, she +did her best to impress her Majesty with the belief that Mrs. +Piozzi's conduct had rendered it impossible for her former friends to +allude to her without regret, and she ended by thanking her royal +mistress for her forbearance. + +"Indeed," cried she, with eyes strongly expressive of the complacency +with which she heard me, "I have always spoken as little as possible +upon this affair. I remember but twice that I have named it: once I +said to the Bishop of Carlisle that I thought most of these letters +had better have been spared the printing; and once to Mr. Langton, at +the drawing-room I said, 'Your friend Dr. Johnson, Sir, has had many +friends busy to publish his books, and his memoirs, and his +meditations, and his thoughts; but I think he wanted one friend +more.' 'What for, Ma'am?' cried he. 'A friend to suppress them,' I +answered. And, indeed, this is all I ever said about the business." + +Hannah More's opinion of the Letters is thus expressed in her +Memoirs: + +"They are such as ought to have been written but ought not to have +been printed: a few of them are very good: sometimes he is moral, and +sometimes he is kind. The imprudence of editors and executors is an +additional reason why men of parts should be afraid to die.[1] Burke +said to me the other day, in allusion to the innumerable lives, +anecdotes, remains, &c. of this great man, 'How many maggots have +crawled out of that great body!'" + +[Footnote 1: In reference to the late Lord Campbell's "Lives of the +Lord Chancellors," it was remarked, that, as regards persons who had +attained the dignity, the threatened continuation of the work had +added a new pang to death. I am assured by the Ex-Chancellor to whom +I attributed this joke, that it was made by Sir Charles Wetherell at +a dinner at Lincoln's-Inn.] + +Miss Seward writes to Mrs. Knowles, April, 1788: + +"And now what say you to the last publication of your sister wit, +Mrs. Piozzi? It is well that she has had the good nature to extract +almost all the corrosive particles from the old growler's letters. By +means of her benevolent chemistry, these effusions of that expansive +but gloomy spirit taste more oily and sweet than one could have +imagined possible." + +The letters contained two or three passages relating to Baretti, +which exasperated him to the highest pitch. One was in a letter from +Johnson, dated July 15th, 1775: + +"The doctor says, that if Mr. Thrale comes so near as Derby without +seeing us, it will be a sorry trick. I wish, for my part, that he may +return soon, and rescue the fair captives from the tyranny of B----i. +Poor B----i! do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be +sufficient. He means only to be frank, and manly, and independent, +and perhaps, as you say, a little wise. To be frank, he thinks is to +be cynical, and to be independent, is to be rude. Forgive him, +dearest lady, the rather, because of his misbehaviour, I am afraid he +learned part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better example." + +The most galling was in a letter of hers to Dr. Johnson: + +"How does Dr. Taylor do? He was very kind I remember when my +thunder-storm came first on, so was Count Manucci, so was Mrs. +Montagu, so was everybody. The world is not guilty of much general +harshness, nor inclined I believe to increase pain which they do not +perceive to be deserved.--Baretti alone tried to irritate a wound so +very deeply inflicted, and he will find few to approve his cruelty. +Your friendship is our best cordial; continue it to us, dear Sir, and +write very soon." + +In the margin of the printed copy is written, "Cruel, cruel Baretti." +He had twitted her, whilst mourning over a dead child, with having +killed it by administering a quack medicine instead of attending to +the physician's prescriptions; a charge which he acknowledged and +repeated in print. He published three successive papers in "The +European Magazine" for 1788, assailing her with the coarsest +ribaldry. "I have just read for the first time," writes Miss Seward +in June, 1788, "the base, ungentleman-like, unmanly abuse of Mrs. +Piozzi by that Italian assassin, Baretti. The whole literary world +should unite in publicly reprobating such venomed and foul-mouthed +railing." He died soon afterwards, May 5th, 1789, and the notice of +him in the "Gentleman's Magazine" begins: "Mrs. Piozzi has reason to +rejoice in the death of Mr. Baretti, for he had a very long memory +and malice to relate all he knew." And a good deal that he did not +know, into the bargain; as when he prints a pretended conversation +between Mr. and Mrs. Thrale about Piozzi, which he afterwards admits +to be a gratuitous invention and rhetorical figure of his own, for +conveying what is a foolish falsehood on the face of it. + +Baretti's death is thus noticed in "Thraliana," 8th May, 1789: + +"Baretti is dead. Poor Baretti! I am sincerely sorry for him, and as +Zanga says, 'If I lament thee, sure thy worth was great.' He was a +manly character, at worst, and died, as he lived, less like a +Christian than a philosopher, refusing all spiritual or corporeal +assistance, both which he considered useless to him, and perhaps they +were so. He paid his debts, called in some single acquaintance, told +him he was dying, and drove away that _Panada_ conversation which +friends think proper to administer at sick-bedsides with becoming +steadiness, bid him write his brothers word that he was dead, and +gently desired a woman who waited to leave him quite alone. No +interested attendants watching for ill-deserved legacies, no harpy +relatives clung round the couch of Baretti. He died! + + "'And art thou dead? so is my enmity: + I war not with the dead.' + +"Baretti's papers--manuscripts I mean--have been all burnt by his +executors without examination, they tell me. So great was his +character as a mischief-maker, that Vincent and Fendall saw no nearer +way to safety than that hasty and compendious one. Many people think +'tis a good thing for me, but as I never trusted the man, I see +little harm he could have done me." + +In the fury of his onslaught Baretti forgot that he was strengthening +her case against Johnson, of whom he says: "His austere reprimand, +and unrestrained upbraidings, when face to face with her, always +delighted Mr. Thrale and were approved even by her children. 'Harry,' +said his father to her son, 'are you listening to what the doctor and +mamma are talking about?' 'Yes, papa.' And quoth Mr. Thrale, 'What +are they saying?' 'They are disputing, and mamma has just such a +chance with Dr. Johnson as Presto (a little dog) would have were he +to fight Dash (a big one).'" He adds that she left the room in a huff +to the amusement of the party. If scenes like this were frequent, no +wonder the "yoke" became unendurable. + +Baretti was obliged to admit that, when Johnson died, they were not +on speaking terms. His explanation is that Johnson irritated him by +an allusion to his being beaten by Omai, the Sandwich Islander, at +chess. Mrs. Piozzi's marginal note on Omai is: "When Omai played at +chess and at backgammon with Baretti, everybody admired at the +savage's good breeding and at the European's impatient spirit." + +Amongst her papers was the following sketch of his character, written +for "The World" newspaper. + +"_Mr. Conductor_.--Let not the death of Baretti pass unnoticed by +'The World,' seeing that Baretti was a wit if not a scholar: and had +for five-and-thirty years at least lived in a foreign country, whose +language he so made himself completely master of, that he could +satirise its inhabitants in their own tongue, better than they knew +how to defend themselves; and often pleased, without ever praising +man or woman in book or conversation. Long supported by the private +bounty of friends, he rather delighted to insult than flatter; he at +length obtained competence from a public he esteemed not: and died, +refusing that assistance he considered as useless--leaving no debts +(but those of gratitude) undischarged; and expressing neither regret +of the past, nor fear of the future, I believe. Strong in his +prejudices, haughty and independent in his spirit, cruel in his +anger,--even when unprovoked; vindictive to excess, if he through +misconception supposed himself even slightly injured, pertinacious in +his attacks, invincible in his aversions: the description of Menelaus +in 'Homer's Iliad,' as rendered by Pope, exactly suits the character +of Baretti: + + "'So burns the vengeful Hornet, soul all o'er, + Repuls'd in vain, and thirsty still for gore; + Bold son of air and heat on angry wings, + Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.'" + +In reference to this article, she remarks in "Thraliana": + +"There seems to be a language now appropriated to the newspapers, and +a very wretched and unmeaning language it is. Yet a certain set of +expressions are so necessary to please the diurnal readers, that when +Johnson and I drew up an advertisement for charity once, I remember +the people altered our expressions and substituted their own, with +good effect too. The other day I sent a Character of Baretti to 'The +World,' and read it two mornings after more altered than improved in +my mind: but no matter: they will talk of _wielding_ a language, and +of _barbarous_ infamy,--sad stuff, to be sure, but such is the taste +of the times. They altered even my quotation from Pope; but that was +too impudent." + +The comparison of Baretti to the hornet was truer than she +anticipated: _animamque in vulnere ponit_. Internal evidence leads +almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he was the author or +prompter of "The _Sentimental_ Mother: a Comedy in Five Acts. The +Legacy of an Old Friend, and his 'Last Moral Lesson' to Mrs. Hester +Lynch Thrale, now Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi. London: Printed for James +Ridgeway, York Street, St. James's Square, 1789. Price three +shillings." The principal _dramatis personæ_ are Mr. Timothy Tunskull +(Thrale), Lady Fantasma Tunskull, two Misses Tunskull, and Signor +Squalici. + +Lady Fantasma is vain, affected, silly, and amorous to excess. Not +satisfied with Squalici as her established gallant, she makes +compromising advances to her daughter's lover on his way to a +_tête-à-téte_ with the young lady, who takes her wonted place on his +knee with his arm round her waist. Squalici is also a domestic spy, +and in league with the mother to cheat the daughters of their +patrimony. Mr. Tunskull is a respectable and complacent nonentity. + +The dialogue is seasoned with the same malicious insinuations which +mark Baretti's letters in the "European Magazine;" without the saving +clause with which shame or fear induced him to qualify them, namely, +that no breach of chastity was suspected or believed. It is difficult +to imagine who else would have thought of reverting to Thrale's +establishment eight years after it had been broken up by death; and +in one of his papers in the "European Magazine," he holds out a +threat that she might find herself the subject of a play: "Who knows +but some one of our modern dramatic geniusses may hereafter entertain +the public with a laughable comedy in five long acts, entitled, with +singular propriety, 'the _Scientific_ Mother'?" + +Mrs. Piozzi had some-how contracted a belief, to which she alludes +more than once with unfeigned alarm, that Mr. Samuel Lysons had +formed a collection of all the libels and caricatures of which she +was the subject on the occasion of her marriage. His collections have +been carefully examined, and the sole semblance of warrant for her +fears is an album or scrap-book containing numerous extracts from the +reviews and newspapers, relating to her books. The only caricature +preserved in it is the celebrated one by Sayers entitled "Johnson's +Ghost." The ghost, a flattering likeness of the doctor, addresses a +pretty woman seated at a writing table: + + "When Streatham spread its pleasant board, + I opened learning's valued hoard, + And as I feasted, prosed. + Good things I said, good things I eat, + I gave you knowledge for