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Full text of "Mrs. Thrale : afterwards Mrs. Piozzi : a sketch of her life and passages from her diaries, letters & other writings"

MRS. THRALE 

Afte rwa rds MR S. PlOZZI 




With Portraits after 

W. HOGARTH, SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 

ZQFFANY, J. JACKSON, tc. 



^HHI 



ex LIBRIS 

BERTRAM C.A WINOLE" K' K S.G TRS 




6T. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE 
TORONTO ft, CANADA 




MRS. THRALE 



AFTERWARDS MRS. PIOZZI 



A SKETCH OF HER LIFE 

AND PASSAGES FROM HER DIARIES, LETTERS 
fcf OTHER WRITINGS 



EDITED BY 

L. B. SEELEY, M.A. 

Late Felloiv of Trinity College, Cambridge 




WITH NINE ILLUSTRA TIONS AFTER 

HOGARTH, REYNOLDS, ZOFFANY, ff OTHERS 



LONDON 
SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED 

ESSEX STREET, STRAND 
1891 



THE Editor of the following pages desires to express his 
acknowledgments to Messrs. Longman and Co. for kindly 
permitting him to make use of the ' Autobiography of 
Mrs. Piozzi,' edited by the late Mr. Abraham Hayward, 
and published by them about thirty years ago. Much of 
the matter contained in these two interesting volumes 
was, of course, common property ; but the extracts from 
the ' Thraliana,' and other autobiographical notes which 
they contained, were then published for the first time, 
and Mr. Hayward's comments and criticisms could be 
overlooked by no one now undertaking to deal with the 
subject. The source of passages quoted from his work 
has been carefully indicated. 

November, 1890. 



THE Editor of the following pages desires to express his 
acknowledgments to Messrs. Longman and Co. for kindly 
permitting him to make use of the ' Autobiography of 
Mrs. Piozzi,' edited by the late Mr. Abraham Hayward, 
and published by them about thirty years ago. Much of 
the matter contained in these two interesting volumes 
was, of course, common property ; but the extracts from 
the ( Thraliana,' and other autobiographical notes which 
they contained, were then published for the first time, 
and Mr. Hayward's comments and criticisms could be 
overlooked by no one now undertaking to deal with the 
subject. The source of passages quoted from his work 
has been carefully indicated. 

November, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

I'AGE 

A Welsh Pedigree Heroic Ancestors Katharine of Berain Richard Clough 
Bachygraig The Cottons of Combermere Parentage and Birth 
Brought to London James Quin David Garrick School in Queen Square 
East Hyde Sir Thomas Salusbury Offiey Place Lady Salusbury 
Dr. Collier Hester a favourite Hogarth The Lady's Last Stake Portents 
of Change Mrs. King Henry Thrale ..... i-n 

CHAPTER II. 

Origin of the Thrale Family Edmund Halsey The Anchor Brewhouse 
Lord Cobham Ralph Thrale His Son's Education The Cobham Cousins 
Henry Thrale's Bachelorhood Arthur Murphy Hester's Courtship 
A Family Dispute Sudden Death of her Father His Will Sir Thomas 
Salusbury Hester's Marriage First Experiences of Matrimony Dr. Fitz- 
patrick Birth of a Daughter Character of Thrale Murphy introduces 
Johnson Growth of the Acquaintance Johnson's Hypochondria Streatham 
Deadman's Place The Globe Theatre House at Brighton Johnson's 
Menagerie Macbean Miss Williams Robert Levet Domestication with 
the Thrales Mrs. Salusbury Johnson's Peculiarities His Dress Appetite 
Taste in Food Affects the Epicure Love of Late Hours Fondness for 
Tea Want of Taste for Music and Painting Mode of Entering a Room 
Inarticulate Utterances Twitchings Ejaculations A Favourite with 
Women Characteristics of Mrs. Thrale Her Personal Appearance Her 
Dress Influence over Johnson He goes more into Society . . 12-43 

CHAPTER III. 

Thraie enters Parliament Mrs. Thrale gains Influence Her Acquirements 
Outshines her Husband Her Conversation Miss Williams's Miscellanies 
Floretta The Three Warnings Dissolution of Parliament John Wilkes 
Thrale re-elected Boswell at Streatham Literary Talk Johnson's Political 
Pamphlets Verses at the Theatre Thrale in Difficulties Humphrey Jack- 
son Mrs. Thrale shows herself a Woman of Business Johnson's Advice 
Thrale out of Health Alteration in him Mr. Perkins Conversations at 
Streatham Johnson's Estimate of Mrs. Thrale Thrale created Doctor 
Death of Mrs. Salusbury Johnson's Visit His Letters to Mrs. Thrale 
His Ode written in Skye He will not suffer Boswell to slight Mrs. Thrale 
Death of Sir Thomas Salusbury Disappointment and Misfortunes ' The 



viii Contents. 



PAGE 



Journey to the Western Islands 'Excursion to Wales Visits to Lleweny 
Hall and Bachygraig Johnson accuses his Mistress of Meanness Bodvil 
Visits to Lords Sandys and Lyttelton General Election Electioneering with 
Johnson Project of bringing Johnson into Parliament . . . 44-7^ 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mrs. Abington's Benefit Johnson created Doctor Marriages with Inferiors in 
Rank Thrale not a Wit Baretti Account of Him Tried for Murder- 
Enters Thrale's Family His Character drawn by Mrs. Piozzi Dr. Thomas 
Campbell His Diary of a Visit to England His Impressions of Baretti and 
Johnson Dinners at Thrale's Tour to France Baretti makes Himself 
Useful Johnson's Letter and Diary Johnson Intractable Disagreements 
Verses to Mrs. Thrale She translates an Epigram Impromptu Johnson 
removes to Bolt Court Boswell again in London He goes with Johnson 
to the Midlands Sudden Death of Thrale's only son Johnson and Boswell 
return to London Johnson comforts the Parents Proposed 1'our to Italy 
given up Garrick's Retirement His Acting The Thrales at Bath with 
Johnson Visit from Boswell Johnson Severe to Mrs. Thrale He returns 
to Ix>ndon Dines with Wilkes Pressed to go again to Bath Quarrel with 
Baretti Mrs. Thrale describes the Rupture Johnson's Account Baretti's 
Version Apparent Reconciliation Thraliana Thrale described by his 
wife ........ ~ 76-104 

CHAPTER V. 

Visit to Dr. Burney's The Lives of the Poets Progress of the Brewery 
Advice about ' Thraliana ' Boswell at Ashbourne Dr. Taylor's Cattle and 
Waterfall Mrs. Thrale in Low Spirits Letters from Johnson Her alleged 
Inaccuracy A Lecture Precept and Practice Johnson and Lord March- 
mont Cornelius Ford A Ghost Story Thrale over-brews himself ' Eve- 
lina" Published Miss Burney Introduced at Streatham Kindly Received 
Second Visit Johnson as an Inmate His Opinions on Dress Family Life 
at Streatham Johnson's Domestic Economy Lady Lade Johnson's Por- 
trait The Brewery Prospers The Black Dog Discord in Bolt Court 
Sophy Streatfield Dr. Collier Mrs. Thrale Jealous Tears at Command 
The Thrales at Brighton Mr. Thrale has a Fit Johnson's Sympathy 
Thrale's Health Improves Mrs. Thrale's Dislike of the Borough . 105-139 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Thrale has a Second Fit Recruits at Bath Anxiety about him Society 
at Bath Melmoth An Election in Prospect Mrs. Thrale visits Southwark 
Her Activity Johnson Flattered The Life of Congreve The Gordon 
Riots Alarm at Bath The Brewery Saved Address of Perkins The 
Thrales Flee from Bath Quiet Restored in London Zeal of John Wilkes 
Anecdotes Perkins Rewarded Johnson and Queeney Mrs. Cholmondely 
Seventy-Two Bolt Court Thrale Ix>ses his Seat His Health Declines 
The Streatham Portraits Verses on them by Mrs. Thrale The Library at 
Streatham Park Grosvenor Square Conversazione Other Entertainments 
A Foreign Tour Projected Signs of Danger Voracious Appetite 
Sudden Death Johnson's Grief He Comforts the Widow The Will 
The Executors- Distress of Mrs. Thrale The Trade to be Carried on 



Contents. ix 

I'AGE 

Johnson's Mercantile Ardour The Brewery Sold The Barclays The 
Summer at Streatham Johnson and Pepys Piozzi and Sacchini Mrs. 
Thrale and Fanny Burney .... ... . . 140-170 

CHAPTER VII. 

Introduction to Piozzi Account of him He goes Abroad Second Sight 
Piozzi Returns Beginning of Uneasiness Good Resolutions Harley 
Street The Widow Watched Fears for Johnson Death of Level Verses 
on him Johnson's Emotion Social Comforts Mrs. Thrale has an Assembly 
Literary Women Mrs. Thrale Described Rumours of her marrying 
Again Johnson 111 and Dispirited A Lecture on Peevishness Dr. Lee 
Modern Refinement Burton on Melancholy Johnson and the Quakers 
His Position at Streatham A Disastrous Lawsuit Reasons for Quitting 
Streatham The Park Let to Lord Shelburne The Last Summer there 
Madame d'Arblay's Recollections Johnson's Farewell to Streatham He 
Accompanies Mrs. Thrale to Brighton His Severity Mrs. Thrale confesses 
her Attachment Conduct of her Daughters and Miss Burney Her Mental 
Struggles Piozzi Dismissed Embarrassments Argyll Street Resolution 
to leave London Removal to Bath The Parting with Piozzi Mrs. Thrale 
loses her Youngest Daughter Resentment .... 171-201 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Discontent Johnson has a Stroke Mrs. Thrale's Situation Sir Philip 
Jennings Clerk An Old Friend Mrs. Thrale's Health Miss Burney's 
Sympathy Repinings Irritation Want of Society Piozzi Recalled The 
News told to Johnson Correspondence Rupture Farewell Return of 
Piozzi The Marriage Baretti's Attack .... 202-218 

CHAPTER IX. 

Departure for the Continent Calais Aspect of the Country Chantilly 
The Prince of Cond6 Paris The Palais Royal The Parisians Beau- 
marchais The English Austin Nuns An Air Balloon Animal Magnetism 
Mont Cenis Italian Costume Milan Christmas Festivities Free 
Manners The Theatre of La Scala The Lower Classes Cremona The 
Bells Dr. Burney Verona Venice Venetian Society The Po Ferrara 
Talassi's Visit to Streatham Bologna The Painters of the Bolognese 
School Journey to Florence ...... 219-242 

CHAPTER X. 

Florence An English Inn Sir Horace Mann Forests An Eulogium on 
Captain Cook A Cardinal The Lingua Toscana Hasty Burials Lucca 
Completion and Despatch of the ' Anecdotes ' The Bagni di Pisa Illness 
of Mr. Piozzi Insects First View of Rome The Coliseum The King of 
Sweden Queen Christina Dislike of Perfumes Insanitary Streets 
Escape of Mr. Piozzi from Assassination Arrival at Naples Vesuvius 
St. Januarius The King of Naples The Grotto del Cane Reminiscence 
of the Southwark Brewery The Hermit of Vesuvius Return to Rome 
The Carnival Kissing the Slipper Anecdote of the Emperor Angelica 
Kauffman Loretto Correggio Return to Milan The Emperor Joseph's 



x Contents. 

PAGE 

Reforms Lugano Farewell to Italy Innsbruck Munich Salzburg- 
Vienna The Emperor Metastasio Prague Dresden Berlin Antwerp 
Return to England . . . . .''/*... ,243-273 

CHAPTER XL 

Macaulay's Account of the Flight to Italy Obloquy Insults from Baretti 
Continuing Regard for Johnson His Death Projected Work on Him 
The Florence Miscellany The ' Anecdotes 'Rupture with Boswell In- 
accuracies in the ' Anecdotes ' Shows Resentment against Johnson Wai- 
pole's Censures Sale of the Book Peter Pindar Bozzy and Piozzi Extracts 
Miss Thrale The Piozzis Return to England Their Reception Miss 
Seward's Impressions of Mrs. Piozzi and her Husband . . . 274-290 

CHAPTER XII. 

Life in England Publication of the Letters Opinions on them Baretti's 
Libels Mrs. Piozzi's Character of him after his Death 'The Sentimental 
Mother ' The Blues Ashamed The Book of Travels Walpole's Sentence 
Miss Seward's Opinion Samuel Rogers Conduct of the Daughters Mrs. 
Piozzi and Miss Burney Return to Streatham Park Gaieties there Mr. 
Piozzi lays out Money Society in London Dr. Parr Boswell's Life Pub- 
lished Boswell's Attack on her Walpole Sides with her 'British 
Synonymy' Gifford's Opinion on it Walpole's Criticism Removal to 
Wales Brynbella Piozzi's Amiable Character His Prudent Economy 
Adoption of an Heir Sir John Salusbury ' Retrospection ' Piozzi's Gout 
Her Cares of him Her Irrepressible Spirits Miss Thrale marries Lord 
Keith A Visit from Dr. Burney Death of Piozzi His Will . . 291-314 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Cession of Brynbella Subsequent Life Lavish Expenditure Sir James 
Fellowes Attempt to Dispose of Streatham A Bath Cat The Streatham 
Portraits Sold by Auction Improvements in London Bath Life Mr. 
Mangin's Account of her Her Handwriting Rouge Anecdotes of John- 
son Acquirements Literary Conversation at Bath Sir William Pepys 
Miss Hawkins Fickleness of Public Taste Bennet Langton Fazio Miss 
O'Neill The Conway Episode Renewed Acquaintance with Madame 
d'Arblay Moore's Impression of her Celebration of her Eightieth Birth- 
day Her Death and Will Madame d'Arblay's Parallel between her and 
Madame de Stael Mr. Hayward's Criticism His Estimate of Mrs. Piozzi 
Sayings and Anecdotes ....... 315-336 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

MRS. PIOZZI, after}. Jackson, R. A Frontispiece. 

WILLIAM HOGARTH, after a Picture by Himself 10 

ELIZABETH AND MARIA GUNNING, after F. Cotes, R.A. 18 

JOSEPH BARETTI, after Sir J. Reynolds 78 

MRS. ABINGTON, after Sir J. Reynolds 84 

GARRICK, AS ABEL DRUGGER, after]. Zoffany 94 

HENRY THRALE, after Sir J. Reynolds ...... 122 

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, after a Picture by Himself . . . .156 

Miss O'NEILL, after A. W. Davis 328 



MRS. THRALE 



CHAPTER I. 

A Welsh Pedigree Heroic Ancestors Katharine of Berain Richard Clough 
Bachygraig The Cottons of Combermere Parentage and Birth 
Brought to London James Quin David Garrick School in Queen 
Square East Hyde Sir Thomas Salusbury Offley Place Lady Salus- 
bury Dr. Collier Hester a favourite Hogarth The Lady's Last Stake 
Portents of Change Mrs. King Henry Thrale. 

' I ONCE heard it asserted that few men of ever so good a 
family could recollect, immediately on being challenged, 
the maiden names of their four great grandmothers.' So 
wrote the subject of the following pages, at the outset of a 
short account which, in her later days, she drew up of her 
own early life. Persons thus forgetful, she added, could 
not be Welshmen. The clever lady who figured for many 
years in English society, first as Mrs. Thrale, and after- 
wards as Mrs. Piozzi, was a true Welshwoman, and could 
do much more than this. She had at her fingers' ends 
the pedigree of her race, beginning with ' Adam of Salz- 
burg, younger son to Alexander, Duke of Bavaria, who 
came to England with the Conqueror, and obtained for 
his valour a fair house in Lancashire.' 
Her memory was stored with 

' a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 
Half legend, half historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died.' 



2 Heroic Ancestors. 

Among the early descendants of the first father Adam, 
she celebrated Henry Salusbury, surnamed 'the Black,' 
who was said to have taken three Emirs with his own 
hand in the first Crusade, and on his return to have built 
Lleweny* Hall, in Denbighshire, setting on its highest 
tower a brazen figure of the Bavarian lion which adorned 
his shield. The story ran that, besides knighting Black 
Sir Harry on the field of battle, Cceur de Lion rewarded 
his prowess by adding to his blazonry the three crescents 
which his successors subsequently displayed on their 
coat-of-arms. Coming further down, the genealogist 
told of another Henry Salusbury who gave quarter to a 
beaten foe in the great battle at Barnet, and whose name, 
carved on a stone by the roadside there, she remembered, 
or believed she remembered, to have been pointed out to 
her by her father when she was a child. In confirmation 
of the latter authentic incident, she could appeal to the 
fact that her family for generations had flaunted the 
motto, ' Satis est prostrasse leoni.' ' 

The author of this magnanimous boast had fought on 
the side of the White Rose, but the inhabitants of North 
Wales were generally adherents of the opposite faction. 
We are on firmer ground when we read that, in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth, John Salusbury, son and heir of Sir 
John Salusbury, of Lleweny, wedded her Grace's cousin, 
the fair Katharine of Berain, in the same county, who 
was also descended from the marriage between Owen 
Tudor and Katharine of France, the widow of Henry V.t 

* It appears that Lle-M in Welsh signifies a devourer, a lion. 

t Mrs. Piozzi traced the descent thus : ' Owen Tudor had three sons by 
Queen Katharine. The first of these, Edmund, Earl of Richmond, was 
father to Henry VII. ; the second was Jasper, Earl of Pembroke ; the third 
was Fychan Tudor, of Berain. Fychan s son married Jasper's daughter, and 
had an only child, who, wedding Constance d'Aubigne, favourite lady to Anne 
de Bretagne, was father to the famous heiress, Katharine Tudor of Berain.' 
' Piozziana,' p. 27. 



Richard C lough. 3 

Having survived her husband, this lady, after a brief 
courtship, gave her hand to another Welshman, Richard 
Clough, who had acquired wealth and distinction in 
commerce, both as a merchant on his own account, and 
as factor, or agent, for that prince of merchants, Sir 
Thomas Gresham. In his youth Clough had made a 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had there been created a 
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, in consequence of which 
Pennant and other popular writers, including Mrs. Piozzi, 
have styled him ' Sir ' Richard Clough. He afterwards 
fixed his abode at Antwerp, where he was employed, 
under Gresham's direction, in negotiating loans, and in 
smuggling money, arms, and goods, on behalf of the 
English Government. In 1567 he returned to Wales, 
where his marriage presently took place, and in the same 
year he began building in a retired valley near Denbigh 
the house of Bachygraig, and at a little distance another 
house, to which he gave the name of Plas Clough. Both 
houses were built in the Dutch style, and probably by 
Dutch workmen. 

Clough* died in 1570, at the age of about forty, leaving 
two daughters, of whom the elder, Anne, inherited 
Bachygraig, and married Roger Salusbury, younger 
brother of her mother's first husband. Katharine of 
Berain, when left a widow for the second time, became 
the wife of Morris Wynn, of Gwydyr, in Caernarvonshire. 
There is a story that she was addressed by this Morris as 
she returned from following John Salusbury to the grave, 
and told him that she had engaged herself to Richard 
Clough, but that if she were unfortunate enough to 
survive him she consented to be lady of Gwydyr. Having 

* For an account of Richard Clough, see Fuller's Worthies, Flintshire, 
ed. 1662, pp. 39, 40, and 'Dictionary of National Biography,' vol. xi. 
Clough appears to have suggested to Gresham the idea of the Royal Exchange 
(Pennant's ' Account of London,' ed. 1814, p. 299). 

I 2 



4 The Cottons of Combermere. 

duly performed both contracts, she took for her fourth 
and last husband Edward Thelwall, of Plas y Ward, in 
Denbighshire ; and with his, says Mrs. Piozzi, her bones 
repose. 

Mrs. Piozzi relates that Roger Salusbury, the husband 
of Anne Clough, having quarrelled with the head of his 
family, tore down the lion from the tower of Lleweny, 
and fixed it on the roof of his own wife's house. From 
this pair, by a descent of which the historian was familiar 
with every step, her father, John Salusbury, was lineally 
sprung, and died the owner of Bachygraig, while the 
elder branch soon terminated in a female heiress, Hester, 
who, marrying Sir Robert Cotton, of Combermere, gave 
him and her issue by him the name of Salusbury Cotton. 
This Lady Salusbury Cotton had a granddaughter, 
Hester Maria, who married John Salusbury, of Bachy- 
graig, and in their only child, whose life is now to be 
told, the blood of the two stocks was united. 

The match between these two distant cousins was 
neither a very prudent, nor a very fortunate alliance. 
The lady, indeed, combined the charms of wealth with 
those of beauty and amiability. She is stated to have 
had 10,000 an excellent portion in those days besides 
an annuity of 125 for the life of her mother, who had 
barely reached middle age. She was also warmly 
attached to her kinsman, and though living gaily with 
her brother, Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton, and his wife, 
Lady Betty Tollemache, refused all other suitors whom 
the attractions of her purse and person brought to her 
feet. The gentleman, however, appears to have had 
nothing to recommend him beyond a reputation for 
gaiety and spirit. He was not only a man of wayward 
temper, but unsteady in his conduct and spendthrift in 
his habits. Unchecked by the care of a father, who 



Parentage and Birth. 5 

died during the infancy of his sons, John Salusbury had 
wrecked the family estate, as far as the settlement on his 
mother, Lucy Salusbury, permitted. So completely had 
he done this, that when his marriage took place in 1739, 
the bride's 10,000 scarcely sufficed to pay his debts, and 
furnish the couple a cottage at Bodvel in Caernarvon- 
shire. There, after one or two disappointments, they 
had a daughter, who was their only child, and was bap- 
tized Hester, after her mother, and Lynch, from the 
maiden name of her maternal grandmother, Lady Cotton. 
Hester Lynch Salusbury, afterwards Mrs. Thrale, and 
later on Mrs. Piozzi, was born on January 16, 1740, old 
style, or January 27, 1741, new style. 

The child from infancy showed quick parts and a lively 
disposition, which made her the plaything, and almost the 
sole occupation of her parents, who were compelled by 
their circumstances to remain at Bodvel until either the 
death of the dowager Mrs. Salusbury, or some other 
accident should occur to improve their situation. The 
looked-for events were not long in coming : Mrs. Salus- 
bury of Bachygraig died ; and Sir Robert Salusbury 
Cotton, having lost Lady Betty, who left her husband 
childless, manifested an inclination to attach himself to 
his sister and her little girl. Hester, with her parents, 
was invited to Lleweny, and came to the old Hall, which 
she remembered in after - years as hung round with 
armour, and where she won the heart of her uncle, who 
called her Fiddle, and was amused by the readiness and 
freedom of her talk. The baronet, who was displeased 
with an unequal match made by his only brother, and 
could not brook the indolent pride of his sister's im- 
pecunious husband, began to think of altering his will, 
and leaving his niece the portion of a daughter. 

It seems to have been shortly after the conclusion of 



6 Brought to London. 

this visit to Lleweny Hall that little Hester, now turned 
five years of age, was carried by her parents up to London. 
They went by invitation to her uncle Sir Robert's house 
in Albemarle Street, whither he had promised to follow 
them within two months. Before the end of the time 
mentioned, news came that he had died of apoplexy. 
His sudden end prevented the fulfilment of his in- 
tention to make provision for the child, his whole 
fortune going under the existing will to his brother, Sir 
Lynch Salu3bury Cotton. 

John Salusbury next fell into the hands of projectors, 
who pretended to find lead on his encumbered estate ; 
but he left his wife and little Hester in town. The latter 
became a favourite with the Duke and Duchess of Leeds, 
who had some previous knowledge of the Salusburys. 
Under their roof she often met the great actor James 
Quin, who taught her to recite Satan's address to the sun 
in ' Paradise Lost.'* Afterwards, she says, she was taken 
to the play to see him act Cato, and when he appeared 
on the stage, to the great amusement of both Duchess and 
player, the child went to the front of the box, and made 
him a formal curtsey. The next incident that impressed 
itself on her memory was the display of fireworks for the 
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. She remembered sitting on a 
terrace to see them, and being fed with sweetmeats by 
David Garrick, who was charmed because, on his asking 
* why those things that blew up were called Gerbes in 
the programme,' she answered at once : ' Because they 
are like wheat-sheaves, you see, and gerbe is French for a 
wheat-sheaf.' When Garrick was intimate at Streatham 

* Frederick, Prince of Wales, appointed Quin to instruct his children in 
elocution, and under his direction there were amateur performances at Leicester 
House, in which the young Princes and Princesses took part. When told how 
well George III. delivered his first speech, the old actor exclaimed proudly : 
4 Ah, it was I who taught the boy to speak !' And the King placed his old 
master on the civil list. 



East Hyde. 7 

Park more than twenty years afterwards, she adds, he did 
not like that story it made him feel too old. 

' Lord Halifax,' continues the writer, ' was now, or 
soon after, head of the Board of Trade, and wished to 
immortalize his name he had no sons by colonizing 
Nova Scotia. Cornwallis and my father, whom he 
patronized, were sent out, the first persons in every sense 
of the words ; and poor dear mamma was left sine pane 
almost, I believe, certainly sine nummo, with her odd little 
charge, a girl without a guinea, whose mind, however, 
she ceased not to cultivate in every possible manner. 
For French, writing and arithmetic, I had no instructor 
but herself; and when she went from home where I 
could not be taken, my temporary abode was the great 
school in Queen Square, where Mrs. Dennis and her 
brother, the Admiral Sir Peter Dennis, said I was 
qualified, at eight years old, for teacher rather than 
learner ; and he actually did instruct me in the rudiments 
of navigation, as the globes were already familiar to me.' 

The small-pox and measles having interrupted her 
studies, her grandmother, Lady Cotton, invited her with 
her mother to spend a summer at East Hyde, a country 
seat belonging to her ladyship near Luton, on the 
borders of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. ' At East 
Hyde I learned to love horses ; and when my mother 
hoped I was gaining health by the fresh air, 1 was 
kicking my heels on a corn-bin, and learning to drive 
of the old coachman, who, like everybody else, small 
and great, delighted in taking me for a pupil. Grand- 
mamma kept four great ramping war-horses for her 
carriage, with immense long manes and tails, which we 
buckled and combed ; and when, after long practice, 
I showed her and my mother how two of them (poor 
Colonel and Peacock) would lick my hand for a lump of 



8 Sir Thomas Salusbury. 

sugar or fine white bread, much were they amazed ; much 
more when my skill in guiding them round the , court- 
yard on the break could no longer be doubted or denied, 
though forbidden to be exercised for the future.' 

Not far from East Hyde is Offley, in Hertfordshire, 
where lived Sir Henry Penrice, the Judge of the 
Admiralty Court, who, by an heiress of the Spencer 
family, was the father of an only daughter, the destined 
successor to the fortunes of both her parents. Now 
John Salusbury had a younger brother Thomas, who, after 
passing through Cambridge, had studied the Civil Law, 
and was now in full practice in Doctors' Commons. This 
rising advocate was a constant visitor at Offley Place, and 
became a candidate for the hand of the accomplished Anna 
Maria Penrice. The young lady was by no means averse 
from his suit, and sought the friendship of his sister-in-law, 
while she bestowed her favour freely on Hester. Mrs. John 
Salusbury was by no means disposed to forward the match, 
considering that her absent husband's interest had been 
neglected by his brother, who had undertaken to act for 
him while abroad. Love, however, was Dr. Thomas's 
apology ; Mrs. John Salusbury's complaints were hushed, 
and the lovers married. Satisfied with the great wealth 
he had acquired, Sir Henry resigned his office in 1751, 
after a tenure of thirty-six years, and died in the follow- 
ing year. He was succeeded both in his post and his 
estate by his son-in-law, who had now became Sir Thomas 
Salusbury.* 

' My father,' continues Hester, ' meanwhile behaved 

* At the end of Burrell's Admiralty Reports, edited by Marsdon, will be 
found printed, ' Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, dated 
the 1 9th December, 1752, granted to the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Salusbury, 
Knight and Doctor of Laws, for the office of Judge of the High Court of 
Admiralty of England, so long as he shall behave himself, with a salary of 
.400 per annum.' He had previously held the post of Advocate-General 
for the office of Lord High Admiral. 



Dr. Collier. g 

perversely, quarrelling and fighting duels, and fretting his 
friends at home. My mother and uncle, taking advantage 
of a gloomy letter, begged him to return and share the 
gaieties of Offley Place. . . . Here I reigned long a fondled 
favourite.' Lady Salusbury, though her health soon 
began to decline, took care that her young charge should 
be instructed in Latin and modern languages. For this 
purpose she employed the aid of a certain Dr. Collier, 
who is frequently mentioned by his pupil. This gentle- 
man appears to have been the eldest son of Arthur Collier, 
a writer on metaphysics, who, in the early part of the 
eighteenth century, worked out for himself a system 
similar to that of Bishop Berkeley. The younger Collier 
bore his father's Christian name, and engaged in the 
profession of a lawyer, in which, however, he did not 
achieve any extraordinary distinction.* He is described by 
the author of the ' Lives of the Civilians 'f as an ingenious, 
but unsteady and eccentric man, the confidential law- 
adviser of the notorious Duchess of Kingston, whose 
marriage with the Duke he had a large share in pro- 
moting. He undertook the tuition of Hester Salusbury 
in 1757, but in March, 1759, her kind aunt died. 

' Study,' wrote the pupil, in after years, ' was my delight, 
and such a patroness would have made stones students. 
. . . Felicity in this world, however, lasts not long. Poor 
Lady Salusbury died, at forty-one years old, of dropsy in 
the breast, and uncle said he had no kindness but for me. 
I think I did share his fondness with his stud ; our stable 
was the first for hunters of enormous value for racers, too ; 
and our house, after my aunt's death, was even haunted 
by young men who made court to the niece, and expressed 

* He frequently appears as a counsel conducting cases in the volume of 
Law Reports mentioned in our last note. 

t ' Sketches of the Lives and Characters of Eminent English Civilians,' by 
one of the members of the College (Charles Coote, LL.D. ), London, 1804. 



i o Hogarth. 

admiration of the horses. Every suitor was made to 
understand my extraordinary value. Those who .could 
read were shown my verses ; those who could not were 
judges of my prowess in the field. It was my sport to 
mimic some, and drive others back, in order to make 
Dr. Collier laugh, who did not perhaps wish to see me give 
a heart away which he held completely in his hands, since 
he kindly became my preceptor in Latin, logic, rhetoric, 
etc. ... A friendship more tender, or more unpolluted 
by interest or by vanity, never existed ; love had no place 
at all in the connection, nor had he any rival but my 
mother. Their influence was of the same kind, and hers 
was the stronger.' 

Hester and her mother spent a large part of each year 
in Hertfordshire, but removed for the winter to London, 
where John Salusbury had a house of his own. It was 
during one of these winters that she sat to Hogarth for 
the principal figure in his painting of ' The Lady's Last 
Stake.' She tells us that the painter was very intimate 
with her father during her girlhood, and that she was no 
more than fourteen when this picture was executed. There 
may be some mistake about the date,* but a likeness is 
clearly discernible between her avowed portraits and the 
features of the lady in Hogarth's picture, which was 
engraved, at Lord Macaulay's suggestion, for the edition 
of her ' Remains ' published by Mr. Hayward. 

During the later years in which Hester and her mother 
spent their summer at -Ofrley Place, they had the greatest 
difficulty in managing her father's hot temper. It 
constantly threatened them with the loss of Sir Thomas 
Salusbury's favour, and during the last season of their 

* We have somewhere seen it stated that this picture was painted in 1761. 
If so, Hester would be twenty at the time. The figure represented is a woman 
about twenty-four. 



Henry Tkrale. 1 1 

residence there further portents of change appeared from 
more than one quarter. A new neighbour took up her 
abode close to the park gate. This was the Honourable 
Mrs. King, a widow, who rapidly effected a conquest of 
Sir Thomas. His frequent visits to her made the mother 
and daughter not sorry when the time came for their 
removal to their London house. Meanwhile, Lord 
Halifax had become Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, and 
when, in the early part of 1762, he went to take possession 
of the Viceroyalty, Hester's father had gone with him 
as one of his suite, flattered to attend his patron through 
his own country, and show him the wonders of Wales. 
Mrs. John Salusbury remained at Offley doing the honours. 
Sir Thomas went to town for a day or two, and returned 
with the tidings that he had met with an excellent young 
man, whose merits he proceeded to extol, ending with the 
eulogy that he was a real sportsman. Seeing his niece 
disposed to laugh, ' he looked,' she says, ' very grave, and 
observed, " He expected us to like him, and that seriously." ' 
Next day the young man, whose name was Henry Thrale, 
appeared in person, and applied himself diligently to win 
the favour of the mother, while in a certain formal way 
he commenced paying his addresses to the daughter. 



CHAPTER II. 

Origin of the Thrale Family Edmund Halsey The Anchor Brewhouse 
Lord Cobham Ralph Thrale His Son's Education The Cobham Cousins 
Henry Thrale's Bachelorhood Arthur Murphy Hester's Courtship 
A Family Dispute Sudden Death of her Father His Will Sir Thomas 
Salusbury Hester's Marriage First Experiences of Matrimony Dr. Fitz- 
patrick Birth of a Daughter Character of Thrale Murphy introduces 
Johnson Growth of the Acquaintance Johnson's Hypochondria Streatham 
Deadman's Place The Globe Theatre House at Brighton Johnson's 
Menagerie Macbean Miss Williams Robert Level Domestication with 
the Thrales Mrs. Salusbury Johnson's Peculiarities His Dress Appetite 
Taste in Food Affects the Epicure Love of Late Hours Fondness for 
Tea Want of Taste for Music and Painting Mode of Entering a Room 
Inarticulate Utterances Twitchings Ejaculations A Favourite with 
Women Characteristics of Mrs. Thrale Her Personal Appearance Her 
Dress Influence over Johnson He goes more into Society. 

TOWARDS the close of the seventeenth century, Edmund 
Halsey, son of a miller at St. Albans, quarrelled with his 
father, and ran away to London with a very few shillings 
in his pocket. ' He was eminently handsome,' writes 
Mrs. Piozzi, ' and old Child, of the Anchor Brewhouse, 
Southwark,* took him in as what we call a broomstick 
clerk, to sweep the yard,' etc. The young man behaved 
so well that 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 decease. Halsey was returned to Parlia- 
ment in 1711, as member for the Borough, but the House 
of Commons displaced him in favour of a rival candidate. 
He was again returned in 1722, and retained the seat 

" The Borough was famed for its breweries from an early period. Chaucer 
speaks of ' The ale of Southwark ' in his time. 



Lord Cobham. 13 

from that time until his death. Having, like his father- 
in-law, no child but a daughter, he matched her with the 
wealthy and aspiring founder of the great house of 
Temple. 

Sir Richard Temple, who had served in Flanders under 
the Duke of Marlborough, was ennobled on the accession 
of George I., and, four years later, obtained a patent, 
raising him to the rank of Viscount Cobham, with re- 
mainder to his sister, Hester Grenville and her issue 
male. Having later on taken an active part against Sir 
Robert Walpole, he was gratified, upon the fall of that 
statesman, with the truncheon of a Field-Marshal, and 
for a short time held the post of Commander-in-Chief. 
Though now best remembered as the friend of Pope, and 
creator of the gardens at Stowe, Cobham was chiefly 
known to his contemporaries as the most restless of 
political intriguers. Not even his nephew and successor, 
the first Earl Temple, was better versed, or more diligent, 
in all the tactics of party. A peer so dignified, so busy, 
and of such large possessions, could have no leisure for 
the affairs of a brewhouse, even had the prejudices of that 
age permitted the wearer of a coronet to be connected 
with any trading concern. But nothing was further from 
the noble son-in-law's thoughts than to throw away the 
important position which Halsey had made his own on 
the south side of London Bridge. 

