Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi

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Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi

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.

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Welcome, Associate Forms, where'er we turn
Fill, Streatham's Hebe, the Johnsonian urn--St. Stephen's

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In Two Volumes
VOL. I.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS
1861

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PREFACE

TO

THE SECOND EDITION.

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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from letters hitherto unpublished.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.

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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

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY &c. OF MRS. PIOZZI

VOL. I

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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.




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