your meat, + And thought th' account was closed. + + "If obligations still I owed, + You sold each item to the crowd, + I suffered by the tale. + For God's sake, Madam, let me rest, + No longer vex your _quondam_ guest, + I'll pay you for your ale." + +When a prize was offered for the best address on the rebuilding of +Drury Lane, Sheridan proposed an additional reward for one without a +phoenix. Equally acceptable for its rarity would be a squib on Mrs. +Piozzi without a reference to the brewery. + +Her manuscript notes on the two volumes of Letters are numerous and +important, comprising some curious fragments of autobiography, +written on separate sheets of paper and pasted into the volumes +opposite to the passages which they expand or explain. They would +create an inconvenient break in the narrative if introduced here, and +they are reserved for a separate section. + +Her next literary labour is thus mentioned in "Thraliana": + +"While Piozzi was gone to London I worked at my Travel Book, and +wrote it in two months complete--but 'tis all to correct and copy +over again. While my husband was away I wrote him these lines: he +staid just a fortnight: + + "I think I've worked exceeding hard + To finish five score pages. + I write you this upon a card, + In hopes you'll pay my wages. + The servants all get drunk or mad, + This heat their blood enrages, + But your return will make me glad,-- + That hope one pain assuages. + + "To shew more kindness, we defy + All nations and all ages, + And quite prefer your company + To all the seven sages. + Then hasten home, oh, haste away! + And lengthen not your stages; + We then will sing, and dance and play, + And quit awhile our cages." + +She had now taken rank as a popular writer, and thought herself +entitled to use corresponding language to her publisher: + +"MR. CADELL,--Sir, this is a letter of business. I have finished the +book of observations and reflections made in the course of my journey +thro' France, Italy, and Germany, and if you have a mind to purchase +the MS. I make you the first offer of it. Here, if complaints had any +connection with business, I would invent a thousand, and they should +be very kind ones too; but it is better to tell you the size and +price of the book. My calculations bring it to a thousand pages of +letter-press like Dr. Moore's; or you might print it in three small +volumes, to go with the 'Anecdotes.' Be that as it will, the price, +at a word (as the advertisers say of their horse), is 500 guineas and +twelve copies to give away, though I will not, like them, warrant it +free from blemishes. No creature has looked over the papers but Lord +Huntingdon, and he likes them exceedingly. Direct your answer here, +if you write immediately; if not, send the letter under cover to Mrs. +Lewis, London Street, Reading, Berks; and believe me, dear Sir, your +faithful humble servant, + + "H. L. PIOZZI. + + "Bennet Street, Bath, + Friday, Nov. 14th, 1788." + +Whether these terms were accepted, does not appear; but in Dec. 1789 +she published (Cadell and Strahan) "Observations and Reflections made +in the course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany," in +two volumes octavo of about 400 pages each. As happened to almost +everything she did or wrote, this book, which she calls the +"Travel-book," was by turns assailed with inveterate hostility and +praised with animated zeal. It would seem that sustained calumny had +seasoned her against the malevolence of criticism. On the passage in +Johnson's letter to T. Warton, "I am little afraid for myself," her +comment is: "That is just what I feel when insulted, not about +literary though, but social quarrels. The others are not worth a +thought." In "Thraliana," Dec. 30th, 1789, she writes: "I think my +Observations and Reflexions in Italy, &c., have been, upon the whole, +exceedingly well liked, and much read." + +Walpole writes to Mrs. Carter, June 13th, 1789: + +"I do not mean to misemploy much of your time, which I know is always +passed in good works, and usefully. You have, therefore, probably not +looked into Piozzi's Travels. I, who have been almost six weeks lying +on a couch, have gone through them. It was said that Addison might +have written his without going out of England. By the excessive +vulgarisms so plentiful in these volumes, one might suppose the +writer had never stirred out of the parish of St. Giles. Her Latin, +French, and Italian, too, are so miserably spelt, that she had better +have studied her own language before she floundered into other +tongues. Her friends plead that she piques herself on writing as she +talks: methinks, then, she should talk as she would write. There are +many indiscretions too in her work of which she will perhaps be told +though Baretti is dead." + +Miss Seward, much to her credit, repeated to Mrs. Piozzi both the +praise and the blame she had expressed to others. On December 21st, +1789, she writes: + +"Suffer me now to speak to you of your highly ingenious, instructive, +and entertaining publication; yet shall it be with the sincerity of +friendship, rather than with the flourish of compliment. No work of +the sort I ever read possesses, in an equal degree, the power of +placing the reader in the scenes and amongst the people it describes. +Wit, knowledge, and imagination illuminate its pages--but the +infinite inequality of the style!--Permit me to acknowledge to you +what I have acknowledged to others, that it excites my exhaustless +wonder, that Mrs. Piozzi, the child of genius, the pupil of Johnson, +should pollute, with the vulgarisms of unpolished conversation, her +animated pages!--that, while she frequently displays her power of +commanding the most chaste and beautiful style imaginable, she should +generally use those inelegant, those strange _dids_, and _does_, and +_thoughs_, and _toos_, which produce jerking angles, and stop-short +abruptness, fatal at once to the grace and ease of the +sentence;--which are, in language, what the rusty black silk +handkerchief and the brass ring are upon the beautiful form of the +Italian countess she mentions, arrayed in embroidery, and blazing in +jewels." + +Mrs. Piozzi's theory was that books should he written in the same +colloquial and idiomatic language which is employed by cultivated +persons in conversation, "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;" +and vulgar she certainly was not, although she sometimes indulged her +fondness for familiarity too far. The period was unluckily chosen for +carrying such a theory into practice; for Johnson's authority had +discountenanced idiomatic writing, whilst many phrases and forms of +speech, which would not be endured now, were tolerated in polite +society. + +The laws of spelling, too, were unfixed or vague, and those of +pronunciation, which more or less affect spelling, still more so. +"When," said Johnson, "I published the plan of my dictionary, Lord +Chesterfield told me that the word _great_ should be pronounced so as +to rhyme to _state_; and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it +should be pronounced so as to rhyme to _seat_, and that none but an +Irishman would pronounce it _grait_. Now here were two men of the +highest rank, one the best speaker in the House of Lords, the other +the best speaker in the House of Commons, differing entirely." Mrs. +Piozzi has written on the margin:--"Sir William was in the right." +Two well-known couplets of Pope imply similar changes:-- + + "Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, + And so obliging that he ne'er obliged." + + * * * * * + + "Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, + Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea." + +Within living memory, elderly people of quality, both in writing and +conversation, stuck to Lunnun, Brummagem, and Cheyny (China). Charles +Fox would not give up "Bour_dux_." Johnson pronounced "heard" +_heerd_. In 1800 "flirtation" was deemed a vulgar word.[1] Lord Byron +wrote _redde_ (for _read_, in the past tense), and Lord Dudley +declined being helped to apple _tart_. When, therefore, we find Mrs. +Piozzi using words or idioms rejected by modern taste or +fastidiousness, we must not be too ready to accuse her of ignorance +or vulgarity. I have commonly retained her original syntax, and her +spelling, which frequently varies within a page. + +[Footnote 1: "Those abstractions of different pairs from the rest of +the society, which I must call 'flirtation,' spite of the vulgarity +of the term."--_Journal kept during a Visit to Germany_ in 1799 and +1800. Edited by the Dean of Westminster (not published), p. 38.] + +Two days afterwards, Walpole returns to the charge in a letter to +Miss Berry, which is alone sufficient to prove the worthlessness of +his literary judgments:-- + +"Read 'Sindbad the Sailor's Voyages,' and you will be sick of +Æneas's. What woful invention were the nasty poultry that dunged on +his dinner, and ships on fire turned into Nereids! A barn +metamorphosed into a cascade in a pantomime is full as sublime an +effort of genius.... I do not think the Sultaness's narratives very +natural or very probable, but there is a wildness in them that +captivates. However, if you could wade through two octavos of Dame +Piozzi's _though's_ and _so's_ and _I trows_, and cannot listen to +seven volumes of Scheherezade's narratives, I will sue for a divorce +in foro Parnassi, and Boccalini shall be my proctor." + +A single couplet of Gifford's was more damaging than all Walpole's +petulance: + + "See Thrale's grey widow with a satchel roam, + And bring in pomp laborious nothings home."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "She, one evening, asked me abruptly if I did not +remember the scurrilous lines in which she had been depicted by +Gifford in his 'Baviad and Moeviad.' And, not waiting for my answer, +for I was indeed too much embarrassed to give one quickly, she +recited the verses in question, and added, 'how do you think +"Thrale's grey widow" revenged herself? I contrived to get myself +invited to meet him at supper at a friend's house, (I think she said +in Pall Mall), soon after the publication of his poem, sate opposite +to him, saw that he was "perplexed in the extreme;" and smiling, +proposed a glass of wine as a libation to our future good fellowship. +Gifford was sufficiently a man of the world to understand me, and +nothing could be more courteous and entertaining than he was while we +remained together.'"