Mrs. Piozzi relates that when Halsey became rich, he 
turned his eyes homewards, where he learned that his 
sister had married a hard-working man at Offley, named 
Thrale, and had many children. What was the precise 
station in life of this family we are not informed. It 
appears, however, that the name of Thrale was of some 
consideration in the neighbouring town of St. Albans ; in 
the Abbey Church there is, or was, a handsome monument 



14 Ralph Thrale. 

to the memory of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, mer- 
chant, who died in 1704.* ' Halsey,' proceeds Mrs. Piozzi, 
4 sent for one of his sister's children, my Mr. Thrale's 
father, to London ; said he would make a man of him, 
and did so ; but made him work very hard, and treated 
him very roughly.' According to an account with which 
Boswell was furnished by Johnson, Ralph Thrale so the 
new-comer was called was employed in the brewery for 
twenty years at six shillings a week. This does not 
sound very probable. According to Mrs. Piozzi, the 
nephew, though he remained a servant, ' made himself, in 
course of time, so useful to Halsey that the weight of the 
business fell entirely on him ; and while the uncle was 
canvassing the borough and visiting the Viscountess, 
Ralph Thrale accumulated money both for himself and 
his principal.' Both accounts agree that any hopes which 
Ralph had cherished of receiving the brewery as a bequest 
from its owner were disappointed, and it seems that he 
did not take a guinea under Halsey's will. The brewer's 
entire fortune and the goodwill of his trade were left to 
the sole disposition of Lord Cobham. Halsey's churlish- 
ness to his nephew is said to have been caused in part by 
jealousy. Ralph Thrale was remarkable as the senior 
had been for personal beauty; and the latter, who 
affected the character of an old beau, was piqued at find- 
ing a younger rival preferred to himself. 

Halsey died about i73o,t and after some delay Lord 
Cobham sold the brewery to my lady's cousin for 
30,000. Mrs. Piozzi says that Ralph paid the money 
out of his savings ; Boswell, that he gave security on 
the property, and discharged the debt in eleven years. 

* Boswell's Johnson (Dr. Birkbeck Hill's edition), vol. i., p. 491, n. I. 
t The return of the election for Southwark, on the vacancy occasioned by 
his death, is dated January 23, 1729-30. 



The Cob ham Cousins. 15 

Whatever was the fact, the purchaser was rich enough by 
1741 to stand for Southwark in the decisive General 
Election of that year. He came into Parliament on the 
crest of the great wave which overwhelmed Walpole. 
Boswell, in a tone of superiority well becoming so great a 
man, observes that ' the esteem which Thrale's good con- 
duct procured him from the nobleman who had married 
his master's daughter made him be treated with much 
attention.' We cannot be wrong in inferring from this 
statement that the member for the Borough voted steadily 
on the side of his aristocratic connections. 

Ralph Thrale lived until 1758, and amassed a large 
fortune. Beyond sitting a few sessions in the House 
of Commons, and serving the office of High Sheriff of 
Surrey, he made no figure in the world, but was remem- 
bered for the liberality with which he used his riches. He 
gave his son and three daughters the best education in 
his power. His son Henry, both at school and at the 
University of Oxford, was encouraged and aided to 
associate with young men of the first rank. To the 
Cobhams were allied a whole clan of junior kinsmen, 
Grenvilles, Lytteltons and Pitts. These were the Boy 
Patriots who had joined in the league against Sir Robert 
Walpole. The late Minister had been used to call them 
' the Cobham cousins.' Old Thrale was careful to con- 
nect his heir with a coterie of such distinction. ' He lent 
them money,' observes Mrs. Piozzi, * and they furnished 
assistance of every other kind.' Thus Henry Thrale, 
before he attained manhood, was familiar with Stowe and 
some other great houses, and had been abroad with Mr. 
Lyttelton, afterwards Lord Westcote, who accompanied 
him, at the expense of his father, as a kind of dignified tutor, 
' His allowance after he left college,' adds Boswell, ' was 
splendid not less than a thousand a year.' Recollecting 



1 6 Henry Thrale s Bachelorhood. 

that a thousand a year in the middle of last century was 
equivalent to an income of at least double that amount 
in the present day, we may echo the biographer's remark, 
that, in a man who had risen as Ralph Thrale did, this 
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.' 

One of his three daughters married a Mr. Rice ; another, 
Sir John Lade, a baronet of large fortune, and member 
for Camelford ; the third, a few months after the old 
man's death, wedded Mr. Arnold Nesbit, member for 
Winchelsea. 

Henry Thrale succeeded his father at the age of thirty,* 
inheriting, besides the brewery, a house in the Borough, 
and a villa standing in a large paddock, near the village 
of Streatham. Though he applied himself diligently to 
business, his hours of leisure, until he married, appear to 
have been given chiefly to the pleasures of Ranelagh and 
the green-room. Boswell, who did not make his ac- 
quaintance till he was the father of several children, 
describes his manners as presenting the character of a 
plain, independent English squire. On this Mrs. Piozzi 
has the note : ' 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 every- 
thing in it.' Evidently the lady's thoughts went back to 
what her first husband had been in the time of his 
bachelorhood and early marriage. And her ' Remains ' 
contain several passages showing that, in his younger 
days, Henry Thrale saw a good deal of the sort of life 
which is depicted in ' The Way of the World.' Arthur 
Murphy, nearly of the same age as himself, was his 

* He was born in 1728. 



Arthur Miirphy. 1 7 

chosen friend. Even Horace Walpole allowed that the 
' writing actor was good company.' Murphy's talents, 
literary acquirements, and gentle manners made him a 
general favourite ; but his morals were undeniably lax. 
He and Thrale were partners in many a careless adven- 
ture. The worthy pair, we are told, sought out the 
beautiful Gunnings on their arrival in England, presented 
to them a hanger-on of their own in the character of a 
young nobleman, and were ignominiously turned into the 
street for their pains, the impostor having betrayed him- 
self by the use of a low Irish exclamation. The Duchess 
of Hamilton never forgave this impudent frolic ; Lady 
Coventry, more prudently, pretended to forget it. Yet, 
according to the standard of that age, these were no 
mere common rakes. Murphy was not only a wit, but a 
scholar, as his translation of Tacitus bears witness. 
Thrale, though no wit, was, if we may believe Johnson, 
something of a scholar. Whatever other excesses they 
indulged in, the friends do not seem to have found their 
merriment in wine. Thus in May 1760, Murphy wrote 
to' Garrick : ' You stand engaged to Mr. Thrale for Wed- 
nesday se'ennight. You need not apprehend drinking ; 
it is a very easy house.' 

When Henry Thrale, with all his advantages of educa- 
tion and social experience, went down to Offley to visit 
his father's birthplace, he appeared to his future wife a 
very handsome and well-accomplished gentleman. ' The 
people,' she says, ' all looked with admiration at his 
giving five shillings to a poor boy who lay on the bank, 
because he was sure his father had been such a boy. In 
a week's time the country caught up the notion that Miss 
Salusbury's husband had been suddenly found by meeting 
Sir Thomas at the house of Mr. Levinz, a well-known ban 
vivant of those days, who kept a gay house at Brompton, 

2 



1 8 A Family Dispute. 

where he entertained the gay fashionists of 1760.* The 
chaplain of Offley Place, a distant relation of ours, having 
undisclosed hopes of his own to get the heiress, not 
only took alarm, but cunningly conveyed that alarm to 
my father, who, when he came home, said he saw his 
girl already half disposed of without his consent, and 
swore I should not be exchanged for a barrel of porter. 

' Vain,' she continues, ' were all my assurances that 
nothing resembled love less than Mr. Thrale's behaviour ; 
vain my promises that no step on my part should 
be taken without his concurrence ; although I clearly 
understood, and wrote Dr. Collier word, that my uncle 
made this marriage the condition of his favour quite 
apparently, and that certain ruin would follow my rejec- 
tion. The letter, perhaps, still exists, in which I declared 
my resolution to adhere to the maxims of filial duty. . . . 
By this time the brothers quarrelled, and met no more. 
M) r father took us to London. My uncle solaced himself 
with visiting the widow ; and after a miserable winter, 
which visits from Mr. Thrale to my mother rendered 
terrifying to me every day from papa's violence of temper, 
a note came, sent in a sly manner, from Dr. Collier, to 
tell me it was written in Latin that Sir Thomas would 
certainly marry Mrs. King the Sunday following, and 
begged I would not say a syllable till the next day, when he 
would come and break the dreadful tidings to my father. 

' My countenance, however, showed, or his acuteness 
discovered, something he did not like ; an accusation 
followed that I received clandestine letters from Mr. 
Thrale, a circumstance I had certainly every just reason 
to deny.' A family quarrel ensued, which was prolonged 
till four o'clock in the morning, when Mr. John Salusbury 

* The writer is using round numbers here ; Sir Thomas and Henry Thrale 
do not appear to have met before the summer of 1762. 



Death, and Will of Mr. Salusbury. 19 

gained possession of the fatal billet, and had to ask 
pardon of his daughter for having disbelieved her denial. 
At nine o'clock the father went out to consult his brother- 
in-law, Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton. As the whole party 
had been made ill by their dispute, a medical friend was 
invited to dinner, but by the time he arrived John Salus- 
bury had died, and was brought home a corpse before the 
dining hour. This was in December,* 1762. 

* His will,' proceeds the narrative, ' gave to my mother 
his Bachygraig house and estate for life, charged with 
5,000 for me, to which my uncle added 5,000 more ; 
with which, and expectations, of course, Mr. Thrale 
deigned to accept my undesired hand, and in ten months 
from my poor father's death were both the marriages he 
feared accomplished. My uncle went himself with me to 
church, gave me away, dined with us at Streatham Park, 
returned to Hertfordshire, wedded the widow, and then 
scarce ever saw or wrote to either of us ; leaving me to 
conciliate as I could a husband who was indeed much 
kinder than I counted on to a plain girl, who had not one 
attraction in his eyes, and on whom he never had thrown 
five minutes of his time away, in any interview unwit- 
nessed by company, even till after our wedding-day was 
done.' 

Mrs. Piozzi's statements respecting the disposition of her 
father's estate are not very clear. She elsewhere says 
that, by her parents' marriage settlement, the property, 
in the event of their having no son, was entailed on Sir 
Thomas Salusbury and his issue male, in priority to 
female issue of their own. It is possible, however, that 
power was reserved to John Salusbury to limit a life- 
estate to his widow, and to charge portions in favour of 
daughters. Mrs. John Salusbury, as we shall see, died in 

* On the 1 8th. See Gents. Mag., 1762, p. 601. 

2 2 



2O Marriage. 

the summer of 1773 ; Sir Thomas died without issue in 
the following October ; and shortly after the latter date 
we hear that Thrale, in right of his wife, had come into 
possession of the house and lands of Bachygraig. Sir 
Thomas Salusbury left no mark on the history of English 
jurisprudence. In the ' Lives of the Civilians ' he is 
spoken of as a respectable judge, but not equal in ability 
to Sir William Scott.* The same thing may be said of 
nineteen out of twenty of the judges who have presided 
in the Court of Admiralty. Some years after his death a 
monument by Joseph Nollekens was erected in the parish 
church of Offley to the memory of Sir Thomas, at the 
expense of his second wife, who long survived him. It 
represents the pair standing in front of an oak-tree. 
There is a tradition in the family that, during their 
engagement, a misunderstanding arose between them, by 
which the match was broken off. A short time after- 
wards they both, unconscious of each other's presence, 
sought shelter from a shower under the same tree. They 
quickly discovered the awkwardness of their situation, 
but the drops continued to fall so heavily that retreat 
was impossible. The result was that they made up their 
difference, and before the rain ceased were once more 
betrothed."!* So much for the power of sentiment over 
middle-aged lovers ! We return to the more prosaic 
history of the lively Hester and her unimpassioned 
bridegroom. 

Their wedding-day was October n, 1763. The young 
wife's mother remained with her, as did also her cousin 
Hester Salusbury Cotton. Of other society she saw 
hardly any, save a few of her husband's bachelor friends. 
' Mr. Murphy,' she says, ' was introduced, and the 

* Afterwards Lord Stowell. 

t Cussans' 'History of Hertfordshire,' ii. 104. 



Dr. Fitzpatrick. 21 

facetious Georgey Bodens,* as the men called him." 
Another visitor was the notorious Simon Luttrell.f 
Besides these, she was thrown with a very sickly old 
physician, ' who seemed as if living with us,' Dr. Fitz- 
patrick, a Roman Catholic. Her reign had not begun. 
There was no sign as yet of the noble hospitality that was 
to render Streatham famous. 

' When winter came,' the story goes on, ' I was carried 
to my town residence, Deadman's Place, Southwark, 
which house, no more than that in Surrey, had been seen 
by me till called upon to inhabit it. Here, too, my 
mother quitted us, and lived at our old mansion, in Dean 
Street, Soho, then no unfashionable part of the world ; 
and thither I went oh, how willingly ! to visit her 
every day.' Thrale's sisters now called, took a survey of 
their reserved brother's bride, and asked how she liked 
Dr. Fitzpatrick, his Jesuit friend. The question led her 
to cultivate a man who was supposed to have so much 
influence. She found that the aged physician possessed 
no more influence than herself, but, from his long ac- 
quaintance with the Thrales, he was able to satisfy her 
curiosity on some points. ' From him in due time I 
learned what had determined my husband's choice to me, 
till then a standing wonder. He had, the old man said, 
asked several women, naming them, but all, except me, 
refused to live in the Borough ; to which, and to his 
business, he observed that Mr. Thrale was as unaccount- 

* He is mentioned by Miss Burney. At the commencement of the Gordon 
riots she writes to her father : ' Dr. Johnson has written to Mrs. Thrale, 
without even mentioning the existence of this mob ; perhaps, at this very 
moment, he thinks it "a humbug upon the nation," as George Bodens called 
the Parliament.' Mme. d'Arblay's Diary, i. 293. 

t It was told of him that he challenged his son, the Colonel Luttrell (after- 
wards Earl of Carhampton) of Middlesex election celebrity, who refused to 
fight him, ' not because he was his father, but because he was not a gentleman.' 
Hayward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 23. 



22 Henry Thrale s Character. 

ably attached now as he had been in his father's time 
averse from both. " ^ 

' So summer came again, and Streatham Park was 
improving, and autumn came, and a daughter* came, 
and I became of a little more importance. Confidence 
was no word in our vocabulary ; and I tormented myself 
to guess who possessed that of Mr. Thrale; not his clerks, 
certainly, 'who scarce dared approach him much less 
come near me ; whose place, he said, was either in the 
drawing-room or the bed-chamber. We kept, meantime, 
a famous pack of foxhounds at a hunting-box near Croy- 
don ; but it was masculine for ladies to ride. We kept 
the finest table possible at Streatham Park, but his wife 
was not to think of the kitchen. So I never knew what 
was for dinner till I saw it. Driven thus on literature as 
my sole resource, no wonder if I loved my books and 
children. From a gay life my mother held me fast. 
Those pleasures Mr. Thrale enjoyed alone ; with me, 
indeed, they never would have suited, I was too often 
and too long confined.' Elsewhere she records that she 
never was in a theatre from her first wedding-day till her 
daughter, born in 1764, went with her. 

So far Henry Thrale has not appeared in a very favour- 
able light. There could be little sympathy between a 
husband phlegmatic, uncommunicative, impenetrable, 
intent on the cares of business and the pursuit of private 
indulgences, and a wife thirteen years his junior, full of 
spirits, quick in feeling, hungry for companionship, unable 
to be content without society. Yet the self-contained 
brewer's character had a better side to it, and this was 
now to reveal itself. ' It is but justice to Mr. Thrale,' 
observes the smooth Murphy, in the tone of a man com- 

* Born September 17, 1764; baptized by the name of Hester, but usually 
called Queeney ; married in 1808 to Admiral Viscount Keith. 



Miirphy Introduces Johnson. 23 

bating a general prejudice, 'to say that a more ingenuous 
frame of mind no man possessed. His education at 
Oxford gave him the habits of a gentleman ; his amiable 
temper recommended his conversation, and the goodness 
of his heart made him a sincere friend.' There was a 
kindness of long standing between Murphy and Dr. 
Johnson, as well as between Murphy and Thrale. The 
good-natured Irishman determined to bring his two 
friends together, thinking, no doubt, that an acquaintance 
between them would promote Thrale's credit as much as 
Johnson's comfort. Mrs. Thrale does not appear to have 
had any voice or part in the matter,* though she was 
more than ready to second Murphy's proposal. ' Mr. 
Hogarth,' she writes, ' was used to be very earnest that I 
should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the 
friendship, of Dr. Johnson, whose conversation was to 
the talk of other men like Titian's painting compared 

with Hudson's, he said Of Dr. Johnson, when my 

father and he were talking together about him one day, 
" That man," says Hogarth, " is not contented with 
believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, to 
believe nothing but the Bible. Johnson," added he, 
" though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than 
King Solomon ; for he says in his haste that all men are 
liars." '*} This character did not at all deter the Thrales 
from seeking his society. The brewer, a strong man, 
though a silent one, felt quite able to protect himself, 
while his wife was justly confident in her powers of 
pleasing, as well as eager to forward her husband's 
interest. 

* ' That Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family was owing to 
her desire for his conversation,' says Boswell, 'is very probable, and the 
general supposition ; but it is not the truth.' The biographer might have added 
that so far from giving any countenance to the general supposition, Mrs. Thrale 
herself supplied the correction of it which he printed. 

f ' Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson.' 



24 Growth of the Acquaintance. 

The introduction took place in January, 1765.* 
Murphy had wrought upon Thrale to desire it, extolling 
the lexicographer as one of the most eminent and 
worthiest characters of the age. The wish to know him 
having been awakened, the question next arose how his 
company was to be obtained. Evidently some excuse 
was considered necessary for inviting a distinguished man 
of letters to dine at the brewery. At last it was resolved 
that one Woodhouse, a shoemaker, who had gained 
some passing notoriety by writing verses, should be 
asked and made a temptation to Johnson to meet him. 
Accordingly, at the time appointed, Murphy brought the 
great man, having previously warned their hostess not to 
be surprised at his figure, dress, or behaviour. ' Mr. 
Johnson,' writes the lady, 'liked his new acquaintance 
so much that from that time he dined with us every 

Thursday through the winter and in the autumn 

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 com- 
pany again. 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 courtt he inhabited 
for many weeks together I think, months. 

' Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so 
acceptable to him, that he often lamented to us the 
horrible condition of his mind, which he said was nearly 

* 'Thraliana.' Johnson also places the date in 1765. Bos well, Hill's 
ed., iv. 85, n. I. In the 'Anecdotes' Mrs. Piozzi states that the acquaintance 
began in 1764; but the 'Anecdotes' were written in Italy, without reference 
to documents. 

f In 1766 Johnson was living in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street. 



Johnsons Hypochondria. 25 

distracted ; and though he charged us to make him odd 
solemn promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet, 
when we waited on him one morning, and heard him in 
the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers of Dr. Delap,* 
who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected 
with grief, and well remember my husband involun- 
tarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from 
provocation at hearing a man so wildly proclaim what he 
could at last persuade no one to believe, and what, if 
true, would have been so very unfit to reveal. Mr. Thrale 
went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding 
me prevail on him to quit his close habitation in the 
court, and come with us to Streatham, where I undertook 
the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness 
of contributing to its restoration.'-f- 

Johnson at all ages suffered from hypochondria. He 
was liable to terrible fits of depression : at such times he 
was racked with dread of disease or madness, tortured 
by remorse for imaginary sins, in an agony of despair 
about the world to come. It may be truly said of this 
great but unhappy man, that ' through fear of death he 
was all his lifetime subject to bondage.' It is difficult to 
fix the precise date of this particular attack, the duration 
of which the narrator, writing from memory, has probably 
exaggerated ; but it must have occurred some time in the 
former half of 1766. We know from Boswell that in that 
year he was with the Thrales from before Midsummer 
till after Michaelmas. From the time of this visit he 
became domesticated with the family, and began to in- 
fluence the course of their life in many ways. He used 
to call their house his home, and to speak playfully of its 
owners as his 'master 'and 'mistress.' This connection 
with Streatham lasted for sixteen years, and did not 
* Rector of Lewes, and a friend of the Thrales. t ' Anecdotes.' 



26 S treat ham. 

cease till Thrale was dead, and his widow let the property 
to Lord Lansdowne. 

Streatham Place, also known as Thrale Place, and later 
as Streatham Park, was on the south side of Tooting Beck 
Common, between Streatham and Tooting. The house 
was a large white building of three floors, having a 
slightly projecting centre, and wings with, on the right, a 
semicircular termination. It stood in well-timbered, park- 
like grounds of about a hundred acres in extent. The 
inclosure was girdled by a gravel walk of nearly two miles 
in circumference. The wealth and luxury of the owner 
appeared in the kitchen gardens belonging to the villa, 
which were of surprising extent, and surrounded by brick 
walls fourteen feet in height, built for the reception of 
forcing-frames, and producing a great abundance of fine 
fruit. Miss Burney, on her first visit, naively expressed 
her astonishment at the quantity of grapes, melons, 
peaches, nectarines that she saw daily at table, adding, 
' We have not once missed a pineapple since I came.' 
No hospitality could be better suited to Johnson's taste 
than this, and no pains were spared to make him comfort- 
able. He had his own room, his established seat at the 
table and the fireside ; the library was his sanctum, and 
the books added to it were of his own selection. In 
course of time his favourite walk in the grounds became 
known as Dr. Johnson's Walk, and his resting-place there 
as Dr. Johnson's Summer-house. 

The house was pulled down, and the materials sold by 
auction, in May, 1863. It had previously undergone con- 
siderable alteration at the hands of Mrs. Thrale and her 
second husband. No trace now remains of the Streatham 
Place of Thrale and Johnson. 

Streatham, of course, in their time, was a quiet rural 
village, and the short journey between it and London was 



Deadmaris Place. 27 

not without its risks in those days of highwaymen. In 
1763 a man had been hanged on Kennington Common for 
robbing Mr. Thrale there. In the winter, when days 
were dark, roads mire, and travelling specially dangerous, 
the household were settled in the Borough. Thrale's 
house there was situated in Deadman's Place, a name 
said to be a corruption of Desmond's Place, and to 
indicate the site where the Earl of Desmond had had 
a mansion in the time of Elizabeth. If we may trust an 
account written by Mrs. Piozzi at the age of eighty, the 
residence belonging to the brewery had another historical 
association of greater interest. ' For a long time,' she 
says, ' my fate was bound up with the old Globe Theatre, 
upon the Bankside, Southwark, the alley it had occupied 
having been purchased and thrown down by Mr. Thrale 
to make an opening before the windows of our dwelling- 
house.' She adds that there were really curious remains 
of the old Globe Playhouse, meaning, we must suppose, 
of the foundations, for the structure itself was removed in 
1644 to make room for tenements in the alley above men- 
tioned.* In Deadman's Place, as well as at Streatham 
Place, Johnson had his own peculiar apartment. 

Thrale had also his house at Brighton a neat, small 
house in West Street, 'which,' says Miss Burney, writing 
from it, ' is the Court end of the town here as well as in 
London.' The family usually resorted to the Sussex 
coast for some weeks in the autumn ; and here, too, they 
were frequently joined by Johnson. 

During all this time, however, Johnson retained a home 
of his own in one or other of the courts off Fleet Street. 
' He turned his house,' says Macaulay, ' into a place of 

* According to another account, Deadman's Place derived its name from the 
number of bodies buried there during the great plague ; and Thrale's brewery 
itself occupied the site of the Globe Theatre. It is certain, at any rate, that 
both brewhouse and dwelling-house stood close to the spot where Shakespeare 
once trod the boards on the Bankside. 



28 Johnsons Menagerie. 

refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could 
find no other asylum ; nor could all their peevishness 
and ingratitude weary out his benevolence.'* In his 
sketch of Johnson's life he writes : ' 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 some- 
times a little copper, completed this menagerie.'^ 

The menagerie certainly resembled such a collection of 
discordant animals as the showmen of London used to 
train to live together in one cage, and exhibit under the 
name of ' a happy family.' But Macaulay has omitted 
one of the inmates, the Scotchman Macbean,J and 
describes two of the others in a strain of caricature. The 
presence of Macbean in the group shows how purely 
humorous was Johnson's professed dislike of the Scotch. 
He spoke of Macbean with respect, as a man of great 
learning, who knew many languages, and knew them well, 
but knew nothing of life. Miss Williams was the daughter 

* Essay on Johnson's life. 

f ' Miscellaneous Writings,' i. 293. 

% Alexander Macbean had been one of Johnson's amanuenses in the com- 
pilation of the Dictionary. 'He had afterwards,' says Boswell, 'the honour 
of being librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, for many years, but was left 
without a shilling. Johnson wrote for him a preface to *' A System of Ancient 
Geography," and, by the favour of I,ord Thurlow, got him admitted a poor 
brother of the Charterhouse.' This was about the end of 1780. 



Robert Level. 29 

of a physician, and belonged to a good Welsh family. 
She was a woman of uncommon talents, great accomplish- 
ments, and agreeable conversation. She had a small 
income of her own, and in her latter days Johnson 
persuaded Garrick to give her a benefit, and Mrs. Montagu 
to give her a pension. Robert Levet was no quack 
doctor. Though he began life as a waiter at a coffee- 
house in Paris, he afterwards studied medicine under the 
ablest French professors, and while living with Johnson 
attended John Hunter's lectures. He was indebted to 
Johnson for little more than house room, maintaining 
himself for the most part by a practice among the lower 
class of tradesmen, from whom he took all that was 
offered him by way of fee, including meat and drink, 
although he demanded nothing from the poor. He acted 
for many years as surgeon and apothecary to Johnson 
under the direction of Dr. Lawrence. The writer who 
collected these particulars adds that ' Johnson never 
wished him to be regarded as an inferior, nor treated 
him like a dependent.' Though Johnson, in his letters to 
Mrs. Thrale, often laments the discord among the inmates 
of his house, it is clear that in the society of Miss Williams 
and Levet he found real pleasure. It became his regular 
custom to spend the middle of each week with the Thrales, 
joining his own family on Saturday afternoon to give them 
three good dinners, and his company before he went back 
to his master and mistress on the Monday evening. His 
other associates presently began to complain that this 
new connection estranged him from his old friendships. 
Thus Goldsmith, in the ' Haunch of Venison ' :* 

' My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb 
With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; 
For I knew it (he cried), both eternally fail, 
The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale.' 

* Written in 1771, though not published till two years after the author's 
death. 



30 Mrs. Salusbury. 

A difficulty which the Thrales at first had with their 
new guest was to preserve peace between him -and the 
mother-in-law, Mrs. Salusbury, who was by this time 
domiciled under their roof. That excellent woman, like 
many other elderly ladies, had a passion for studying the 
newspapers and discussing politics, especially foreign 
politics. Now, nothing more exasperated the philosopher 
of Fleet Street than to be pestered with topics of the day. 
References to ancient history offended him ; he would be 
rude to anyone who mentioned the Punic wars or Cati- 
line's conspiracy ; but talk of ' what the Swede intends 
and what the French,' goaded him almost to madness. 
' This unmeaning stuff spoils all my comfort,' he would 
say. If we may credit the story, he repaid Mrs. Salus- 
bury's tattle by composing, in his well-known style, sundry 
marvellous accounts of events that never happened, and 
publishing them in her favourite journals, greatly to the 
good lady's indignation. Thus, in the words of Baretti, 
Johnson could not much bear Mrs. Salusbury, nor Mrs. 
Salusbury him, when they first knew each other. But 
apart from her vicious propensity to political gossip, the 
widow was a woman of bright parts, and of the ' sound 
principles ' which, in the sage's estimation, often covered 
a multitude of faults much more serious than hers. As 
years went on, his hearty interest in her daughter's family, 
and his sympathy for herself, when sinking under a 
lingering and mortal disease, reconciled them to each 
other, and at the close of her life they were on cordial, 
and even affectionate, terms. 

At the commencement of his acquaintance with the 
Thrales, Johnson was fifty-six years of age. No more 
extraordinary inmate was ever admitted into a gentle- 
man's household. His habits had been formed in penury 
and solitude. His ordinary dress has been made familiar 



Johnson s Peculiarities. 3 1 

to us by numerous descriptions : a rusty suit of brown 
clothes ; a little, shrivelled, unpowdered wig, too small for 
his head ; black worsted stockings ill drawn up. When 
indoors, the neck and sleeves of his shirt, and the knees 
of his breeches were left unfastened, and he wore a pair 
of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. By his own con- 
fession, he had no passion for clean linen. He remem- 
bered the time, he said, when people in England changed 
a shirt only once a week ; those who sat near him were 
sometimes tempted to think that he kept up the old 
custom. The foretops of all his wigs were burned away 
by too near approach to the candle, which he held, being 
short-sighted, between his eyes and a book. For this 
reason, Mr. Thrale's valet had always a becoming wig 
ready, with which he met Johnson at the parlour door, 
when he came down to dinner, and as he went upstairs 
to sleep, the same man followed him with another. In 
some other respects the great man's external appearance 
altered for the better after he joined the Streatham circle. 
Boswell tells us that he got better clothes, and the dark 
colour from which he never deviated was enlivened by 
metal buttons. The biographer, having on one occasion 
accompanied him to purchase a pair of silver buckles, 
attributes that expense to the influence of Mrs. Thrale. 
The lady, in a note on this passage, disowns the soft 
impeachment, and transfers the responsibility to her 
husband. While attentive to the comfort of their friend, 
she deemed it no part of her duty to advise him respecting 
the adornment of his person. 

On one subject the brewer was by no means well 
qualified to correct the aberrations of his guest. Both 
of them were men of inordinate appetite. Both may be 
said to have shortened their days by excessive indulgence 
in the pleasures of the table. That Thrale did so is 



32 His Taste in Food. 

certain, and though Johnson lived to be seventy-five, his 
powerful frame would probably have lasted stilX longer 
had it not been called upon to perform impossible feats 
of digestion. ' When at table, he was totally absorbed 
in the business of the moment ; his looks seemed riveted 
to his plate, nor would he, unless when in very high 
company, say one s word, or even pay the least attention 
to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his 
appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such 
intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of 
his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration 
was visible.'* A leg of pork boiled till it dropped from 
the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside 
cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties. t 
His attack on a pie was not at all slackened by the 
circumstance that the crust had been made with rancid 
butter. He would eat lobster sauce with plum pudding, 
pour capillaire into his port wine, and melted butter into 
his chocolate. Nor was his mode of feeding more delicate 
than his choice of food : he astonished a fellow-traveller 
at an inn dinner by devouring a plateful of stewed carp 
with the assistance of his fingers only. Fermented drinks 
he judged not at all by their flavour, but solely by their 
intoxicating effect. Claret for boys, port for men, brandy 
for heroes, was his well-known maxim. Rather than become 
a boy, he preferred to give up the use of wine altogether, 
and did so before the end of 1765. But though he spared 
the cellar at Streatham, in the fruit-garden he ran riot. 
According to the * Anecdotes,' ' he usually ate seven or 
eight large peaches of a morning before beakfast began, 
and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner 
again; yet I have heard him protest that he never had quite 
as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' 
* Boswell. + 'Anecdotes.' 



Affects the Epicure. 33 

Johnson, though not temperate in eating or drinking, 
could be abstemious for what seemed to him sufficient 
reason. His host and hostess found that he kept fast 
in Lent, particularly during Holy Week, with a rigour 
which they thought very dangerous to his general health ; 
they believed, though he would not own it, that he had 
left off wine from religious motives. He told Boswell that 
he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that 
he had never been hungry but once. What his condition 
could have been on that exceptional occasion was a 
mystery to those who witnessed the destruction done by 
his ordinary appetite. Yet this very valiant trencherman 
affected the character of a fastidious epicure. When he 
had dined out anywhere, he would recollect minutely, and 
criticise the dishes which had been served at table. 
During his Scotch tour* he observed of one entertain- 
ment : ' As for Maclaurin's imitation of a made dish, it 
was a wretched attempt ;' and with the performances of 
Lord Elibank's French cook he was so much enraged that 
he expressed a wish to 'throw such a rascal into the 
river.' Even when invited by an intimate friend, he 
resented being put off with a plain dinner. ' It was a 
good dinner enough,' he would say, ' but not a dinner 
to ask a man to.'* He had certainly no reason to grumble 
at the hospitality of Streatham or the Borough ; nor do we 
find that he ever did so. When Thrale was gone, and 
his own death was approaching, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale : 
' I have now an inclination to luxury which even your 
table did not excite. ... I remember you commended 
me for seeming pleased with my dinners when you had re- 
duced your table; I am able to tell you with great veracity 
that I never knew when the reduction began, nor should 
have known that it was made had not you told me.'-f- 

* Boswell. t ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 362. 

3 



34 Love of Late Hours. 

' Johnson loved late hours extremely, or, more properly,' 
says Mrs. Piozzi, ' hated early ones. Nothing was more 
terrifying to him than the idea of retiring to bed, which 
he never would call going to rest, or suffer another to call 
so. " I lie down," said he, " 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." 
By this pathetic manner, which no one ever possessed in 
so eminent a degree, he used to shock me from quitting 
his company, till I hurt my own health not a little by 
sitting up with him when I was myself far from well ; nor 
was it an easy matter to oblige him even by compliance, 
for he always maintained that no one forbore his own 
gratification for the sake of pleasing another, and if one 
did sit up it was probably to amuse himself. Some right, 
however, he certainly had to say so, as he made his com- 
pany exceedingly entertaining when he had once forced 
one not to quit the room, but to sit quietly and make tea 
for him, as I often did in London, till four o'clock in the 
morning. At Streatham, indeed, I managed better, 
having always some friend who was kind enough to 
engage him in talk and favour my retreat.'* One of 
these self-sacrificing persons was Dr. Burney. He told 
Boswell that about i776t he had many long conversa- 
tions with Johnson at Streatham, often sitting up as long 
as. the fire and candles lasted, and much longer than the 
patience of the servants subsisted. 

The Great Cham of literature avowed himself 'a hardened 
and shameless tea-drinker, who with tea amuses the even- 
ing, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes 
the morning.' He protested that ' the infusion of this 

* 'Anecdotes.' 

f Boswell says in 17/5, but Ur. Burney has mentioned 1776 as the year in 
which his acquaintance with the Thrales began. 



Fondness for Tea. 35 

fascinating plant ' had never caused him the least in- 
convenience. But it may be doubted whether his in- 
dulgence in tea had not something to do with the bad 
nights of which he constantl}' complained. Among other 
stories told of his excesses, it is related that Lady Macleod, 
having poured out for him sixteen cups of tea, asked him 
if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more 
agreeable. ' I wonder, madam,' answered he roughly, 
' why all the ladies ask me such questions. It is to save 
yourselves trouble, madam, and not me.' The lady was 
silent, and resumed her task.* If the number of cups which 
he is reported to have consumed on several occasions 
sounds incredible, we must remember the space of time 
over which the imbibition was extended. Four o'clock was 
the usual dinner-hour at Thrale's. If the urn was brought 
soon after the other guests had finished their wine, and 
Johnson his lemonade, there remained many hours to be 
filled with talk and tea before the reluctant talker could 
be prevailed on to take his chamber candlestick. f 

Johnson's love of tea was closely connected with that 
social temper which was the marked feature of his 
character. When not engaged in writing or reading, 
conversation was almost his only employment. He had, 
indeed, scarcely any other resource outside the literature 
of which his mind was full. For painting and music he 
cared nothing. ' His utter scorn of painting,' says Mrs. 
Thrale, ' was such that I have heard him say that he 
would sit very quietly in a room hung round with the 
works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest 

* Northcote's 'Reynolds,' i. 81. 

t Supper, in those days a usual and even fashionable meal, was not served 
in Mr. Thrale's house. Thus Miss Burney writes : 'Just as we got our biscuits 
and toast-and-water, which make the Streatham supper, and which, indeed, is 
all there is any chance of eating after our late and great dinners,' etc. Madame 
d'Arblay's Diary, i. 50. (We refer always to the Revised Edition of this book.) 

32 



36 Mode of Entering a Room. 

disposition to turn them if their backs were outermost, 
unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshu^ that 
he had turned them.'* Of music he said : ' It excites 
in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating 
my own/t When he could find no one to talk to, he 
would amuse himself by watering and pruning a vine 
which grew in his garden at Bolt Court, or try small 
chemical experiments. His new friends humoured this 
scientific fancy. ' We made up a sort of laboratory at 
Streatham, and diverted ourselves with drawing essences 
and colouring liquors. But the danger which Mr. Thrale 
found his friend in one day, when he had got the children 
and servants round him to see some experiments per- 
formed, put an end to all our entertainment.'! 