--_Piozziana_.] + +This condemnatory verse is every way unjust. The nothings, or +somethings, which form the staple of the book, are not laboured; and +they are presented without the semblance of pomp or pretension. The +Preface commences thus: + +"I was made to observe at Rome some vestiges of an ancient custom +very proper in those days. It was the parading of the street by a set +of people called Preciæ, who went some minutes before the Flamen +Dialis, to bid the inhabitants leave work or play, and attend wholly +to the procession; but if ill-omens prevented the pageants from +passing, or if the occasion of the show was scarce deemed worthy its +celebration, these Precise stood a chance of being ill-treated by the +spectators. A prefatory introduction to a work like this can hope +little better usage from the public than they had. It proclaims the +approach of what has often passed by before; adorned most certainly +with greater splendour, perhaps conducted with greater regularity and +skill. Yet will I not despair of giving at least a momentary +amusement to my countrymen in general; while their entertainment +shall serve as a vehicle for conveying expressions of particular +kindness to those foreign individuals, whose tenderness softened the +sorrows of absence, and who eagerly endeavoured by unmerited +attentions to supply the loss of their company, on whom nature and +habit had given me stronger claims." + +The Preface concludes with the happy remark that--"the labours of the +press resemble those of the toilette: both should be attended to and +finished with care; but once completed, should take up no more of our +attention, unless we are disposed at evening to destroy all effect of +our morning's study." + +It would be difficult to name a book of travels in which anecdotes, +observations, and reflections are more agreeably mingled, or one from +which a clearer bird's-eye view of the external state of countries +visited in rapid succession may be caught. I can only spare room for +a few short extracts: + +"The contradictions one meets with every moment at Paris likewise +strike even a cursory observer,--a countess in a morning, her hair +dressed, with diamonds too perhaps, a dirty black handkerchief about +her neck, and a flat silver ring on her finger, like our ale-wives; a +_femme publique_, dressed avowedly for the purposes of alluring the +men, with a not very small crucifix hanging at her bosom;--and the +Virgin Mary's sign at an ale-house door, with these words, + + "'Je suis la mère de mon Dieu, + Et la gardienne de ce lieu.'" + +"I have stolen a day to visit my old acquaintance the English Austin +Nuns at the Foffèe, and found the whole community alive and cheerful; +they are many of them agreeable women, and having seen Dr. Johnson +with me when I was last abroad, inquired much for him: Mrs, Fermor, +the Prioress, niece to Belinda in the Rape of the Lock, taking +occasion to tell me, comically enough, 'that she believed there was +but little comfort to be found in a house that harboured _poets_; for +that she remembered Mr. Pope's praise made her aunt very troublesome +and conceited, while his numberless caprices would have employed ten +servants to wait on him; and he gave one,' (said she) 'no amends by +his talk neither, for he only sate dozing all day, when the sweet +wine was out, and made his verses chiefly in the night; during which +season he kept himself awake by drinking coffee, which it was one of +the maids' business to make for him, and they took it by turns.'" + +At Milan she institutes a delicate inquiry: "The women are not +behind-hand in openness of confidence and comical sincerity. We have +all heard much of Italian cicisbeism; I had a mind to know how +matters really stood; and took the nearest way to information by +asking a mighty beautiful and apparently artless young creature, _not +noble_, how that affair was managed, for there is no harm done _I am +sure_, said I: 'Why no,' replied she, 'no great _harm_ to be sure: +except wearisome attentions from a man one cares little about; for my +own part,' continued she, 'I detest the custom, as I happen to love +my husband excessively, and desire nobody's company in the world but +his. We are not _people of fashion_ though you know, nor at all rich; +so how should we set fashions for our betters? They would only say, +see how jealous he is! if _Mr. Such-a-one_ sat much with me at home, +or went with me to the Corso; and I _must_ go with some gentleman you +know: and the men are such ungenerous creatures, and have such ways +with them: I want money often, and this _cavaliere servente_ pays the +bills, and so the connection draws closer--_that's all_.' And your +husband! said I--'Oh, why he likes to see me well dressed; he is very +good-natured, and very charming; I love him to my heart.' And your +confessor! cried I.--'Oh! why he is _used to it_'--in the Milanese +dialect--_è assuefaà."_ + + "An English lady asked of an Italian + What were the actual and official duties + Of the strange thing, some women set a value on, + Which hovers oft about some married beauties, + Called 'cavalier servente,' a Pygmalion + Whose statues warm, I fear! too true 't is + Beneath his art. The dame, press'd to disclose them, + Said, Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_."[1] + +[Footnote 1: "Don Juan," Canto ix. See also "Beppo," verses 36, 37: + + "But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses! + Or what becomes of damage and divorces?"] + +At Venice, the tone was somewhat different from what would be +employed now by the finest lady on the Grand Canal: + +"This firmly-fixed idea of subordination (which I once heard a +Venetian say, he believed must exist in heaven from one angel to +another), accounts immediately for a little conversation which I am +now going to relate. + +"Here were two men taken up last week, one for murdering his +fellow-servant in cold blood, while the undefended creature had the +lemonade tray in his hand going in to serve company; the other for +breaking the new lamps lately set up with intention to light this +town in the manner of the streets at Paris. 'I hope,' said I, 'that +they will hang the murderer.' 'I rather hope,' replied a very +sensible lady who sate near me, 'that they will hang the person who +broke the lamps: for,' added she, 'the first committed his crime only +out of revenge, poor fellow!! because the other had got his mistress +from him by treachery; but this creature has had the impudence to +break our fine new lamps, all for the sake of spiting _the +Arch-duke!!_' The Arch-duke meantime hangs nobody at all; but sets +his prisoners to work upon the roads, public buildings, &c., where +they labour in their chains; and where, strange to tell! they often +insult passengers who refuse them alms when asked as they go by; and, +stranger still, they are not punished for it when they do." ... + +The lover sacrificing his reputation, his liberty, or his life, to +save the fair fame of his mistress, is not an unusual event in +fiction, whatever it may be in real life. Balzac, Charles de Bernard, +and M. de Jarnac have each made a self-sacrifice of this kind the +basis of a romance. But neither of them has hit upon a better plot +than might be formed out of the following Venetian story: + +"Some years ago then, perhaps a hundred, one of the many spies who +ply this town by night, ran to the state inquisitor, with information +that such a nobleman (naming him) had connections with the French +ambassador, and went privately to his house every night at a certain +hour. The _messergrando_, as they call him, could not believe, nor +would proceed, without better and stronger proof, against a man for +whom he had an intimate personal friendship, and on whose virtue he +counted with very particular reliance. Another spy was therefore set, +and brought back the same intelligence, adding the description of his +disguise: on which the worthy magistrate put on his mask and bauta, +and went out himself; when his eyes confirming the report of his +informants, and the reflection on his duty stifling all remorse, he +sent publicly for _Foscarini_ in the morning, whom the populace +attended all weeping to his door. + +"Nothing but resolute denial of the crime alleged could however be +forced from the firm-minded citizen, who, sensible of the discovery, +prepared for that punishment he knew to be inevitable, and submitted +to the fate his friend was obliged to inflict: no less than a dungeon +for life, that dungeon so horrible that I have heard Mr. Howard was +not permitted to see it. + +"The people lamented, but their lamentations were vain. The +magistrate who condemned him never recovered the shock: but Foscarini +was heard of no more, till an old lady died forty years after in +Paris, whose last confession declared she was visited with amorous +intentions by a nobleman of Venice whose name she never knew, while +she resided there as companion to the ambassadress. So was Foscarini +lost! so died he a martyr to love, and tenderness for female +reputation!" + +The Mendicanti was a Venetian institution which deserves to be +commemorated for its singularity: + +"Apropos to singing;--we were this evening carried to a well-known +conservatory called the Mendicanti, who performed an oratorio in the +church with great, and I dare say deserved applause. It was difficult +for me to persuade myself that all the performers were women, till, +watching carefully, our eyes convinced us, as they were but slightly +grated. The sight of girls, however, handling the double bass, and +blowing into the bassoon, did not much please _me_; and the +deep-toned voice of her who sung the part of Saul seemed an odd +unnatural thing enough. + +"Well! these pretty sirens were delighted to seize upon us, and +pressed our visit to their parlour with a sweetness that I know not +who would have resisted. We had no such intent; and amply did their +performance repay my curiosity for visiting Venetian beauties, so +justly celebrated for their seducing manners and soft address. They +accompanied their voices with the forte-piano, and sung a thousand +buffo songs, with all that gay voluptuousness for which their country +is renowned. + +"The school, however, is running to ruin apace; and perhaps the +conduct of the married women here may contribute to make such +_conservatorios_ useless and neglected. When the Duchess of Montespan +asked the famous Louison D'Arquien, by way of insult, as she pressed +too near her, '_Comment alloit le metier_?' '_Depuis que les dames +s'en mèlent_,' (replied the courtesan with no improper spirit,) '_il +ne vaut plus rien_.'" + +Describing Florence, she says:-- + +"Sir Horace Mann is sick and old; but there are conversations at his +house of a Saturday evening, and sometimes a dinner, to which we have +been almost always asked." + +So much for Walpole's assertion that "she had broken with his Horace, +because he could not invite her husband with the Italian nobility." +She held her own, if she did not take the lead, in whatever society +she happened to be thrown, and no one could have objected to Piozzi +without breaking with her. In point of fact, no one did object to +him. + +One of her notes on Naples is: + +"Well, well! if the Neapolitans do bury Christians like dogs, they +make some singular compensations we will confess, by nursing dogs +like Christians. A very veracious man informed me yester morning, +that his poor wife was half broken-hearted at hearing such a +Countess's dog was run over; 'for,' said he, 'having suckled the +pretty creature herself, she loved it like one of her children.' I +bid him repeat the circumstance, that no mistake might be made: he +did so; but seeing me look shocked, or ashamed, or something he did +not like,--'Why, Madam,' said the fellow, 'it is a common thing +enough for ordinary men's wives to suckle the lap-dogs of ladies of +quality:' adding, that they were paid for their milk, and he saw no +harm in gratifying one's _superiors_. As I was disposed to see +nothing _but_ harm in disputing with such a competitor, our +conference finished soon; but the fact is certain." + +On the margin she has written: + +"Mrs. Greathead could scarcely be made to credit so hideous a fact, +till I showed her the portrait (at a broker's shop) of a woman +_suckling a cat_." + +Cornelia Knight says: "Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi passed the winter at +Naples and gave little concerts. He played with great taste on the +pianoforte, and used to carry about a miniature one in his carriage." + +Whilst discussing the propriety of complying with the customs of the +country, she relates: + +"Poor Dr. Goldsmith said once--'I would advise every young fellow +setting out in life _to love gravy_:'--and added, that he had +formerly seen a glutton's eldest nephew disinherited, because his +uncle never could persuade him to say he liked gravy." + +Mr. Forster thinks that the concluding anecdote conveys a false +impression of one + + "Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll." + +"Mrs. Piozzi, in her travels, quite solemnly sets forth that poor Dr. +Goldsmith said once, 'I would advise every young fellow setting forth +in life to love gravy,' alleging for it the serious reason that 'he +had formerly seen a glutton's eldest nephew disinherited because his +uncle never could persuade him to say he liked gravy.' Imagine the +dullness that would convert a jocose saying of this kind into an +unconscious utterance of grave absurdity."[1] In his index may be +read: "Mrs. Piozzi's absurd instance of Goldsmith's absurdity." Mrs. +Piozzi does not quote the saying as an instance of absurdity; nor set +it forth solemnly. She repeats it, as an illustration of her +argument, in the same semi-serious spirit in which it was originally +hazarded. Sydney Smith took a different view of this grave gravy +question. On a young lady's declining gravy, he exclaimed: "I have +been looking all my life for a person who, on principle, rejected +gravy: let us vow eternal friendship." + +[Footnote 1: Life of Goldsmith, vol. ii. p. 205. Mr. Forster allows +her the credit of discovering the lurking irony in Goldsmith's verses +on Cumberland, vol. ii. p. 203.] + +The "British Synonymy" appeared in 1794. It was thus assailed by +Gifford: + +"Though 'no one better knows his own house' than I the vanity of this +woman; yet the idea of her undertaking such a work had never entered +my head; and I was thunderstruck when I first saw it announced. To +execute it with any tolerable degree of success, required a rare +combination of talents, among the least of which may be numbered +neatness of style, acuteness of perception, and a more than common +accuracy of discrimination; and Mrs. Piozzi brought to the task, a +jargon long since become proverbial for its vulgarity, an utter +incapability of defining a single term in the language, and just as +much Latin from a child's Syntax, as sufficed to expose the ignorance +she so anxiously labours to conceal. 'If such a one be fit to write +on Synonimes, speak.' Pignotti himself laughs in his sleeve; and his +countrymen, long since undeceived, prize the lady's talents at their +true worth, + + "Et centum Tales[1] curto centusse licentur." + +[Footnote 1: Quere Thrales?--_Printer's Devil_."] + +Other critics have been more lenient or more just. Enough +philosophical knowledge and acuteness were discovered in the work to +originate a rumour that she had retained some of the great +lexicographer's manuscripts, or derived a posthumous advantage, in +some shape, from her former intimacy with him. In "Thraliana," +Denbigh, 2nd January, 1795, she writes: + +"My 'Synonimes' have been reviewed at last. The critics are all civil +for aught I see, and nearly just, except when they say that Johnson +left some fragments of a work upon Synonymy: of which God knows I +never heard till now one syllable; never had he and I, in all the +time we lived together, any conversation upon the subject." + +Even Walpole admits that it has some marked and peculiar merits, +although its value consists rather in the illustrative matter, than +in the definitions and etymologies. Thus, in distinguishing between +_lavish_, _profuse_ and _prodigal_, she relates: + +"Two gentlemen were walking leisurely up the Hay-Market some time in +the year 1749, lamenting the fate of the famous Cuzzona, an actress +who some time before had been in high vogue, but was then as they +heard in a very pitiable situation. 'Let us go and visit her,' said +one of them, 'she lives but over the way.' The other consented; and +calling at the door, they were shown up stairs, but found the faded +beauty dull and spiritless, unable or unwilling to converse on any +subject. 'How's this?' cried one of her consolers, 'are you ill? or +is it but low spirits chains your tongue so?'--'Neither,' replied +she: ''tis hunger I suppose. I ate nothing yesterday, and now 'tis +past six o'clock, and not one penny have I in the world to buy me any +food.'--'Come with us instantly to a tavern; we will treat you with +the best roast fowls and Port wine that London can produce.'--'But I +will have neither my dinner nor my place of eating it prescribed to +_me_,' answered Cuzzona, in a sharper tone, 'else I need never have +wanted.' 'Forgive me,' cries the friend; 'do your own way; but eat in +the name of God, and restore fainting nature.'--She thanked him then; +and, calling to her a friendly wretch who inhabited the same theatre +of misery, gave _him_ the guinea the visitor accompanied his last +words with; 'and run with this money,' said she, 'to such a +wine-merchant,' (naming him); 'he is the only one keeps good Tokay by +him. 'Tis a guinea a bottle, mind you,' to the boy; 'and bid the +gentleman you buy it of give you a loaf into the bargain,--he won't +refuse.' In half an hour or less the lad returned with the Tokay. +'But where,' cries Cuzzona, 'is the loaf I spoke for?' 'The merchant +would give me no loaf,' replies her messenger; 'he drove me from the +door, and asked if I took him for a baker.' 'Blockhead!' exclaims +she; 'why I must have bread to my wine, you know, and I have not a +penny to purchase any. Go beg me a loaf directly.' The fellow returns +once more with one in his hand and a halfpenny, telling 'em the +gentleman threw him three, and laughed at his impudence. She gave her +Mercury the money, broke the bread into a wash-hand basin which stood +near, poured the Tokay over it, and devoured the whole with +eagerness. This was indeed a heroine in PROFUSION. Some active +well-wishers procured her a benefit after this; she gained about +350_l_., 'tis said, and laid out two hundred of the money instantly +in a _shell-cap_. They wore such things then." + +When Savage got a guinea, he commonly spent it in a tavern at a +sitting; and referring to the memorable morning when the "Vicar of +Wakefield" was produced, Johnson says: "I sent him (Goldsmith) a +guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as +soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him +for his rent. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and +had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him." Mrs. Piozzi +continues: + +"But Doctor Johnson had always some story at hand to check +extravagant and wanton wastefulness. His improviso verses made on a +young heir's coming of age are highly capable of restraining such +folly, if it is to be restrained: they never yet were printed, I +believe. + + "'Long expected one-and-twenty, + Lingering year, at length is flown; + Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, + Great Sir John, are now your own. + + Loosen'd from the minor's tether, + Free to mortgage or to sell, + Wild as wind, and light as feather, + Bid the sons of thrift farewell. + + Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, + All the names that banish care; + LAVISH of your grandsire's guineas, + Show the spirit of an heir. + + All that prey on vice or folly + Joy to see their quarry fly; + There the gamester light and jolly, + There the lender grave and sly. + + Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, + Let it wander as it will; + Call the jockey, call the pander, + Bid them come and take their fill. + + When the bonny blade carouses, + Pockets full, and spirits high-- + What are acres? what are houses? + Only dirt or wet or dry. + + Should the guardian friend or mother + Tell the woes of wilful waste; + Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother-- + You can hang or drown at last.'" + +These verses were addressed to Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade, in +August, 1780. They bear a strong resemblance to some of Burns' in his +"Beggar's Sonata," written in 1785:-- + + "What is title, what is treasure, + What is reputation's care; + If we lead a life of pleasure, + Can it matter how or where?" + +Boswell's "Life of Johnson" was published in May, 1791. It is thus +mentioned in "Thraliana":-- + +"_May_, 1791.--Mr. Boswell's book is coming out, and the wits expect +me to tremble: what will the fellow say? ... that has not been said +already." + +No date, but previous to 25th May, 1791.--"I have been now laughing +and crying by turns, for two days, over Boswell's book. That poor man +should have a _Bon Bouillon_ and be put to bed ... he is quite +light-headed, yet madmen, drunkards, and fools tell truth, they say +... and if Johnson was to me the back friend he has represented ... +let it cure me of ever making friendship more with any human being." + +"_25th May_, 1791.--The death of my son, so suddenly, so horribly +produced before my eyes now suffering from the tears then shed ... so +shockingly brought forward in Boswell's two guinea book, made me very +ill this week, very ill indeed[1]; it would make the modern friends +all buy the work I fancy, did they but know how sick the _ancient_ +friends had it in their power to make me, but I had more wit than +tell any of 'em. And what is the folly among all these fellows of +wishing we may know one another in the next world.... Comical enough! +when we have only to expect deserved reproaches for breach of +confidence and cruel usage. Sure, sure I hope, rancour and resentment +will at least be put off in the last moments: ... sure, surely, we +shall meet no more, except on the great day when each is to answer to +other and before other.... After _that_ I hope to keep better company +than any of them." + +[Footnote 1: The death of her son is not unkindly mentioned by +Boswell. See p. 491, roy. oct. edit. But the imputations on her +veracity rest exclusively on his prejudiced testimony.] + +In 1801, Mrs. Piozzi published "Retrospection; or a Review of the +Most Striking and Important Events, Characters, Situations, and their +Consequences, which the Last Eighteen Hundred Years have presented to +the View of Mankind." It is in two volumes quarto, containing rather +more than 1000 pages. A fitting motto for it would have been _De +omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis._ The subject, or range of subjects, +was beyond her grasp; and the best that can be said of the book is +that a good general impression of the stream of history, lighted up +with some striking traits of manners and character, may be obtained +from it. It would have required the united powers and acquirements of +Raleigh, Burke, Gibbon, and Voltaire to fill so vast a canvass with +appropriate groups and figures; and she is more open to blame for the +ambitious conception of the work than for her comparative failure in +the execution. In 1799 she writes to Dr. Gray: "The truth is, my +plans stretch too far for these times, or for my own age; but the +wish, though scarce hope, of my heart, is to finish the work I am +engaged in, get you to look it over for me, and print in March 1801." +She published it in January 1801, but it was not looked over by her +learned correspondent. Some slight misgiving is betrayed in the +Preface: + +"If I should have made improper choice of facts, and if I should be +found at length most to resemble Maister Fabyan of old, who writing +the life of Henry V. lays heaviest stress on a new weathercock set-up +on St. Paul's steeple during that eventful reign, my book must share +the fate of his, and be like that forgotten: reminding before its +death perhaps a friend or two of a poor man (Macbean) living in later +times, that Doctor Johnson used to tell us of; who being advised to +take subscriptions for a new Geographical Dictionary, hastened to +Bolt Court and begged advice. There having listened carefully for +half-an-hour, 'Ah, but dear Sir,' exclaimed the admiring parasite, +'if I am to make all this eloquent ado about Athens and Rome, where +shall we find place, do you think, for Richmond, or Aix La +Chapelle?'" + +Writing from Bath, December 15th, 1802, she says: + +"The 'Gentleman's Magazine' for July 1801 contained my answer to such +critics as confined themselves to faults I could have helped +committing--had they been faults. Those who merely told disagreeable +truths concerning my person, or dress, or age, or such stuff, +expected, of course, no reply. There are innumerable press errors in +the book, from my being obliged to print on new year's day--during an +insurrection of the printers. These the 'Critical Review' laid hold +of with an acuteness sharpened by malignity." + +Moore, who was staying at Bowood, sets down in his diary for April, +1823: "Lord L. in the evening, quoted a ridiculous passage from the +Preface to Mrs. Piozzi's 'Retrospections,' in which, anticipating the +ultimate perfection of the human race, she says she does not despair +of the time arriving when 'Vice will take refuge in the arms of +impossibility.' Mentioned also an ode of hers to Posterity, +beginning, 'Posterity, gregarious dame,' the only meaning of which +must be, a lady _chez qui_ numbers assemble--a lady at _home_."