He was a man who, as he once said, loved to fold his 
legs and have his talk out. When his heavy tread was 
heard approaching a room, the company within prepared 
themselves, but several minutes frequently elapsed before 
he made his appearance. He was bound by some mys- 
terious spell to cross the passage in a certain number of 
steps, and enter at the door with one particular foot fore- 
most. If he failed to pace the charm aright at the first 
trial, there was nothing for it but to turn back, and repeat 
the attempt until it proved successful. When seated, he 
constantly moved his body backwards and forwards on 
the chair, || rubbing his left knee in the same direction with 
the palm of his hand. His voice was loud, and his utter- 
ance slow and deliberate. When not speaking, he would 
give vent to various inarticulate sounds. Boswell, who 
observed him with the minute attention of a naturalist 
studying some new species of animal, has distinguished 

* 'Anecdotes.' + Hawkins. 'Anecdotes.' 

Boswell. The same eccentric habit is mentioned in ' Piozziana," p. 20. 
|! Boswell. Miss Burney frequently describes him as ' see-sawing on his 
chair.' 



Twitchings and Ejaculations. 37 

several varieties of these. Sometimes the philosopher 
clucked like a hen ; when pleased, he emitted a half- 
whistle; when annoyed or embarrassed, as on the memor- 
able occasion of his being cajoled into dining with 
Jack Wilkes at the Messieurs Dilly's in the Poultry, he 
would mutter ' too, too, too' under his breath. At the 
close of a violent dispute, ' he used to blow out his breath 
like a whale,' as though to signify that he had made the 
arguments of his opponent ' fly like chaff before the wind.' 
His countenance was disfigured by scars of the scrofulous 
evil, for which in childhood he had been touched by 
Queen Anne, and which had destroyed the sight of one 
eye, as well as impaired his hearing ; when he mused, 
strange nervous twitchings convulsed his mouth and 
fingers ; while the effect of all he uttered was made 
peculiar by uncouth movements of his arms and legs. 
His gestures, his enunciation, the air, the starts, the 
pauses which set off his most familiar talk, no less than 
his emphatic discourse, were the constant subject of 
Garrick and Boswell's conversation and mimicry. 

If the topic in hand failed to interest him, he would 
rise from his seat, quit the circle, and talk in an under- 
tone to himself. It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, 
when Johnson retired to a window or corner of the room, 
by his lips being perceived to move, and a low murmur 
becoming audible, that he was at prayers. This was not 
mere conjecture. Sometimes his voice grew stronger, 
and fragments of the Lord's Prayer were overheard. 
His friend Tom Davies (of whom Churchill said, ' That 
Davies hath a very pretty wife'), when Johnson muttered, 
' Lead us not into temptation,' used to whisper his 
better half, ' You, my dear, are the cause of this.' But 
further observation showed that the solemn smothered 
utterances which passed for pious ejaculations had 



38 A Favour if e with Women. 

occasionally a more mundane character. Dr. Burney, 
being once engaged in writing near the place of his retreat, 
found that he was repeating over and over to himself 
some lines from an ode of Horace. The truth is that 
his fits of abstraction, as well as his fits of melancholy, 
his transports of rage, his disregard of social usages, his 
superstitious fancies, and most of his other eccentricitit_s, 
were in great measure morbid products of a mind that 
for many years had been driven to feed upon itself. 

At Thrale's he was, for the first time, introduced to the 
comforts of a well-appointed household, and the softening 
influences of refined domestic life. ' In that society he 
began to wear off the rugged points of his character.'* 
He would not, indeed, have acknowledged that he stood 
in any want of the file. Though conscious that he was 
irritable, and apt to be vehement in discussion, he 
considered himself a very polite man. He one day 
astonished Mrs. Thrale by bidding her observe that he 
was ' well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity.' But 
he was ready to make the most of the new situation in 
which he found himself. He had a fondness for young 
children, and prided himself, not without warrant, on 
being acceptable to ladies. Negligent, coarse, ungainly 
as he was, the old man's bodily infirmities, the masculine 
vigour of his spirit, his commanding authority, the ten- 
derness of his heart, and that abounding sympathy of his 
which no superficial faults of prejudice or temper could 
long disguise, and, even more than all these, his strong 
pleasure in the company of women, rendered him an 
object of great interest to most of his female acquaint- 
ance. 

And by no more agreeable family than the Thrales 
could he have been entertained. A lively group of little 

* Murphy. 



Mrs. Thrale s Personal Appearance. 39 

ones sprang up around him. Their mother, ' short, 
plump, and brisk,'* was always in a good humour, always 
eager to please, and often brilliant in conversation, though 
not always perfectly discreet in what she said. Someone 
has affirmed that there was a vein of romance at the 
bottom of Johnson's nature. Certainly he had idealized 
the elderly wife, in whom no one but himself could dis- 
cover the least attraction. Perhaps he in some degree 
idealized the kindly and sprightly dame-f who indulged 
his weaknesses, heaped his plate with dainties, forbore 
to count his cups of tea, and was able, besides, to follow 
his Latin quotations, and to join him in the critical 
remarks on English poets, which he relished more than 
any other talk. 

Though not beautiful, she may fairly be said to have 
been very pretty. Twelve years after her introduction 
to Johnson, she was .thus described by Fanny Burney : 
' Mrs. Thrale is a pretty woman still, though she has 
some defect in the mouth that looks like a cut or scar ; 
her nose is very handsome, her complexion very fair, and 
her eyes are blue and lustrous.'! This was written after 
a first meeting, and before anything had occurred which 
could raise the least suspicion of flattery. In her old age 
she would not allow that she had ever possessed any come- 
liness of feature. Sometimes, when visiting her friend 
Mr. Mangin, she used to look at her little self, as she 
called it, and speak drolly of what she once was, as if 
speaking of someone else ; and one day, turning to him, 

* Boswell. 

f 'Mrs. Thrale's enchantment over him seldom failed,' says Boswell in his 
'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.' 

+ In a letter to Mr. Crisp, written in 1777 : ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' by 
Mme. d'Arblay, ii. 87. 

Author of ' Piozziana ; jr. Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi, with Re- 
marks by a Friend.' Moxon, London, 1833. We shall have more to say of 
these 'Recollections' later on. 



40 Her Dress. 

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 tablecloth at Streatham. 

In speaking thus, however, she certainly did justice 
neither to the Doctor nor to herself. According to the 
writer just cited, who became acquainted with her after 
she had passed her seventieth year, she was short and, 
though well-proportioned, broad and deep-chested. Her 
hands, he says, were muscular and almost coarse ; but he 
speaks of her very erect carriage and most expressive 
face. He mentions the defect in the mouth noticed by 
Miss Burney, describing it as a trivial deformity of the 
lower jaw, caused by her horse trampling on her after 
having thrown her in Hyde Park. In short, allowing 
for the lapse of more than thirty years, we discover 
nothing in Mr. Mangin's account to make us doubt the 
truth of the picture drawn by Miss Burney. That John- 
son found the person of his hostess attractive, as well as 
her conversation, appears in many passages. Take, for 
instance, the following : 

' One day when he was ill and exceedingly low-spirited, 
and persuaded that death was not far distant, I appeared 
before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight 
and worse apprehensions made him mistake for an iron- 
gray, " 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 



Influence of the Thrales over Johnson. 41 

never wear those sort of clothes, however ; they are un- 
suitable in every way. What ! have not all insects gay 
colours ?" '* 

' During the years when he was domesticated at Streat- 
ham,' says Macaulay, ' his chief pleasures were derived 
from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called 
the " endearing elegance of female friendship." Mrs. 
Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, if she 
sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample 
amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweet- 
ness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in 
mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort 
that wealth could purchase, no contrivance that womanly 
ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could 
devise, was wanting to his sick-room. He requited her 
kindness by an affection pure as the affection of a father, 
yet delicately tinged with gallantry, which, though awk- 
ward, must have been more flattering than the attention 
of a crowd of fools who gloried in the names, now obso- 
lete, of Buck and Macaroni. '-f- 

As for Thrale, the brewer's figure, 'tall, well-proportioned, 
and stately,'!; was an index of his disposition proud, 
reserved, strong-willed, but liberal, hospitable, and slug- 
gishly beneficent. He very soon gained an ascendancy 
over his visitor which no one else could rival. To the 
control of this tradesman the literary dictator submitted 
himself with surprising docility. A word, even a look, 
from his host generally sufficed to bring him to order. 
' Mr. Thrale,' wrote his wife, ' had a very powerful influence 
over the Doctor, and could make him suppress many rough 
answers. He could likewise prevail on him to change 
his shirt, his coat, or his plate, almost before it became 

* ' Anecdotes. ' 

| Lord Macaulay's ' Miscellaneous Writings,' i. J Boswell. 



42 He rides a-Hunting. 

indispensably necessary to the comfort of his friends.' 
He could also, which was more difficult, by some\cold, 
curt speech, arrest the excessive flow of the great talker's 
eloquence. ' There, there,' he would say, ' now we have 
had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson. We will 
not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you 
please.' 

Nothing, Boswell was constrained to admit, could have 
been more fortunate for Johnson than this connection with 
the Thrales. He had no bad attacks of hypochondria 
under their roof. His bursts of passion became less 
frequent and more controllable. He even went hunting 
with the brewer. ' He certainly,' says the lady, ' rode on 
Mr. Thrale's old .hunter with a good firmness, and though 
he would follow the hounds fifty miles on end sometimes, 
would never own himself either tired or amused. I think 
no praise ever w r ent so close to his heart as when Mr. Ham- 
ilton called out one day upon Brighthelmstone Downs, 
" Why, Johnson rides as well, for aught I see, as the most 
illiterate fellow in England."'* He learned in Mrs. 
Thrale's drawing-room to lay aside much of what Gold- 
smith called his bow-wow manner. ' A lady may be vain,' 
observed another member of the Literary Club, ' when 
she can turn a wolf-dog into a lap-dog.' The com- 
pliment was well deserved, though the credit of the 
change was due, in part, to the lady's husband. ' The 
vivacity of Mrs. Thrale's literary talk,' says Boswell, 
' roused him to cheerfulness and exertion even when they 
were alone. She did more than this. She called forth a 
playfulness which the Scottish biographer was seldom able 
to elicit, and to which he has done no justice, while 
she accustomed her guest to chat with simple people on 
simple topics. A clergyman once complained to Mrs. 
* ' An< cclotes,' p. 206. ' , 



Goes More into Society. 43 

Salusbury of the want of society where he lived : his 
parishioners, he said, talked of runts that is, young cows. 
' Sir/ replied the now reconciled old lady, ' Mr. Johnson 
would learn to talk of runts.' In course of time, as 
other men eminent for talents, learning, or wit were 
added to the Streatham circle, the old lion was enter- 
tained there with social enjoyments of the sort which he 
loved best ; and when it became known that the Thrales 
had disciplined their strange inmate, the lion-hunters 
of London began to seek him for their parties, nor was 
he anything loath to accept their invitations. In the last 
years of his life he was more often to be found at 
fashionable houses, or the resorts of the blue-stockings, 
than at the tavern or the club which had been his earlier 
haunts. The leaders of the female world now paid him 
something of the homage which he had long received 
from men of letters. ' I have seen,' says Wraxall, ' the 
Duchess of Devonshire, then in the first bloom of youth, 
hanging on the sentences that fell from Johnson's lips, 
and contending for the nearest place to his chair.' Miss 
Burney describes a brilliant assembly which he attended 
at the house of Miss Monckton, afterwards Countess of 
Cork, where the display of dress was superb, and where he 
was ' environed with listeners.' Langton furnished Bos- 
well with an account of another evening at Mrs. Vesey's, 
when the visitors consisted chiefly of ladies, among whom 
were the Duchess Dowager of Portland, the Duchess of 
Beaufort, Lady Lucan, Lady Clermont, and Mrs. Bos- 
cawen. ' As soon as Dr. Johnson was come in and had 
taken a chair, the company began to collect about him 
till they became not less than four, if not five deep, those 
behind standing, and listening over the heads of those 
that were sitting near him.' 



CHAPTER III. 

Thrale enters Parliament Mrs. Thrale gains Influence Her Acquirements 
Outshines her Husband Her Conversation Miss Williams's Miscellanies 
Floretta The Three Warnings Dissolution of Parliament John Wilkes 
Thrale re-elected Boswell at Streatham Literary Talk Johnson's 
Political Pamphlets Verses at the Theatre Thrale in Difficulties Hum- 
phrey Jackson Mrs. Thrale shows herself a Woman of Business 
Johnson's Advice Thrale out of Health Alteration in him Mr. Perkins 
Conversations at Streatham Johnson's Estimate of Mrs. Thrale Thrale 
created Doctor Death of Mrs. Salusbury Johnson's Visit His Letters to 
Mrs. Thrale His Ode written in Skye He will not suffer Boswell to 
slight Mrs. Thrale Death of Sir Thomas Salusbury Disappointment and 
Misfortunes ' The Journey to the Western Islands ' Excursion to Wales 
Visits to Lleweny Hall and Bachygraig Johnson accuses his Mistress of 
Meanness Bodvel Visits to Lords Sandys and Lyttelton General Election 
Electioneering with Johnson Project of bringing Johnson into Parliament. 

BUT, in the connection between them and Johnson, the 
benefits which the Thrales conferred were not greater than 
those which accrued to themselves. Under the influence 
of their new associate, the brewer improved his standing 
before the world, and the wife was allowed her just 
position in her husband's family. The remains of the 
bachelorhood disappeared. The foxhounds were sold. 
Thrale aspired to a seat in Parliament. This he pre- 
sently obtained, being returned for Southwark at a by- 
election before the end of 1765. ' I grew useful now,' 
says the lady ; ' almost necessary wrote the advertise- 
ments, looked to the treats, and people to whom I was till 
then unknown, admired how happy Mr. Thrale must be 
in such a wonder of a wife.'* There can be no doubt, 

* Hay ward's 'Piozzi,' ii. 23. 



Mrs. Thrale s Acquirements. 45 

too, that Johnson's good opinion of Mrs. Thrale's powers 
contributed greatly to raise her in the esteem of her 
husband. Though she sometimes provoked his censure, 
the sage treated her with deference, suffered her to 
argue with him on equal terms, and on occasion would 
even appeal to her as a literary authority. A few dis- 
paraging expressions which Boswell has put into John- 
son's mouth must be read with due remembrance of the 
quarrel between the Doctor's biographers. It is perfectly 
true, doubtless, that no man was ever more master of his 
wife and family than Thrale, and that if he but held up 
a finger he was obeyed. But if Johnson ever said, as 
his Life alleges, that Thrale had ten times the learning 
of his wife, and that her learning was that of a school- 
boy in one of the lower forms, the remark must have 
been intended to apply to verbal scholarship alone. 
Mrs. Thrale's knowledge of Latin grammar may have 
been inaccurate, yet that her reading in Latin, as well 
as in modern languages, was considerable, her writings 
clearly show. Henry Thrale had passed through the 
University, but there is no record of his having preserved 
any permanent interest in books, beyond the statement in 
his epitaph, that * Inter mille mercaturce negotia, literamm 
elegantiam minimi neglexit,'* which, after all, proves 
nothing, for the author was Johnson, who used to say 
that in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath. 

In social gifts Thrale bore no comparison with his wife. 
The utmost that Johnson could say for his friend's 
conversation was that, although it did not mark the 
minutes, it generally struck the hour pretty correctly. 
The brewer is described by Madame d'Arblay as a man 
who ' found a singular amusement in hearing, instigating, 

* ' Though engaged in a very extensive business, he found some time to apply 
to polite literature.' 



46 Her Conversation. 

and provoking a war of words, alternating triumph and 
overthrow between clever and ambitious colloquial dis- 
putants.'* Hence he was mostly a listener at table, 
whether in his own house or another's. His wife 
attributed his taciturnity to the cares of business and 
the pressure of anxiety. But doubtless he had little or 
nothing to say on the topics which his company dis- 
cussed. His silence sometimes provoked Johnson, who 
on one occasion blamed him for sitting at General Ogle- 
thorpe's without speaking, and observed that a man was to 
be censured for degrading himself to a nonentity. Mrs. 
Thrale was in no danger of incurring this reproach. 
She had a natural talent for conversation, which she 
improved by constant and assiduous practice, till she 
became one of the most famous female talkers of her 
time. Many testimonies to her brilliancy are on record, 
some of them showing the discipline exercised over her by 
Johnson. According to Madame d'Arblay, her celebrity 
exceeded that of either of the blue-stocking queens, 
Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Montagu. ' Mrs. Vesey, indeed, 
gentle and diffident, dreamed not of any competition ; but 
Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Thrale were set up as rival 
candidates for colloquial eminence, and each of them 
thought the other alone worthy to be her peer. When- 
ever they met, therefore, a contest for superiority ensued.' 
Sir Nathaniel Wraxall says : ' 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 Dr. Johnson, who lived almost con- 
stantly under her roof, or, more properly, under that of 

* ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' ii. 104. 



Floretta. 47 

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.' Never- 
theless, he valued himself extremely on his pupil. 
Miss Reynolds, in her ' Recollections,' mentions that he 
used to dwell on her praises with a peculiar delight, and 
paternal fondness that expressed his pride in being so 
intimately acquainted with her. 

In 1766 Miss Williams, with Johnson's assistance, 
published a volume of ' Miscellanies.' Her protector 
furnished the preface, and contributed several pieces. 
Boswell ends his account of the collection by saying : 
' " 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." : The jealous biographer does 
not mention, perhaps he did not know, that the character 
of Floretta in ' The Fountains ' was intended for Mrs. 
Thrale. Sixteen years later, when Thrale was dead, and 
the newspapers had begun to couple his widow's name 
with Piozzi's, she reminded her old friend of the compli- 
ment he had paid her. ' The newspapers,' she wrote in 
February, 1782, '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 rememember 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.'* 

Mrs. Thrale was throughout her life a fluent writer of 

* ' Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, published by Hester Lynch 
Piozzi,' ii. 233. We shall cite this book hereafter under the name of the 
Piozzi Letters. 



48 The Three Warnings. 

verses. We give here the contribution to Miss Williams's 
' Miscellany ' as the earliest and best known among the 
extant specimens of her talent : 



THE THREE WARNINGS. 



The tree of deepest root is found 

Least willing still to quit the ground ; 

'Twas therefore said by ancient sages, 

That love of life increased with years. 

So much, that in our latter stages, 

When pains grow sharp and sickness rages, 

The greatest love of life appears. 

This great affection to believe, 

Which all confess but few perceive, 

If old affections can't prevail, 

Be pleased to hear a modern tale. 

When sports went round, and all were gay, 

On neighbour Dobson's wedding-day, 

Death called aside the jocund groom 

With him into another room, 

And looking grave, ' You must,' says he, 

'Quit your sweet bride, and come with me.' 

' With you ! and quit my Susan's side ? 

With you !' the hapless husband cried. 

' Young as I am ! 'tis monstrous hard ; 

Besides, in truth, I'm not prepared. 

My thoughts on other matters go, 

This is my wedding-night, you know.' 

What more he urged I have not heard, 

His reasons could not well be stronger, 

So Death the poor delinquent spared, 

And left to live a little longer. 

Yet calling up a serious look, 

His hour-glass tumbled while he spoke, 

' Neighbour,' he said, 'farewell. No more 

Shall Death disturb your mirthful hour ; 

And further, to avoid all blame 

Of cruelty upon my name, 

To give you time for preparation, 

And fit you for your future station, 

Three several warnings you shall have 

Before you're summoned to the grave : 

Willing, for once, I'll quit my prey, 

And grant a kind reprieve ; 

In hopes you'll have no more to say, 

But when I call again this way, 

Well pleased the world will leave.' 

To these conditions both consented, 

And parted perfectly contented. 



The Three Warnings. 49 



What next the hero of our tale befell, 

How long he lived, how wise, how well ; 

How roundly he pursued his course, 

And smoked his pipe, and strok'd his horse, 

The willing muse shall tell. 

He chaffer'd then, he bought, he sold, 

Nor once perceived his growing old, 

Nor thought of Death as near ; 

His friends not false, his wife no shrew, 

Many his gains, his children few, 

He passed his hours in peace ; 

But while he view'd his wealth increase, 

While thus along life's dusty road 

The beaten track content he trod, 

Old Times, whose haste no mortal spares, 

Uncalled, unheeded, unawares, 

Brought him on his eightieth year. 

And now one night in musing mood, 

As all alone he sate, 

Th' unwelcome messenger of fate 

Once more before him stood. 

Half stilled with anger and surprise, 

' So soon returned !' old Dobson cries. 

' So soon, d'ye call it !' Death replies. 

' Surely, my friend, you're but in jest ; 

Since I was here before 

'Tis six-and-thirty years at least, 

And you are now fourscore.' 

' So much the worse,' the clown rejoin'd, 

' To spare the aged would be kind ; 

However, see your search be legal, 

And your authority is't regal ? 

Else you are come on a fool's errand, 

With but a secretary's warrant. 

Besides, you promised me three warnings, 

Which I have looked for nights and mornings ; 

But for that loss of time and ease 

I can recover damages.' 

' I know,' cries Death, ' that at the best 

I seldom am a welcome guest : 

But don't be captious, friend, at least ; 

I little thought you'd still be able 

To stump about your farm and stable ; 

Your years have run to a great length, 

I wish you joy, tho', of your strength.' 

' Hold,' says the farmer, ' not so fast, 

I have been lame these four years past. ' 

'And no great wonder,' Death replies. 

' However, you still keep your eyes ; 

And, sure, to see one's loves and friends, 

For legs and arms would make amends.' 

' Perhaps,' says Dobson, 'so it might, 

But latterly I've lost my sight." 

' This is a shocking story, faith, 



5<D Parliament Dissolved. 

Yet there's some comfort still,' says Death. 

' Each strives your sadness to amuse, 

I warrant you have all the news.' ^x 

' There's none," cries he : ' and if there were, 

I'm grown so deaf, I could not hear.' 

' Nay, then,' the spectre stern rejoin'd, 

' These are unjustifiable yearnings ; 

If you are lame, and deaf, and blind, 

You've had your three sufficient warnings. 

So come along, no more we'll part,' 

He said, and touched him with his dart. 

And now old Dobson, turning pale, 

Yields to his fate so ends my tale. 

By the middle of 1767 Johnson's position in the Thrale 
household had become so settled that, in July of that year, 
he wrote to the lady from Lichfield : ' Though I have been 
away so much longer than I purposed or expected, I have 
found nothing that withdraws my affections from the 
friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less 
desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness 
and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my home'* 

In the spring of 1768, Parliament was dissolved, and 
the elections took place in the midst of general excite- 
ment, aroused by the proceedings against Wilkes and the 
North Briton. The cause of the trouble, though rejected 
by the City of London, contrived to get himself returned 
as member for Middlesex, chiefly through the intimida- 
tion of the mob. The rioters stopped all carriages, and 
compelled the occupants to shout for Wilkes and liberty. 
The ferment extended to the Borough of Southwark, for 
which Thrale was again a candidate. The brewer being, 
as his epitaph assures us, vulgi obstrepentis contemptor 
animosus, took the matter with his accustomed coolness. 
But the contest was severe enough to occasion his wife 
and friends considerable anxiety. Several letters on the 
subject passed between Mrs. Thrale and Johnson, who 
was for the time at Oxford. The latter was very ill 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 4. He was away from London 'near six months.' 



Thrale Re-elected. 51 

during this visit to his University, and the lady was 
expecting her confinement. On March 14 Johnson writes 
to her : * If I can be of any use, I will come directly to 
London ; but if Mr. Thrale thinks himself certain, I have 
no doubt. That they all express the same certainty, has 
very little effect upon those who know how many men 
are confident without certainty, and positive without con- 
fidence. We have not any reason to suspect Mr. Thrale 
of deceiving us or himself. .... This little dog does 
nothing, but I hope he will mend : he is now reading 
Jack the Giant-Killer. Perhaps so noble a narrative may 
rouse in him the soul of enterprise.'* The zeal and 
interest displayed by both the correspondents seem 
to show that they were each now in their master's con- 
fidence. In the end, Thrale was elected second on 
the poll. 

Johnson does not appear to have been in any haste 
to make his faithful Boswell acquainted with the house- 
hold at Streatham. Perhaps he found the comfort of 
having a retreat into which he could not be pursued by 
his admirer. But the introduction could not be evaded. 
Under the date of September 30, 1769, the biographer 
writes : ' I had last year the pleasure of seeing Mrs. 
Thrale at Dr. Johnson's one morning, and had conversa- 
tion enough with her to admire her talents, and to show 
her that I was as Johnsonian as herself. Dr. Johnson 
had probably been kind enough to speak well of me, for 
this evening he delivered me a very polite card from Mr. 
Thrale and her, inviting me to Streatham. 

' 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 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 8. 

42 



52 Boswell at S treat ham. 

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. 

' During the evening 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," etc., 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 gun with great courage, in 
defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till 
he at last silenced her by saying, " My dear lady, talk 
no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by 
nonsense !" 

' Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent 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!" 1 Boswell adds that he repeated this sally to 
Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer 
not a little irritated by it. In a note on the passage, 
Mrs. Thrale remarks, ' How odd to go and tell the man !' 

Boswell went again to Streatham on November 10, 

* '"Florizel and Perdita,"' says Boswell's latest editor, 'is Garrick's 
version of "The Winter's Tale. 3 " He cut down the five acts to three. The 
line, which is misquoted, is in one of Perdita's songs : 

* That giant ambition we never can dread ; 
Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head ; 
Content and sweet cheerfulness open our door, 
They smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.' 

Act ii., Sc. I. 



Johnsons Political Pamphlets. 53 

to take leave of Johnson before he himself returned to 
Scotland to be married. He did not again visit London 
for more than two years. The interval was a season of 
fierce political excitement. The Ministry were menaced 
by the popularity of Wilkes, and by the attacks of 
'Junius.' Johnson took the field as a pamphleteer on 
their side. 

On Wilkes being returned member for Middlesex at 
the election of 1768, he was declared by the House of 
Commons incapable of being elected, and a new writ was 
ordered. Twice he was re-elected without opposition, 
and twice was his election again declared void. On a 
fourth writ being issued, the Ministers provided another 
candidate, Colonel Luttrell ; and the House pronounced 
that the poll taken for Wilkes was null and void, and that 
his opponent, though in a great minority of votes, had 
been duly elected. In defence of this high-handed pro- 
ceeding, Johnson, in 1770, published a tract, entitled 
' The False Alarm,' intended to prove that no breach of 
the constitution had been committed. ' " The False 
Alarm," ' says Mrs. Thrale, ' his first and favourite 
pamphlet, was written at our house between eight o'clock 
on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday 
night. We read it to Mr. Thrale when he came very 
late home from the House of Commons.'* 

In 17711* appeared a second pamphlet from Johnson's 
pen, containing his character of the mysterious JUNIUS, 
' executed,' as Boswell says, ' with all the force of his 
genius, and finished with the highest care. He seems 
to have exulted in sallying forth to single combat against 
the boasted and formidable hero who bade defiance to 
" principalities and powers, and the rulers of this world." 

* Anec., p. 41. 

f It was entitled ' Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's 
Islands,' and was published without the author's name. 



34 Johnson at the Theatre. 

' I forget,' says Mrs. Thrale, ' which of his tracts contains 
the stroke at "Junius," but shall for ever remembe^ the 
pleasure it gave him to have written it.' 

We have few other records of this year relating either to 
Johnson or the Thrales. Mrs. Thrale, however, writes : 
' One evening, in the oratorio season of the year 1771, 
Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden Theatre ; 
and though he was for the most part an exceedingly bad 
playhouse companion, as his person drew people's eyes 
upon the box, and the loudness of his voice made it dim- 
cult for me to hear anybody but himself, he sat surpri- 
singly quiet ; and I flattered myself that he was listening 
to the music. When we were got home, however, he re- 
peated these verses, which he said he had made at the 
oratorio, and he bade me translate them.' [She then 
gives a copy of Latin sapphics, which are printed in the 
later editions of Boswell.] 

She continues : ' I gave him the following lines in 
imitation, which he liked well enough, I think : 

' When threescore years have chilled thee quite, 
Still can theatric scenes delight ? 
Ill suits this place with learned wight, 
May Bates or Coulson cry. 

'The scholar's pride can Brent disarm? 
His heart can soft Guadagni warm ? 
Or scenes with sweet delusion charm 
The climacteric eye ? 

' The social club, the lonely tower, 
Far better suit thy midnight hour ; 
Let each according to his power 

In worth or wisdom shine ! 

'And while play pleases idle boys, 
And wanton mirth fond youth employs, 
To fix the soul, and free from toys, 

That useful task be thine !'* 

In was in the summer of 1771 that a laboratory was 
fitted up at Streatham for Johnson's amusement. In 

* Anec., p. 72. 



Humphrey Jackson. 55 

July he writes from Derbyshire to his mistress : ' When 
we come together to practise chemistry, I believe we 
shall find our furnaces sufficient for most operations. 
We have a gentleman here reading philosophical 
lectures, who performs the chemical part with furnaces 
of the same kind with ours, but much less ; yet he says 
that he can in his little furnace raise a fire that will melt 
iron. I saw him smelt lead, and shall bring up some ore 
for our operations. The carriage will cost more than the 
lead perhaps will be worth, but a chemist is very like a 
lover " And sees those dangers which he cannot shun." 
I will try to get other ore, both of iron and copper, which 
are all which this country affords, though feracissima 
metallorum regio.'* 

In 1772 Thrale's affairs became seriously embarrassed 
through his own imprudence, and his wife was able to 
afford him material assistance. In fact, the brewer's 
fortunes appear to have been retrieved mainly through 
her tact and energy. After long wondering who had her 
husband's confidence, she found to her dismay that he 
had given it to an unworthy speculator. Here is her 
account of the discovery : ' A vulgar fellow, by name 
Humphrey Jackson, had, as the clerks informed me, 
all in a breath, complete possession of it. He had long 
practised on poor Thrale's credulity, till by mixing two 
cold liquors which produced heat, perhaps, or two colour- 
less liquors which produced brilliancy, he had at length 
prevailed on him to think he could produce beer too, 
without the beggarly elements of malt and hops. He 
had persuaded him to build a copper somewhere in 
East Smithfield, the very metal of which cost 2,000, 
wherein this Jackson was to make experiments, and con- 
jure some curious stuff which should preserve ships' 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 45. 



56 A Woman of Business. 

bottoms from the worm ; gaining from Government 
money to defray these mad expenses. Twenty enormous 
vats, holding 1,000 hogsheads each costly contents ! 
ten more, holding 1,000 barrels each, were constructed 
to stew in this pernicious mess ; and afterwards erected 
on, I forget how much ground, bought for the ruinous 
purpose. 

'That all were spoiled, was but a secondary sorrow. 
We had, in the commercial phrase, no beer to start for 
customers. We had no money to purchase with. Our 
clerks, insulted long, rebelled and ratted, but I held them 
in. A sudden run menaced the house, and death hovered 
over the head of the principal.'* 

During the crisis Johnson was at a distance from 
London. In October, 1772, he writes to Mrs. Thrale 
from Lichfield : ' Do not suffer little things to disturb 
you. The brewhouse 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 con- 
tempt 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.'f 

Johnson was so much pleased with the ability and 

* Autobiographical Memoir, Hayward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 25. 
t ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 37. 



Help from Friends. 5 7 

firmness displayed by his correspondent and her mother 
at this time of distress that he said, ' No man with two 
such women to console him could ever dream of com- 
mitting suicide. Of all the bankrupts made that dreadful 
year,' he continued, ' none had destroyed themselves but 
married men ; who would not have risen from the weeds 
undrowned had not the women clung about and sunk 
them, stifling the voice of reason with their cries ?' 
Mrs. Salusbury lent her son-in-law the whole of her little 
savings, amounting to about 3,000 ; and her daughter, 
though expecting her confinement, drove down to Brighton 
to beg further help from an old friend of the Thrale family, 
a Mr. Scrase, who cheerfully found 6,000 more. ' Dear 
Mr. Scrase,' writes the grateful petitioner, 'was an old 
gouty solicitor retired from business, a contemporary of 
my husband's father. Other friends also gave their 
assistance. Mr. Rush lent us 6,000, Lady Lade 5,000. 
Our debts, including those of Humphrey Jackson, were 
130,000, besides borrowed money. Yet in nine years 
was every shilling paid ; one, if not two, elections well 
contested. . . . The baby that I carried lived an hour 
my mother a year ; but she left our minds easy. I lay 
awake twelve nights and days, I remember, 'spite of all 
art could do.' 

In November of the same year Johnson writes from 
Ashbourne to his mistress : 

' 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. 

' 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 



58 Johnsons Advice. 

credit, without advancing interest. But in great matters 
you are hardly ever mistaken. ... I wish I could^now 
how you brew, and how you go on ; but you tell me 
nothing.'* 

Again, two days later : 

' DEAR MADAM, 

'After I had sent away my last letter I received 
yours, which was an answer to it ; but, being not fully 
directed, had lain, I think, two days at the office. 

' I am glad that you are at last come home, and that 
you exert your new resolution with so much vigour. But 
the fury of housewifery will soon subside, and little effect 
will be produced but by methodical attention and even 
frugality ; nor can these powers be immediately attained. 
You have your own habits, as well as those of others, to 
combat : you have yet the skill of management to learn, 
as well as the practice to establish. Do not be dis- 
couraged either by your own failures, or the perverseness 
of others ; you will, by resolution frequently renewed, and 
perseverance properly excited, overcome in time both 
them and yourself. . . . Mr. Thrale's money, to pay for 
all, must come from the sale of good beer. I am far from 
despairing of solid and durable prosperity. Nor will your 
success exceed my hopes, or my opinion of your state, if, 
after this tremendous year, you should annually add to 
your fortune three thousand pounds. This will soon dis- 
miss all incumbrances ; and when no interest is paid, you 
will begin annually to lay up almost five thousand. This 
is very splendid ; but this, I think, is in your power.'f 

For several months the state of Mr. Thrale and the 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 63. t Ibid., i. 63. 



Thrale a Changed Man. 59 

perplexities of his business continued to be the source of 
great anxieties. 'Mr. Thrale,' wrote his wife,* '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 that he was ever completely the 
same man again.' Gradually, however, his condition im- 
proved. In March 1773, Johnson writes again to the 
lady : ' Notwithstanding my master has mended his share 
for one year, you must think of cutting in pieces and 
boiling him. We will at least keep him out of Jackson's 
copper. You will be at leisure now to think of brewing 
and negotiating, and a little of yours,' etc.f 

Mr. Perkins was then the manager of the brewery, of 
which, after Thrale's death, he became one of the pro- 
prietors. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. Boswell 
tells us that 'he hung up in the counting-house a fine 
proof of the admirable mezzotinto of Dr. Johnson by 
Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat 
flippantly, ' Why do you put him in the counting-house ?' 
he 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.' 

From a collection of letters which passed between 
Perkins and Mrs. Thrale, and which Mr. Hayward was 
permitted to read, it appears that she paid the most 
minute attention to her husband's business during the 
period of his distress and illness, besides undertaking the 
superintendence of her family estate, when it fell to her 
shortly afterwards. 

We have some notes by Boswell of conversations at 

* In a marginal note written on a copy of the printed letters, 
t ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 78. 



60 Mrs. Thrale Talks. 

Thrale's during the spring of 1773, in which the master 
of the house, as usual, sat mute, while Mrs. Thrale^alked 
with knowledge and effect. One evening Johnson brought 
forward a favourite paradox of his against action in public 
speaking : ' Action can have no effect upon reasonable 
minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argu- 
ment. If you speak to a dog, you use action ; you hold up 
your hand thus, because he is a brute ; and in proportion 
as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less 
influence upon them.' The lady at once struck in : 
' What, then, sir, becomes of Demosthenes's saying, 
"Action, action, action!"?' JOHNSON: 'Demosthenes, 
madam, spoke to an assembly of brutes, to a barbarous 
people.' ' The polished Athenians !' is Mrs. Thrale's 
natural exclamation in a marginal note on her copy of 
' Boswell.' 

On another occasion, when the flattery heaped on 
Garrick by Lord Mansfield and Lord Chatham was 
mentioned, Johnson remarked : ' When he whom every- 
body else flatters, flatters me, I then 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.'" 

Johnson sometimes complained that his mistress 
flattered him, but he was far from being displeased 
with her attentions, and repaid them in kind. In May, 
1773, he wrote : 

' Never 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. 

' Why should Mr. Thrale 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 



Johnson Praises Her. 61 

honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the 
hint take some hold of his mind. . . . 