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Memoirs, &c., vol. iv. p. 38.] + +There is no such passage in the Preface to "Retrospection," and the +ode is her "Ode to Society," who is not improperly addressed as +"gregarious." + +"I repeated," adds Moore, "what Jekyll told the other day of +Bearcroft saying to Mrs. Piozzi, when Thrale, after she had +repeatedly called him Mr. Beercraft: 'Beercraft is not my name, +Madam; it may be your trade, but it is not my name.'" It may always +be questioned whether this offensive description of repartee was +really uttered at the time. But Bearcroft was capable of it. He began +his cross-examination of Mr. Vansittart by--"With your leave, Sir, I +will call you Mr. Van for shortness." "As you please, Sir, and I will +call you Mr. Bear." + +Towards the end of 1795, Mrs. Piozzi left Streatham for her seat in +North Wales, where (1800 or 1801) she was visited by a young +nobleman, now an eminent statesman, distinguished by his love of +literature and the fine arts, who has been good enough to recall and +write down his impressions of her for me: + +"I did certainly know Madame Piozzi, but had no habits of +acquaintance with her, and she never lived in London to my knowledge. +When in my youth I made a tour in Wales--times when all inns were +bad, and all houses hospitable--I put up for a day at her house, I +think in Denbighshire, the proper name of which was Bryn, and to +which, on the occasion of her marriage I was told, she had recently +added the name of Bella. I remember her taking me into her bed-room +to show me the floor covered with folios, quartos, and octavos, for +consultation, and indicating the labour she had gone through in +compiling an immense volume she was then publishing, called +'Retrospection.' She was certainly what was called, and is still +called, blue, and that of a deep tint, but good humoured and lively, +though affected; her husband, a quiet civil man, with his head full +of nothing but music. + +"I afterwards called on her at Bath, where she chiefly resided. I +remember it was at the time Madame de Staël's 'Delphine,' and +'Corinne,' came out[1], and that we agreed in preferring 'Delphine,' +which nobody reads now, to 'Corinne,' which most people read then, +and a few do still. She rather avoided talking of Johnson. These are +trifles, not worth recording, but I have put them down that you might +not think me neglectful of your wishes; but now _j'ai vuidé mon +sac_." + +[Footnote 1: "Delphine" appeared in 1804; "Corinne," in 1806.] + +Her mode of passing her time when she had ceased writing books, with +the topics which interested her, will be best learned from her +letters. Her vivacity never left her, and the elasticity of her +spirits bore up against every kind of depression. A lady who met her +on her way to Wynnstay in January, 1803, describes her as "skipping +about like a kid, quite a figure of fun, in a tiger skin shawl, lined +with scarlet, and _only_ five colours upon her head-dress--on the top +of a flaxen wig a bandeau of blue velvet, a bit of tiger ribbon, a +white beaver hat and plume of black feathers--as gay as a lark." + +In a letter, dated Jan. 1799, to a Welsh neighbour, Mrs. Piozzi says: + +"Mr. Piozzi has lost considerably in purse, by the cruel inroads of +the French in Italy, and of all his family driven from their quiet +homes, has at length with difficulty saved one little boy who is now +just turned of five years old. We have got him here (Bath) since I +wrote last, and his uncle will take him to school next week; for as +our John has nothing but his talents and education to depend upon, he +must be a scholar, and we will try hard to make him a very good one. + +"My poor little boy from Lombardy said as I walked him across our +market, 'These are sheeps' heads, are they not, aunt? I saw a basket +of men's heads at Brescia.' + +"As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John +Salusbury, five years ago, when happier days smiled on his family, he +will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is +a foreigner. A lucky circumstance for one who is intended to work his +way among our islanders by talent, diligence, and education." + +She thus mentions this event in "Thraliana," January 17th, 1798: + +"Italy is ruined and England threatened. I have sent for one little +boy from among my husband's nephews. He was christened John +Salusbury: he shall be naturalised, and then we will see whether he +will be more grateful and natural and comfortable than Miss Thrales +have been to the mother they have at length driven to desperation." + +She could hardly have denied her husband the satisfaction of rescuing +a single member of his family from the wreck; and they were bound to +provide handsomely for the child of their adoption. Whether she +carried the sentiment too far in giving him the entire estate (not a +large one) is a very different question; on which she enters +fearlessly in one of the fragments of the Autobiography. In a +marginal note on one of the printed letters in which Johnson writes: +"Mrs. Davenant says you regain your health,"--she remarks: "Mrs. +Davenant neither knew nor cared, as she wanted her brother Harry +Cotton to marry Lady Keith, and I offered my estate with her. Miss +Thrale said she wished to have nothing to do either with my family or +my fortune. They were all cruel and all insulting." Her fits of +irritation and despondency never lasted long. + +Her mode of bringing up her adopted nephew was more in accordance +with her ultimate liberality, than with her early intentions or +professions of teaching him to "work his way among our islanders." +Instead of suffering him to travel to and from the University by +coach, she insisted on his travelling post; and she is said to have +remarked to the mother of a Welsh baronet, who was similarly anxious +for the comfort and dignity of her heir, "Other people's children are +baked in coarse common pie dishes, ours in patty-pans." + +She was misreported, or afterwards improved upon the thought; for, in +June 1810, she writes to Dr. Gray: "He is a boy of excellent +principle. Education at a private school has an effect like baking +loaves in a tin. The bread is more insipid, but it comes out _clean_; +and Mr. Gray laughed, when at breakfast this morning, our undercrusts +suggested the comparison." + +In the Conway Notes, she says: + +"Had we vexations enough? We had certainly many pleasures. The house +in Wales was beautiful, and the Boy was beautiful too. Mr. Piozzi +said I had spoiled my own children and was spoiling his. My reply +was, that I loved spoiling people, and hated any one I could not +spoil. Am I not now trying to spoil dear Mr. Conway?" + +When she talks of spoiling, she must not be understood literally. In +1817 she writes from Bath to Dr. Gray: + +"Sir John and Lady Salusbury staid with me six or seven weeks, and +made themselves most beloved among us. They are very good young +creatures.... My children read your _Key_ to each other on Sunday +noons: the _Connection_ on Sunday nights. You remember me hoping and +proposing to make dear Salusbury a gentleman, a Christian, and a +scholar; and when one has succeeded in the first two wishes, there is +no need to fret if the third does fail a _little_. Such is my +situation concerning my _adopted_, as you are accustomed to call +him." + +Before she died she had the satisfaction of seeing him sheriff of his +county; and on carrying up an address, he was knighted and became Sir +John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury. Miss Williams Wynn has preserved a +somewhat apocryphal anecdote of his disinterestedness: + +"When I read her (Mrs. P.'s) lamentations over her poverty, I could +not help believing that Sir J. Salusbury had proved ungrateful to his +benefactress. For the honour of human nature I rejoice to find this +is not the case. When he made known to his aunt his wish to marry, +she promised to make over to him the property of Brynbella. Even +before the marriage was concluded she had distressed herself by her +lavish expenditure at Streatham. I saw by the letters that Gillow's +bill amounted to near 2,400_l_., and Mr. (the late Sir John) Williams +tells me she had continually very large parties from London. Sir John +Salusbury then came to her, offered to relinquish all her promised +gifts and the dearest wish of his heart, saying he should be most +grateful to her if she would only give him a commission in the army, +and let him seek his fortune. At the same time he added that he made +this offer because all was still in his power, but that from the +moment he married, she must be aware that it would be no longer so, +that he should not feel himself justified in bringing a wife into +distress of circumstances, nor in entailing poverty on children +unborn.[1] She refused; he married; and she went on in her course of +extravagance. She had left herself a life income only, and large as +it was, no tradesman would wait a reasonable time for payment; she +was nearly eighty; and they knew that at her death nothing would be +left to pay her debts, and so they seized the goods." + +[Footnote 1: If the estate was settled in the usual manner, he would +have only a life estate; and I believe it was so settled.] + +When Fielding, the novelist, rather boastingly avowed that he never +knew, and believed he never should know, the difference between a +shilling and sixpence, he was told: "Yes, the time will come when you +will know it--when you have only eighteen pence left." If the author +of "Tom Jones" could not be taught the value of money, we must not be +too hard on Mrs. Piozzi for not learning it, after lesson upon lesson +in the hard school of "impecuniosity." Whilst Piozzi lived, her +affairs were faithfully and carefully administered. Although they +built Brynbella, spent a good deal of money on Streatham, and lived +handsomely, they never wanted money. He had a moderate fortune, the +produce of his professional labours, and left it, neither impaired +nor materially increased, to his family. With peculiar reference +probably to her habits of profuse expenditure, he used to say that +"white monies were good for ladies, yellow for gentlemen." He took +the guineas under his especial charge, leaving only the silver to +her. This was a matter of notoriety in the neighbourhood, and the +tenants, to please her or humour the joke, sometimes brought bags of +shillings and sixpences in part payment of their rents. + +In the Conway Notes she says: + +"Our head-quarters were in Wales, where dear Piozzi repaired my +church, built a new vault for my old ancestors, chose the place in it +where he and I are to repose together.... He lived some twenty-five +years with me, however, but so punished with gout that we found Bath +the best wintering-place for many, many seasons.--Mrs. Siddons' last +appearance there he witnessed, when she played Calista to Dimond's +Lothario, in which he looked _so_ like Garrick, it shocked us _all +three_, I believe; for Garrick adored Mr. Piozzi, and Siddons hated +the little great man to her heart. Poor Dimond! he was a well-bred, +pleasing, worthy creature, and did the honours of his own house and +table with peculiar grace indeed. No likeness in private life or +manner,--none at all; no wit, no fun, no frolic humour had Mr. +Dimond:--no grace, no dignity, no real unaffected elegance of mien or +behaviour had his predecessor, David,--whose partiality to my +fastidious husband was for that reason never returned. Merriment, +difficult for _him_ to comprehend, made no amends for the want of +that which no one understood better,--so he hated all the wits but +Murphy." + +There is hardly a family of note or standing within visiting distance +of their place, that has not some tradition or reminiscence to relate +concerning them; and all agree in describing him as a worthy good +sort of man, obliging, inoffensive, kind to the poor, principally +remarkable for his devotion to music, and utterly unable to his dying +day to familiarise himself with the English language or manners. It +is told of him that being required to pay a turnpike toll near the +house of a country neighbour whom he was on his way to visit, he took +it for granted that the toll went into his neighbour's pocket, and +proposed setting up a gate near Brynbella with the view of levying +toll in his turn. + +In September, 1800, she wrote from Brynbella to Dr. Gray: + +"Dear Mr. Piozzi, who takes men out of misery so far as his power +extends in this neighbourhood, feels flattered and encouraged by your +very kind approbation. He has been getting rugs for the cottagers' +beds to keep them warm this winter, while we are away, and they all +take me into their sleeping rooms when I visit them _now_, to show +how comfortably they live. As for the old hut you so justly abhorred, +and so kindly noticed--it is knocked down and its coarse name too, +Potlicko: we call it Cottage-o'-the-Park. Some recurrence to the +original derivation in soup season will not, however, be much amiss I +suppose." + +"Amongst the company," says Moore, "was Mrs. John Kemble. She +mentioned an anecdote of Piozzi, who upon calling upon some old lady +of quality, was told by the servant, she was 'indifferent.' 