' My nights are grown again very uneasy and trouble- 
some. 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 did not, however, use language like this to the lady 
herself only. Miss Reynolds heard him pronounce an 
eloquent eulogium on Mrs. Thrale to Harris, the author of 
' Hermes,' ascribing to her, not merely brilliant wit 
and a strong understanding, but solid virtue also : 

' A genuine virtue of a vigorous kind, 
Pure in the last recesses of the mind.'t 

In the summer of 1773, Thrale made an excursion 
to the country, leaving his business in charge of his 
wife. Among other places, he visited Oxford, where, on 
July 8, he received from the University the honorary 
degree of D.C.L.J 

On September 28 Mrs. Thrale wrote to 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 so much troubled with Grant and his 
affairs. How glad I shall be to hear that matter is 
settled to your satisfaction ! His letter and remittance 
came while I was there to-day. . . . Careless, of the 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 82. 

f Dryden's translation of Persius. In the original : 

' Compositum jus fasque animo, sanctosque recessus 
Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto.' Pers. Sat., ii. 73. 

J 'Catalogue of Oxford Graduates,' 1851, p. 660. 



62 Death of Mrs. Salisbury. 

" Blue Posts," has turned refractory, and applied to 
Hoare's people, who have sent him in their beer. Trailed 
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.'* 

This was the year of the death of Mrs. Salusbury, on 
whom j ohnson wrote an epitaph, and of Johnson's visit 
to Scotland. Her daughter describes Mrs. Salusbury and 
Johnson as 'excellent, far beyond the excellence of any 
other man and woman I ever yet saw. As her conduct 
extorted his truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all 
his tenderness. He acknowledged himself improved by 
her piety, and astonished at her fortitude,"}* and hung over 
her bed with the affection of a parent, and the reverence 
of a son/I During his absence in the North, Johnson ad- 
dressed frequent letters to Mrs. Thrale. From Aberdeen he 
wrote: ' The maids at the inns run over the house bare- 
foot, and children, not dressed in rags, go without shoes 
or stockings. Shoes are, indeed, not yet in universal use ; 
they came late into this country. One of the professors 
told us, as we were mentioning a fort built by Cromwell, 
that the country owed much of its present industry to 
Cromwell's soldiers. They taught us, said he, to raise 
cabbage and make shoes. How they lived without shoes 
may yet be seen ; but in the passage through the villages 
it seems to him that surveys their gardens that when they 
had not cabbage they had nothing.' On reaching Skye : 
' Little did I once think of seeing this region of obscurity, 
and little did you once expect a salutation from this verge 
of European life. I have now the pleasure of going where 
nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.'|| 

But generally these letters, if they do not display much 

. * .Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 7<x t Anec,, p. 131. J Ibid., p. 129. 

'Piozzi Letters,' i. 116. |j Ibid., i. 120. 



Johnson in Scotland. 63 

enthusiasm for the beauties of the scenes visited, show no 
disposition to disparage either the country or the in- 
habitants. ' They abound,' says Boswell, ' in such 
benignant sentiments towards the people who showed 
him civilities, that no man whose temper is not very 
harsh and sour can retain a doubt of the goodness of 
his heart.' From Skye he wrote : ' The hospitality of 
this remote region is like that of the golden age. 
We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we 
came to confer a benefit.'* In another letter, addressed 
from Inverary to Mr. Thrale, was inclosed the once 
famous Latin ode written in Skye.f 'About fourteen 
years ago,' wrote Sir Walter Scott in 1829, ' I landed in 
Skye, 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.' 
The poem has been thus translated by Lord Houghton : 

'Where constant mist enshrouds the rocks, 
Sheltered in Earth's primaeval 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 ? 

1 Forget me not ! thy faith I claim, 
Holding a faith that cannot die, 
That fills with thy benignant name 

These shores of Skye. ' 

The family at Streatham, and particularly his mistress, 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 155. t Ibid., i. 177. 



64 Johnson enforces Respect for Mrs. Thrale. 

occupied a large share of Johnson's thoughts during his 
northern expedition. He would not suffer BosweU to 
speak slightingly of Mrs. Thrale, nor allow him to jest 
about the relation between her and himself. ' I yesterday 
told him,' writes Boswell in the journal he kept of their 
tour, ' 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 everything to please thy taste. 
A curious ferial 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." '* 

At Inverary Boswell writes : ' The prospect of good 
accommodation cheered us much. We supped well ; and 
after supper Dr. Johnson, whom I had not seen taste any 
fermented liquor during all our travels, called for a gill of 
whisky. " Come," said he, *' let me know what it is that 
makes a Scotchman happy." He drank it all but a drop, 
which I begged leave to pour into my glass, that I might 
say we had drunk whisky together. I proposed Mrs. 
Thrale should be our toast. He would not have her 
drunk in whisky, but rather "some insular lady"; so 
we drank one of the ladies whom we had lately left.'f 

During Johnson's absence in Scotland his mistress 

* ' Boswell,' Dr. Hill's Edition, v. 139. t Ibid., v. 346. 



Misfortunes. 65 

suffered a series of misfortunes. She lost her uncle, 
Sir Thomas Salusbury, who died at Bath on October 
23, leaving her nothing that he could will away to 
anyone else ; she gave birth to her second son, a sickly 
infant, who did not long survive ;* and she was distressed 
by the illness of one of her daughters, which soon ended 
fatally. On November 20 she wrote to the traveller, who 
was now in Edinburgh : 

' When things are so very bad as they are now with me, 
the best comforters are those who acknowledge them to 
be very bad. Your last letter says, very properly, that 
among all the possibilities of evil which your imagination 
could suggest, losing my uncle's estate was the most 
unlikely. Had you known his excessive tenderness for 
me when a girl, the surprise would not have been 
lessened. You do know that I married, to please him, a 
man of his own choice, and deserving of everybody's 
esteem indeed, possessing it. You know that I have 
scarce seen him since ; and certainly never disobliged 
him ; and you know he had no other relation, except 
at a very great distance. You now know he has willed 
away his estate. I should think on this sorrow more, 
however, had I not other sorrows, perhaps providentially 
sent to hold my heart fixed on my husband and his con- 
cerns. Lucy's unaccountable illness, my own present 
situation, having brought a second son, who appears to 
have suffered something, though I know not what, from 
my late accumulation of misery ; and Mr. Thrale's health 
which has been shook by these confusions as well as 
my own occupy all the thoughts I have in the world : 
and you can scarce believe how full my mind is, without 
a word of my uncle. Our generous master is not angry 
at that disappointment, though he has a right to be sorry ; 

* This boy, who was named Ralph, died in July, 1775. 

5 



66 Mrs. BoswelL 

for he doubtless married me with hopes and promises of 
the Hertfordshire estate/* >s ., 

Johnson replied : 

' This is the last letter that I shall write ; while you are 
reading it, I shall be coming home. 

' I congratulate you upon your boy ; but you must not 
think that I will love him all at once as well as I love 
Harry, for Harry, you know, is so rational. I shall love 
him by degrees. . . . ' Do not suffer yourself to be de- 
jected. Resolution and diligence will supply all that is 
wanting, and all that is lost. But if your health should 
be impaired, I know not where to find a substitute. I 
shall have no mistress, Mr. Thrale will have no wife, and 
the little flock will have no mother.'f 

Johnson spent a hundred days in Scotland, and left 
Edinburgh for London on November 22, feeling, as he 
said, that Mrs. Boswell wished him well to go. ' In this,' 
says Boswell, ' he showed a very acute penetration. My 
wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention 
while he was our guest ; so that I wonder how he discovered 
her wishing for his departure/ The truth is, that his 
irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the 
candles with their heads downwards, when they did not 
burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the 
carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, 
she had not that high admiration for him which was felt 
by most of those who knew him ; and, what was very 
natural to a female mind, she thought he had too much 
influence over her husband. She once in a little warmth, 
made, with more point than justice, this remark upon that 
subject : " I have seen many a bear led by a man ; but I 
never before saw a man led by a bear !" 

The first half of 1774 was marked in the Streatham 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 203. t Ibid., i. 206. 



Tour to Wales. 67 

circle by three principal matters of interest : the produc- 
tion of Johnson's ' Journey to the Western Islands,'* the 
illness and death of Oliver Goldsmith, and preparations 
for an excursion to North Wales, undertaken chiefly for 
the purpose of visiting Mrs. Thrale's birthplace and 
property. Respecting the last, Johnson, who was of the 
party, at the moment of departure wrote to his old 
friend, Bennet Langton : ' I have just begun to print my 
Journey to the Hebrides, and arn leaving the press to 
take another journey into Wales, whither Mr. Thrale is 
going to take possession of at least five hundred a year, 
fallen to his lady.' 

Of this tour to Wales Boswell says : ' I do not find that 
he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there. All 
that I heard him say of it was, that instead of bleak 
and barren mountains, there were green and fertile ones ; 
and that one of the castles in Wales would contain all 
the castles that he had seen in Scotland.' 

He had, however, kept a journal, which was pre- 
served by his black servant, Frank Barber, and was 
edited and published by Mr. Duppa in 1816. Mrs. 
Thrale-Piozzi lent her assistance to this publication, and 
some notes by her, which came too late for insertion, were 
added by Croker. The diary begins on Tuesday, July 5, 
with the entry: ' W T e left Streatham n 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 Dun- 
stable.' It proceeds from day to day with similar notes, 
the contents being generally bien maigres, as Mrs. Piozzi 
confessed. 

On July 26 we read : * In the afternoon we came 
to West-Chester (my father went to the fair when I 

* The Tour, however, was not published till late in the autumn. 

52 



68 Lleweny Hall. 

had the small-pox). We walked round the walls, -which 
are complete, and contain one mile, three quarters, and 
one hundred and one yards. Within them are many 
gardens. They are very high, and two may walk very 
commodiously side by side.' On this entry Mrs. Thrale 
made a manuscript note some time after it was written : 
' Of those ill-fated walls Dr. Johnson might have learned 
the extent from anyone. 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.' 

On July 28, the party reached Lleweny Hall, then the 
residence of Mr. Robert Cotton, Mrs. Thrale's cousin- 
german,* and stayed there three weeks. ' In the lawn,' 
wrote the journalist, ' is a spring of fine water, which rises 
above the surface into a stone basin, from which it runs 
to waste in a continual stream through a pipe. There 
are very large trees.' After giving the dimensions 
of the hall, gallery, library, and dining parlours of 
the old house, he adds : ' It is partly sashed and 
partly has casements. '-f Their first visit thence was 
paid to Mrs. Thrale's property, which the diary thus 
describes : ' Saturday, July 30. We went to Bach y Graig, 
where we found an old house, built 1567, in an uncommon 
and incommodious form. My mistress chattered about 
tiring, but I prevailed on her to go to the top. The floors 

* He was the eldest son of her uncle, Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, and the 
father of Lord Combermere. 

f Mrs. Piozzi wrote in 1817 : ' Poor old Lleweny Hall ! pulled down after 
standing a thousand years in possession of the Salusburys.' Hayward's 
' Piozzi,' ii. 206. 



Bach y Graig. 69 

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. Some 
buildings which Clough, the founder, intended for ware- 
houses, would make store-chambers and servants' rooms. 
The ground seems to be good. I wish it well.' Mr. Duppa 
notes : 

' Pennant gives a description of this house in a tour 
he made into North Wales in 1780 : " Not far from 
Dymerchion lies, half buried in woods, the singular house 
of Bach y Graig. It consists of a mansion of three sides, 
enclosing a square court. The first consists of a vast hall 
and parlour : the rest of it rises into six wonderful stories, 
including the cupola ; and forms from the second floor the 
figure of a pyramid ; the rooms are small and inconvenient. 
The bricks are admirable, and appear to have been made 
in Holland, and the model of the house was probably 
brought from Flanders, where this kind of building is not 
unfrequent. . . . The initials of Richard Clough's name 
are in iron on the front, with the date 1567, and on 
the gateway 1569." ' To return to Johnson's diary : 

'August 2. We went to Dymerchion Church, where 
the old clerk acknowledged his mistress. It is the parish 
church of Bach y Graig. A mean fabric ; Mr. Salusbury ' 
(Mrs. Thrale's father) ' was buried in it. Bach y Graig 
has fourteen seats in it. As we rode by I looked at the 
house again. We saw Llannerch, a house not mean, with 
a small park very well watered. There was an avenue of 
oaks, which, in a foolish compliance with the present mode, 



70 Mrs. Thrale and the Clerk. 

has been cut down.* A few are yet standing. The way 
lay through pleasant lanes and overlooked a region 
beautifully diversified with trees and grass. At Dymer- 
chion Church there is English service only once a month. 
This is about twenty miles from the English border. The 
old clerk had great appearance of joy at the sight of his 
mistress, and foolishly said that he was now willing to 
die. He had only a crown given him by my Mistress.' 

'If Mr. Duppa,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, when this was 
published, ' does not send me a copy of Johnson's Diary, 
he is as shabby as it seems our doctor thought me, when 
I gave but a crown to the old clerk. The poor clerk had 
probably never seen a crown in his possession before. 
Things were very distant A.D. 1774 from what they are 
1816.' ' Mrs. Piozzi,' says Dr. Birkbeck Hill, ' writes as 
if Johnson's censure had been passed in 1816, and not in 
1774.' Not so ; she means, of course, that a reflection 
which might appear reasonable in 1816 was not just in 
1774. 

Johnson, as will be seen in our next extract, seems, like 
many other persons of limited income, to consider it 
incumbent on the rich to be careless of small sums. On 
August 4 the travellers visited Rhuddlan Castle and 
Bodryddan, the residence of the Stapylton family, of 
which the diary says : 

' Stapylton's house is pretty ; there are pleasing shades 
about it, with a constant spring that supplies a cold bath. 
We then went to see a cascade. I trudged unwillingly, 

* Dr. Birkbeck Hill aptly quotes from the first book of Cowper's ' Task ' : 
' Not distant far a length of colonnade 
Invites us. Monument of ancient taste, 

Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate, 
* * * 

Thanks to Benevolus, he spares me yet 
These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, 
And though himself so polished still reprieves 
The obsolete prolixity of shade.' 



The Welsh Hills. 71 

and was not sorry to find it dry. The water was 
however, turned on, and produced a very striking 
cataract.* . . . 

' 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 that she had so much sensibility of money.' 

Mrs. Piozzi remarks on this passage : ' He teased Mrs. 
Cotton about her dry cascade till she was ready to cry.' 

This Mrs. Cotton, afterwards Lady Salusbury Cotton, 
was one of five Stapylton co-heiresses. She married the 
eldest son of Sir Lynch Cotton, and was the mother of 
Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere. She said that 
Johnson, despite 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,' says Mr. Hay ward, 'is no un- 
common 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 Rhuddlan, he broke out 
into a loud fit of laughter, and shouted : ' Why, sir, I 
could clear any part of it by a leap.' 

On the way to Holywell he records : ' Talk with mistress 
about flattery/ on which she has the note : ' He said I 
flattered the people to whose houses we went. I was 

Bowles, the poet, on the unexpected arrival of a parly to view his grounds, 
was overheard giving a hurried order to set the fountain playing, and curry the 
hermit his beard. HAYWARD. 



72 Bodvil. 

saucy, and said I was obliged to be civil for two, meaning 
himself and me.'* He replied nobody would thank ^ne 
or compliments they did not understand. At Gwaynynog 
(the house of Mr. Middleton), however, he was flattered, 
and was happy, of course.'^ 

The Thrales are mentioned again in several subsequent 
passages : 

'August 22. We went to Bodvil, 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 Bodvil. Mrs. Thrale 
remembered the rooms, and wandered over them, with 
recollection of her childhood. This species of pleasure 
is always melancholy. The walk was cut down, and the 
pond was dry. Nothing was better. 

'We surveyed the Churches, which are mean, and 
neglected to a degree scarcely imaginable. They have 
no pavement, and the earth is full of holes. The seats 
are rude benches ; the Altars have no rails. One of them 
has a breach in the roof. On the desk, I think, of each 
lay a folio Welsh Bible of the black letter, which the 
curate cannot easily read. Mr. Thrale purposes to 
beautify the Churches, and if he prospers, will probably 
restore the tithes. . . .J 

'August 26. Note. Queeney's goats, 149, I think.' 
Of this last entry Mr. Duppa gives an explanation with 

* Miss Bumey 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 whomever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish 
of praise?" "Why, I'll tell you, sir," said I. "When I am with you, Mr. 
Thrale, and Queeney, I am obliged to be civil for four." ' 

+ Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 75. 

In 1809 the whole income from Llangwinodyl, including surplice fees, 
amounted to 46 2s. 2d., and for Tydweilliog .43 195. iod., so that it does 
not appear that Mr. Thrale carried into effect his good intention. DUPPA. 



Hagley. 73 

which, no doubt, he was furnished by Mrs. Piozzi : ' 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 appeared her father was in debt to 
her one hundred and forty-nine pence. Queeney was an 
epithet, which had its origin in the nursery, by which 
(in allusion to Queen Esther) Miss Thrale was always 
distinguished by Johnson.' She was named, after her 
mother, Hester, not Esther. 

Under date September 13 Johnson notes : ' We came 
to Lord Sandys's, at Ombersley, where we were treated 
with great civility.' It was at Ombersley Court, as he 
told Mrs. Thrale, that, for the only time in his life, he had 
as much wall-fruit as he liked. She wrote to him in 
1778 : * ' Mr. Scrase gives us fine fruit ; I wished you my 
pear yesterday : but, then, what would one pear have done 
for you ?' 

Johnson was less pleased with a visit to Hagley, where 
the party spent three days with Thrale's early friend, Mr. 
Lyttelton, uncle of the then Lord Lyttelton, and after- 
wards himself, by successive creations, Lord Westcote 
and Lord Lyttelton ; at whose house Johnson imagined 
that they did not meet with the respect and kindness to 
which they were entitled. Mrs. Thrale's explanation is : 
' Mrs. Lyttelton 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.' 

The journey ended with a visit to Burke, at Beacons- 
field, where they heard that Parliament was dissolved, 
and at once returned home. The dissolution was on 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 36. 



74 General Election. 

September 30; and Thrale, who was a strong supporter of 
Lord North, having again to encounter a contested elec- 
tion, Johnson came forward with his third political 
pamphlet, entitled 'The Patriot,' in defence of the 
Government. This tract, like its two predecessors, was 
written in a remarkably short space of time. ' It was 
called for,' said the author, 'by my political friends on 
Friday, and was written on Saturday.' 

On October 16 Horace Walpole wrote that there had 
been outrageous rioting in Southwark, but that he knew 
nothing of the candidates, their connections, or their 
success.* In the end Thrale was again returned, though, 
as before, he was only second on the poll. He had not 
the popular manners necessary for a good candidate, and 
owed great part of his success to his wife, who threw her- 
self heart and soul into the business of electioneering, for 
which she was as well qualified as the Duchess of Devon- 
shire, or Mrs. Crewe. In later life Mrs, Thrale, having 
occasion to pass through Southwark, expressed her 
astonishment at no longer recognising a place every 
hole and corner of which she had three times visited as a 
canvasser. 

On one of these expeditions Johnson accompanied her, 
and a rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing his beaver 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 in a cheerful 
tone ; ' hats are of no use now, as you say, except to 
throw up in the air and huzza, with,' accompanying his 
words with the true election halloo.f 

On October 27 Johnson was able to write to 
Boswell that Thrale had happily surmounted a very 

* 'Letters,' vi. 134. t Anec., p. 214. 



Lord North. 75 

violent and acrimonious opposition ; but, added he : ' All 
joys have their abatement : Mrs. Thrale has fallen from 
her horse, and hurt herself very much.' 

Thrale's gratitude to Johnson, or his admiration of him, 
made him at one time anxious that his friend should be 
brought into Parliament. Sir John Hawkins says that 
Thrale had two meetings with the Minister, who at first 
seemed inclined to find Johnson a seat, but eventually 
discouraged the proposal. Lord Stowell told Mr. Croker 
that Lord North was afraid that Johnson's help might 
sometimes prove embarrassing. ' He perhaps thought, 
and not unreasonably,' added Lord Stowell, ' that, like the 
elephant in the battle, he was quite as likely to trample 
down his friends as his foes.' Boswell expresses a wish 
that the moralist had tried his hand in the House, and 
wonders that the Ministry did not make the experiment. 
On this Mrs. Thrale remarks very sensibly : ' 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.' 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mrs. Abington's Benefit Johnson created Doctor Marriages with Inferiors 
in Rank Thrale not a Wit Baretti Account of Him Tried for Murder 
Enters Thrale's Family His Character drawn by Mrs. Piozzi Dr. 
Thomas Campbell His Diary of a Visit to England His Impressions of 
Baretti and Johnson Dinners at Thrale's Tour to France Baretti makes 
Himself Useful Johnson's Letters and Diary Johnson Intractable Dis- 
agreements Verses to Mrs. Thrale She translates an Epigram Impromptu 
Johnson removes to Bolt Court Boswell again in London He goes 
with Johnson to the Midlands Sudden Death of Thrale's only Son 
Johnson and Boswell return to London Johnson comforts the Parents 
Proposed Tour to Italy given up Garrick's Retirement His Acting 
The Thrales at Bath with Johnson Visit from Boswell Johnson Severe 
to Mrs. Thrale He returns to London Dines with Wilkes Pressed to 
go again to Bath Quarrel with Baretti Mrs. Thrale describes the 
Rupture Johnson's Account Baretti's Version Apparent Reconciliation 
Thraliana Thrale described by his Wife. 

IN the spring of 1775 Boswell was again in London, 
and on Monday, March 27, breakfasted at Mr. Strahan's* 
with Johnson, where he learned that the latter was 
engaged to go that night to Mrs. Abington'sf benefit. 
The two met again at Drury Lane Theatre in the evening. 
' Sir Joshua Reynolds,' writes the biographer, ' at Mrs. 
Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits, 
and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had 
done me the honour to put me in the group. Johnson 
sat in the seat directly behind me ; and as he could 

* William Strahan, the King's printer. He was great-grandfather of Dr. 
Spottiswoode, the late President of the Royal Society. 

t This celebrated actress was then at the zenith of her fame. Her range was 
large, extending from Ophelia and Beatrice to Miss Prue and Polly Peachum. 
Murphy dedicated to her his comedy of ' How to Keep Him,' and she was the 
original representative of Lady Teazle in 1777. 



Marriages with Inferiors. 77 

neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, 
he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed 
quite in a cloud, amidst all the sunshine of glitter and 
gaiety. He said very little. He was more disposed for 
talk next day at a dinner given by Mr. Thrale. He was 
then awaiting his diploma of Doctor of Laws from Oxford, 
and was understood to be highly pleased with the 
prospect of his new dignity. 

Boswell, who was also a guest, records a little sparring 
between Johnson and their hostess respecting the poet 
Gray, whom the lady, to her credit, was disposed to 
admire, while Johnson reviled him as a dull fellow and a 
mechanical poet. The conversation next turned on the 
subject of unequal matches, a question arising how a 
woman who married a man much her inferior in rank 
should be treated by her relations. ' While I recapitulate 
the debate,' says its reporter, ' and recollect what has 
since happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that 
delicacy forbids me to express. While I contended that 
she ought to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of 
displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and 
forgiveness, and, according to the vulgar phrase, making 
the best of a bad bargain.' Johnson, he adds, thought 
that when there was a gross and shameful deviation 
from rank it should be punished, so as to deter others 
from the same perversion. The allusion in this passage 
to Mrs. Thrale's second marriage is so pointed, as well 
as so unnecessary, that Scotch James's affectation of 
delicacy has the air of a studied impertinence. 

On May 10 in this year, Boswell wrote to his friend 
Temple : ' I am at present in a tourbillon of conversations ; 
but how come you to throw in the Thrales, among the 
Reynoldses and the Beauclerks ? Mr. Thrale is a worthy, 
sensible man, and has the wits much about his house, but 



7 8 BarettL 

he is not one himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale.'* 
This is not exactly the tone in which he distinguishes the 
couple in his book. 

The Thrale household now included another inmate, 
who for some time was as much a constant member 
of the family as Johnson himself. This was Joseph 
Baretti, a native of Piedmont, who had been brought 
to England by Lord Charlemont in 1750. According 
to his own story, Baretti was the son of an architect 
n the service of the King of Sardinia, and had inherited 
a small property, which he had lost at play. He had 
received the usual classical education, and had taught 
himself, besides, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. 
In this country his talents, knowledge, and force of mind 
attracted the regard of many eminent friends, while the 
roughness of his manners, and an unbridled arrogance 
of temper also made him numerous enemies. The latter 
accused him of falsehood and malevolence. The former 
asserted that, throughout a life of poverty, his integrity was 
unimpeached, and his distress never made known but in the 
last extremity. Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, told a 
story of his having lent Baretti a gold watch, which he 
had afterwards to recover from a pawnbroker, to whom 
the borrower had sold it. But iHs fair to add that Hug- 
gins had quarrelled with both Baretti and Baretti's chief 
friend, Johnson. The two last had suffered want together, 
and Johnson always mentioned his old companion with kind- 
ness. In 1768 Johnson remarked : ' 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.' On the other hand, Madame 
d'Arblay, who knew him from a girl, was more impressed 

* ' Letters of Boswell,' p. 192. 



1 



His Character and Attainments. 79 

by his rudeness and violence than by his intellectual 
power. 

In October, 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, had set upon 
him in the Haymarket. He was acquitted, and the in- 
cident is chiefly remarkable for the appearance of Burke, 
Johnson, and Beauclerk as witnesses to character. An 
Italian came one day to Baretti whilst he lay in Newgate 
to desire a letter of recommendation for the teaching of 
his scholars when the prisoner should have been hanged. 
' You rascal !' replied Baretti in a rage, ' if I were not in 
my own apartment I would kick you downstairs directly!' 

The exile earned a precarious subsistence by giving 
lessons in modern languages, and writing for the book- 
sellers. The year after his trial he published ' Travels 
through Spain, Portugal, and France/ and made 500 
by this book. The money was soon spent, and the 
author was again in difficulties, to relieve which he was 
persuaded by Johnson to accept Thrale's hospitality, and 
undertake the instruction of his host's daughters in Italian. 
As the teacher reserved the right of coming and going at 
his pleasure, he received no salary, but merely occasional 
presents in money. The arrangement was not a hopeful 
one; yet it lasted longer than might have been expected. 
The turbulent Italian lived for nearly three years in the 
Thrale family. 

' Baretti,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, while the subject of her 
remarks was still living, ' 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 

* Malone says of Baretti that ' he was certainly a man of extraordinary 
talents, and perhaps no one ever made himself so completely master of a 
foreign language as he did of English.' Prior's ' Malone,' p. 392. 



8o Baretti s Accomplishments. 

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 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 accomplish- 
ments, with his extensive power over every modern 
language, make him a most pleasing companion while 
he is in a 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.' 

Mrs. Piozzi gives the following 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,' she adds, '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 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.'* 

A newer acquaintance than either Baretti or Boswell 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi, 'i. 93, 94. Evans was a clergyman, and Rector of 
St. George's, Southwark. The story of Baretti's ignorance about the ' Pater 
Noster "was also told by Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. See Boswell's 
Johnson ' (Hill's Edition), v. 121, and . 4. 



Campbell's Diary. 81 

was sometimes to be seen at Thrale's house in the spring 
of 1775. This was an Irish clergyman, Dr. Thomas 
Campbell, who had come to this country chiefly with a 
view to see Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained the 
highest veneration. ' He has since,' writes Boswell, 
'published "A Philosophical Survey of the South of 
Ireland," a very entertaining book, which has, however, 
one fault, that it assumes the fictitious character of an 
Englishman.' A book purporting to be the ' Diary 
of a Visit to England in 1775,' by this gentleman, was 
published at Sydney in 1854. The manuscript was stated 
by the editor to have been discovered behind an old press 
in one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South 
Wales. Some doubts have been entertained as to the 
genuineness of this work. Lord Macaulay, however, was 
convinced of its being authentic, and Dr. Birkbeck Hill 
shares this opinion. Several passages of the diary afford 
illustrations of the Thrale hospitalities : 

' March i<\th. 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.' 

With Johnson he was disappointed : 

' i6th. 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 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 country, but he could not enjoy it, and he 
was obliged to return to London, to those connections he 

6 



82 Impressions of Johnson. 

had been making for near thirty years past. He told me 
he had several families with whom, both in towti 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 gray wig on one side only 
of his head ; he is for ever dancing the devil's jig, and 
sometimes he makes the most drivelling effort to whistle 
some thought in his absent paroxysms.' 

The Diarist mentions that Johnson this day, referring 
to his fourth political pamphlet then recently published, 
said that ' Taxation no Tyranny '* did not sell. On a 
subsequent day he remarked of the same tract, ' I think 
I have not been attacked enough for it. Attack is the 
reaction ; I never think I have hit hard unless it 
rebounds/ We return to Dr. Campbell : 

' March 2$th. 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, pineapple, grape, rasp- 

* ' An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. ' 
This, like the pamphlet on ' Falkland's Islands,' was published anonymously. 



Dinners at Tkrales. 83 

berry, and a fourth ; in each remove, I think, there were 
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 i. Dined at Mr. Thrale's, whom, in proof of the 
magnitude of London, I cannot help remarking, no coach- 
man, 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, etc. 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.' 

'AprilS. 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, etc., at Mrs. 
Abington's. He said Sir C. Thompson, and some others 
who were there, spoke like people who had seen good 

* Referring to a dinner to which the Diarist had been taken three days 
before by Boswell. 

62 



84 Dinners at Thralls. 

company, and so did Mrs. Abington herself, who e^uld 
not have seen good company. He seems fond of Boswell, 
and yet he is always abusing the Scots before him, by 
way of joke.' 

Boswell's account of the same evening runs : 
' On Saturday, April 8, I dined with him at Mr. 
Ihrale'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 of 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." Mrs. Thrale, who frequently practised a 
coarse mode of flattery by repeating his bon-mots in his 
hearing,* told us that he had said a certain celebrated 
actor was just fit to stand at the door of an auction-room 
with a long pole, and cry : " Pray, gentlemen, walk in ;" 
and that a certain author, upon hearing this, had said that 
another still more celebrated actor was fit for nothing 
better than that, and would pick your pocket after you 
came out. JOHNSON : " Nay, my dear lady, there is no 
wit in what our friend added ; there is only abuse. You 
may as well say of any man that he will pick a pocket ; 
besides, the man who is stationed at the door does not 
pick people's pockets ; that is done within by the 
auctioneer." ' 

In the summer of this year Johnson made his annual 
ramble into the midland counties. He was absent from 
the end of May till some time in August. He wrote to 
Mrs. Thrale from Oxford on June i : ' Don't suppose 

* Baretti, in a manuscript note in his copy of the ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 174, 
says: 'Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, and the 
silly madam [Mrs. Thrale] never failed to echo that beastly kind of wit.' Here 
Boswell and Baretti appear on the same level. 




- :/n#M> twnoctr 



1 



Tour to France. 85 

that I live here as we live at Streatham. I went this 
morning to chapel at six.' On September 15 he set 
out on a short tour to France, with Mr. and Mrs. 
Thrale. The party, which on this occasion included 
Baretti as well as Queeney, were abroad about eight 
weeks. . . , 

'France,' says Mrs. Thrale, '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, etc. I think he 
half cried 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.'* 

In a letter to Levet, dated Paris, October 22, 1775, 
Johnson writes : 

' We came yesterday from Fontainebleau, where the 
Court is now. We went to see the King and Queen at 
dinner, and the Queen was so impressed by Miss,t 
that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who she 
was. I find all true that you have ever told me of 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. But upon the 

* I lay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 94. f Miss Thrale. 



86 Johnson Intractable. 

whole I cannot make much acquaintance here ; and 
though the churches, palaces, and some private hoiJses 
are very magnificent, there is no very great pleasure, 
after having seen many, in seeing more ; at least, the 
pleasure, whatever it be, must sometime have an end. 
... I ran a race in the rain this day, and beat Baretti. 
Baretti is a fine fellow, and speaks French, I think, quite 
as well as English.' 

During part of this excursion, Johnson kept a journal 
similar to that which he had kept in Wales the year before, 
but even more brief and disappointing in its contents. 
We can find only one quotable allusion to his friends : 

' October 23. We went to Sans-terre, 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. He brews 4,000 barrels 
a year.' 

Johnson seems to have been ill at ease in France, and 
on the whole to have shown himself less tractable and 
accommodating than he had been either in Scotland or 
Wales. He would either talk Latin or not talk at all. 
Baretti said that he saw next to nothing of Paris, adding : 
' He noticed the country so little that he scarcely ever 
spoke of it after.' As, however, he declared that Johnson 
never touched a pen in France, it is clear that the hot- 
tempered Italian's account is not altogether to be trusted. 

* When we were at Rouen together,' says Mrs. Thrale, 
' he took a great fancy to the Abbe Roffette, 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 

* He commanded the troops at the execution of Louis XVI. 



Disagreements. 87 

to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Chris- 
tianity. 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 eulo- 
gium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and 
ingenuity, that the Abbe rose from his seat and embraced 
him. My husband, seeing them apparently so charmed 
with the company of each other, politely invited the Abbe 
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 Abbe Roffette.' 

The ' Piozzi Letters ' contain allusions to more than one 
disagreement in France. On May i, 1780, he wrote to 
Mrs. Thrale : ' The exhibition, how will you do, either to 
see or not to see ? The exhibition is eminently splendid. 
There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, 
and all the varieties of artificial excellence.'* She answers : 
' 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. Denis, and how cross you 
were for nothing but somehow or other our travels never 
make any part either of our conversation or corre- 
spondence.'-f- 

Johnson, however, had gained in health by the tour, 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. in. { Ibid,, ii. 116. 



S'S Verses to Mrs. Thrale. 

and was in high good-humour after his return. He^had 
provided himself with a Paris-made ' wig of handsome 
construction,' and his journal shows that he had bought 
other articles of dress. The close of the year found him 
living on the usual terms with the Thrales. 

The Ode written in Skye was not the only poetical 
compliment addressed by Johnson to his mistress. He 
gave a personal turn to some Italian verses by Baretti, in 
an improvised paraphrase : 

' 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 !' 

She inserted these lines in the ' Anecdotes,' and on a 
copy of that book presented by her to Sir James Fellowes 
in 1816, added a marginal note: 'I heard these verses 
.sung at Mr. Thomas's by three voices not three weeks 
ago/ 

'On another occasion,' she says in the 'Anecdotes,' 
* I can boast verses from Dr. Johnson. As I went into 
his room the morning of my birthday once, I 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 



She Translates Impromptu. 89 

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 alphabeti- 
cal order exactly." And so they do.' 

Mrs. Thrale omitted in the ' Anecdotes ' to mention 
the year in which these verses were written. In 
' Thraliana ' she says they were made in 1777, but in one 
of her memorandum-books she refers them to the correct 
date 1776. 

Now and then she would try her own hand at im- 
promptu versifying. ' Mrs. Aston,' said Johnson once 
of his first love, ' 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 : 

1 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.'* 

In 1776 Boswell reached London, on March 15, and, 
calling next morning on Dr. Johnson, found that 'he was 
removed from Johnson's Court, No. 7, to Bolt Court, 
No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet Street.' The 
house in Bolt Court was his last habitation ; it was burnt 
down in iSig.f Being informed that he was at Mr. 

* A nee., p. 157. f Notes and Queries, S. I, v. 233. 



9O Death of Thrale s Only Son. 

Thrale's, in the Borough, the caller hastened thither, and 
found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. The hours of 
the family were not early. Burney tells how Johnson 
came down one morning to the breakfast-room, and was 
a considerable time by himself before anybody appeared, 
and how, on a subsequent day, being twitted by Mrs. 
Thrale for being late, he defended himself by alluding to 
the morning when he had been too early : ' Madam, I do 
not like to come down to vacuity !' 

Boswell continues : ' I was kindly welcomed. In a 
moment he was in a full glow of conversation ; and I felt 
myself elevated, as if brought into another state of being. 
Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, 
and our looks expressed our congenial admiration and 
affection for him. I shall ever recollect this scene with 
great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, " I am now, intellec- 
tually, Hermippus redivivus I am quite restored by him, 
by transfusion of mind." " There are many," she replied, 
" who admire and respect Mr. Johnson ; but you and I 
love him !" 

' He seemed very happy in the near prospect of going 
to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. " But," said he, 
" before leaving England I am to take a jaunt to Oxford, 
Birmingham, my native city Lichfield, and my old friend 
Dr. Taylor's at Ashbourne in Derbyshire. I shall go 
in a few days, and you, Boswell, shall go with me." I 
was ready to accompany him, being willing even to 
leave London to have the pleasure of his conversation.' 

Four days later Boswell accompanied Johnson to 
Oxford, whence they proceeded to Birmingham and Lich- 
field, intending afterwards to make a long stay with 
Dr. Taylor ; but this visit was cut short, and the 
projected journey to Italy was destined not to take 
place. As the travellers were on the point of leaving 



The Burial. 91 

Lichneld for Derbyshire, a letter reached Johnson from 
Mr. Perkins, announcing the death of Thrale's only son 
Henry, and concluding with the words, ' I need not say 
how much they wish to see you in London.' The boy, 
a lad of ten, had died suddenly on March 23, before his^ 
father's door. So much we learn from a notice published 
at the time,* but no further particulars appear to have 
been preserved. 

' One of the most dreadful things that have happened 
in my time!' was Johnson's exclamation on reading the 
news. ' This,' he added, ' is a total extinction to their 
family, as much as if they were sold into captivity.' In 
vain Boswell suggested that Mr. Thrale had daughters 
who might inherit his wealth. 'Daughters!' cried the 
moralist warmly, ' he'll no more value his daughters 

than ' ' I was going to speak,' says Boswell. * Sir,' 

said he, ' don't you know how you yourself think ? Sir, 
he wishes to propagate his name. ... I would have 
gone to the extremity of the earth to have preserved 
this boy.' 

It was to little purpose, therefore, that on Tuesday, 
March 26, there came for the pair of friends what Boswell 
calls ' an equipage properly suited to a wealthy well- 
beneficed clergyman,-}- Dr. Taylor's large, roomy post- 
chaise, drawn by four stout, plump horses, and driven by 
two steady, jolly postilions, which conveyed them to 
Ashbourne. The second evening after their arrival found 
them on the road to London. On March 29 their chaise 
deposited them in the Poultry, whence Johnson hurried 
away in a hackney-coach to the Borough, and found Mrs. 
Thrale, her eldest daughter, and Baretti on the point of 

* Gent. Mag., 1776, p. 142. 

f 'Dr. Taylor had a good estate of his own, and good preferment in the 
Church, being a Prebendary of Westminster and Rector of Bosworth.' 
BOSWELL. 



92 Johnson Comforts the Parents. 

setting out for Bath. Baretti says that Mrs. Thrale had 
abruptly proposed this journey from a wish to avoid the 
sight of the funeral.* She did not delay her departure on 
seeing Johnson, who, Boswell thought, was in no good 
humour at this want of ceremony ; but the letters which 
he addressed to Mrs. Thrale at Bath do not indicate any 
feeling of displeasure. 

On March 30 he wrote : ' Do not indulge your sorrow ; 
try to drive it away, by either pleasure or pain ; for, 
opposed to what you are feeling, many pains will become 
pleasures. Remember the great precept : " Be not soli- 
tary ; be not idle"^ .... That I feel what friendship 
can feel, I hope I need not tell you.J I loved him as I 
never expect to love any. other little boy ; but I could 
not love him as a parent. I know that such a loss is a 
laceration of the mind. I know that a whole system of 
hopes, and designs, and expectations is swept away at 
once, and nothing left but bottomless vacuity. What 
you feel I have felt, and hope that your disquiet will be 
shorter than mine.'|| 

* At the foot of the fine inscription on Thrale's monument in St. Leonards' 
Church, Streatham, are the words : ' Consortes tumuli hahet Rodolphum 
patrem, strenuum fortemque virum, et Henricum filium unicum, quem spei 
parentum mors inopina decennem prceripuit. Ita domus felix et opulenta 
quam erexit avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit. Abi viator ! et vicibus 
rerum humanarum perspectis, aeternitatem cogita.' ' In the same tomb lie 
interred his father, Ralph Thrale, a man of vigour and activity, and his only 
son, Henry, who died before his father, aged ten years. Thus a fortunate and 
opulent family, raised by the grandfather and augmented by the father, became 
extinguished with the grandson. Go, reader, and reflecting on the vicissitudes 
of all human affairs, meditate on eternity.' Johnson here breaks his own rule 
against addressing epitaphs to the passer-by. 

f Burton, in the last lines of ' The Anatomy of Melancholy,' says : ' Only 
take this for a corollary and conclusion : as thou tenderest thine own welfare 
in this and all other melancholy, thy good health of body and mind, observe 
this short precept, Give not way to solitariness and idleness. " Be not solitary, 
be not idle." ' 

He had written of the boy in the previous summer : ' Pray give my ser- 
vice to my dear friend Harry, and tell him that Mr. Murphy does not love him 
belter than I do.' 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 262. 

He is referring, of course, to the death of his wife. 

|| 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 310. 



Carriers Retirement. 93 

Again, on April i : ' When you were gone, Mr. Thrale 
soon sent me away. I came next day, and was made to 
understand that when I was wanted I should be sent for ; 
and therefore I have not gone yesterday or to-day ; but 
I will soon go again, whether invited or not.'* 

On Good-Friday, which this year was April 5, Boswell, 
having attended morning service at St. Clement's Church, 
walked home with Johnson, and records that in the after- 
noon Thrale called, appearing, he adds, to bear the loss 
of his son with a manly composure, but seeming to hesi- 
tate as to the intended Italian tour. Johnson's entry in 
his diary is : ' My design was to pass part of the day in 
exercises of piety, but Mr. Boswell interrupted me ; of 
him, however, I could have rid myself ; but poor Thrale, 
orbus et exspes, came for comfort, and sat till seven, when 
we all went to church.' 

By Easter Tuesday the tour had been given up, and 
Johnson wrote to his mistress : ' Mr. Thrale's alteration 
of purpose is not weakness of resolution ; it is a wise man's 
compliance with the change of things, and with the new 
duties which the change produces. Whoever expects me 
to be angry, will be disappointed. I do not even grieve 
at the effect ; I grieve only at the cause.' Mrs. Thrale's 
fugitive visit to Bath had been a short one, for on 
Wednesday, April 10, she was again at home to receive 
Murphy, Johnson, and Boswell at dinner. It appears to 
have been now determined that a visit of the whole family 
to Bath should be substituted for foreign travel ; the weak 
state of Queeney's health was assigned as one motive for 
the change of plan, and Johnson expressed to Boswell 
his conviction of its reasonableness. The party appears 
to have been confined to familiar friends, and Mrs. Thrale 
took her usual share in the conversation, showing her 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 311. 



94 Garrictts Acting. 

knowledge of English literature by the remark that Pope's 
' Dying Christian to his Soul ' was partly borrowed from 
Flatman.* 

The downfall of the hopes which the Thrales had built 
upon their son divided the attention of their circle with 
a topic of more general interest. Since the beginning 
of the year, their old acquaintance Garrick had withdrawn 
from Drury Lane Theatre, and had been succeeded there 
by a body of new proprietors, of whom Sheridan was the 
most important member. The retired manager, half 
sorry to be released, talked freely in all companies about 
himself and his past career with the pleasant vanity which 
distinguished him. Boswell tells us that on April n he 
dined with Johnson at General Paoli's, and mentioned 
his having that morning introduced to Garrick a Flemish 
nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick 
spoke of Abel Drugger^ as a small part, adding, with an 
appearance of grave recollection : ' If I were to begin life 
ag^in, I think I should not play those low characters.' 
' Upon which,' says Boswell, ' I observed : " Sir, you would 
be in the wrong, for your great excellence is your variety 
of playing, your representing so well characters so very 
different." JOHNSON : " Garrick, sir, was not in earnest in 
what he said, for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his 
variety, and, perhaps, there is not any one character 
which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he 
could do it." BOSWELL : " Why then, sir, did he talk so ?" 
JOHNSON: "Why, sir, to make you answer as you did." 

* The lines borrowed from are : 

' When on my sick bed I languish, 
Full of sorrow, full of anguish ; 
Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying, 
Paniing, groaning, speechless, dying 
Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, 
Be not fearful ; come away.' 

Campbell's 'Brit. Poets,' p. 301. 
t Abel Drugger is a character in Ben Jonson's ' Alchemist.' 




i /<r /-/'If/; rt.> I /'t/ .'/ rr/t/<i t" f . 



The Titrates at Bath. 95 

BOSWELL : " I don't know, sir ; he seemed to dip deep into 
his mind for the reflection." JOHNSON : " He had not far 
to dip, sir ; he had said the same thing probably twenty 
times before." 

Murphy writes that Hogarth saw Garrick in 
Richard III., and on the following night in Abel 
Drugger, and was so struck that he said to him : ' You 
are in your element when you are begrimed with dirt, or 
up to your elbows in blood.'* Cooke, in his ' Memoirs 
of Macklin,' says that a Lichfield grocer, who came to 
London with a letter of introduction to Garrick from 
Peter Garrick, saw him act Abel Drugger, and returned 
without calling on him. He said to Peter Garrick : ' I 
saw enough of him on the stage. He may be rich, as 

I dare say any man who lives like him must be ; but by , 

though he is your brother, Mr. Garrick, he is one of the 
shabbiest, meanest, most pitiful hounds I ever saw in the 
whole course of my life.'f 

Soon after the dinner at General Paoli's, the Thrales 
and Johnson went to Bath, where, on April 26, they were 
joined by Boswell, who visited them at his own request. 
On the arrival of the latter, he found that Mr. and Mrs. 
Thrale were gone to the Rooms, leaving Johnson alone 
to entertain the new-comer for the evening. On this 
Dr. Birkbeck Hill exclaims : ' To the Rooms ! and their 
only son dead three days over one month !' Yet it is 
clear that Dr. Johnson did not consider their behaviour 
at all heartless. On the contrary, he had advised Mrs. 
Thrale to return to her usual amusements as soon as 
possible, and Boswell, though charmed with Bath, did not 
find its pleasures very exciting ; for in a letter to his friend 
Temple he quotes Quin's description of it as ' the cradle 
of age, and a fine slope to the grave.' He presently 

* Murphy's 'Garrick,' p. 21. f Ibid. t p. no. 



96 Joknson and Wilkes. 

returned to London, ' to eat commons in the Inner 
Temple,' and was soon followed by Johnson, who came 
up to assist his friend Taylor in some law business which 
had brought the clergyman to town. After Johnson's 
departure, Mrs. Thrale wrote to him : ' Baretti said you 
would be very angry because this dreadful event made 
us put off our Italian journey, but I know you better. 
Who knows even now that 'tis deferred for ever ? Mr. 
Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, 
and I am sure he will go nowhere that he can help without 
you.'* Yet Johnson had more than once treated Mrs. 
Thrale rather roughly during his stay in Bath, checking 
one of her flights with the injunction, 'When you are 
calculating, calculate,' and another with a caution to 
beware of getting her wings clipped. 

He wrote to her repeatedly from London. On May 
16 he says : ' This is my third letter. Well, sure I 
shall have something to-morrow. Our business stands 
still. The doctor says I must not go ; and yet my stay 
does him no good. His solicitor says he is sick ; but I 
suspect he is sullen. The doctor, in the meantime, has 
his head as full as yours at an election. Livings and 
preferments, as if he were in want, with twenty children, 
run in his head. But a man must have his head on 
something small or great. f 

In the same letter he describes the dinner with Wilkes, 
at Messrs Dilly's : 

' For my part, I begin to settle and keep company 
with grave Aldermen. I dined yesterday in the Poultry 
with Mr. Alderman Wilkes,J and Mr. Alderman Lee, 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 317. t Ibid., i. 325. 

In April, 1769, the Court of Aldermen by a majority decided that 
Wilkes was disqualified for election as a member of their body. On his 
release from pri>on, in April, 1770, he was, however, admitted without a 
division. The Livery returned him for Lord Mayor at the head of the list in 



Johnson and Wilkes. 97 

and Councillor Lee, his brother. There sat you the 

while, so sober, with your W s, and your H s, and 

my aunt and her turnspit ; and, when they are gone, you 
think by chance on Johnson, what is he doing ? What 
should he be doing? He is breaking jokes with Jack 
Wilkes upon the Scots. Such, madam, are the vicis- 
situdes of things. And there was Mrs. Knowles, the 
Quaker, that works the sutile* pictures, who is a great 
admirer of your conversation. She saw you at Mr. 
Shaw's, at the election time. She is a Staffordshire 
woman, and I am to go and see her. Staffordshire is the 
nursery of art ; here they grow up till they are trans- 
planted to London.-f- 

' Yet it is strange that I hear nothing from you ; I 
hope you are not angry or sick. Perhaps you are gone 
without me, for spite, to see places. That is natural 
enough, for evil is very natural ; but I shall vex, unless it 
does you good.' 

On the same day the lady was writing to her cor- 
respondent : 

' I had no notion of your staying away from us so long, 
or you should not surely have wanted a letter ; you might 
reasonably expect, and claim indeed, my best thanks for 
the sweet visit paid five days ago to my babies : a most 
friendly action in you, and a most polite one in dear Dr. 
Taylor, and what I had never been hoping for. All 
unexpected pleasures are doubly precious. 

' Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora.' 

1772 and 1773, but he was in each case passed over by the Aldermen. In 1774 
his brethren, having to choose between him and the retiring Lord Mayor, re- 
luctantly admitted the popular favourite to the civic chair. In 1775 Boswell 
was not a little elated at receiving a complimentary letter from Lord Mayor 
Wilkes. ' Letters of Boswell,' p. 209. 

* Misprinted by Mrs. Piozzi futile. Mrs. Knowles was famous for some 
kind of needlework. 

t He is alluding to the fact that he was a Staffordshire man. 



98 Invitations to Bath. 

' We have a flashy friend here already, who is much 
your adorer ; I wonder how you will like him ? An 
Irishman he is ; very handsome, very hot-headed, loud 
and lively, and sure to be a favourite with you, he tells us, 
for he can live with a man of ever so odd a temper. My 
master laughs, but likes him, and it diverts me to think 
what you will do when he professes that he could clean 
shoes for you ; that he could shed his blood for you ; 
with twenty mere extravagant flights and you say, / 
flatter ! Upon my honour, sir, and indeed now, as Dr. 
C 1's phrase is, I am but a twitter to him.' 

1 Well, you hate Bath, and will be very uncomfortable 
when you come this time, I believe ; for, after all, I must 
be civil to my aunt, who is exceedingly kind to me ; and 
I must dress and go out, and do like other people, or you 
will be first to censure and condemn me ; more than that, 
our dear master, who cannot be quiet without you for a 
week, will be always infallibly on your side, and encourage 
long lectures about the fit of a cap, which you will not 
give me a minute to put on as it should be so I see my 
fate before it arrives. Come to Bath, though, and at 
least convince yourself that we are not noting infelicities 
from which you are cruelly excluded.'* 

The Irishman referred to in this letter appears to 
have been a Mr. Musgrave, who is humorously described 
in Madame d'Arblay's Diary. Despite flattery, however, 
and solicitation, Johnson seems to have remained in 
town. He is able to requite his mistress by good news 
of the brewery : ' To-day I went to look into my places 
at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in the counting- 
house. He crows and triumphs, " As we go on we shall 
double our business." . . . Surely I shall get down to 
you next week.'t He did not get down, for when Dr. 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 327. + Ibid., i. 333. 



Quarrel with Baretti. 99 

Taylor's business was done with he was still detained by 
an attack of gout, until his friends had left Bath. Not long 
after their return to Streatham came the long-impending 
rupture between the Thrales and Baretti. We give 
the principal passages from an account of the quarrel 
which Mrs. Thrale states that she wrote at the time : 

' July 6, 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 nth of November, 1773, Mr. 
Thrale let him have 50, and at our return from France 
50 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, etc. 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 a hundred 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 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 

72 



ioo Quarrel with Baretti. 

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 
Jiave 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 dis- 
position, never, I suppose, soothed his anger or requested 
his stay. . . . 

' My daughter kept on telling me that Mr. Baretti was 
grown very odd and very cross, would not look at her 
exercises, but said he would leave this house soon, for it 
was no better than Pandemonium. 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.' 

' Since our quarrel,' afterwards wrote the lady, ' 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." ' 

In what she wrote later, Mrs. Thrale gives some further 
particulars of the affronts she had received from Baretti, 
accusing him, among other things, of having said to her 
eldest daughter, ' that if her mother died in a lying-in, 
which happened while he lived here, he hoped Mr. Thrale 



Barettts Version. lor 

would marry Miss Whitbred, who would be a pretty 
companion for her, and not tyrannical and overbearing 
like me.' It has been said to be unlikely that he would 
say this to the girl, but his friends evidently thought that 
his rash and passionate temper was capable of anything. 

Johnson's short account written to Boswell* does not 
contain anything to throw doubt upon Mrs. Thrale's 
statement. ' Baretti went away from Thrale's in some 
whimsical fit of disgust or ill-nature, without taking any 
leave. It is well if he finds in any other place as good an 
habitation, and as many conveniences.' And Baretti had 
little or nothing to allege in his own defence, when in 
1788 he told his story in the European Magazine.^ He 
said : ' 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 drunk, 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.' In another place % he wrote that Johnson had 
led him to expect that Thrale would give him an annuity 
for his trouble, and that, after waiting six years and a 
half without receiving a shilling, he grew tired at last, 
and on some provocation from Mrs. Thrale left them 
abruptly. He had, in fact, been less than three years in 
the family, and the presents in money had to be admitted 
by the writer of a notice of Baretti, which his friends 
published after his death. 

Baretti appears to have afterwards made it up with the 
Thrales ; he states that, at the end of four years, they met 
him at a house near Beckenham, and coaxed him into a 

* In a letter dated December 21, 1776, which Boswell prints, 
t Vol. xiii. 398. J In a marginal note on ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 338. 

See Gent. Mag. for May, 1789. The paper was written by Dr. Vincent, 
Dean of Westminster. 



IO2 ' Thrali ana' 

reconciliation, 'which,' adds he, 'as almost all recon- 
ciliations 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.'* That 
some sort of seeming peace was patched up is clear, as 
we shall see from statements made by Mrs. Thrale herself, 
but Baretti is wrong in his dates, at all events, for Thrale 
did not survive the rupture five years altogether. 

No incident worth mentioning distinguished the re- 
mainder of this year, the autumn of which was spent by 
the Thrales and Johnson at Brighton. 

Mr. Hayward tells usf- that Mrs. Thrale kept a copious 
diary and note-book, called ' Thraliana,' from 1776 to 
1809. ' It is now,' [1861] he continues, '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 from it.' 
The first entry is in these words : ' It is many years since 
Doctor Samuel Johnson advised me to get a little book, 
and write in it all the little anecdotes which might come 
to my knowledge, all the observations I might make or 
hear, all the verses never likely to be published, and, in 
fine, everything that struck me at the time. Mr. Thrale 
has now treated me with a repository, and provided it 
with the pompous title of " Thraliana." I must endeavour 
to fill it with nonsense new and old. i5th September, 
1776.' 

On an early page occurs the following : 

' As this is " Thraliana," I will now write Mr. Thrale's 
character in it. It is not because I am in good or ill 

* European Magazine, 1788. f Hay ward's 'Piozzi,' i. 6. 

The Rev. G. A. Salusbury, Rector of Westbury, Salop, from whom Mr. 
Hayward obtained much of his information. This gentleman was the eldest 
son of Sir John Piozzi Salusbury, nephew of Piozzi, and adopted son of Mrs. 
Piozzi. 



Thrale Described by his Wife. 103 

humour with him, or he with me, for we are not capricious 
people, but have, I believe, the same opinion of each 
other at all places and times. 

' Mr. Thrale's person is manly, his countenance agree- 
able, his eyes steady, and of the deepest blue ; his look 
neither soft nor severe, neither sprightly nor gloomy, but 
thoughtful and intelligent ; his address is neither caressive 
nor repulsive, but unaffectedly civil and decorous ; and his 
manner more completely free from every kind of trick or 
particularity than I ever saw any person's. He is a man 
wholly, as I think, out of the power of mimicry. He 
loves money, and is diligent to obtain it ; but he loves 
liberality too, and is willing enough both to give generously, 
and to spend fashionably. His passions either are not 
strong, or else he keeps them under such command that 
they seldom disturb his tranquillity or his friends ; and it 
must, I think, be something more than common which 
can affect him strongly, either with hope, fear, anger, love, 
or joy. His regard for his father's memory is remarkably 
great, and he has been a most exemplary brother ; though, 
when the house of his favourite sister was on fire, and we 
were all alarmed with the account of it in the night, I 
well remember that he never rose, but, bidding the servant 
who called us to go to her assistance, quietly turned about, 
and slept to his usual hour. I must give another trait of 
his tranquillity on a different occasion. He had built 
great casks holding a thousand hogsheads each, and was 
much pleased with their profit and appearance. One 
day, however, he came down to Streatham as usual to 
dinner, and after hearing and talking of a hundred trifles, 
" But I forgot," says he, " to tell you how one of my 
great casks is burst, and all the beer run out." 

' Mr. Thrale's sobriety, and the decency of his con- 
versation, being wholly free from all oaths, ribaldry, and 



IO4 Thrale Described by his Wife, 

profaneness, make him a man exceedingly comfortable 
to live with ; while the easiness of his temper, and slow- 
ness to take offence add greatly to his value as a domestic 
man. Yet I think his servants do not much love him, 
and I am not sure that his children have much affection 
for him ; low people, almost all indeed agree to abhor 
him, as he has none of that officious and cordial manner 
which is universally required by them, nor any skill to 
dissemble his dislike of their coarseness. With regard 
to his wife, though little tender of her person, he is 
very partial to her understanding ; but he is obliging to 
nobody, and confers a favour less pleasing than many a 
man refuses to confer one. This appears to me to be as 
just a character as can be given of the man with whom 
I have now lived thirteen years : and though he is ex- 
tremely reserved and uncommunicative, yet one must 
know something of him after so long acquaintance. 
Johnson has a very great degree of kindness and esteem 
for him, and says if he would talk more his manner would 
be very completely that of a perfect gentleman.'* 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 188. 



CHAPTER V. 

Visit to Dr. Burney's The Lives of the Poets Progress of the Brewery 
Advice about ' Thraliana ' Boswell at Ashbourne Dr. Taylor's Cattle and 
Waterfall Mrs. Thrale in Low Spirits Letters from Johnson Her Alleged 
Inaccuracy A Lecture Precept and Practice Johnson and Lord March- 
mont- Cornelius Ford A Ghost Story Thrale over-brews himself 
' Evelina ' Published Miss Burney Introduced at Streatham Kindly 
Received Second Visit Johnson as an Inmate His Opinions on Dress 
Family Life at Streatham Johnson's Domestic Economy Lady Lade 
Johnson's Portrait The Brewery Prospers The Black Dog Discord in 
Bolt Court Sophy Streatfield Dr. Collier Mrs. Thrale Jealous Tears at 
Command The Thrales at Brighton Mr. Thrale has a Fit Johnson's 
Sympathy Thrale's Health Improves Mrs. Thrale's Dislike of the 
Borough. 

ON March 19, 1777, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale : ' You 
are all young and gay and easy ; but I have miserable 
nights, and know not how to make them better ; but I 
shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. 
Burney's to-morrow. I never thought of meeting you at 
Sir Joshua's, nor knew that it was a great day. But 
things, as sages have observed, happen unexpectedly ; 
and you thought little of seeing me this fortnight, exc ept 
to-morrow. But go where you will, and see if I do not 
catch you. When I am away, everybody runs away with 
you, and carries you among the grisettes, or whither they 
will. I hope you will find the want of me twenty times 
before you see me.'* 

This letter refers to the first visit paid to Dr. Burney's 
house in St. Martin's Street, by the Thrale party, of 
which we have given an account elsewhere.^ 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 345. t 'Fanny Burney and her Friends,' p. 51. 



io6 The Lives of the Poets. 

A few days later, Johnson had an interview, of which 
Lord Macaulay has spoken in a memorable passage : 
'On Easter -Eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a 
meeting, which consisted of forty of the first booksellers 
in London, called upon him. Though he had some 
scruples about doing business at that season, he received 
his visitors with much civility. They came to inform 
him that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley 
downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to 
furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily under- 
took the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently 
qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of 
England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That 
knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly 
from sources which had long been closed ; from old Grub 
Street traditions ; from the talk of forgotten poetasters 
and pamphleteers who had long been lying in parish 
vaults ; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert 
Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button ; 
Gibber, who had mutilated the plays of two generations 
of dramatists ; Orrery, who had been admitted to the 
society of Swift ; and Savage, who had rendered services 
of no very honourable kind to Pope. The biographer 
therefore sat down to his task with a mind full of matter. 
He had at first intended to give only a paragraph to 
every minor poet, and only four or five pages to the 
greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism 
overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was 
originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled 
into ten volumes.'* This paragraph is an expansion of 
what Mrs. Piozzi had expressed in a couple of sentences : 
' Johnson's knowledge of literary history was extensive 
and surprising. He knew every adventure of every book 

* Lord Macaulay's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii., p. 298. 



Mrs. Thr ale's Letters. '107 

you could name almost, and was exceedingly pleased with 
the opportunity which writing the Poets' Lives gave him 
to display it.'* 

Our information respecting the Thrales in 1777 is almost 
entirely derived from the correspondence that passed 
between them and Johnson, and mainly from the Doctor's 
share of it. When the ' Letters to and from the late 
Samuel Johnson, LL.D.' were published by Mrs. Piozzi 
in 1788, Miss Burney wrote : ' The few she has selected 
of her own do her much credit; she has discarded all 
that were trivial and merely local, and given only such as 
contain something instructive, amusing, and ingenious.''!' 
At the present day we would willingly exchange most of 
these studied letters for a few of the discarded ones ; the 
former, which show some awe of the writer's corre- 
spondent, exhibit less ease of style than her later pro- 
ductions ; the latter would at least have thrown more 
light on her life and doings. 

In the summer of 1777 Johnson made his usual journey 
into the Midlands, taking Oxford on his way. At the 
beginning of August he writes to Mrs. Thrale from 
University College that he has picked up some small 
materials for his Lives at the library, and he mentions a 
proposal of Boswell's to meet him during his excursion. 
' Bozzy, you know,' he says, ' makes a huge bustle about 
all his own motions and all mine. I have enclosed a 
letter to pacify him, and reconcile him to the uncertain- 
ties of human life.' \ 

But Johnson's principal topic on his route is the 
prospects of the harvest, which the rapid growth of their 
business had made more than usually interesting and 
important to his master and mistress. Referring to a 

* 'Anecdotes.' t Madam d'Arblay's 'Diary.' 

J ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 349, 350. 



io8 Advice about ' Thraliana' 

pool which Thrale was then making at Streatham, he 
says : ' My master may plant and dig till his pond is an 
ocean, if he can find water, and his parterre a down. I have 
no doubt of a most abundant harvest, and it is said that 
the produce of barley is particularly great. We are not 
far from the great year of a hundred thousand barrels, 
which, if three shillings be gained upon each barrel, will 
bring us fifteen thousand pounds a year. . . . But suppose 
we shall get but two shillings a barrel, that is ten thousand 
a year.' * Again, a few days later : ' But amidst all these 
little things there is one great thing. The harvest is 
abundant, and the weather a la merveille. No season 
ever was finer. Barley, malt, beer, and money. There 
is the series of ideas. The deep logicians call it a sorites. 
I hope my master will no longer endure the reproach of 
not keeping me a horse.'t 

On September 6 he writes : ' As you have now 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, 
and every man's life is of importance to himself. Do not 
omit painful casualties, or unpleasing passages ; they make 
the variegation of existence ; and there are many trans- 
actions of which I will not promise with .^Eneas, ei 
hczc olim meminisse juvabit yet that remembrance which 
is not pleasant may be useful.'^ 

On September 13, from Ashbourne: 'Boswell, I believe, 
is coming. He talks of being here to-day. I shall be 
glad to see him. But he shrinks from the Baltick expe- 
dition, which I think is the best scheme in our power. 
What we shall substitute, I know not. He wants to see 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' i. 357. f Ibid., i. 360. $ Ibid., i. 362. 



Boswell at Ashbourne. 109 

Wales, but except the woods of Bach y Graig, what is 
there in Wales ? What that can fill the hunger of igno- 
rance, or quench the thirst of curiosity ? We may, 
perhaps, form some scheme or other, but, in the phrase 
of Hockley-in-the-Hole,* it is pity he has not a better 
bottom.' ' It appears,' says Boswell, ' that Johnson, 
now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to 
realize the project of our going up the Baltick, which I 
had started when we were in the Isle of Skye.' 

Again, on September 15 : 

' Do you call this punctual correspondence ? There 
was poor I writing, and writing, and writing, on the 8th, 
on the nth, on the I3th ; and on the i5th I looked for a 
letter, but I may look and look. Instead of writing to 
me you are writing the "Thraliana." But he must be 
humble who would please. 

' Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. 
He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little 
at .... 

' You talk of pine-apples and venison. Pine-apples, it 
is sure, we have none ; but venison, no forester that 
lived under the greenwood-tree ever had more frequently 
upon his table. We fry, and roast, and bake, and devour 
in every form. 

' We have at last fair weather in Derbyshire, and every- 
where the crops are spoken of as uncommonly exuberant. 
Let us now get money and have it. All that is paid is 
saved, and all that is laid out in land or malt. But I 
long to see twenty thousand pounds in the bank, and to 
see my master visiting this estate and that, as purchases 

* Hockley-in-the-Hole was in Clerkenwell. In the Spectator, No. 436, 
Hockley-in-the-Hole is described as a place of no small renown for the 
gallantry of the lower order of Britons. In The Beggars Opera, act i., 
Mrs. Peachum says to Filch: 'You should go to Hockley-in-the-Hole, and 
to Marylebone, child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred 
so many brave men.' 



no Mrs. Thrale in Low Spirits. 

are advertised. But perhaps all this may be when Colin's 
forgotten and gone. Do not let me be forgotten before I 
am gone, for you will never have such another as, 

' Dearest dear madam, your most humble servant.'* 

On the i8th he wrote : ' Boswell is with us, in good 
humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.'-f* On 
this Baretti noted in his copy : ' That is, he makes more 
noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing 
loud.' I 

It was no doubt Dr. Taylor at whom Boswell laughed. 
That bucolic clergyman was, ' in his usual way, very 
busy with his cattle and his dogs/ He made Boswell 
ride with him over his farm, and showed him one cow 
which he had sold for a hundred and twenty guineas, and 
another for which he had been offered a hundred and 
thirty ! Johnson in his letters from Ashbourne has fre- 
quent jokes about his host's cattle. He took more 
interest in an artificial cascade, which Dr. Taylor had 
formed by building a strong dyke of stone across the 
river behind his garden. 

On October i Mrs. Thrale writes to him from 
Brighton in a fit of low spirits : 

' In some letter lately you wonder at my using black 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 368. f Ibid., i. 370. 

+ On p. 216 in vol i. he noted : 'Boswell is not quite right-headed, in my 
humble opinion.' 

'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I 
have seen, likewise, his heir apparent, who promises to inherit all the bulk, 
and all the virtues of his sire. I have seen the man who offered an hundred 
guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf.' 'Piozzi 
Letters,' i. 33. 'July 3, 1771. The great bull has no disease but age. I 
hope in time to be like the great bull ; and hope you will be like him, too, a 
hundred years hence. Ibid., p. 39. 'July 10, 1771. There has been a man 
here to-day to take a farm. After some talk he went to see the bull, and said 
that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get a farm?' Ibid., 
p. 43. ' October 31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well ; but we yet hate 
the man that had seen a bigger bull. Our waterfall at the garden makes a 
great roaring this wet weather.' Ibid., p. 61. 



Loss of Children. 1 1 1 

wax for the paper was only not gilt as if you had for- 
gotten my numberless reasons for mourning, because you 
are not perpetually hearing me recall them to your 
memory. Affliction, however, is very good for us all, I 
doubt not, or it would hardly be bestowed so liberally. 
The flower of an aloe tree is, I am told, so peculiarly 
sweet that bees, best judges in such a case, seek it from 
an immense distance ; we know how bitter the stem is, 
and how rarely we are indulged with the blossom. . . . 

' I cannot guess how long we are to stay here ; Mr. 
Thrale does not tell me, and I am, as you say, no good 
winder. . . . 

' When are we likely to meet ? If the doctor's water- 
fall roars happily, I think there is little chance, for a 
month, of your quitting Ashbourne, except to show its 
environs to Mr. Boswell.'* 

Mrs. Thrale certainly had abundant cause for sorrow. 
She had lost child after child, including both her sons. 
At this time she had borne eleven children, and had only 
four daughters living. 

On October 6 Johnson wrote to her : 

' Methinks you are now a great way off; and if I come, 
I have a great way to come to you ; and then the sea is 
so cold, and the rooms are so dull ; yet I do love to hear 
the sea roar, and my mistress talk For when she talks, 
ye gods ! how she will talk. I wish I were with you, but 
we are now near half the length of England asunder. It 
is frightful to think how much time must pass between 
writing this letter and receiving an answer, if any answer 
were necessary. 

' Taylor is now going to have a ram ; and then, after 
Aries and Taurus, we shall have Gemini. His oats are 
now in the wet ; here is a deal of rain. . . . 

* 'Piozzi Letters, ' i. 391-4. 



1 1 2 Hopes of an Heir. 

' When I come to town, I am to be very busy about my 
Lives. Could not you do some of them for me ? . . . I 
am glad master unspelled you, and run you all on rocks, 
and drove you about, and made you stir. Never be cross 
about it. Quiet and calmness you have enough of a 
little hurry stirs life and, 

'"Brushing o'er adds motion to the pool." 

DRYDEN. 

* Now pool brings my master's excavations into my head. 
I wonder how I shall like them ; I should like not to see 
them till we all see them together. He will have no 
waterfall to roar like the doctor's. I sat by it yesterday 
and read Erasmus's Militis Christiani Enchiridion. Have 
you got that book ? 

' Make my compliments to dear Queeney. I suppose 
she will dance at the Rooms ; and your heart will go one 
knows not how.'* 

A few days later he wrote : * I cannot but think on your 
kindness and my master's. Life has, upon the whole, 
fallen short, very short, of my early expectation ; but the 
acquisition of such a friendship, at an age when new 
friendships are seldom acquired, is something better than 
the general course of things gives man a right to expect. 
I think on it with great delight, I am not very apt to be 
delighted.'t 

At the end of November Johnson wrote to Boswell : 
' Mrs. Thrale is in hopes of a young brewer. They got 
by their trade last year a very large sum, and their 
expenses are proportionate.' The lady's hopes, as we 
shall see, were not destined to be fulfilled. 

Boswell made a visit to Streatham at the end of 
March, 1778, his account of which illustrates his constant 
desire to depreciate Mrs. Thrale : ' I had before dinner 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 2. t Ibid., ii. 7. 



A Lectiire. 1 1 3 

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 presence of Johnson, of show- 
ing this lively lady how ready she was, unintentionally, to 
deviate from exact authenticity of narration.' 

A more modest man than James would not have held 
his hostess bound to treasure up every syllable that had 
fallen from him while bestowing all his tediousness on 
the company.* The lady, moreover, would not admit that 
she had been guilty of any mistake. She wrote on the 
margin of the page containing Boswell's reflection : 'Mrs. 
Thrale knew there was no such thing as an old man ; 
when a man gets superannuated they call him an old 
woman.' Boswell certainly had his full share of that 
extreme literalness which, according to Charles Lamb, 
incapacitates Scotchmen for understanding any indirect 
expression. 

The biographer continues his attack : ' 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 

* Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont in 1773 : ' If you do not come here, 
I will bring all the club over to Ireland to live with you, and that will drive 
you here in your own defence. Johnson shall spoil your books, Goldsmith 
pull your flowers, and Boswell talk to you : stay then if you can.' (Jharle- 
mont's Life, i. 347. 

8 



1 1 4 Precept and Practice. 

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 Mr. 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." ! 

Yet that the severe moralist did not, even in his pub- 
lished writings, invariably maintain the high standard of 
truth which he enforced upon others, Boswell himself 
bears witness. ' Dr. Johnson,' he says, ' was by no 
means attentive to minute accuracy in his " Lives of the 
Poets ;" ' and he mentions two instances of misstatements 
in the first impression of that work, which, though pointed 
out to the author, were continued by him in subsequent 
editions.* 'Johnson,' says Mr. Hayward, '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 
relating an anecdote ? or could he do more than swear to 
the best of his recollection and belief if he was ?'-f* 

At the visit to Streatham just mentioned, Johnson, 
according to Boswell's account, had joined him in 

* Boswell's 'Johnson' (Dr. Birkbeck Hill's edition), iii. 359, note 2; 
iv. 51, note 2. 

f Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 278. 