'Is she +indeed?' answered Piozzi, huffishly, 'then pray tell her I can be as +indifferent as she;' and walked away."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Moore's Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 329.] + +Till he was disabled by the gout, his principal occupation was his +violin, and it was her delight to listen to him. She more than once +observed to the vicar, "Such music is quite heavenly." "I am in +despair," cried out the village fiddler, "I may now stick my fiddle +in my thatched roof, for a greater performer is come to reside in the +parish." The existing superstition of the country is that his spirit, +playing on his favourite instrument, still haunts one wing of +Brynbella. If he designed the building, his architectural taste does +not merit the praises she lavishes on it. The exterior is not +prepossessing; but there is a look of comfort about the house; the +interior is well arranged: the situation, which commands a fine and +extensive view of the upper part of the valley of the Clywd, is +admirably chosen; the garden and grounds are well laid out; and the +walks through the woods on either side, especially one called the +Lovers' Walk, are remarkably picturesque. Altogether, Brynbella may +be fairly held to merit the appellation of a "pretty villa." The name +implies a compliment to Piozzi's country as well as to his taste; for +she meant it to typify the union between Wales and Italy in his and +her own proper persons. She says in the Conway Notes: + +"Mr. Piozzi built the house for me, he said; my own old chateau, +Bachygraig by name, tho' very curious, was wholly uninhabitable; and +we called the Italian villa he set up as mine in the Vale of Cluid, +Brynbella, or the beautiful brow, making the name half Welsh and half +Italian, as _we_ were." + +Dr. Burney, in a letter to his daughter, thus described the position +and feelings of the couple towards each other in 1808: + +"During my invalidity at Bath I had an unexpected visit from your +Streatham friend, of whom I had lost sight for more than ten years. +She still looks very well, but is graver, and candour itself; though +she still says good things, and writes admirable notes and letters, I +am told, to my granddaughters C. and M., of whom she is very fond. We +shook hands very cordially, and avoided any allusion to our long +separation and its cause. The _caro sposo_ still lives, but is such +an object from the gout, that the account of his sufferings made me +pity him sincerely; he wished, she told me, 'to see his old and +worthy friend,' and _un beau matin_ I could not refuse compliance +with his wish. She nurses him with great affection and tenderness, +never goes out or has company when he is in pain." + +In the Conway Notes she says: + +"Piozzi's fine hand upon the organ and pianoforte deserted him. Gout, +such as I never knew, fastened on his fingers, distorting them into +every dreadful shape.... A little girl, shown to him as a musical +wonder of five years old, said, 'Pray, Sir, why are your fingers +wrapped up in black silk so?' 'My dear,' replied he, 'they are in +mourning for my voice.' 'Oh, me!' cries the child, '_is she dead?_' +He sung an easy song, and the baby exclaimed, 'Ah, Sir! you are very +naughty--you tell fibs!' Poor dears! and both gone now!" + +"When life was gradually, but perceptibly, closing round him at Bath, +in 1808, I asked him if he would wish to converse with a Romish +priest,--we had full opportunity there. 'By no means,' said he. 'Call +Mr. Leman of the Crescent.' We did so,--poor Bessy ran and fetched +him. Mr. Piozzi received the blessed Sacrament at his hands; but +recovered sufficiently to go home and die in his own house." + +He died of gout at Brynbella in March 1809, and was buried in a vault +constructed by her desire in Dymerchion Church. There is a portrait +of him (period and painter unknown) still preserved amongst the +family portraits at Brynbella. It is that of a good-looking man of +about forty, in a straight-cut brown coat with metal buttons, lace +frill and ruffles, and some leaves of music in his hand. There are +also two likenesses of Mrs. Piozzi: one a three-quarter length +(kit-kat), taken apparently when she was about forty; the other a +miniature of her at an advanced age. Both confirm her description of +herself as too strong-featured to be pretty. The hands in the +three-quarter length are gloved. + +Brynbella continued her headquarters till 1814, when she gave it up +to Sir John Salusbury. From that period she resided principally at +Bath and Clifton, occasionally visiting Streatham or making summer +trips to the seaside. + +That she and her eldest daughter should ever be again (if they ever +were) on a perfect footing of confidence and affection, was a moral +impossibility. Estrangements are commonly durable in proportion to +the closeness of the tie that has been severed; and it is no more +than natural that each party, yearning for a reconciliation and not +knowing that the wish is reciprocated, should persevere in casting +the blame of the prolonged coldness on the other. Occasional sarcasms +no more prove disregard or indifference, than Swift's "only a woman's +hair" implies contempt for the sex. + +Miss Thrale's marriage with Lord Keith in 1808 is thus mentioned in +"Thraliana": + +"The 'Thraliana' is coming to an end; so are the Thrales. The eldest +is married now. Admiral Lord Keith the man; a _good_ man for ought I +hear: a _rich_ man for ought I am told: a _brave_ man we have always +heard: and a _wise_ man I trow by his choice. The name no new one, +and excellent for a charade, _e.g_. + + "A Faery my first, who to fame makes pretence; + My second a Rock, dear Britannia's defence; + In my third when combined will too quickly be shown + The Faery and Rock in our brave Elphin-stone." + +Her way of life after Piozzi's death may be collected from the +Letters, with the exception of one strange episode towards the end. +When nearly eighty, she took a fancy for an actor named Conway, who +came out on the London boards in 1813, and had the honour of acting +Romeo and Jaffier to the Juliet and Belvidera of Miss O'Neill (Lady +Becher). He also acted with her in Dean Milman's fine play, "Fazio." +But it was his ill fate to reverse Churchill's famous lines: + + "Before such merits all objections fly, + Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick's six feet high." + +Conway was six feet high, and a very handsome man to boot; but his +advantages were purely physical; not a spark of genius animated his +fine features and commanding figure, and he was battling for a +moderate share of provincial celebrity, when Mrs. Piozzi fell in with +him at Bath. It has been rumoured in Flintshire that she wished to +marry him, and offered Sir John Salusbury a large sum in ready money +(which she never possessed) to give up Brynbella (which he could not +give up), that she might settle it on the new object of her +affections. But none of the letters or documents that have fallen in +my way afford even plausibility to the rumour, and some of the +testamentary papers in which his name occurs, go far towards +discrediting the belief that her attachment ever went beyond +admiration and friendship expressed in exaggerated terms.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Since the appearance of the first edition of this work, +it has been stated on the authority of a distinguished man of letters +that Conway shewed the late Charles Mathews a letter from Mrs. +Piozzi, offering marriage.--_New Monthly Magazine_ (edited by Mr. +Harrison Ainsworth) for April, 1861.] + +Conway threw himself overboard and was drowned in a voyage from New +York to Charleston in 1828. His effects were sold at New York, and +amongst them a copy of the folio edition of Young's "Night Thoughts," +in which he had made a note of its having been presented to him by +his "dearly attached friend, the celebrated Mrs. Piozzi." In the +preface to "Love Letters of Mrs. Piozzi, Written when she was Eighty, +to William Augustus Conway," published in London in 1842, it is +stated that the originals, seven in number, were purchased by an +American "lady," who permitted a "gentleman" to take copies and use +them as he might think fit. What this "gentleman" thought fit, was to +publish them with a catchpenny title and an alleged extract by way of +motto to sanction it. The genuineness of the letters is doubtful, and +the interpolation of three or four sentences would alter their entire +tenor. But taken as they stand, their language is not warmer than an +old woman of vivid fancy and sensibility might have deemed warranted +by her age. "Tell Mr. Johnson I love him exceedingly," is the mission +given by the old Countess of Eglinton to Boswell in 1778. _L'age n'a +point de sexe_; and no one thought the worse of Madame Du Deffand for +the impassioned tone in which she addressed Horace Walpole, whose +dread of ridicule induced him to make a most ungrateful return to her +fondness.[1] Years before the formation of this acquaintance, Mrs. +Piozzi had acquired the difficult art of growing old; _je sais +vieillir_: she dwells frequently but naturally on her age: she +contemplates the approach of death with firmness and without +self-deception: and her elasticity of spirit never for a moment +suggests the image of an antiquated coquette. Of the seven letters in +question, the one cited as most compromising is the sixth, in which +Conway is exhorted to bear patiently a rebuff he had just received +from some younger beauty: + +[Footnote 1: "The old woman's fancy for Mr. Conway represents a +relation of warm friendship that is of every-day occurrence between +youth and age that is not crabbed."