Bo swell and Mrs. Thrale. 115 

lecturing Mrs. Thrale ; on the next occasion of his dining 
there, the Scotchman had accompanied Johnson on the 
invitation of the latter alone, a sufficient proof of the lady's 
good nature. Yet if we may believe the biographer, Johnson 
on their way down talked to him of 'a certain female friend's 
laxity of narration, and inattention to truth,' saying : ' Do 
talk to her of it : I am weary !' Of course, Mrs. Thrale 
is meant, and of course Boswell, though he printed this 
story in his book, was prudent enough to avoid a quarrel 
while good dinners were to be enjoyed at Streatham. He 
tells us that, on their arrival, Johnson was occupied for a 
considerable time in reading the ' Memoirs of Fontenelli,' 
leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the Court 
without his hat. We cannot wonder that, after reading 
what her revered friend was reported to have said of her 
behind her back, the lady should have had the malice to 
write opposite to this passage in her copy of BoswelPs Life : 
' I wonder how he liked the story of the asparagus ' a 
palpable hit at Johnson's selfishness at table. This time, 
however, Johnson, instead of crushing his hostess, turned 
upon the North Briton. At dinner Mrs. Thrale magnani- 
mously expressed a wish to go and see Scotland. 
JOHNSON : ' Seeing Scotland, madam, is only seeing a 
worse England. It is seeing the flower gradually fade 
away to the naked stalk. Seeing the Hebrides, indeed, 
is seeing quite a different scene.' 

Mrs. Thrale, on her part, was not afraid to hint her 
displeasure even to the great man himself when his 
behaviour appeared to be unreasonable. Thus, in the 
May following, officious Boswell had obtained from Lord 
Marchmont a promise to furnish information for the life 
of Pope, which Johnson was then about to write. ' Elated,' 
writes the biographer, ' with the success of my spontaneous 
exertion, I hastened down to Mr. Thrale's at Streatha m 

82 



1 1 6 Johnson and Lord Marchmont. 

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, 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. Some time afterwards he said : " Lord March- 
mont will call upon me, and then I shall call on Lord 
Marchmont." Mrs. Thrale was uneasy at this unaccount- 
able 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.' 

' Of Johnson's pride,' says Northcote, ' I have heard 
Reynolds observe that if any man drew him into a state 
of obligation without his own consent, that man was the 
first he would affront by way of clearing off the account.'* 
On this afternoon, having duly snubbed his patient 
admirer, he recovered his temper, and fell into conversa- 
tion on a licentious stanza attributed to Pope, and other 
matters, some of which would be deemed too delicate to 
be handled at a modern dinner-party. 

During this talk, Boswell suddenly introduced a fresh 
topic. ' Among the numerous prints/ he says, ' pasted 

* Northcote's 'Reynolds,' i. 71. 



Cornelius Ford. 1 17 

on the walls of the dining-room at Streatham, was 
Hogarth's " Modern Midnight Conversation.'" Dr. Birk- 
beck Hill wonders whether the word pasted is here strictly 
used, and thinks it likely that the wealthy brewer, who 
had a taste for the fine arts, afforded Hogarth at least a 
frame. ' I asked him,' continues Boswell, 'what he knew 
of Parson Ford, who makes a conspicuous figure in the 
riotous group. . . . Was there not a story of his ghost 
having appeared ?' An appeal of this kind was never 
addressed in vain to Johnson. It turned out that he knew 
a great deal about the parson, and all that there was to 
be known respecting his ghost. The Reverend Cornelius 
Ford was a cousin of Johnson, who had heard that he was 
' a man of great parts, very profligate, but not impious/ 
He died at the Hummums* in Covent Garden, a place 
whither people resorted in those days to get themselves 
cupped. A waiter at the house, who had been absent 
when the death occurred, returned without knowing what 
had happened, and in his visits to the cellar met Ford 
twice. Learning that Ford was dead, he was seized with 
a fever, on recovering from which he said that he had a 
message to deliver to some women from the deceased. 
He went out to deliver it, and when he came back said 
that he had performed his errand, and that the women had 
exclaimed, ' Then we are all undone !' Dr. Pellet, con- 
tinued Johnson, who was not a credulous man, inquired 
into the truth of this story, and he said the evidence was 
irresistible. The sage added that his own wife went to 
the Hummums to investigate the matter, and came away 
satisfied that it was true ; but, he cautiously observed, the 
supernatural part of the narrative rested entirely on the 
word of the waiter. 

* Baths are called Hummums in the East, and hence these hotels in Covent 
Garden, where there were baths, were called by that name. 



ii8 Over- B reiving. 

These things to hear from their revered friend did 
Boswell and Mrs. Thrale seriously incline on that May 
evening. On the following day Johnson talked a great 
deal in very good humour. The history of these two days 
at Streatham, as told by Boswell, sets some of the 
peculiarities of the sage's temper and conversation in a 
very clear light, but we cannot afford space for illustra- 
tions unconnected with the place or the family. A 
few days afterwards Boswell returned to Scotland, where 
he heard from Johnson, under date of July 3 : ' Mrs. 
Thrale, poor thing ! has a daughter. Mr. Thrale dislikes 
the times, like the rest of us.' The lady is pitied because 
she has been disappointed of the young brewer, who had 
been hoped for ; the cause of the brewer's discontent is 
explained in an entry made shortly after in ' Thraliana ' : 

* July 18, 1778. Mr. Thrale over-brewed 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 brew a larger quantity 
of beer in one winter than 80,000 barrels ; 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.'* 

In the summer of this year, the world was talking 
largely of a new novel by an anonymous writer. Suc- 
cesful novels were much less common in those days than 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 74. 



Miss Biirney at Streatham. 1 1 9 

they are now ; and great was the interest when it became 
known that the author of ' Evelina ' was a child of Dr. 
Burney, historian of music, and a popular professor of 
the art. Being a constant visitor at Streatham Park, 
where he gave lessons to Queeney, the Doctor was at once 
invited to introduce the daughter who had suddenly 
become an object of curiosity. In the early part of 
August, 1778, Fanny Burney entered in her Diary an 
account of her first visit to Streatham, which had taken 
place a few days before : 

" 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 for 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 paddock. Mrs. Thrale was strolling about, 
and came to us as we got out of the chaise. 

" She there 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 upstairs, 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. 



1 20 Mr. Seward. 

" 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 ' Laelius,' 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.t How different from the 
delicacy of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale!" After giving an 
account of the conversation at dinner, the Diary proceeds : 
" We left Streatham at about eight o'clock, and Mr. 
Seward, who handed me into the chaise, added his 
interest to the rest, that my father would not fail to 
bring me again next week to stay with them for some 
time."! 

* William Seward, F.R.S., author of 'Anecdotes of some Distinguished 
Persons' and ' Biographiana,' a sequel to the same. He was an intimate 
friend of the Thrales, and is not to be confounded with the Rev. Mr. Seward 
of Lichfield. 

t ' Few people do him justice,' said Mrs. Thrale of Seward, ' because, as 
Ur. Johnson calls him, he is an abrupt young man ; but he has excellent qualities, 
and an excellent understanding.' Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' new edition, i. 85. 

I Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 21-25. 



Mrs. Tkrale as Hostess. 121 

This second visit took place as proposed, and Miss 
Burney wrote of it : 

" Our journey was charming. The kind Mrs. Thrale 
would give courage to the most timid. She did not ask 
me questions, or catechize 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 I shall write of nothing else. 

" When we arrived here, Mrs. Thrale showed me my 
room, which is an exceeding pleasant one, and then con- 
ducted me to the library, there to divert myself while she 
dressed. 

" Miss Thrale soon joined me, and I began to like her. 
Mr. Thrale was neither well, nor in spirits all day. Indeed, 
he seemed 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. 

" After dinner I had a delightful stroll with Mrs. Thrale, 
and she gave me a list of all her ' good neighbours ' in 
the town of Streatham, and said she was determined to 

take me to see Mr. , the clergyman, who was a 

character I could not but be diverted with, for he had so 
furious and absurd a rage for building, that in his garden 
he had as many temples, and summer-houses, and statues 
as there are in the gardens of Stowe ; though he had 
so little room for them, that they all seemed tumbling one 
upon another. In short, she was all unaffected drollery 
and sweet good humour. 

" At tea 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 



1 2 2 Johnson on Children and Dress. 

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, 1 answered he, 'are in nobody's 
way ; no children can be better managed, or less trouble- 
some ; 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. . . .* 

" Saturday morning. Dr. Johnson was again all himself, 
and so civil to me even admiring how I dressed myself. 
Indeed, it is well I have so much of his favour, for it 
seems he always speaks his mind concerning the dress of 
ladies, and all ladies who are here obey his injunctions 
implicitly, and alter whatever he disapproves. This is a 
part of his character. that much surprises me; but not- 
withstanding he is sometimes so absent, and always so 

* Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 29-31. 



Flattery from Johnson. 123 

near-sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost 
everybody's appearance. . . . 

" We had been talking of colours, and of the fantastic 
names given to them, and why the palest lilac should be 
called a soupir etouffe. 

" ' 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 
tease 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 !'* 

" Streatham, August 26. My opportunities for writing 
grow less and less, and my materials more and more. 
After breakfast, I have scarcely a moment that I can spare 
all day. Mrs. Thrale I like more and more. Of all the 
people I have ever seen since I came into this " gay and 
gaudy world," I never before saw the person who so 
strongly resembles our dear father. I find the likeness 
perpetually; she has the same natural liveliness, the same 
general benevolence, the same rare union of gaiety and of 
feeling in the disposition. 

* Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 40, 41. 



124 Life at Streatham. 

" And so kind is she to me ! She told me, at first, that 
I should have all my mornings to myself, and therefore I 
have actually studied to avoid her, lest I should be in her 
way ; but since the first morning she seeks me, sits with 
me, saunters with me in the park, or compares notes over 
books in the library ; and her conversation is delightful ; 
it is so entertaining, so gay, so enlivening, when she is in 
spirits, and so intelligent and instructive when she is 
otherwise, that I almost as much wish to record all she 
says as all Dr. Johnson says. Proceed no ! Go back, 
my muse, to Thursday. Dr. Johnson came home to 
dinner. 

"In the evening, he was as lively, and full of wit and 
sport as I have ever seen him, and Mrs. Thrale and I had 
him quite to ourselves, for Mr. Thrale came in from giving 
an election dinner (to which he sent two bucks and six 
pine-apples) so tired that he neither opened his eyes nor 
his mouth, but fell fast asleep. Indeed, after tea he 
generally does. 

" Dr. Johnson was very communicative concerning his 
present work of the ' Lives of the Poets ' ; Dryden is 
now in the press, and he told us he had been just writing 
a dissertation upon ' Hudibras/ "* 

Miss Burney made another visit to Streatham in 
September. On her arrival Dr. Johnson was absent, 
having gone to stay with his friend Bennet Langton, who 
was a captain in the Lincolnshire Militia, and then 
stationed with his regiment at Warley Camp.f Three 
days later, however, he returned, to her great joy. " At 

* Mine. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 44. 

t A threat of invasion by the united forces of France and Spain, at the 
time when we were at war with America, had caused the militia to be called 
out. ' We shall at least not doze as we used to do in summer. The Parlia- 
ment is to have only short adjournments ; and our senators, instead of retiring 
to horse-races (their plough), are all turned soldiers, and disciplining militia. 
Camps everywhere.' Horace Walpole to Mann, May 31, 1778. 



Johnsons Domestic Economy. 125 

tea-time," she writes, "the subject turned upon the 
domestic economy of Dr. Johnson's own household. 

"MR. THRALE : * And pray who is clerk of your 
kitchen, Sir ?" 

" DR. JOHNSON : ' Why, Sir, I am afraid there is none. 
A general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am told 
by Mr. Levet, who says it is not now what it used to be.' 

" MRS. THRALE : ' Mr. Levet, I suppose, Sir, has the 
office of keeping the hospital in health ? for he is an 
apothecary.' 

" DR. JOHNSON : ' 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 
dressed?' 

" DR. JOHNSON : ' Why, Desmoulins has the chief 
management of the kitchen ; but our roasting is not 
magnificent, for we have no jack.' 

" MR. THRALE : ' No jack ! Why, how do they manage 
without ?' 

" DR. JOHNSON : ' 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. THRALE : ' Well, but you'll have a spit, too ?' 

" DR. JOHNSON : ' No, Sir, no ; that would be super- 
fluous ; for we shall never use it ; and if a jack is seen, 
a spit will be presumed.' 

" MRS. THRALE : ' 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!' 

11 DR. JOHNSON : ' Why, I took to Poll very well at 
first, but she won't do upon a nearer examination.' 



126 Lady Lade. 

" MRS. THRALE : ' How came she among you, Sir ?' 

" DR. JOHNSON : * 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." "* 

During this visit Miss Burney met another member of 
the Thrale family, of whom she gives no very flattering 
account. In describing the guests at a dinner-party, she 
writes : " Lady Lade I ought to have begun with her. 
I beg her ladyship a thousand pardons though if she 
knew my offence I am sure I should not obtain one. She 
is own sister to Mr. Thrale. She is a tall and stout 
woman ; has an air of mingled dignity and haughtiness, 
both of which wear off in conversation. She dresses very 
youthful and gaily, and attends to her person with no 
little complacency. She appears to me uncultivated in 
knowledge, though an adept in the manners of the world, 
and all that. She chooses to be much more lively than 
her brother ; but liveliness sits as awkwardly upon her as 
her pink ribbons Lady Lade has been very hand- 
some, but is now, I think, quite ugly at least, she has a 
sort of face I like not."t 

At another time, when finding fault with a bandeau 
then in fashion, Johnson said : ' 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 a bandeau, 
and said she never would, because it is unbecoming.' 

" DR. JOHNSON (laughing) : ' Did not she ? Then is 

* Mine. d'Arblay's < Diary,' i. 63. t Ibid.^ I 86. 



Bolt Court. 127 

Lady Lade a charming woman, and I have yet hopes of 
entering into engagements with her!' 

" MRS. THRALE : ' 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. JOHNSON : ' 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 Lillipu- 
tian ; and of you there is so little in all, that one single 
absurdity would swallow up half of you.' "* 

Mrs. Thrale and Madame d'Arblay paint Johnson at 
Streatham in very different colours from those which he 
usually wears in Boswell's pages. When his biographer 
met him in London, he was for the most part either at 
home, or in the company of men only. In October, 1778, 
he was at Bolt Court ill, and wrote thence in low spirits 
to his mistress, who was at Brighton : 

" You that are among all the wits, delighting and 
delighted, have little need of entertainment from me, 
whom you left at home unregarded and unpitied, to 
shift in a world to which you have made me so much a 
stranger. Yet I know you will pretend to be angry if I 
do not write a letter, which, when you know the hand, 
you will perhaps lay aside to be read when you are dress- 
ing to-morrow ; and which, when you have read it, if 
that time ever comes, you will throw away into the 
drawer and say ' stuff '!....! have sat twice to Sir 
Joshua, and he seems to like his own performance. He 
has projected another, in which I am to be busy ; but we 
can think on it at leisure 

" Now miss has seen the camp, I think she should 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 67. 



128 The Brewery Prospers. 

write some account of it. A camp, however familiarly 
we may speak of it, is one of the great scenes of human 
life. War and peace divide the business of the world. 
Camps are the habitation of those who conquer kingdoms, 
or defend them. 

" But what are wits, and pictures, and camps, and 
physick ? There is still a nearer concern to most of us. 
Is my master come to himself? Does he talk, and walk, 
and look about him, as if there were yet something in the 
world for which it is worth while to live ? Or does he 
yet sit and say nothing ? He was mending before he 
went, and surely he has not relapsed."* 

Nine days later he wrote : " You appear to me to be 
now floating on the spring-tide of prosperity, on a tide 
not governed by the moon, but as the moon governs 
your heads ; on a tide, therefore, which is never likely to 
ebb but by your own faults. I think it very probably in 
your power to lay up eight thousand pounds a year for 
every year to come, increasing all the time, what needs 
not be increased, the splendour of all external appear- 
ance. And surely such a state is not to be put into 
yearly hazard for the pleasure of keeping the house full, 
or the ambition of outbrewing Whitbread. Stop now, 
and you are safe stop a few years, and you may go 
safely on thereafter, if to go on shall seem worth the 
while."* 

Again, on October 31 : " Long live Sir John Shelley that 
lures my master to hunt. I hope he will soon shake off the 
black dog, and come home as light as a feather. And long 

live Mrs. G , that downs my mistress. I hope she 

will come home as flexible as a rush. . . . Sir Joshua 
has finished my picture, and it seems to please everybody, 
but I shall wait to see how it pleases you."J 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 20. t Ibid., ii. 24. Ibid., ii. 26. 



The Black Dog. 129 

The picture here referred to is the familiar portrait of 
Johnson, which was one of the Streatham portraits to be 
presently mentioned. 

Mrs. Thrale says in reply : * I have lost what made my 
happiness in all seasons of the year ; but the black dog 
shall not make prey of both my master and myself. My 
master swims now, and forgets the black dog.'* 

Thrale, having surmounted the temporary embarrass- 
ment caused by his over-brewing in the previous winter, 
recovered a portion of his spirits ; but his sorrow for the 
loss of his male heir was more deep-seated and corroding 
than his wife's. Baretti, in a marginal note on the ' Piozzi 
Letters,' says : ' Mr. Thrale, who was a worldly man, 
and followed the direction of his own feelings with no phi- 
losophical or Christian distinctions, having lost the strong 
hope of being one day succeeded in the profitable brewery 
by the only son he had left, gave himself silently up to his 
grief, and fell in a few years a victim to it.' In a later 
note he says : ' The poor man could never subdue his grief 
on account of his son's death.' 

Johnson, while seeking to rouse his friend, was suffering 
from domestic troubles of his own. His letters speak 
of scolds between Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, 
and of Levet standing at bay, fierce as ten furies. At length, 
on November 14, he writes : 

" I really think I shall be very glad to see you all 
safe at home. I shall easily forgive my master his 
long stay, if he leaves the dog behind him. We will 
watch, as well as we can, that the dog shall never be 
let in again, for when he comes, the first thing he does 
is to worry my master. This time he gnawed him to the 
bone. Content, said Rider's almanack, makes a man 
richer than the Indies. But surelyJij:hat has the Indies 

* ' Piozzi Lett 




1 30 Sophy Streatfield. 

in his possession, may, without very much philosophy, 
make himself content. So much for my master and his 
dog, a vile one it is, but I hope if he is not hanged, 
he is drowned ; with another lusty shake he will pick my 
master's heart out. . . . Mr. Macbean has no business. 
We have tolerable concord at home, but no love. 
Williams hates everybody. Levet hates Desmoulins, and 
does not love Williams. Desmoulins hates them both. 
Poll loves none of them. . . . 

" Mrs. Queeney might write to me, and do herself no 
harm ; she will neglect me till I shall take to Susy, and 
then Queeney may break her heart, and who can be 
blamed ? I am sure I have stuck to Queeney as long as I 
could."* 

Shortly before she made acquaintance with Miss Burney, 
Mrs. Thrale had grown intimate with another young lady, 
who, like herself, had been a pupil of Dr. Collier. Sophia 
Streatfield, the beautiful daughter of a handsome and 
wealthy widow, had studied Greek under the learned 
Civilian. Though growing infirm from age when they 
first met, the preceptor inspired his fair scholar with an 
attachment even warmer than that which had subsisted 
between him and Hester Salusbury. At the end of several 
years, he died in her house, and was buried at her expense. 
She and Mrs. Thrale were afterwards thrown together at 
Brighton, and having often heard of each other, at once 
became fast friends. The elder at first had nothing but 
praise for the younger, and was never tired of listening to 
her stories of their old master. Presently, however, 
jealousy arose between the two ladies. The matron 
observed, or fancied she observed, that Sophy, not con- 
tented with her legitimate succession to the heart of Dr. 
Collier, was endeavouring to supplant herself in the 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 37. 



Sophy Streatfield. \ 3 1 

esteem of Mr. Thrale. ' No wonder,' she wrote,* ' that 
Mr. Thrale, whose mind wanted some new object since he 
has lost his son, and lost besides the pleasure he had 
taken in his business, encouraged a sentimental attachment 
to Sophia Streatfield, who became daily more and more 
dear to him, and almost necessary.' Her husband, she 
complained, absented himself from home, and spent his 
time in Clifford Street, where the Streatfields lived. 
' Miss Browne,' she adds, ' who sang enchantingly, and 
had been much abroad, and Miss Burney, whose powers 
of amusement were many and various, were my com- 
panions then at Streatham Park, with Dr. Johnson ; who 
wanted me to be living in the Borough, because less 
inconvenient to him, and so said that I passed my winter 
in Surrey, feeding my chickens and starving my under- 
standing.'t 

In January, 1779, she made the following entry in 
' Thraliana ' : ' 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 in- 
sinuating ; 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 and all for love of me as she pretends that I can 
hardly sometimes help laughing in her face.'J 

The fair S. S., as Sophy Streatfield was familiarly 
called at Streatham Park, was first seen there by Miss 
Burney in February, 1779, and is frequently mentioned by 
the latter in her Diary : " I find her a very amiable girl, and 
extremely handsome ; not so wise as I expected, but very 
well ; however, had she not chanced to have had so 
uncommon an education, with respect to literature or 

* In a note on a copy of the ' Piozzi Letters." f Hay ward's c Piozzi,' ii. 36. 
J Ibid., i. III. 

92 



132 Tears at Command. 

learning, I believe she would not have made her way 
among the wits by the force of her natural parts. 

" 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 per- 
fectly composed."* 

Miss Burney mentions another scene of the same kind 
as having occurred a little later : 

" ' Seward,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' had affronted Johnson, 
and then Johnson affronted Seward, and then 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.' 

* Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 135. 



At Brighton. 133 

" 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 every- 
body. 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 com- 
plexion 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 ?"* 

In the last days of May, 1779, the Thrales, accompanied by 
Miss Burney, went to their house at Brighton, where they 
were joined by Arthur Murphy. Miss Burney writes : 

" Just before we went to dinner a chaise drove up to the 
door, and from it issued Mr. Murphy. He met with a 
very joyful reception, and Mr. Thrale, for the first time 
in his life, said he was * a good fellow,' for he makes it a 
sort of rule to salute him with the title of ' scoundrel ' or 
' rascal.' They are very old friends, and I question if 
Mr. Thrale loves any man so well. . . . Mr. Murphy was 
the life of the party ; he was in good spirits, and extremely 
entertaining ; he told a million of stories admirably well. ' 
* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 154. 



134 Mr. Thrale Struck with Apoplexy. 

A day or two afterwards : " We had a very grand dinner 
to-day (though nothing to a Streatham dinner) at the 
Ship Tavern, where the officers mess, to which we were 
invited by the Major and Captain." As the Major was a 
man of at least 8,000 a year, and the Captain of 4,000 
or 5,000, the dinner was likely to be grand enough. 
" The supper was very gay; Mrs. Thrale was in high spirits, 
and her wit flashed with incessant brilliancy. Mr. 
Murphy told several stories with admirable humour, and 
the Bishop of Peterborough was a worthy third in con- 
tributing towards general entertainment."* 

After a few days' stay the party returned to Streatham, 
and at the beginning of June Mr. Thrale had his first 
attack of apoplexy. He had slept at Streatham Park, and 
left it after breakfast looking as usual. His sister's 
husband, Mr. Nesbitt, had recently died, and he had gone 
to the widow's house to hear the will read. There he was 
taken ill during dinner ; his head sank upon the table, 
and as soon as he was able to raise it, he was found to be 
unconscious ; his speech was confused, and he seemed to 
know nobody. Mrs. Nesbitt and her lady companion 
thought he was delirious ; ' instead of calling help, they 
called their carriage, and brought him five or six miles out 
of town in that condition was it not enough to enrage 
one ?' says Mrs. Thrale indignantly. Dr. Burney and his 
daughter seem to have been at Streatham when the sick 
man arrived, and to have at once proceeded to London in 
search of medical aid. Fanny, who returned immediately 
afterwards, reports that he was much better before the 
physician came, though he was not himself again for 
three days. ' At dinner,' she writes, * everybody tried to 
be cheerful ; but a dark and gloomy cloud hangs over the 
head of poor Mr. Thrale, which no flashes of merriment 
* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 144. 



Johnsons Sympathy. 135 

or beams of wit can pierce through ; yet he seems pleased 
that everybody should be gay, and desirous to be spoken 
to and of as usual.'* 

Johnson had started for Lichfield and Ashbourne before 
the Thrales went to Brighton, and did not return to 
London till the close of June. On May 29 he wrote : 
' It is good to wander a little, lest one should dream that 
all the world was Streatham, of which one may venture 
to say, none but itself can be, its parallel' After hearing the 
bad news he wrote again : ' I am the more alarmed by 
this violent seizure, as I can impute it to no wrong 
practices or intemperance of any kind. . . . What can he 
reform ? or what can he add to his regularity and tem- 
perance ? He can only sleep less.' Baretti, in a note on 
this, says : ' Dr. Johnson knew that Thrale would eat like 
four, let physicians preach. . . . Maybe he did not know 
it, so little did he mind what people were doing. Though 
he sat by Thrale at dinner, he never noticed whether he 
eat much or little. A strange man !' 

But Johnson's want of observation certainly did not 
arise from indifference. On June 24 he wrote to Mrs. 
Thrale : 

' You really do not use me well in thinking that I am 
in less pain on this occasion than I ought to be. There 
is nobody left for me to care about but you and my 
master, and I have now for many years known the value 
of his friendship and the importance of his life too well 
not to have him very near my heart. I did not at first 
understand his danger, and when I knew it, I was told 
likewise that it was over and over I hope it is for ever. 
. . . Do what you can, however, to keep my master 
cheerful and slightly busy till his health is confirmed ; and 
if we can be sure of that, let Mr. Perkins go to Ireland 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 149. 



136 Thrale s Health Improves. 

and come back as opportunity offers, or necessity requires, 
and keep yourself airy, and be a sunny little thing.'* 

On July 30 Miss Burney wrote to her friend Crisp : 
' I have the pleasure to tell you that Mr. Thrale is as well 
as ever he was in health, though the alarming and terrible 
blow he so lately received has, I fear, given a damp to 
his spirits that will scarce ever be wholly conquered. Yet 
he grows daily rather more cheerful ; but the shock was 
too rude and too cruel to be ever forgotten.'t 

At the time of the brewer's seizure, his wife was 
expecting to become a mother for the thirteenth time. 
' A quarrel among the clerks,' she wrote afterwards, 
' which I was called to pacify, made a complete finish of 
the child, and nearly of me. The men were reconciled, 
though, and my danger accelerated their reconcilement.' 

Early in October the family went to their house at 
Brighton, taking Fanny Burney with them, and stopping 
to visit Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells by the way. 
Johnson remained in London, in better spirits than usual, 
though suffering a little from gout, and harassed by the 
dissensions in his household. On October 28 he wrote : 
' I eat meat seldom, and take physic often, and fancy that 
I grow light and airy. A man that does not begin to 
grow light and airy at seventy is certainly losing time, if 
he intends ever to be light and airy.'! The news from 
Sussex helped to keep him cheerful : ' I hear from every- 
body that Mr. Thrale grows better. He is columen domus ; 
and if he stands firm, little evils may be overlooked.' He 
wrote to Mrs. Thrale on November 7 : ' My master, I hope, 
hunts and walks and courts the belles, and shakes Bright- 
helmstone. When he comes back, frolic and active, we 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 56. f Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 167. 

I ' Piozzi Letters," ii. 73. 

Ibid., ii. 77. Mrs. Thrale was suffering from toothache. 



Dissensions in Bolt Coitrt. 137 

will make a feast, and drink his health, and have a noble 
day. . . . Have you any assemblies at this time of the 
year ? And does Queeney dance ? And does Burney 

dance too ? I would have Burney dance with C ,* 

and so make all up. Discord keeps her residence in this 
habitation, but she has for some time been silent. We 
have much malice, but no mischief. Levet is rather a 
friend to Williams, because he hates Desmoulins more. 
A thing that he should hate more than Desmoulins is not 
to be found.'-f- Again nine days later he says : ' At home 
we do not much quarrel ; but perhaps the less we quarrel 
the more we hate. There is as much malignity amongst 
us as can well subsist, without any thoughts of daggers or 
poisons.'^ 

His correspondent wrote after his death : ' He really 
was oftentimes afraid of going home, because he was so 
sure to be met at the door with numberless complaints ; 
and he used to lament pathetically to me that they made 
his life miserable from the impossibility he found of making 
theirs happy, when every favour he bestowed on one was 
wormwood to the rest. If, however, I ventured to blame 
their ingratitude, and condemn their conduct, he would 
instantly set about softening the one and justifying the 
other, and finished commonly by telling me that I knew 
not how to make allowances for situations I had never 
experienced.' 

The improvement in Thrale's health appears to have 
continued to the end of the year, but there were occasional 
fluctuations which caused his wife much uneasiness. At 
one moment she conceived the idea of inducing her 
husband to vest his business in trustees, and to remove 

* Cumberland, who was then at Brighton, and of course jealous of the 
author of ' Evelina.' 

f 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 79. % Ibid., ii. 93. 'Anecdotes.' 



138 Dislike of the Borough. 

with his family to the West-end. One motive which she 
assigned for these proposals was fear of embarrassment 
from expensive additions which the sick brewer was 
tempted to make to his premises. In the letter last 
quoted from, Johnson comments on her scheme with his 
customary freedom of language : 

" I do not see who can be trustee for a casual and 
variable property, for a fortune yet to be acquired. The 
trade must be carried on by somebody who must be 
answerable for the debts contracted. This can be none 
but yourself; unless you deliver up the property to some 
other agent, and trust the chance both of his prudence 
and his honesty. Do not be frighted ; trade could not 
be managed by those who manage it, if it had much 
difficulty. Their great books are soon understood, and 
their language 

' If speech it may be call'd, that speech is none 
Distinguishable in number, mood , or tense ' 

is understood with no very laborious application. . . 
What Mr. Scrase says about the Borough is true, 
but is nothing to the purpose. A house in the square 
will not cost so much as building in Southwark ; but 
buildings are more likely to go on in Southwark if 
your dwelling is at St. James's. Everybody has some 
desire that deserts the great road of prosperity, to look 
for pleasure in a bye-path. I do not view with so much 
indignation Mr. Thrale's desire of being the first Brewer, 
as your despicable dread of living in the Borough. . . . 
Of this folly let there be an end at least, an inter- 
mission.'* 

This plain-speaking had its effect for the time ; and the 
Thrales spent the winter in Southwark as usual. 

Meanwhile the lady continued to be vexed by jealousy 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 92. 



Sophy Streatfield Again. 139 

of the fair S. S. ' Here is Sophy Streatfield again,' she 
wrote, ' 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. I repeated to 
her out of Pope's Homer : " Very well, Sophy," cried I : 

' " Range undisturbed among the hostile crew, 

But touch not Hinchcliffe, f Hinchcliffe 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 she has none.' J 

'This incomprehensible girl,' as Mrs. Thrale called her, 
harassed the latter down to the time of her husband's 
death, and afterwards. Thrale fondled her when he was 
well ; she sat by his sick-bed ; when he was gone she 
teased the widow with tales of his passion for her ; and 
then went in quest of fresh admirers. No one ever 
impugned Sophy's character ; she was engaged for many 
years to a clergyman ; but she finally died an old maid. 
She was everybody's admiration, and nobody's choice. 

* Dr. Porteous, afterwards Bishop of London. 

t For Hector. Hinchcliffe was Bishop of Peterborough. 

J Hay ward's 'Piozzi,' i. 113. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Thrale has a Second Fit Recruits at Bath Anxiety about him Society 
at Bath Melmoth An Election in Prospect Mrs. Thrale visits Southward 
Her Activity Johnson Flattered The Life of Congreve The Gordon 
Riots Alarm at Bath The Brewery Saved Address of Perkins The 
Thrales Flee from Bath Quiet Restored in London Zeal of John 
Wilkes Anecdotes Perkins Rewarded Johnson and Queeney Mrs. 
Cholmondely Seventy-Two Bolt Court Thrale Loses his Seat His 
Health Declines The Streatham Portraits Verses on Them by Mrs. 
Thrale The Library at Streatham Park Grosvenor Square Conversazione 
Other Entertainments A Foreign Tour Projected Signs of Danger 
Voracious Appetite Sudden Death Johnson's Grief He Comforts the 
Widow The Will The Executors Distress of Mrs. Thrale The Trade 
to be Carried on Johnson's Mercantile Ardour The Brewery Sold The 
Barclays The Summer at Streatham Johnson and Pepys Piozzi and 
Sacchini Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney. 

MR. THRALE never completely recovered from his first 
attack of apoplexy. His appetite, at all times immo- 
derate, became morbidly voracious. 

' Cibus omnis in illo 
Causa cibi est ; semperque locus fit inanis edendo,'* 

was the quotation, more apt than feeling, by which his 
wife afterwards described his state at this time. He 
was incapable of self-control, and would suffer no remon- 
strance. ' Nobody,' says Baretti, ' ever had spirit enough 
to tell him that his fits were apoplectic : such is the 
blessing of being rich, that nobody dares to speak out.' 
He had a second seizure at his house in the Borough, 
towards the end of February, 1780 : was bled till he 
fainted ; and after a prolonged struggle, rallied, contrary 

* Ovid, Met., viii. 841, 842. 



or Thrale. 141 

to the expectation of his physicians, who, as soon as 
possible, sent him to recruit at Bath with his family. 

The party were accompanied by Fanny Burney ; and 
her diary, coupled with the correspondence between 
Mrs. Thrale and Johnson, who remained in town, 
furnishes a full account of all that happened during the 
visit. On April 6 Johnson wrote : 

" If health and reason can be preserved by changing 
three or four meals a week, or if such change will best 
increase the chances of preserving them, the purchase is 
surely not made at a very high price. Death is dreadful, 
and fatuity is more dreadful, and such strokes bring both 
so near, that all their terrors ought to be felt. I hope 
that to our anxiety for him Mr. Thrale will add some 
anxiety for himself. .... Now one courts you, and 
another caresses you, and one calls you to cards, and 
another wants you to walk ; and amidst all this, pray try 
to think now and then a little of me, and write often."* 

The writer having published the first four volumes of 
his ' Lives of the Poets ' in the spring of the preceding 
year, was now engaged on the composition of the remain- 
ing six. On April n he writes again : ' Do you go to the 
house where they write for the Myrtle ?-f- You are at 
all places of high resort, and bring home hearts by 
dozens ; while I am seeking for something to say about 
men of whom I know nothing but their verses, and 
sometimes very little of them. Now I have begun, how- 
ever, I do not despair of making an end.']: 

On April 28 Mrs. Thrale wrote : " I had a very kind 
letter from you yesterday, dear sir, with a most circum- 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 97. 

t Lady Miller's, at Batheaston, where a vase was kept dressed with pink 
ribbons and myrtles, into which competitors for prizes offered by the mistress 
of the house were invited to put copies of verses. 

% ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 100. 



142 Bath Society. 

stantial date.* You took trouble with my circulating 
letter,t Mr. Evans writes me word, and I thank you 
sincerely for so doing; one might do mischief else, not 
being on the spot. 

" Yesterday evening was passed at Mrs. Montagu's. 
There was Mr. Melmoth.:}; I do not like him, though, 
nor he me. It was expected we should have pleased each 
other. He is, however, just Tory enough to hate the 
Bishop of Peterborough for Whiggism, and Whig enough 
to abhor you for Toryism. 

" Mrs. Montagu flattered him finely ; so he had a good 
afternoon on't. This evening we spent at a concert. 
Poor Queeney's sore eyes have just released her; she had 
a long confinement, and could neither read nor write ; 
so my master treated her very good-naturedly with the 
visits of a young woman in this town, a tailor's daughter, 
who professes music, and teaches so as to give six 
lessons a day to ladies, at five and threepence a lesson. 
Miss Burney says she is a great performer ; and I respect 
the wench for getting her living so prettily : she is very 
modest and pretty-mannered, and not seventeen years 
old. 

" You live in a fine whirl indeed ; if I did not write 

* Johnson, who often complained that his correspondent was careless in 
dating her letters, had dated his letter, ' London, April 25, 1780,' and added : 
' Now there is a date ; look at it.' ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 109. In his reply he 
wrote : 'London, May I, 1780. Mark that you did not put the year to your 
last.' Ibid., ii. 112. 

f An Address to the Electors of Southwark. 