--_The Examiner_, Feb. 16, 1861.] + +"'Tis not a year and a quarter since, dear Conway, accepting of my +portrait sent to Birmingham, said to the bringer, 'Oh if _your lady_ +but retains her friendship: oh if I can but keep _her_ patronage, I +care not for the rest.' And now, when that friendship follows you +through sickness and through sorrow; now that her patronage is daily +rising in importance: upon a lock of hair given or refused by une +petite Traitresse, hangs all the happiness of my once high-spirited +and high-blooded friend. Let it not be so. EXALT THY LOVE: DEJECTED +HEART--and rise superior to such narrow minds. Do not however fancy +she will ever be punished in the way you mention: no, no; she'll +wither on the thorny stem dropping the faded and ungathered +leaves:--a China rose, of no good scent or flavour--false in apparent +sweetness, deceitful when depended on--unlike the flower produced in +colder climates, which is sought for in old age, preserved _even +after death_, a lasting and an elegant perfume,--a medicine, too, for +those whose shattered nerves require _astringent remedies_. + +"And now, dear Sir, let me request of you--to love yourself--and to +reflect on the necessity of not dwelling on any _particular subject_ +too long, or too intensely. It is really very dangerous to the health +of body and soul. Besides that our time here is but short; a mere +preface to the great book of eternity: and 'tis scarce worthy of a +reasonable being not to keep the end of human existence so far in +view that we may tend to it--either directly or obliquely in every +step. This is preaching--but remember how the sermon is written at +three, four, and five o'clock by an octogenary pen--a heart (as Mrs. +Lee says) twenty-six years old: and as H.L.P. feels it to be,--ALL +YOUR OWN. Suffer your dear noble self to be in some measure benefited +by the talents which are left _me_; your health to be restored by +soothing consolations while _I remain here_, and am able to bestow +them. All is not lost yet. You _have_ a friend, and that friend is +PIOZZI." + +Conway's "high blood" was as great a recommendation to Mrs. Piozzi as +his good looks, and he vindicated his claim to noble descent by his +conduct, which was disinterested and gentlemanlike throughout. + +Moore sets down in his Diary, April 28, 1819: "Breakfasted with the +Fitzgeralds. Took me to call on Mrs. Piozzi; a wonderful old lady; +faces of other times seemed to crowd over her as she sat,--the +Johnsons, Reynoldses, &c. &c.: though turned eighty, she has all the +quickness and intelligence of a gay young woman." + +Nichol, the bookseller, had said that "Johnson was the link that +connected Shakespeare with the rest of mankind." On hearing this, +Mrs. Piozzi at eighty exclaimed, "Oh, the dear fellow, I must give +him a kiss for that idea." When Nichol told the story, he added, "I +never got it, and she went out of the world a kiss in my debt." + +One of the most characteristic feats or freaks of this extraordinary +woman was the celebration of her eightieth birthday by a concert, +ball, and supper, to between six and seven hundred people, at the +Kingston Rooms, Bath, on the 27th January, 1820. At the conclusion of +the supper, her health was proposed by Admiral Sir James Sausmarez, +and drunk with three times three. The dancing began at two, when she +led off with her adopted son, Sir John Salusbury, dancing (according +to the author of "Piozziana," an eye-witness) "with astonishing +elasticity, and with all the true air of dignity which might have +been expected of one of the best bred females in society." When fears +were expressed that she had done too much, she replied:--"No: this +sort of thing is greatly in the mind; and I am almost tempted to say +the same of growing old at all, especially as it regards those of the +usual concomitants of age, viz., laziness, defective sight, and +ill-temper." + +"So far from feeling fatigued or exhausted on the following day by +her exertions," remarks Sir James Fellowes in a note on this event, +"she amused us by her sallies of wit, and her jokes on 'Tully's +Offices,' of which her guests had so eagerly availed themselves.". +Tully was the cook and confectioner, the Bath Gunter, who provided +the supper. + +Mrs. Piozzi died in May, 1821. Her death is circumstantially +communicated in a letter from Mrs. Pennington, the lady mentioned in +Miss Seward's correspondence as the beautiful and agreeable Sophia +Weston:-- + + +"Hot Wells, May 5th, 1821. + +"Dear Miss Willoughby,--It is my painful task to communicate to you, +who have so lately been the kind associate of dearest Mrs. Piozzi, +the irreparable loss we have all sustained in that incomparable woman +and beloved friend. + +"She closed her various life about nine o'clock on Wednesday, after +an illness of ten days, with as little suffering as could be imagined +under these awful circumstances. Her bed-side was surrounded by her +weeping daughters: Lady Keith and Mrs. Hoare arrived in time to be +fully recognised[1]; Miss Thrale, who was absent from town, only just +before she expired, but with the satisfaction of seeing her breathe +her last in peace. + +"Nothing could behave with more tenderness and propriety than these +ladies, whose conduct, I am convinced, has been much misrepresented +and calumniated by those who have only attended to _one_ side of the +history: but may all that is past be now buried in oblivion! +Retrospection seldom improves our view of any subject. Sir John +Salusbury was too distant, the close of her illness being so rapid, +for us to entertain any expectation of his arriving in time to see +the dear deceased. He only reached Clifton late _last_ night. I have +not yet seen him; my whole time has been devoted to the afflicted +ladies." + +[Footnote 1: On hearing of their arrival she is reported to have +said, "Now, I shall die in state."] + +Mrs. Pennington told a friend that Mrs. Piozzi's last words were: "I +die in the trust and the fear of God." When she was attended by Sir +George Gibbes, being unable to articulate, she traced a coffin in the +air with her hands and lay calm. Her will, dated the 29th March, +1816, makes Sir John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury heir to all her real +and personal property with the exception of some small bequests, Sir +James Fellowes and Sir John Salusbury being appointed executors. + +A Memorandum signed by Sir James Fellowes runs thus:--"After I had +read the Will, Lady Keith and her two sisters present, said they had +long been prepared for the contents and for such a disposition of the +property, and they acknowledged the validity of the Will." + + * * * * * + +In any endeavour to solve the difficult problem of Mrs. Piozzi's +conduct and character, it should be kept in view that the highest +testimony to her worth has been volunteered by those with whom she +passed the last years of her life in the closest intimacy. She had +become completely reconciled to Madame D'Arblay, with whom she was +actively corresponding when she died, and her mixed qualities of head +and heart are thus summed up in that lady's Diary, May, 1821: + +"I have lost now, just lost, my once most dear, intimate, and admired +friend, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi, who preserved her fine faculties, her +imagination, her intelligence, her powers of allusion and citation, +her extraordinary memory, and her almost unexampled vivacity, to the +last of her existence. She was in her eighty-second year, and yet +owed not her death to age nor to natural decay, but to the effects of +a fall in a journey from Penzance to Clifton. On her eightieth +birthday she gave a great ball, concert, and supper, in the public +rooms at Bath, to upwards of two hundred persons, and the ball she +opened herself. She was, in truth, a most wonderful character for +talents and eccentricity, for wit, genius, generosity, spirit, and +powers of entertainment. + +"She had a great deal both of good and not good, in common with +Madame de Staël Holstein. They had the same sort of highly superior +intellect, the same depth of learning, the same general acquaintance +with science, the same ardent love of literature, the same thirst for +universal knowledge, and the same buoyant animal spirits, such as +neither sickness, sorrow, nor even terror, could subdue. Their +conversation was equally luminous, from the sources of their own +fertile minds, and from their splendid acquisitions from the works +and acquirements of others. Both were zealous to serve, liberal to +bestow, and graceful to oblige; and both were truly high-minded in +prizing and praising whatever was admirable that came in their way. +Neither of them was delicate nor polished, though each was flattering +and caressing; but both had a fund inexhaustible of good humour, and +of sportive gaiety, that made their intercourse with those they +wished to please attractive, instructive, and delightful; and though +not either of them had the smallest real malevolence in their +compositions, neither of them could ever withstand the pleasure of +uttering a repartee, let it wound whom it might, even though each +would serve the very person they goaded with all the means in their +power. Both were kind, charitable, and munificent, and therefore +beloved; both were sarcastic, careless, and daring, and therefore +feared. The morality of Madame de Staël was by far the most faulty, +but so was the society to which she belonged; so were the general +manners of those by whom she was encircled." + +There is one real point of similarity between Madame de Staël and +Mrs. Piozzi, which has been omitted in the parallel. Both were +treated much in the same manner by the amiable, sensitive, and +unsophisticated Fanny Burney. In Feb. 1793, she wrote to her father, +then at Paris, to announce her intimacy with a small "colony" of +distinguished emigrants settled at Richmond, the cynosure of which +was the far-famed daughter of Necker. He writes to caution her on the +strength of a suspicious _liaison_ with M. de Narbonne. She replies +by declaring her belief that the charge is a gross calumny. "Indeed, +I think you could not spend a day with them and not see that their +commerce is that of pure, but exalted and most elegant, friendship. I +would, nevertheless, give the world to avoid being a guest under +their roof, now that I have heard even the shadow of such a rumour." + +If Mr. Croker was right, she was then in her forty-second year; at +all events, no tender, timid, delicate maiden, ready to start at a +hint or semblance of impropriety; and she waved her scruples without +hesitation when they stood in the way of her intercourse with M. +D'Arblay, whom she married in July 1793, he being then employed in +transcribing Madame de Staël's Essay on the Influence of the +Passions. + +As to the parallel, with all due deference to Madame D'Arblay's +proved sagacity aided by her personal knowledge of her two gifted +friends, it may be suggested that they present fewer points of +resemblance than any two women of at all corresponding celebrity.[1] +The superiority in the highest qualities of mind will be awarded +without hesitation to the French woman, although M. Thiers terms her +writings the perfection of mediocrity. She grappled successfully with +some of the weightiest and subtlest questions of social and political +science; in criticism she displayed powers which Schlegel might have +envied while he aided their fullest development in her "Germany"; and +her "Corinne" ranks amongst the best of those works of fiction which +excel in description, reflection, and sentiment, rather than in +pathos, fancy, stirring incident, or artfully contrived plot. But her +tone of mind was so essentially and notoriously masculine, that when +she asked Talleyrand whether he had read her "Delphine," he answered, +"Non, Madame, mais on m'a dit que-nous y sommes tous les deux +déguisés en femmes."[2] This was a material drawback on her +agreeability: in a moment of excited consciousness, she exclaimed, +that she would give all her fame for the power of fascinating; and +there was no lack of bitterness in her celebrated repartee to the man +who, seated between her and Madame Recamier, boasted of being between +Wit and Beauty, "Oui, et sans posséder ni l'un ni l'autre."[3] The +view from Richmond Park she called "calme et animée, ce qu'on doit +être, et que je ne suis pas." + +[Footnote 1: Lady Morgan and Madame de Genlis have been suggested as +each presenting a better subject for a parallel.] + +[Footnote 2: "To understand the point of this answer," says Mr. +Mackintosh, "it must be known that an old countess is introduced in +the novel full of cunning, finessing, and trick, who was intended to +represent Talleyrand, and Delphine was intended for herself."--_Life +of Sir James Mackintosh_, vol. ii. p. 453.] + +[Footnote 3: This _mot_ is given to Talleyrand in Lady Holland's Life +of Sydney Smith. But it may be traced to one mentioned by Hannah More +in 1787, as then current in Paris. One of the _notables_ fresh from +his province was teased by two _petits maîtres_ to tell them who he +was. "Eh bien donc, le voici: je suis ni sot ni fat, mais je suis +entre les deux."--_Memoirs of Hannah More_, vol. ii. p. 57.] + +In London she was soon voted a bore by the wits and people of +fashion. She thought of convincing whilst they thought of dining. +Sheridan and Brummell delighted in mystifying her. Byron complained +that she was always talking of himself or herself[1], and concludes +his account of a dinner-party by the remark:--"But we got up too soon +after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after +dinner, that we wish her--in the drawing-room." In another place he +says: "I saw Curran presented to Madame de Staël at Mackintosh's; it +was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saône, and they +were both so d--d ugly that I could not help wondering how the best +intellects of France and England could have taken up respectively +such residences." He afterwards qualifies this opinion: "Her figure +was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good: altogether I can +conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little +imagination for her soul, and so forth. She would have made a great +man." + +[Footnote 1: Johnson told Boswell: "You have only two topics, +yourself and myself, and I am heartily sick of both."] + +This is just what Mrs. Piozzi never would have made. Her mind, +despite her masculine acquirements, was thoroughly feminine: she had +more tact than genius, more sensibility and quickness of perception +than depth, comprehensiveness, or continuity of thought. But her very +discursiveness prevented her from becoming wearisome: her varied +knowledge supplied an inexhaustible store of topics and +illustrations; her lively fancy placed them in attractive lights; and +her mind has been well likened to a kaleidoscope which, whenever its +glittering and heterogeneous contents are moved or shaken, surprises +by some new combination of colour or of form. She professed to write +as she talked; but her conversation was doubtless better than her +books: her main advantages being a well-stored memory, fertility of +images, aptness of allusion, and _apropos_. + +Her colloquial excellence and her agreeability are established by the +unanimous testimony of her cotemporaries. Her fame in this respect +rests on the same basis as that of all great wits, all great actors, +and many great orators. To question it for want of more tangible and +durable proofs, would be as unreasonable as to question Sydney +Smith's humour, Hook's powers of improvisation, Garrick's Richard, or +Sheridan's Begum speech. But _ex pede Herculem_. Marked indications +of her quality will be found in her letters and her books. "Both," +remarks an acute and by no means partial critic[1], "are full of +happy touches, and here and there will be found in them those deep +and piercing thoughts which come intuitively to people of genius." + +[Footnote 1: The Athenæum. Jan. 26th, 1861.] + +Surely these are happy touches: + +"I hate a general topic as a pretty woman hates a general mourning +when black does not become her complexion." + +"Life is a schoolroom, not a playground." + +In allusion to the rage for scientific experiment in 1811: "Never was +poor Nature so put to the rack, and never, of course, was she made to +tell so many lies." + +"Science (i.e. learning), which acted as a sceptre in the hand of +Johnson, and was used as a club by Dr. Parr, became a lady's fan, +when played with by George Henry Glasse." + +"Hope is drawn with an anchor always, and Common Sense is never +strong enough to draw it up." + +"The poppy which Nature sows among the corn, to shew us that sleep is +as necessary as bread." [1] + +[Footnote 1: Or to shew us that the harvest diminishes with sloth, +and that what we gain in sleep we lose in bread. But _qui dort, +dine_.] + +"The best writers are not the best friends; and the last character is +more to be valued than the first by cotemporaries: after fifty years, +indeed, the others carry away all the applause." + +This is the reason why posterity always takes part with the famous +author or man of genius against those who witnessed his meanness or +suffered from his selfishness; why fresh apologists will constantly +be found for Bacon's want of principle and Johnson's want of manners. + +In the course of his famous definition or description of wit, Barrow +says: "Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in +seasonable application of a trivial saying: sometimes it playeth in +words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense +or the affinity of their sound." If this be so, she possessed it in +abundance. In a letter, dated Bath, 26th April, 1818,--about the time +when Talleyrand said of Lady F.S.'s robe: "_Elle commence trop tard +et finit trop tôt_,"--she writes: + +"A genteel young clergyman, in our Upper Crescent, told his mamma +about ten days ago, that he had lost his heart to pretty Miss +Prideaux, and that he must absolutely marry her or die. _La chère +mère_ of course replied gravely: 'My dear, you have not been +acquainted with the lady above a fortnight: let me recommend you to +see more of her.' 'More of her!' exclaimed the lad, 'why I have seen +down to the fifth rib on each side already.' This story will serve to +convince Captain T. Fellowes and yourself, that as you have always +acknowledged the British Belles to _exceed_ those of every other +nation, you may now say with truth, that they _outstrip_ them." + +On the 1st July, 1818: + +"The heat has certainly exhausted my faculties, and I have but just +life enough left to laugh at the fourteen tailors who, united under a +flag with '_Liberty and Independence_' on it, went to vote for some +of these gay fellows, I forget which, but the motto is ill chosen, +said I, they should have written up, '_Measures not Men_'" + +Her verses are advantageously distinguished amongst those of her +blue-stocking contemporaries by happy turns of thought and +expression, natural playfulness, and an abundant flow of idiomatic +language. But her facility was a fatal gift, as it has proved to most +female aspirants to poetic fame, who rarely stoop to the labour of +the file. Although the first rule laid down by Goldsmith's +connoisseur[1] is far from universally applicable to productions of +the pencil or the pen, all fruitful writers would do well to act upon +it, and what Mrs. Piozzi could do when she took pains is decisively +proved by her "Streatham Portraits." + +[Footnote 1: "Upon my asking him how he had acquired the art of a +conoscente so very suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more +easy. The whole secret consisted in an adherence to two rules: the +one always to observe that the picture might have been better if the +painter had taken more pains; and the other to praise the works of +Pietro Perugino."--_The Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. xx.] + +She was wanting in refinement, which very few of the eighteenth +century wits and authors possessed according to more modern notions; +and she abounded in vanity, which, if not necessarily a baneful or +unamiable quality, is a fruitful source of folly and peculiarly +calculated to provoke censure or ridicule. In her, fortunately, its +effects were a good deal modified by the frankness of its avowal and +display, by her habits of self-examination, by her impulsive +generosity of character, and by her readiness to admit the claims and +consult the feelings of others. To seek out and appreciate merit as +she appreciated it, is a high merit in itself. + +Her piety was genuine; and old-fashioned politicians, whose watchword +is Church and King, will be delighted with her politics. Literary +men, considering how many curious inquiries depend upon her accuracy, +will be more anxious about her truthfulness, and I have had ample +opportunities of testing it; having not only been led to compare her +narratives with those of others, but to collate her own statements of +the same transactions or circumstances at distant intervals or to +different persons. It is difficult to keep up a large correspondence +without frequent repetition. Sir Walter Scott used to write precisely +the same things to three or four fine-lady friends, and Mrs. Piozzi +could no more be expected to find a fresh budget of news or gossip +for each epistle than the author of "Waverley." Thus, in 1815, she +writes to a Welsh baronet from Bath: + +"We have had a fine Dr. Holland here.[1] He has seen and written +about the Ionian Islands; and means now to practise as a physician, +exchanging the Cyclades, say we wits and wags, for the Sick Ladies. +We made quite a lion of the man. I was invited to every house he +visited at for the last three days; so I got the _Queue du lion_ +despairing of _le Coeur_." + +[Footnote 1: Sir Henry Holland, Bart., who, with many other titles to +distinction, is one of the most active and enterprising of modern +travellers.] + +Two other letters written about the same time contain the same piece +of intelligence and the same joke. She was very fond of writing +marginal notes; and after annotating one copy of a book, would take +up another and do the same. I have never detected a substantial +variation in her narratives, even in those which were more or less +dictated by pique; and as she generally drew upon the "Thraliana" for +her materials, this, having been carefully and calmly compiled, +affords an additional guarantee for her accuracy. + +Her taste for reading never left her or abated to the last. In +reference to a remark (in Boswell) on the irksomeness of books to +people of advanced age, she writes: "Not to me at eighty years old: +being grieved that year (1819) particularly, I was forced upon study +to relieve my mind, and it had the due effect. I wrote this note in +1820." + +She sometimes gives anecdotes of authors. Thus, in the letter just +quoted, she says: "Lord Byron protests his wife was a fortune without +money, a belle without beauty, and a blue-stocking without either wit +or learning." But her literary information grew scanty as she grew +old: "The literary world (she writes in 1821) is to me terra +incognita, far more deserving of the name, now Parry and Ross are +returned, than any part of the polar regions:" and her opinions of +the rising authors are principally valuable as indications of the +obstacles which budding reputations must overcome. "Pindar's fine +remark respecting the different effects of music on different +characters, holds equally true of genius: so many as are not +delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder +either recognises it as a projected form of his own being, that moves +before him with a glory round its head, or recoils from it as a +spectre."[1] The octogenarian critic of the Johnsonian school recoils +from "Frankenstein" as from an incarnation of the Evil Spirit: she +does not know what to make of the "Tales of my Landlord"; and she +inquires of an Irish acquaintance whether she retained recollection +enough of her own country to be entertained with "that strange +caricature, Castle Rack Rent." Contemporary judgments such as these +(not more extravagant than Horace Walpole's) are to the historian of +literature what fossil remains are to the geologist. + +[Footnote 1: Coleridge, "Aids to Reflection."] + +Although perhaps no biographical sketch was ever executed, as a +labour of love, without an occasional attack of what Lord Macaulay +calls the _Lues Boswelliana_ or fever of admiration, I hope it is +unnecessary for me to say that I am not setting up Mrs. Piozzi as a +model letter-writer, or an eminent author, or a pattern of the +domestic virtues, or a fitting object of hero or heroine worship in +any capacity. All I venture to maintain is, that her life and +character, if only for the sake of the "associate forms," deserve to +be vindicated against unjust reproach, and that she has written many +things which are worth snatching from oblivion or preserving from +decay. + + +END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + + + + +LONDON + +PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. + +NEW-STREET SQUARE + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography, Letters and Literary +Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.), by Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY REMAINS OF MRS. 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