I The author of the Fitzosborne Letters. Miss Burney has thus described 
this evening : ' We were appointed to meet the Bishop of Chester at Mrs. 
Montagu's. This proved a very gloomy kind of grandeur ; the Bishop waited 
for Mrs. Thrale to speak, Mrs. Thrale for the Bishop ; so neither of them 
spoke at all. Mrs. Montagu cared not a fig, as long as she spoke herself, and 
so she harangued away. Meanwhile Mr. Melmoth, the Pliny Melmoth, as he 
is called, was of the party, and seemed to think nobody half so great as him- 
self. He seems intolerably self-sufficient appears to look upon himself as the 
first man in Bath, and has a proud conceit in look and manner, mighty for- 
bidding !' Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 249 



An Election in Prospect. 143 

regularly, you would half forget me, and that would be very 
wrong, for I felt my regard for you in my face last night, 
when the criticisms were going on. 

" This morning it was all connoisseurship ; we went to 
see some pictures painted by a gentleman artist, Mr. 
Taylor, of this place ; my master makes one everywhere, 
and has got a dawling companion to ride with him now. . . . 
He looks well enough, but I have no notion of health for 
a man whose mouth cannot be sewed up. Burney and I 
and Queeney tease him every meal he eats, and Mrs. 
Montagu is quite serious with him, but what can one do ? 
He will eat, I think, and if he does eat I know he will not 
live ; it makes me very unhappy, but I must bear it. Let 
me always have your friendship."* 

In the following month a General Election was in 
prospect, and Johnson pressed Mrs. Thrale to come to 
London for a week, and show herself to the electors of 
Southwark, talking in confident terms of her husband's 
recovery, lest his illness and withdrawal from business 
should be turned to his disadvantage by opponents. ' Be 
brisk,' he wrote, ' be splendid, and be public. The voters 
for the Borough are too proud and too little dependent to 
be solicited by deputies ; they expect the gratification of 
seeing the candidate bowing or curtseying before them. 
If you are proud, they can be sullen. Such is the call for 
your presence ; what is there to withhold you ? I see no 
pretence for hesitation. Mr. Thrale certainly shall not 
come ; and yet somebody must appear whom the people 
think it worth the while to look at.'-f" 

Such a summons was no mean tribute to the lady's 
ability and adroitness. She answers on May 9 : 'I am 
willing to show myself in Southwark, or in any place, for 
my master's pleasure or advantage ; but have no present 

* Bos well's Johnson, Hill's edition, iii. 421. f ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 115. 



144 Johnson Flattered. 

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.'* 

Meanwhile Johnson became quite impatient for her 
arrival. Roused to an unusual pitch of gallantry, he said 

or sang : 

' Cette Anne si belle, 
Qu'on vante si fort, 
Pourquoi ne vient elle ? 
Vraiment elle a tort.' 

The lady came, and for a week or more was involved in 
business, electioneering, canvassing, and letter-writing 
without intermission. After her return to Bath, he wrote : 
' You have had, with all your adulations, nothing finer 
said of you than was said last Saturday night of Burke 

and me. We were at the Bishop of 's, and towards 

twelve we fell into talk, to which the ladies listened, just 
as they do to you, and said, as I heard, There is no 
rising unless somebody will cry " Fire /" . . . You cannot 
think how doggedly I left your home on Friday morning, 
and yet Mrs. Abbess gave me some mushrooms ; but 
what are mushrooms without my mistress ?'-f- 

His mistress repaid him in kind : " Here is everything 
in this pretty town of Bath everything possible ; good 
and bad, for what I see. Did we tell you, when we were 
in London the other day, how Miss Burney picked up 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 117. t Ibid,, ii. 127. 



The Life of Congreve. 145 

a female infidel one morning, and bid her read Ras- 
selas; and how I lighted on a fanatic, and bid her read 
Rasselas? Perhaps not, for you only call such intelli- 
gence flattery ; though the London wits beat us at that 
too, when they talk of crying ' Fire ' in the street that 
they may break up a conversation which would otherwise 
engage them till next day. All this, however, we set on one 
side during the election hurry. My master will stand to 
his hand -bill ; he likes it : and I like exceedingly your sullen 
removal from the round, tower, where mushrooms would 
almost .grow of themselves now, the weather is getting so 
hot. Our flagstones upon the South Parade burn one's 
feet through one's shoes ; but the Bath belles, fearless of 
fire ordeal, trip about, secure in cork soles and a clear 
conscience. I wish, 'though, that you would put in a 
word of your own to Mr. Thrale about eating less ; for 
he will mind you more than us, and his too great spirits 
just at this moment fright me 

" How does Congreve's life turn out ? Tell me all the 
news. I would not wish you to be too much flattered ; 
milk itself, when injected into the veins, is poison, the 
wise men say ; so if adulation should be forced upon you, 
cry out, or run away to me, or anything ; but I expect 
these Lives to be very clever things, after all ; take as 
little pains with them as you can. We will have all the 
great prose-writers some time, and then I shall be zealous 
for Bacon. 

" Meantime, 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 
manner, and losing the town at last."* 

The Doctor was fully equal to the occasion. He 
responds : 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 129. 

IO 



146 The Gordon Riots. 

" Congreve, whom I despatched at the Borough, while 
I was attending the election, is one of the best of the 
little Lives ; but then I had your conversation. 

" You seem to suspect that I think you too earnest 
about the success of your solicitation ; if I gave you any 
reason for that suspicion, it was without intention. It 
would be with great discontent that I should see Mr. 
Thrale decline the representation of the Borough, and 
with much greater should I see him ejected. To sit in 
Parliament for Southwark is the highest honour that his 
station permits him to attain ; and his ambition to attain 
it is surely rational and laudable. . . . The expense, 
if it was more, I should wish him to despise. Money is 
made for such purposes as this. And the method to 
which the trade is now brought will, I hope, save him 
from any want of what he shall now spend. . . . 

" Do not I tell you everything ? What wouldst thou 
more of man ? It will, I fancy, be necessary for you to 
come up once again, at least, to fix your friends and 
terrify your enemies. Take care to be informed, as you 
can, of the ebb and flow of your interests ; and do not 
lose at Capua the victory of Cannae. I hope I need not 
tell you, dear madam, that I am, etc. 

" Thursday, May 25, 1780. No. 8, Bolt Court, Fleet 
Street, London. Look at this and learn."* 

The Thrales remained at Bath until a local disturbance, 
excited by the Gordon Riots in London, drove them 
away. In a letter written on Friday, June 9, after 
mentioning the destruction of Lord Mansfield's house, 
the burning of Newgate and other prisons, besides several 
outrages more, including the demolition of what he called 
' two mass-houses/ Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale : 
' What has happened at your house you will know. 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 137. 



Alarm at Bath. 147 

The harm is only a few butts of beer ; and I think you 
may be sure that the danger is over.' He added, with 
much composure : ' Pray tell Mr. Thrale that I live here, 
and have no fruit, and if he does not interpose, am not 
likely to have much; but I think he might as well give 
me a little, as give all to the gardener. Pray make my 
compliments to Queeney and Burney.'* 

Meanwhile, the friends for whom he wrote were en- 
during an agony of suspense. The mob on that evening 
rose at Bath, broke into a Roman Catholic chapel, and 
set it on fire. ' Mrs. Thrale and I,' says the Burney 
diary, ' sat up till four o'clock, and walked about the 
parades, and at two we went with a large party to the 
spot, and saw the beautiful new building consuming.' On 
their return Mrs. Thrale sat down to begin a letter to 
Bolt Court : 

" Bath, 3 o'clock on Saturday morning, 
June 10, 1780. 

Oh, my dear Sir ! was I ever particular in dating 
a letter before ? And is this a time to begin to be 
particular, when I have been up all night in trembling 
agitation, and only write now to drive time forward till 
the post comes in? .... Miss Burney is frighted; 
but she says better times will come. She made me date 
my letter so, and persists in hoping that ten years hence 
we shall all three read it over together, and be merry. 
Oh, no, no, no ! Here is poor prospect of merriment. 
The flames of the Romish chapel are not yet extinguished, 
and the rioters are going to Bristol to burn that. Their 
shouts are still in my ears ; and I do not believe a dog 
or cat in the town sleeps this night. Mr. Thrale seems 
thunder-stricken, he don't mind anything; and Queeney's 
curiosity is stronger than her fears. But perhaps you 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 145. 

1C 2 



148 The Brewery Saved. 

will ask, Who is consternated? as you did about the 
French invasion. . . . The mob had always an idea 
of my husband's being a concealed Papist, and they used 
to say that we kept a priest in the house. . . . 

* Here come the letters ; safe, safe, safe ! Sir Philip, 
kind creature, has been more than charming ; he has 
saved us all by his friendly activity God bless him ! 
Do go to his house, and thank him ; pray do ; and tell 
him how I love him he loves you; and a visit from 
Doctor Johnson will be worth forty letters from me, 
though I shall write instantly. 

' Perkins has behaved like an Emperor : and it is my 
earnest wish and desire command, if you please to call 
it so that you will go over to the brewhouse and express 
your sense of his good behaviour.'* 

' Nothing,' she wrote in 'Thraliana,' '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, etc., 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 brew- 
house would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property 
of 150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once 
flourishing possessors quite undone. 'f 

On that same Saturday morning a Bath and Bristol 
paper asserted that Mr. Thrale was a Papist. J This 
malicious attack alarmed Mrs. Thrale for her husband's 
personal safety, and determined her to leave Bath at once, 
and travel by easy stages, and a devious route, to 
Brighton, where peace and quiet reigned. 

On the same day Johnson was writing to her : ' The 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 146. f Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 128. 

Mine. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 292. 



Quiet Restored. 149 

soldiers are stationed so as to be everywhere within call ; 
there is no longer any body of rioters, and the individuals 
are hunted to their holes, and led to prison ; the streets 
are safe and quiet ; Lord George was last night sent to 
the Tower. Mr. John Wilkes was this day with a party 
of soldiers in my neighbourhood, to seize the publisher of 
a seditious paper.'* 

On the I2th he wrote : ' All is well, and all is likely to 
continue well. The streets are quiet, and the houses are 
all safe. . . . The public has escaped a very heavy 
calamity. The rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday 
night, but in no great number, and, like other thieves, 
with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party 
that drove them away. . . . Jack, who was always zealous 
for order and decency, declares that if he be trusted with 
power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, 
now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed ; no 
blue riband is any longer worn.t . . . Thus far I had 
written when I received your letter of battle and con- 
flagration. You certainly do right in retiring : for who 
can guess the caprice of the rabble ? My master and 
Queeney are dear people for not being frighted, and you 
and Burney are dear people for being frighted. I wrote 
to you a letter of intelligence and consolation, which, if 
you stayed for it, you had on Saturday ; and I wrote 
another on Saturday, which perhaps may follow you from 
Bath, with some achievement of John Wilkes. '$ 

Wilkes had by this time sown his wild oats. On the 
28th of the previous November Horace Walpole had 
written to Sir Horace Mann : ' That old meteor, Wilkes, 
has again risen above the horizon, when he had long 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 152. 

t Lord George Gordon and his followers, during these outrages, wore blue 
ribands in their hats. MALONE. 
% 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 154. 



1 50 John Wilkes. 

seemed virtually extinct. The citizens, revolted from the 
Court on the late disgraces, have voted him into the post 
of Chamberlain of London, a place of fifteen hundred 
pounds a year. How Masaniello and Rienzi and Jack 
Cade would stare at seeing him sit down as comfortably 
as an Alderman of London ! If he should die of a surfeit 
of custards at last !'* 

On June 14, 1780, Walpole wrote to the same cor- 
respondent : ' Wilkes has very sensibly ridden home on 
Lord George, and distinguished himself by zeal and 
spirit, 't 

George III. told Lord Eldon that at a levee he 
asked Wilkes after his friend Serjeant Glynne. ' My 
friend, sir ?' says Wilkes to the King ; 'he is no friend 
of mine.' * Why,' said the King, ' he was your friend 
and your counsel in all your trials.' ' Sir,' rejoined 
Wilkes, ' he was my counsel one must have a counsel ; 
but he was no friend : he loves sedition and licentiousness, 
which I never delighted in. In fact, sir, he was a Wilkite, 
which I never was.' The King said the confidence and 
humour of the man made him at the moment forget his 
impudence !J 

Samuel Rogers, who was born in 1763, remembered 
Wilkes well. ' He was quite as ugly,' said the poet, ' and 
squinted as much, as his portraits make him ; but he was 
very gentlemanly in appearance and manners. I think I 
see him at this moment, walking through the crowded 
streets of the City, as Chamberlain, on his way to 
Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig 
the hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him : " A 
coach, your honour ?" ' 

Having placed her husband in security at Brighton, 

* Wal pole's 'Letters,' vii. 283. t Ibid., vii. 401. 

I Twiss's ' Eldon,' ii. 356. Rogers' 'Table-Talk,' p. 43. 



Perkins Rewarded. 151 

Mrs. Thrale hastened to London to take any farther 
precautions that might be needed for the preservation of 
his property and business. ' We have now got arms,' she 
wrote, ' 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 cipher on it, and this 
motto : Mollis responsio iram avertit.'* She did not, 
however, obtain the brewer's sanction to this liberal gift 
until after her return to Brighton, for on June 29 she 
writes thence to Miss Burney, who was now at home : 
' My master is quite in rosy health he is indeed and 
jokes Peggy Owen for her want of power to flash. He 
made many inquiries for you ; and was not displeased 
that I had given Perkins two hundred guineas instead of 
one a secret I never durst tell before, not even to 
Johnson, not even to you but so it was.'f 

On July 27 Johnson wrote to her : " And thus it is, 
madam, that you serve me. After having kept me a 
whole week, hoping and hoping, and wondering and 
wondering what could have stopped your hand from 
writing, comes a letter to tell me that I suffer by my own 
fault. As if I might not correspond with my Queeney, 
and we might not tell one another our minds about 
politics or morals, or anything else. Queeney and I are 
both steady, and may be trusted. We are none of the 
giddy gabblers ; we think before we speak. 

" I am afraid that I shall hardly find my way this 
summer into the country, though the number of my Lives 

* Hayward's 'Piozzi,' i. 128. t Mme d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 300. 



152 Bolt Court. 

now grows less. I will send you two little volumes in a 
few days.* . . . 

" I dined yesterday at Sir Joshua's, with Mrs. Cholmon- 
dely, and she told me I was the best critic in the world ; 
and I told her that nobody in the world could judge 
like her of the merit of a critic."t 

Again, on August 14 : "I hope you have no design of 
stealing away to Italy before the election, nor of leaving 
me behind you : though I am not only seventy, but 
seventy-one. Could not you let me lose a year in round 
numbers ? Sweetly, sweetly sings Dr. Swift : 

'Some dire misfortune to portend, 
No enemy can match a friend.' 

But what if I am seventy-two ? I remember Sulpitius 
says of St. Martin (now that's above your reading), ' Est 
animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere nescius.' 
Match me that among your young folks. If you try to 
plague me, I shall tell you that, according to Galen, life 
begins to decline from Thirty-five. 

" But as we go oif, others come on. Queeney's last 
letter was very pretty. What a hussey she is to write so 
seldom ! She has no events ? Then let her write senti- 
ment, as you and I do ; and sentiment, you know, is 
inexhaustible. 

" If you want events, here is Mr. Levet just come in, 
at four-score, from a walk to Hampstead, eight miles, in 
August. This, however, is all that I have to tell you, 
except that I have three bunches of grapes on a vine in 
my garden ; at least, this is all that I will now tell of 
my garden. 

" Both my females are ill both very ill : Mrs. Desmou- 
lins thought that she wished for Dr. Turton ; and I sent for 
him, and then took him to Mrs. Williams ; and he prescribes 

* He means volumes of proof-sheets. t ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 169. 



Thrale Loses his Seat. 153 

for both, though without much hope of benefiting either. 
Yet physic has its powers : you see that I am better; and 
Mr. Shaw* will maintain that he and I saved my master. 
But if he is to live always away from us, what did we 
get by saving him ? If we cannot live together, let us 
hear ; when I have no letter from Brighthelmstone, think 
how I fret, and write oftener."t 

On September I came the long-expected dissolution 
of Parliament. Thrale's friends could no longer flatter 
themselves that he was in rosy health. His state had 
begun again to occasion great anxiety ; and though he 
was once more a candidate for Southwark, and seems to 
have come to town for the election, he was unable to be 
present on the hustings. Johnson wrote his address to 
the electors, in which an apology was made for his ab- 
sence, on the ground that his ' recovery from a very 
severe distemper was not yet perfect.' 

The plea proved fruitless. The invalided brewer, never 
very popular, was superseded by a more active rival, 
whom Johnson had ridiculed as ' Hotham the Hatmaker.' 
Some time after Thrale's death the Borough was can- 
vassed on behalf of Mr. Henry Thornton. His agent 
waited on Mrs. Thrale, who promised her support. ' I 
wish your friend success,' she said, ' and think he will 
have it. He may probably come in for two Parliaments ; 
but,' she added bitterly, ' if he tries for a third, were he 
an angel from heaven, the people of Southwark would 
cry, " Not this man, but Barabbas." 'J 

In October Johnson wrote to Boswell : ' Mr. Thrale's 
loss of health has lost him the election. He is now going 
to Brighton, and expects me to go with him ; and how 

* Mr. Shaw was the surgeon who had bled Thrale in the winter. 

f 'Piozzi Letters,' ii, 177. 

J ' Memoirs of Letitia Matilda Hawkins,' i. 66, note. 



154 The Streatham Portraits. 

long I shall stay I cannot tell. I do not much like the 
place, but yet I shall go, and stay while my stay is 
desired.' ' Our master is in good spirits and good 
humour,' wrote Miss Burney about the end of the same 
month, ' but I think he looks sadly ; so does our Mrs. T., 
who agitates herself into an almost perpetual fever.'* 
On his way home from Brighton Thrale was seized with 
alarming symptoms, but the attack passed off for the time. 
Yet we hear that after dinner he was only to be kept from 
heavy and profound sleep by cards ; and Fanny, though 
ill herself, was compelled to join in the evening rubber. 
On December 14, having left Streatham three days before, 
she writes to her friend : ' Does the card system flourish ? 
Does Dr. Johnson continue gay and good-humoured, and 
" valuing nobody " in a morning ? Is Miss Thrale steady 
in asserting that all will do perfectly well ? But most I 
wish to hear, whether our dear master is any better in 
spirit ? and whether my sweet Dottoressa perseveres in 
supporting and exerting her own ?' 

Mrs. Thrale in her reply assumes a tone of cheerful- 
ness which she can scarcely have felt. Mr. Thrale, she 
says, makes all the haste to be well that mortal man can 
make. On Thursday, January 4, 1781, she writes : ' 'Tis 
now high time to tell you that the pictures are come home, 
all but mine which my master don't like. He has ordered 
your father hither to sit to-morrow in his peremptory 
way; and I shall have the dear Doctor every morning at 
breakfast. I took ridiculous pains to tutor him to-day, 
and to insist in my peremptory way on his forbearing to 
write or read late this evening, that my picture might 
not have bloodshot eyes.'t 

* Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 316. 

t Ibid., i. 323. Thursday was the day of Dr. Burney's weekly attendance 
at Streatham. 



Characters. 155 

i 

The pictures here referred to are the collection of 
portraits which Sir Joshua Reynolds had been for some 
time engaged in painting for the library at Streatham. 
Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter were at full length, 
in one piece, which was placed over the fireplace. The 
rest of the pictures were all three-quarter lengths. Mr. 
Thrale' s likeness hung over the door leading to his study. 
Above the bookcases were his friends : Lord Sandys, 
Lord Westcote, Murphy, Goldsmith, Reynolds himself, 
Sir Robert Chambers, Garrick, Baretti, Burney, Burke, 
Johnson. 

On the characters of the various personages portrayed 
in this gallery Mrs. Thrale amused herself with writing 
descriptive verses, some of which possess considerable 
merit ; we give a few specimens : 

' A manner so studied, so vacant a face, 
These features the mind of our Murphy disgrace ; 
A mind unaffected, soft, artless, and true, 
A mind which, though ductile, has dignity too. 
Where virtues ill-sorted are huddled in heaps, 
Humanity triumphs, and piety sleeps ; 
A mind in which mirth may with merit reside, 
And Learning turns Frolic, with Humour, his guide. 
Whilst wit, fullies, faults, its fertility prove, ' 
Till the faults you grow fond of, the follies you love ; 
And corrupted at length by the sweet conversation, 
You swear there's no honesty left in the nation. 
An African landscape thus breaks on the sight, 
Where confusion and wildness increase the delight ; 
Till in wanton luxuriance indulging our eye, 
We faint in the forcible fragrance, and die. 
***** 

Of Reynolds all good should be said, and no harm, 

Tho' the heart is too frigid, the pencil too warm ; 

Yet each fault from his converse we still must disclaim, 

As his temper 'tis peaceful, and pure as his fame. 

Nothing in it o'erflows, nothing ever is wanting, 

It nor chills like his kindness, nor glows like his painting. 

When Johnson by strength overpowers our mind, 

When Montagu dazzles, and Burke strikes us blind ; 

To Reynolds well-pleas'd for relief we must run, 

Rejoice in his shadow, and shrink from the sun. 



1 56 Characters. 

See Thrale from intruders defending his door, 

While he wishes his house would with people run o'er ; 

Unlike his companions, the make of his mind, 

In great things expanded, in small things confined. 

Yet his purse at their call, and his meat to their taste, 

The wits he delighted in lov'd him at last ; 

And finding no prominent follies to fleer at, 

Respected his wealth and applauded his merit : 

Much like that empirical chemist was he, 

Who thought Anima Mundi the grand panacea. 

Yet when every kind element help'd his collection, 

Fell sick while the med'cine W3S yet in projection. 

***** 

Baretti hangs next ; by his frowns you may know him, 

He has lately been reading some new-published poem ; 

He finds the poor author a blockhead, a beast, 

A fool without sentiment, judgment, or taste. 

Ever thus let our critic his insolence fling, 

Like the hornet in Homer, impatient to sting. 

Let him rally his friends for their frailties before 'em, 

And scorn the dull praise of that dull thing, decorum ; 

While tenderness, temper, and truth he despises, 

And only the triumph of victory prizes. 

Yet let us be candid, and wheie shall we find 

So active, so able, so ardent a mind ? 

To your children more soft, more polite with your servant, 

More firm in distress, or in friendship more fervent? 

Thus /Etna enraged her artillery pours, 

And tumbles down palaces, princes, and towers ; 

While the fortunate peasantry, fix'd at its foot, 

Can make it a hot-house to ripen their fruit. 

***** 

See next, happy contrast ! in Burney combine 

Every power to please, every talent to shine. 

In professional science a second to none, 

In social, if second, thro' shyness alone. 

So sits the swr et violet close to the ground, 

Whilst holy-oaks and sunflow'rs flaunt it around. 

His character form'd free, confiding, and kind, 

Grown cautious by habit, by station confin'd : 

Tho' born to improve and enlighten our days, 

In a supple facility fixes his praise : 

And contented to soothe, unambitious to strike, 

Has a faint praise from all men, from all men alike. 

While thus the rich wines of Frontiniac impart 

Their sweets to our palate, their warmth to our heart, 

All in praise of a liquor so luscious agree, 

From the monarch of France to the wild Cherokee.' 

In 1780 Reynolds had raised the price of his portraits, 
of the three-quarter size, from thirty-five to fifty guineas. 



The Library at Streatham. 157 

Thrale died without having discharged his debt for the 
Streatham portraits, and they had to be paid for by his 
widow at the increased price, which was more than 
several of them fetched when the collection was sold by 
auction in 1816. 

The room in which these pictures were hung was 
regarded by visitors to Streatham Park with something 
like the fondness which the remembrance of * the 
venerable chamber ' at Holland House, celebrated by 
Macaulay, inspired in the heart of the historian. ' While 
the Lives of the Poets was in progress,' says Madame 
d'Arblay, ' 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 sheets 
Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud, and the discus- 
sions to which they led were in the highest degree 
entertaining.'* 

At the end of January. 1781, the Thrales, instead of 
making the Borough their place of abode as usual, 
removed from Streatham to Grosvenor Square, where the 
sick man had hired a furnished house for the season. 
Boswell, in mentioning this change of residence, attributes 
it to the solicitation of Mrs. Thrale. She wrote opposite 
the passage : ' Spiteful again ; he went by direction of his 
physicians where they could easiest attend him.' Yet it 
appears that her personal inclinations counted for some- 
thing in the matter. In * Thraliana,' after expressing a 
fear that the world would accuse her of tempting her 
husband in his weakness to take a fine house for her at 
the fashionable end of town, she wrote : ' I cannot be 
sorry, for it will doubtless be comfortable to see one's 
friends commodiously ... I will make myself comfortable 

' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' ii. 177. 



158 A Conversazione. 

in my new habitation, and be thankful to God and my 
husband.'* 

Johnson had a room in the new house. ' Think,' wrote 
Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in 
Grosvenor Square ; but he says it is not half so convenient 
as Bolt Court.'"f- 

On February 6 Mrs. Thrale writes to Miss Burney : 

' Yesterday I had a conversazione. Mrs. Montagu was 
brilliant in diamonds, solid in judgment, critical in talk. 
Soph}- smiled, Piozzi sang, 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/J 

Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Thrale's 
health, the hospitalities at his house this winter were 
more frequent and on a larger scale than ever. On 
March 18 his wife wrote in ' Thraliana ' : ' Well ! Now I 
have experienced the delights of a London winter, spent 
in the bosom of flattery, gaiety, 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, that 
I can see; the pecuniary affairs have gone on perversely; 
how should they do otherwise, 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, 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 130. t H. More's 'Memoirs,' i. 207. 

Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 325. 



A Tour Projected. 159 

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 again of going to Spa and Italy ; how shall we 
drag him thither a man who cannot keep awake four 
hours at a stroke ? Well ! this will indeed be a trial of 
one's patience ; and who must go with us on this 
expedition ?'* 

On the day on which this scheme of foreign travel was 
announced, Miss Burney dined in Grosvenor Square. 
Her feelings were divided between disapproval of the 
project and disappointment at finding that she herself 
was not to be included in the party. In the evening, she 
telJs us, there was a great rout. The company was very 
brilliant ; it included several peers ; the greatest beauty in 
the room, except the S. S., was Mrs. Gwynn, lately Miss 
Horneck ; and the greatest fright was Lord Sandys. The 
novelist spent the following day also in the Square with a 
smaller number of guests: and on Thursday, March 22, she 
was there again, when there was a very gay party to dinner'.' 

How much of this incessant round of entertainments 
was due to the restlessness of the invalid, and how 
much to that of his wife, is not quite clear. The latter, 
perhaps, unconscious of her own state of mind, imputed 
the whole to her husband. ' Dinners and company,' she 
says. ' engrossed all his thoughts ; he talked of the lam- 
prey season and the Ranelagh season ;' meanwhile, the 
condition of the patient went from bad to worse. Before 
the end of March his physicians had declared against his 
going abroad. ' It is settled,' writes Miss Burney, ' 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 
* Hay ward 's ' Piozzi,' i. 130. 



160 Signs of Danger. 

entreaties, to prevail with him to give it up ; and I have 
little doubt myself but, amongst us, we shall be able to 
succeed.'* 

The execution of this design was prevented by his 
sudden death. 

" On Sunday, the ist of April," wrote Mrs. Thrale, " 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 that 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 enumerat- 
ing the people who were to meet the Indian Ambas- 
sadors on the Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and 
bespoke an elegant entertainment."f 

On Tuesday occurred the catastrophe : " 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 

Mme. d'Aiblay's 'Diary,' i. 330. t Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 132. 



Sudden Death of Thrale. 161 

voraciously. . . ." In the course of the evening he was 
found by his eldest daughter on the floor in a fit of apo- 
plexy, and died early in the morning of Wednesday, the 
4th. ' Mrs. Garrick and I/ wrote Hannah More, ' were 
invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to 
be a fine concert, and all the fine people were to be there. 
Just as my hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our 
coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'* 

On April 13, which was Good-Friday, Johnson wrote 
in his ' Meditations' : ' On Wednesday, nth, was buried 
my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday, 4th ; 
and with him were buried many of my hopes and plea- 
sures. On Sunday, ist, the physician warned him against 
full meals ; on Monday I pressed him to observance of 
his rules, but without effect ; on Tuesday I was absent, 
but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again, unsuc- 
cessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him 
senseless, in strong convulsions. I stayed in the room, 
except that I visited Mrs. Thrale twice. 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 and 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 ob- 
tained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I 
turned my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, 
has left me heavy.'t 

It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death. 

On the following day Johnson wrote to the widow : 

* ' Memoirs,' i. 208. 

f On the same paper is a note : ' My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765. 
I enjoyed his favours for about a fourth part of my life.' 

II 



1 62 Johnson Comforts the Widow. 

* I am not without my part of the calamity. No death 
since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. 
.... 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?'* 

On the 7th he says : " I hope you begin to find your 
mind grow clearer. My part of the loss hangs upon me. 
I have lost a friend of boundless kindness at arj age when 
it is very unlikely that I should find another."^ 

On the gth : " 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 cer- 
tain, 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 Queeney. 

" 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 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 192. t Ibid., ii. 193 



The Executors. 163 

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/'* 

The executors were Mr. John Cator,-f- Mr. Jeremiah 
Crutchley4 Mr. Henry Smith, and Dr. Johnson ; and Mrs. 
Thrale herself was executrix. The four gentlemen had 
each a legacy of 200. ' Everybody says,' wrote Dr. 
Beattie, ' that Mr. Thrale, should have left Johnson 
"200 a year, which, from a fortune like his, would have 
been a very inconsiderable deduction. '|| Boswell tells us 
that the same opinion was generally entertained by the 
members of the Club. The Doctor, however, accepted 
the trust in a more hearty spirit than any of his col- 
leagues. 

On April n he wrote to his mistress : " Mr. Perkins 
pretends that your absence produces a thousand diffi- 
culties, which I believe it does not produce. He frights 
Mr. Cator. Mr. Crutchley is of my mind, that there is 
no need of hurry. I would not have this importunity 
give you any alarm or disturbance ; but to pacify it, come 
as soon as you can prevail upon your mind to mingle with 
business. I think business the best remedy for grief as 
soon as it can be admitted. 

" We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficul- 
ties, till I was provoked to tell them that if there were 
really so much to do and suffer, there would be no 

,* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 195. 

f Cator was M.P. for Ipswich in 1784. Johnson described him as having 
' much good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge.' Else- 
where he says : ' Cator has a rough, manly, independent understanding, and 
does not spoil it by complaisance.' Johnson used to visit Cator at his seat at 
Beckenham. Miss Burney, as we shall see, formed a much lower opinion of 
him. 

J M.P. for Horsham in 1784. He was believed by Mrs. Thrale to be 
a natural son of Thrale, whom, she says, he resembled in many things, though 
not in person, as he was both ugly and awkward. 

Hayward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 47. 

H Beattie's 'Life,' ed. 1824, p. 190. 

II 2 



1 64 The Widow's Distress. 

executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself to be 
terrified. 

" I comfort you, and hope God will bless and support 
you ; but I feel myself like a man beginning a new course 
of life. I had interwoven myself with my dear friend."* 

On April 29 Miss Burney wrote from Streatham to her 
friend Mr. Crisp : ' Mrs. Thrale flew immediately upon 
this misfortune to Brighthelmstone to Mr. Scrase her 
Daddy Crisp both for consolation and counsel ; and she 
has but just quitted him, as she deferred returning to 
Streatham till her presence was indispensably necessary 
upon account of proving the will. ... I am now here 
with her, and endeavour by every possible exertion to be 
of some use to her. She looks wretchedly indeed, and is 
far from well ; but she bears up, though not with calm 
intrepidity, yet with flashes of spirit that rather, I fear, 
spend than relieve her. Such, however, is her character; 
and were this exertion repressed, she would probably 
sink quite. Miss Thrale is steady and constant, and 
very sincerely grieved for her father. 

' The four executors 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.'-f- 

In ' Thraliana' the widow wrote : 

" Streatham, May i, 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, 

* 'Piozzi Letters,' ii. 196. 

t Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary and Letters,' i. 334. 



Attempt to Carry on the Trade. 165 

etc., for three or four thousand pounds of a morning, how 
unlikely it would have seemed ever to happen ! Unlikely 
is no word, though 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, how- 
ever, who desires above all other good the accumulation 
of new ideas, is but too happy with his present employ- 
ment ; 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 
delight of seeing his name, in a new character, flaming 
away at the bottom of bonds and leases."* 

But the scheme of continuing the business was not 
destined to be of long duration, even though Johnson 
gave his valuable assistance. On returning to Streatham 
in May, after a short absence, Miss Burney wrote : ' Miss 
Owen and I arrived here without incident, which, in a 
journey of six or seven miles, was really marvellous. Mrs. 
Thrale came from the Borough with two of the executors, 
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley, soon after us. She had 
been badly worried, and in the evening frightened us all 
by again fainting away. Dear creature ! she is all 
agitation of mind and body ; but she is now wonderfully 
recovered, though in continual fevers about her affairs, 
which are mightily difficult and complicated. '"f* She 
alone among the executors understood anything of the 
business, and the whole five together could not carry it on 
without the advice of the manager Perkins, who was bent 
on being taken into partnership. 

It was therefore presently determined to dispose of a 
trade by which, says Mrs. Thrale, in some years 15,000 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 139. 

f Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 336. 



1 66 Johnsons Mercantile Ardour. 

or 16,000 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. 
' Among all my fellow-executors,' she says elsewhere, 
' none but Johnson opposed selling the concern. Cator, 
a rich timber merchant, was afraid of implicating his own 
credit as a commercial man. Crutchley hated Perkins, 
and lived upon the verge of a quarrel with him every day, 
while they acted together. Smith cursed the whole 
business, and wondered what his relation, Mr. Thrale, 
could mean by leaving him 200, he said, and such a 
burden on his back to bear for it. All were well pleased 
to find themselves secured, and the brewhouse decently, 
though not very advantageously, disposed of, except dear 
Doctor Johnson, who found some odd delight in signing 
drafts for hundreds and for thousands, to him a new, and 
as it appeared, delightful, occupation. When all was 
nearly over, however, I cured his honest heart of its 
incipient passion for trade, by letting him into some, and 
only some, of its mysteries.' 

Mrs. Thrale's account of Johnson's mercantile ardour 
is 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 

* Baretti, in a MS. note on the ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 369, says that ' the two last 
years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him ,30,000 a year net profit.' 
But on this point Mrs. Thrale is a better authority. 



The Brewery Sold. 167 

to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of 
growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." 

Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale : ' 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 handkerchief out of the 
coach-window. Four o'clock came, and dinner was ready, 
and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeney 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 
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. 
She 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 brewery was bought by David Barclay, a descen- 
dant of Robert Barclay, the celebrated apologist of the 
Quakers. This gentleman, who was then the head of the 
banking firm of Barclay and Co., placed at the head of 
the brewhouse his nephew from America, Robert Barclay, 
and Perkins, who had been Thrale's manager, and thus 
became the founder of the world-renowned house of 
Barclay, Perkins and Co. 

The sale was thus announced to Langton by Johnson, 
in a letter dated June 16, 1784 : 

' 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. Is the nation ruined ?' Mrs. Thrale 
mentions that four years were allowed for payment of the 

* Mine. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 346. 



1 68 Streatham without Thrale. 

purchase-money. She adds that she never regretted the 
sale, as it was certainly best for herself and her daughters 
at the time, though the Quaker obtained the brewhouse a 
prodigious bargain, and the place became doubled in value 
within a very few years. 

The widow and her daughters spent the summer at 
Streatham. Miss Burney was a guest during the greater 
part of the season, while Johnson came and went accord- 
ing to his wont. In the early part of the time Fanny 
describes the Doctor as charming both in spirits and 
humour. ' I really think,' she says, * he grows gayer and 
gayer daily, and more ductile and pleasant.' ' I have 
very often,' she wrote a little later, 'long and melancholy 
discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased 
master, whom indeed he regrets incessantly.'* It is plain 
that Johnson was exerting himself to be agreeable. But 
the restraining influence which he most respected was 
now removed, and the result was not long in showing 
itself. 

Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by 
Johnson, at a dinner-party, on Mr. Pepys, a Master in 
Chancery, and a man of social distinction. 'Never before,' 
she writes, ' have I seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much 
passion. " Mr. Pepys," he cried in a voice the most 
enraged, " I understand you are offended by my Life of 
Lord Lyttelton ! What is it you have to say against it ? 
Come forth, man ! Here am I, ready to answer any 
charge you can bring." . . . One happy circumstance, 
however, attended the quarrel, which was the presence of 
Mr. Cator, who would by no means be prevented talking 
himself, either by reverence for Dr. Johnson, or ignorance 
of the subject in question ; on the contrary, he gave his 
opinion, quite uncalled for, upon everything that was said 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 337, 368. 



Johnson Unrestrained. 1 69 

by either party, and that with an importance and pom- 
posity that rendered the whole dispute, when in his hands, 
nothing more than ridiculous, and compelled even the 
disputants themselves, all inflamed as they were, to laugh.' 
After the contention had been carried even into the 
drawing-room, ' Mrs. Thrale, with great spirit and dignity, 
said she should be very glad to hear no more of it. Every- 
body was silenced ; and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, said, 
" Well, madam, you shall hear no more of it ; yet I will 
defend myself in every part and in every atom." : Next 
morning, ' Dr. Johnson went to town for some days, but 
not before Mrs. Thrale read him a very serious lecture 
upon giving way to such violence, which he bore with a 
patience and quietness that even more than made his 
peace with me.'* Thrale would have arrested the dispute 
at once by a few decisive words. The effect of the lady's 
lecture soon wore away. 

The Burney diary of the doings at Streatham this year 
is continued till the middle of September. Dr. Burney's 
daughter knew all the Italian musicians of note who were 
then in England, and under date July 10 we read : ' 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 friendship between Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney 
was not always perfectly free from clouds. Johnson once 
observed that his mistress showed the insolence of wealth 
as well as the conceit of parts ; the latter, he said, had 
some foundation, but the former was a wretched thing. 
In like manner, Miss Burney sometimes felt that Mrs. 
Thrale was inclined to treat her as a dependent, while the 
elder lady thought that her many kindnesses did not 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' ii. 355. 



i 70 Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney. 

invariably meet with due acknowledgment. The latter tells 
how she nursed the young writer through an illness; 'and 
now,' she adds, ' with the true gratitude of a wit, she tells 
me that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities 
to her.' At another time we read : ' 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 her 
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. 
Burney's daughter to indulge it.' In 1781, she writes 
with still greater irritation: "What a blockhead Dr. 
Burney is to be always sending for his daughter home so. 
Is she not better and happier with me than she can be 
anywhere else ? Dr. Johnson is enraged at the silliness 
of their family conduct ; I confess myself provoked ex- 
cessively, but I love the girl dearly, and the Doctor, too, 
for that matter, only he has such odd notions." 



CHAPTER VII. 

Introduction to Piozzi Account of him--He goes Abroad Second Sight 
Piozzi Returns Beginning of Uneasiness Good Resolutions Harley 
Street The Widow Watched Fears for Johnson Death of Levet 
Verses on him Johnson's Emotion Social Comforts Mrs. Thrale has an 
Assembly Literary Women Mrs. Thrale Described Rumours of her 
Marrying Again Johnson 111 and Dispirited A Lecture on Peevishness 
Dr. Lee Modern Refinement Burton on Melancholy Johnson and the 
Quakers His Position at Streatham A Disastrous Lawsuit Reasons for 
Quitting Streatham The Park Let to Lord Shelburne -The Last Summer 
there Madame d'Arblay's Recollections Johnson's Farewell to Streatham 
He Accompanies Mrs. Thrale to Brighton His Severity Mrs. Thrale 
confesses her Attachment Conduct of her Daughters and Miss Burney 
Her Mental Struggles Piozzi Dismissed Embarrassments Argyll Street 
Resolution to leave London Removal to Bath The Parting with Piozzi 
Mrs. Thrale loses her Youngest Daughter Resentment. 

MRS. THRALE'S acquaintance with Piozzi commenced in 
1780. Their first meeting had been in 1777. Madame 
d'Arblay tells how one evening at Dr. Burney's house, 
when Signer Piozzi was accompanying himself on the 
piano, Mrs. Thrale, stealing on tip-toe behind him, began 
ludicrously imitating his airs and gestures. Burney 
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.'* The lady 
took this reproof in excellent part, but such an introduc- 
tion was not likely to lead to further intercourse. While, 
however, the Thrales were at Brighton, after the Gordon 
Riots, Piozzi came thither also, for the benefit of his health, 
and was followed by a letter from Miss Burney, recom- 
mending him to her friend as a man who, though he had 

* ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' ii. no. 



172 Gabriel Piozzi. 

lost his fine voice, was still possessed of enchanting musical 
powers, and able to lighten the burthen of existence. 
According to notes written by Mrs. Thrale, some at the 
time and some at later dates, both she and Mr. Thrale 
took to their new acquaintance at once. In spite of 
weakened tones, his style of singing remained exquisite, 
while his performance on the piano was unrivalled. ' He 
wants nothing from us,' wrote the lady in August, 1780 ; 
' I see nothing ail the man but pride. The newspapers 
yesterday told what all the musical folks gained, and set 
Piozzi down at 1,200 a year.' 

'Mr. Piozzi,' she writes later on, 'was the son of a 
gentleman of Brescia, who meant him for the Church, 
and educated him accordingly ; but he resisted the celibat, 
escaped from those who would have made him take the 
vows, and as his uncle said : " Ah, Gabrielli, thou wilt 
never get nearer the altar than the organ-loft," so it proved. 
He ran from the Venetian state to Milan, where the 
Marchese d' Araciel proved his constant friend and pro- 
tector, and encouraged him in his fancy for trying Paris 
and London, instead of being a burthen to his parents, 
who had fourteen children, a limited income, and many 
pecuniary uneasinesses. Whilst here his fame reached 
the Queen of France, who sent for him and Sacchini, the 
great opera composer.'* 

It was in obedience to this summons that Piozzi and 
Sacchini were quitting England, when they came to 
Streatham to take leave, as mentioned in our last chapter. 

Piozzi returned from France before the end of the year, 
' loaded with presents, honours, and emoluments.' So 
far his attentions to Mrs. Thrale had been observed by 
Johnson without any apparent displeasure. At the 
beginning of November he was in Lichfield, and she wrote 
to him : 

* Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 49. 



Second Sight. 173 

' Instead of trying the Sortes Virgiliance for our absent 
friends, we agreed after dinner to-day to ask little Harriet* 
what they were doing now who used to be our common 
guests at Streatham. " Dr. Johnson," says she, " is very 
rich and wise ; Sir Philip is drowned in the water, and 
Mr. Piozzi is very sick and lame, poor man !" What a 
curious way of deciding ! All in her little soft voice.' . . . 
' Adieu, dear sir, and be as cheerful as you can this 
gloomy season. I see nobody happy hereabouts but the 
Burneys ; they love each other with uncommon warmth 
of family affection, and are beloved by the world as much 
as if their fondness were less concentrated. The Captain 
has got a fifty-gun ship now, and we are all so rejoiced. 
Once more farewell, and do not forget Streatham nor its 
inhabitants, who are all much yours.'t 

On the 24th Johnson wrote from Ashbourne : ' Piozzi 
I find is coming, in spite of Miss Harriet's prediction, or 
second sight, and when he comes and / 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 Queeney's kind- 
ness too.'J 

On the following day the widow entered in her Diary : 
' I have got my Piozzi home at last ; he looks thin and 
battered, but always kindly upon me, I think.' He was 
more prudent than she, however, for after she had trans- 
lated an Italian sonnet written in his praise, he insisted 
on her burning the verses, and she was fain to content 
herself with writing her version into ' Thraliana/ 

On December 3rd Johnson wrote : ' You have got 
Piozzi again, notwithstanding pretty Harriet's dire de- 
nunciations. . . . Pray contrive a multitude of good 

* Her youngest child. J Jbid.,u. 227. 

t ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 217. Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 162. 



174 Good Resolutions. 

things for us to do when we meet. Something that may 
hold all together, though if anything makes me love you 
more, it is going from you.' * 

The first note of uneasiness seems to be audible in the 
last sentence. We hear it a second time in a letter 
written five days later from Birmingham : 

' I am come to this place on my way to London and 
Streatham. I hope to be in London on Tuesday or 
Wednesday, and at Streatham on Thursday, by your kind 
conveyance. I shall have nothing to relate either wonder- 
ful 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 dimin- 
ished, and my expectation from you is increased. Do 
not neglect me, nor relinquish me. Nobody will ever 
love you better, or honour you more.' f 

The extracts which have been published from ' Thrali- 
ana ' show that its author began the new year with good 
resolutions for the present, and vague schemes for the 
future. If. she wrote, for her sins, God should take from 
her her monitor, her friend, her inmate, her dear Dr. 
Johnson ; if neither she should marry, nor the purchasers 
of the brewery should fail ; if no change in public affairs 
interrupted communications with the Continent ; and if 
Piozzi did not take a wife and settle in England, she 
would, at the end of the four years from the sale of the 
business, set out for Italy with her eldest girls, and see 
what the world could show her.| On January 4, 1782, she 
wrote : 

' I have taken a house in Harley Street for three 
months, and hope to have some society not company 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 229. t Ibid., ii. 230. 

I Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 163. 



Harley Street. 175 

though ; crowds are out of the question, but people will 
not come hither [to Streatham] on short days, and 'tis 
too dull to live all alone so. The world will watch me at 
first, and think I come a husband-hunting for myself or 
my fair daughters, but when I have behaved prettily for 
a while, they will change their mind.'* 

Ten days later: 'Harley Street, i^th 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 inquiring 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. The 
brother, the Medico, as we call him, lays wagers about 
me, I find ; God forgive me, but they'll make me hate 
them both/f 

' ist 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, confidant ! God 
give me health and patience ! What shall I do ?'$ 

This year opened sadly for Johnson with the loss of 
his old friend, Robert Levet, who died suddenly and un- 
expectedly in his sleep on the morning of January 17. 
Johnson was in Harley Street when the event occurred. 
Relating it two months later to Langton, he wrote : ' At 
night as at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, 
I thought with uncommon earnestness, that however I 
might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might 
remove, I would endeavour to retain Levet about me. 

* Hayward's 'Piozzi,' i. 165. f Ibid., i. 165. $ Ibid., i. 167. 



1 76 Death of Level. 

In the morning my servant brought me word that Levet 
was called to another state, a state for which, I think, he 
was not unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. 
How much soever I valued him, I now wish that I had 
valued him more.'* 

Thackeray, when lecturing on the Four Georges, asked 
his audience if they remembered the verses ' the sacred 
verses ' which Johnson wrote on this occasion : 

' Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, 

As on we toil from day to day ; 

By sudden blasts, or slow decline, 

Our social comforts drop away. 

' Well tried through many a varying year, 

See Levet to the grave descend ; 
Officious, innocent, sincere, 

Of every friendless name the friend, f 

1 In Misery's darkest cavern known, 

His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan, 
And lonely Want retired to die. 

1 No summons mocked by chill delay, 
No petty gain disdained by pride ; 
The modest wants of every day 
The toil of every day supplied. 

' His virtues walked their narrow round, 

Nor made a pause, nor left a void ; 
And sure the Eternal Master found 
The single talent well employed.' I 

* Boswell's 'Johnson,' Hill's edition, iv. 145. This letter was written on 
March 20, 1782; and Dr. Birkbeck Hill (iv. 158, note 4) refers to it as 
showing that, so early as that date, the writer foresaw that a change was 
coming. But the musing of which Johnson speaks was not in March, but 
on January 16, by which time he cannot have begun seriously to apprehend the 
loss of his mistress. Was he musing on something more agreeable ? Separation 
from Levet would not have followed from his being thrown back on Bolt Court, 
as he ultimately was ; it would, unless provided against, have followed from 
his taking up his abode entirely with Mrs. Thrale. The widow was certain 
to marry again ; and when she smiled on Johnson, it is quite possible that, 
despite his years and infirmities, the old man may have dreamed of check- 
mating Piozzi, and carrying off the prize himself. 

t Mrs. Piozzi (' Synonymy,' ii. 79), quoting this stanza under officious, says : 
'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst misfortune that could befall a 
man, looked on a character of this description with less aversion than I do.' 
This is rather a strange remark to be made by a learned lady. The writer, of 
course, used ' officious ' in the sense of kind, doing good offices, which is the 
first meaning assigned to the word in his dictionary. 

I Johnson's ' Works,' i. 342, where the poem is printed with the heading, 



Johnson's mo Hon. 177 

Johnson repeated these verses to Boswell ' with an 
emotion which gave them full effect.' Miss Palmer, Sir 
Joshua's niece, was present, at another time, when he 
repeated them, with the water running down his face. 
Though but little used to the melting mood, the rugged old 
dictator's sensibility is not to be judged solely by his perfor- 
mances on those colloquial evenings, of which he used to 
say to his biographer, ' Well, we had good talk '; and that 
faithful henchman would make answer, ' Yes, Sir ; you 
tossed and gored several persons.' When he would inveigh 
against devotional poetry, and protest that all religious 
verses were cold and feeble, his mistress would remind him 
how, as often as he attempted to go through the ' Dies ir& 
dies ilia,' his voice invariably choked at the words : 

' Quserens me sedisti lassus, 
Redemisti crucem passus ; 
Tantus labor ne sit cassus.' * 

' When he read his own satire,' says Mrs. Piozzi, ' in 
which the life of a scholar is painted, with the various 
obstructions thrown in his way to fortune and fame, he 
burst into a passion of tears. The family and a certain 
Mr. Scott only were present, who in a jocose way clapped 
him on the back, and said, " What's all this, my dear Sir ? 
Why, you and I and Hercules, you know, were all troubled 
with melancholy." He was a very large man, this Mr. 
Scott, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and 
Hercules comically enough. The Doctor was so de- 
lighted at his odd sally that he suddenly embraced him, 
and the subject was immediately changed.'*!* 

' On the Death of Mr. Robert Levct, a practiser in physic.' It was first pub- 
lished in the Annual Register for 1783, p. 189, where the subject is called Dr. 
Robert Levet. On the next page is printed John Gilpin. 
* In the familiar modern English version : 

1 Faint and weary Thou hast sought me, 
On the cross of suffering bought me ; 
Shall such grace be vainly brought me ?' 
f 'Anecdotes, p. 50. 

12 



178 Social Comforts. 

So far as Johnson's social comforts depended on Mrs. 
Thrale, they dropped away very gradually. He passed 
almost the whole of this year ' in a succession of ailments,' 
which did not tend to soften his temper or his manners, 
nor in any way assist him to make head against the 
growing favour of a rival. His letters mark the slow 
progress of his decline, as well as the fluctuations of his 
health. On February 16 he writes: 

' 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 what- 
ever happens to me, I am with all the regard that 
admiration of excellence and gratitude for kindness can 
excite, your,' etc.* 

On the 2 ist : 'I hope to try again this week whether 
your house is yet so cold, for to be away from you, if I 
did not think our separation likely to be short, how could 
I endure ? You are a dear, dear lady, and your kind 
attention is a great part of what life affords to your,' etc.-f 

At the end of the same month he wrote to Malone, that 
he went in a coach as far as Mrs. Thrale's, where he could 
use all the freedom that sickness required ; and some time 
later to other correspondents, that he had been living 
much with Mrs. Thrale, and had all the care from her 
that she could take, or could be taken. 

On February 20, Mrs. Thrale writes to Fanny Burney : 

' Wednesday night, Going to bed. 

' MY DEAREST BURNEY, 

' May I venture, do you think, to call a little 
company about me on St. Taffy's day ? Or will the 
world in general, and the Pepyses in particular, feel 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 231. r Ibid. t ii. 236. 



An Assembly. 179 

shocked at my " dissipation " and my " haste to be 
married ?" They came last night, and found nle alone 
with Murphy. There was an epoch ! The Bishop of 
Peterborough came in soon after. Queeriey was gone to 
Miss Davenant's, with Miss Owen and Dr. Delap. What 
dangers we do go through ! But I have not gone out to 
meet mine half-way, at least. 

' Pray come on Friday se'nnight, if you never come 
again. 

' I went to dear Dr. Johnson's, rassegnarlo la solita 
servitu, but at one o'clock he was not up, and I did not 
like to disturb him. I am very sorry about him exceed- 
ing sorry ! When I parted from you on Monday, and 
found him with Dr. Lawrence, I put my nose into the old 
man's wig and shotted ; but got none except melancholy 
answers so melancholy, that I was forced to crack jokes 
for fear of crying. . . . 

' This morning I was with him again, and this evening 
Mrs. Ord's conversation, and Piozzi's cara voce have kept 
away care pretty well. Mr. Selwyn helped us to be 
comfortable. . . . 

' Good-night, sweetest, I am tired and want to go to 
bed. Good-night once more, through the door at Streat- 
ham, for thither imagination carries your affectionate 

' H. L. T.'* 

The assembly the first large party which the widow 
had given took place, and included, besides a fair Greek 
who captivated Miss Burney, 'the Hales, Mr. Jenkinson,t 
Lord and Lady Sandys, the Burgoynes, Mr. Seward, Mr. 
Murphy, Dr. Delap, Mrs. Byron, and fifty more at least. 'J 

In a letter written a few days later, Miss Burney 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 414. t Afterwards Earl of Liverpool. 

Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 420. 

12 2 



180 Literary Women. 

mentions some verses on the literary women of the time, 
which appeared in the Morning Herald of March 12, 1782, 
and in which she and Mrs. Thrale were introduced in 
company with several other ladies of their acquaintance. 
Fanny supposed the anonymous author of these lines to 
be Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. W. Pepys, but they seem to 
have been the production of Dr. Burney.* They exhorted 
the Herald to desist from celebrating frail beauties, and to 
proclaim instead : 

' Hannah More's pathetic pen, 
Painting high the impassioned scene ; 
Carter's piety and learning, 
Little Barney's quick discerning ; 
Cowley'st neatly pointed wit, 
Healing those her satires hit ; 
Smiling Streatfield's ivory neck, 
Nose, and notions a la Grhque ! 
Let Chapone retain a place, 
And the mother of her Grace, 
Each art of conversation knowing, 
High-bred, elegant Boscawen ;J 
Thrale, in whose expressive eyes 
Sits a soul above disguise, 
Skilled 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.' 

The writer did not intend this description of Mrs. 
Thrale to be unmixed flattery. Evidently he intended to 
convey what his daughter plainly expressed when she 
wrote of her friend : ' Mrs. Thrale is a most dear 

* See Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 422, note by the editor. 

t Author of 'The Belle's Stratagem,' and other less successful dramatic 
works, and also of some long poetical pieces. Born 1743 ; died 1809. 

I 'The Honourable Mrs. Boscawen,' wrote Boswell, 'widow of the 
Admiral, and mother of the present Viscount Fahnouth ; of whom, if it be not 
presumptuous in me to praise her, I would say that her manners are the most 
agreeable, and her conversation the best of anybody with whom I ever had the 
happiness to be acquainted.' She was also the mother of the Duchess of Beau- 
fort and Mrs. Leveson-Gower. 

' All Leveson's sweetness and all Beaufort's grace.' 

H. More's 'Sensibility.' 



Rumours of Marriage. 181 

creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything. 
She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes fun 
does everything she has an inclination to do, without any 
study of prudence, or thought of blame ; and pure and 
artless as is this character it often draws both herself and 
others into scrapes, which a little discretion would avoid.' 

But though the newspapers were willing to insert 
compliments to Mrs. Thrale, they were equally ready to 
publish gossip to her disadvantage. She laid aside her 
weeds on the anniversary of her husband's death, and the 
town was at once full of rumours that she was preparing 
to replace them by a bridal veil. ' Lord Loughborough,' 
she wrote at the end of a week,* '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.' Yet so far 
the public curiosity about her had inflicted no deep 
wounds on her vanity. Under date of April 17, she adds : 

" 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. . . . 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 

* In ' Thraliana,' Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 167. 



1 82 Jo/insoris Health. 

nothing to seek but return of affection from whatever 
partner she pitches on. To marry for love would, there- 
fore, 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."* 

Meanwhile Johnson, sick, out of spirits, and now fully 
conscious of losing ground, was in a much less placid 
temper. He appears to have accompanied his mistress 
to Streatham, but to have left her in dudgeon after a few 
days' stay. On April 25 he writes : 

' 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 ? . . . . Do not let Mr. 
Piozzi nor anybody else put me quite out of your head, 
and do not think that anybody will love you like your,' etc.-f- 

On the last day of the month we find him begging to be 
sent for to Streatham ; but he was not able to rest there ; 
for on May 9 Mrs. Thrale wrote : ' 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. 'J 

At the beginning of June, he is in Bolt Court again, and 
a little better. ' 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 

* In 'Thraliana,' Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 168. t ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 237. 
J Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 159. 



A Lecture. 183 

has not yet passed a whole day, and I may rejoice per- 
haps too soon. Come and see me ; and when you think 
best, upon due consideration, take me away.'* 

On June 8 : ' I have this day taken a passage to Oxford 
for Monday. Not to " frisk," as you express it with very 
unfeeling irony, but to catch at the hopes of better health. 
The change of place may do something. To leave the 
house where so much has been suffered affords some 
pleasure.'^ Four days later he apologizes for his ill- 
humour : ' My letter was perhaps peevish, but it was not 
unkind. I should have cared little about a wanton ex- 
pression if there had been no kindness. 'J At the 
University he met his devoted admirer, Hannah More. 
'We do so gallant it about,' she writes. 'You cannot 
imagine with what delight he showed me every part of 
his own college.' Here, too, he received from his mistress 
a long, lively, and discursive letter : 

" Streatham, June 14. 

" DEAR SIR, 

" I am glad you confess yourself peevish, for con- 
fession 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 dis- 
pute among the Privy Councillors, the Lord Chancellor 
struck the table with such violence that he split it. 
' No, no, no !' replied the master dryly, ' I can hardly 

* ' Piozzi Letteis,' ii. 242. 

t Ibid., ii. 251. This letter is misdated, and consequently misplaced in the 
correspondence. 

J Ibid., ii. 243. 'Memoirs,' i. 261. 



184 Modern Refinement. 

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 fasti- 
diousness now ; no more refusing to laugh at a good 
quibble, when you so loudly profess the want of amuse- 
ment, and the necessity of diversion. How the people of 
this age do cry for rattles is indeed little to its credit ; for 
knowledge is diffused most certainly, if not increased, and 
that ought to stand instead of perpetual variety, one would 
think. Apropos to general improvement : I was reading 
the ' Spectator' to Sophy, while my maid papered my 
curls yester-morning ; it was vol. iii., p. 217, where the 
man complains of an indelicate mistress, who said, on 
some occasion, that ' her stomach ached,' and lamented 
how ' her teeth had got a seed stuck between them.' 
The woman that dressed me was so astonished at this 
grossness, though common enough in Addison's time one 
sees, that she cried out, 'Well, madam, surely that could 
never have been a lady who used expressions like those.' 

" I much wonder whether this refinement has spread all 
over the Continent, or whether 'tis confined to our own 
island. When we were in France we could form but 
little judgment, as our time was passed chiefly among 
English ; yet I recollect that one fine lady, who enter- 
tained us very splendidly, put her mouth to the teapot, 
and blew in the spout when it did not pour freely. My 
maid Peggy would not have touched the tea after such 
an operation. Was it convenient, and agreeable, and 
wise, and fine, I should like to see the world beyond sea 
very much : 

" ' But fate has fast bound her, 
With Styx nine times round her.' 

So your friend must look on the waves at Brighthelmstone 
without breathing a wish to cross them. 



Burton on Melancholy. 185 

" 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 
' II Penseroso' was suggested by the verses at the begin- 
ning; that Savage's ' Speech of Suicide' in the 'Wan- 
derer' grew up out of a passage you probably remember 
towards the 2i6th 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. 

" And now, dear Sir, be as comfortable as you can, and 
do not dun me for that kindness which has never been 
withheld, only because it is cold weather and you want 
employment ; but be gentle and tranquil like Dr. Adams,* 
or gay and flashy like Dr. Lee, and then what then? 
Why then you will deserve Miss Adams's good-will, and 
Miss More's esteem, added to the humble service and 
attentive regard of your ever equally faithful 

"H. L. T."f 

This is the sort of letter which a clever woman 
addresses to a man her regard for whom is on the wane, 
but with whom she wishes to continue on friendly terms. 
He answers : ' 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 Queeney 
will fetch me on Thursday, and see what you can make 
of me.'J 

* The Master of Pembroke College. t ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 245-248. 

Ibid., ii. 249. 



1 86 Johnson and the Quakers. 

From this time until the establishment at Streatham 
was broken up in the following October, Johnson appears 
to have been almost constantly there with Mrs. Thrale. 
Neither his health nor his temper was in a state to 
endure the smallest strain. " It grew extremely per- 
plexing and difficult," wrote the lady, "to live in the house 
with him when the master of it was no more ; the worse, 
indeed, because his dislikes grew capricious, and he could 
scarce bear to have anybody come to the house whom it 
was absolutely necessary for me to see. Two gentlemen 
I perfectly well remember dining with us at Streatham in 
the summer of 1782, when Elliot's brave defence of 
Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse. One of 
these men naturally enough began some talk about red- 
hot balls thrown with surprising dexterity and effect, 
which Dr. Johnson having listened some time to, ' I 
would advise you, Sir,' said he, with a cold sneer, ' never 
to relate this story again. You really can scarce imagine 
how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it.' 
Our guest being bred a Quaker, and, I believe, a man of 
an extremely gentle disposition, needed no more reproofs 
for the same folly ; so if he ever did speak again, it was in 
a low voice to the friend who came with him. The check 
was given before dinner, and after coffee I left the room. 
When in the evening, however, our companions were 
returned to London, and Mr. Johnson and myself were 
left alone, with only our usual family about us, ' I did not 
quarrel with those Quaker fellows,' said he very seriously. 
' You did perfectly right,' replied I, ' for they gave you 
no cause of offence.' 'No offence,' returned he with an 
altered voice. ' And is it nothing, then, to sit whispering 
together when I am present, without ever directing their 
discourse towards me, or offering me a share in the con- 
versation ?' ' That was because you frighted him who 



A Disastrous Lawsuit. 187 

spoke first about those hot balls.' ' Why, Madam, if a 
creature is neither capable of giving dignity to falsehood, 
nor willing to remain contented with the truth, he deserves 
no better treatment.' "* 

The guests thus affronted were no doubt two of the 
Barclays, to whom, of course, their hostess wished to be 
especially civil/f* Yet in spite of rudeness and ill-humour, 
Johnson had no thought of voluntarily leaving Streatham, 
nor any apprehension at that time of being dismissed by 
its owner. On August 24 he wrote to Boswell : ' 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 Streathani take 
your choice.' J 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Thrale found herself embarrassed by 
a disastrous lawsuit, as well as enthralled by her growing 
attachment to Piozzi. She had become involved in a 
litigation with her uncle's widow, which all her friends 
appear to have deeply deplored. In August she wrote in 
her diary : ' The establishment of expense here at Streat- 
ham is more than my income will answer; my lawsuit with 
Lady Salusbury turns out worse in the event, and infinitely 

* 'Anecdotes.' 

+ A few weeks before she had written to Miss Burney : ' David Barclay has 
sent me the " Apology for the Quakers," and thinks to convert me, I believe. 
I have often been solicited to change my religion by Papists. Why do all the 
people think me foolisher than I am?' Mme. d'Arblay's 'Diary,' i. 427. 

Boswell's 'Johnson,' Hill's edition, iv. 153. 

' Lady Salusbury,' she told Sir James Fellowes, ' had threatened to seize 
upon my Welsh estate if I did not repay her money lent by Sir Thomas Salus- 
bury to my father ; money, in effect, which poor papa had borrowed to give 
him when he was a student at Cambridge, and your little friend just born. 
This debt, however, not having been cancelled, stood against me as heiress.' 
Hayward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 57. But this can scarcely be a complete or correct 
account of the dispute between the two ladies. If it were, one does not see 
why the claim should have slept for so many years after the death of Sir 
Thomas. 



1 88 Streatham Park Let. 

more costly than I could have dreamed on. 8,000 is 
supposed necessary for the payment of it, and how am I 
to raise 8,000 ? . . . 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 dan- 
gerous gave me courage to speak to him on the subject.' 
She goes on to say that she had just mustered resolution 
to tell him of her project, and that he had approved it, 
and advised her to put it into execution as soon as 
possible.* In the same, and a subsequent entry, she 
declares herself mortified at finding that the man she had 
so ' fondled in sickness and in health,' and who she ' really 
thought could not have existed without her conversation, 
forsooth, was not only prepared for her going abroad, but 
seemed not even anxious to go with her, and, indeed, 
glad to be rid of her.' 

On August 12 Miss Burney wrote to her sister Susan : 
' My dear Mrs. Thrale, the friend, though not the most 
dear friend of my heart, is going abroad for three years 
certain. This scheme has been some time in a sort of 
distant agitation, but it is now brought to a resolution. 
Much private business belongs to it relative to her detest- 
able lawsuit ; but much private inclination is also joined 
with it, relative to her long wishing to see Italy. . . . 
Streatham, my other home, and the place where I have 
long thought my residence, dependent only upon my own 
pleasure, and where, indeed, I have received such as my 
father and you alone could make greater, is already let 
for three years to Lord Shelburne.'f Lord Shelburne, 
who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace with the 

* Mr. Hayward (' Piozzi,' i. 168) quotes this entry from ' Thraliana ' under 
date August 22 ; but Streatham had been let ten days before that time. 
+ Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 437. 



The Last Summer There. 189 

United States, France, and Spain, had agreed to hire 
Streatham Park in order to be constantly near London.* 

Meanwhile, the season dragged on wearily to its close. 
Cold and bad weather, even snow, helped to depress 
spirits that were already disturbed. Fanny had published 
' Cecilia ' shortly before the date of her last quoted letter, 
and about the same date she wrote to Mrs. Thrale : ' I 
have been kept in hot water, in defiance of snow, till I 
heard from my dearest Tyo ;f and if you do like the book, 
I am gratified to my heart's content ; and if you only say 
you do, to have it so said is very delightful, for your wish 
to give me pleasure would give it, if you hated all I ever 
wrote .... To-morrow I spend with Mrs. Ord. Friday, 
if there comes a dry frost, \ to you will run your own 
F. B.' 

What she witnessed on her arrival is not written in 
F. B.'s diary. There she faithfully keeps the secret, with 
which no doubt she was already acquainted, of her Tyo's 
infatuation. But in the Memoirs of her father, published 
long after Mrs. Piozzi's death, Madame d'Arblay has 
described, with all the grandiosity of her latest style, the 
aspect of the place during the final period of her visiting 
there : 

' 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 hardly 
seemed to know whom she saw ; her speech was so 
hurried that it was hardly intelligible ; her eyes were 

* Fitzmaurice's ' Shelburne,' iii. 242. 

f A Tahitian word for ' friend,' which the Burneys had borrowed from 
Omai. 

On August 30 Horace Walpole wrote to Mann : ' We have had the most 
deplorably wet summer that ever I remember, after three hotter than any in 
my memory.' ' Letiers,' viii. 273. 

Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 440. 



190 Madame d'Arblays Recollections. 

assiduously averted from those who sought them, and her 
smiles were faint and forced.'* 

Dr. Burney and all others Dr. Johnson not excepted 
were cast into the same gulf of general neglect ; all, that 
is, but Fanny, ' to whom, the fatal secret once acknow- 
ledged, Mrs. Thrale clung for comfort.' Finally we are 
told that, as the widow became more and more dissatisfied 
with her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she 
slighted Johnson's counsel, and avoided his society.-f* 
Madame d'Arblay remembered a scene in which her father, 
puzzled by what he saw, bade farewell to Streatham with 
tears in his eyes. She recalled another day on which 
Johnson accompanied her to London, and when they faced 
the windows, as the coach turned into Streatham Common, 
tremulously exclaimed : ' That house ... is lost to me 
. . . for ever.'J We must not lay too much stress on 
these recollections. They were recorded after the lapse 
of nearly half a century, and are tinged, and perhaps dis- 
torted, by the thoughts and feelings with which the writer 
had been in the habit of regarding her friend's second 
marriage. If Dr. Johnson spoke of Streatham as lost to 
him for ever, he certainly did not mean that he was then 
in effect discarded by its owner, but only that he expected 
to have died, or lost his hold on her, before she resumed 
possession at the end of the three years' tenancy. Mrs. 
Thrale, however, has herself confirmed Madame d'Arblay's 
general account of the condition into which she had fallen 
before leaving her home. She says that she ' confessed 
her attachment to Piozzi and her eldest daughter 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 meta /' 

* ' Memoirs,' ii. 243. f Ibid., ii. 250. 

Jbid., ii. 252. Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 189. 



Farewell to Streatham. 191 

As old Michaelmas Day approached, and brought with 
it the necessity of giving place to Lord Shelburne, 
probably no one in the house regretted the prospect, 
except Johnson, who loved his old asylum, and disliked 
Brighton, whither he was to remove with the rest of the 
family. 

On Sunday, October 6, Johnson entered into his ' Book 
of Meditations ' a prayer which he composed on leaving 
Streatham ; he went to church, and made a memoran- 
dum : Templo valedixi cum osculo. The following day he 
entered : 

' I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used 
the foregoing prayer with my morning devotions, some- 
what, 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.' 

Boswell, who suppresses the fact that Mrs. Thrale had 
let her house, and was leaving it at the same time with 
her guest, miscalls this a prayer ' on leaving Mr. Thrale's 
family,' and says that one cannot read it ' without some 
emotions not very favourable to the lady whose conduct 
occasioned it.' He would have his readers understand 
that in some way Johnson was cast off. Macaulay, and 
other writers, relying on Boswell, have followed suit. But 
where is the offence ? Had not Mrs. Thrale the right to 
let her house ? What could she do more for her old 
friend than carry him where she herself was going ? The 
prayer certainly hints no reflection on her ; it commends 
the family to the Divine protection ; possibly this may 
have misled some writers into supposing that the author 
was being turned adrift. Croker, whom Macaulay so 
much despised, adds in a note : ' He seems to have taken 
leave of the kitchen as well as of the church in Latin.' 



192 At Brighton. 

The note of his last dinner at Streatham, done into 
English, would run thus : 

' Sunday, October 6, 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. When shall I revisit Streatham ?' 

Mrs. Thrale did not leave Streatham a day after nor a 
day before Johnson ; she left the place, as he did, on 
October 7, 1782. She has mentioned this herself, t and 
he appears to have occupied a seat in the chaise which 
carried her to Brighton. At all events, we find him 
established there a few days after the removal. Boswell 
says that his friend Metcalfe was a good deal with him 
at Brighton this autumn, but omits the fact that Johnson 
was Mrs. Thrale's guest. Boswell's imitators have sug- 
gested that Johnson lived a kind of boarding-house life 
during this visit, and that ' he was not asked out into 
company with his fellow-lodgers.' But here again is a 
misrepresentation. Thrale, as we have seen, had a well- 
appointed house of his own at the Sussex watering-place ; 
this now belonged to his daughters, but during their 
nonage was still presided over by their mother as mistress. 
If Johnson was not asked out, he had no one but himself 
to blame, as will be seen immediately. 

Miss Burney joined the party on October 26, 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 

* We have not met with an explanation of this allusion, 
f Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 188. 



Johnson Unpopular. 193 

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 can- 
not be worse than being alone." Strange that he should 
think so ! I am sure I am not of his mind.'* 

On the 2gth she describes a large party at home, in 
which Johnson fell upon Mr. Pepys, and fairly drove him 
from the house : ' Dr. Johnson was certainly right with 
respect to the argument and to reason ; but his opposition 
was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that 
I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he 
appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by 
all, and by many abhorred.'t It is quite true that after this 
the Doctor was seldom included in invitations, but Miss 
Burney gives the reason : ' He is almost constantly 
omitted, either from too much respect or too much fear.' J 

' November 7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson 
and took him out an airing. Mr. Hamilton is gone, and 
Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this house that 
voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been 
in a terrible severe humour of late, and has really 
frightened all the people, till they almost ran from him. 
To me only I think he is now kind, for Mrs. Thrale 
fares worse than anybody.' 

' Wednesday, November 20. Mrs. Thrale and the three 
Miss Thrales|| and myself all arose at six o'clock in the 
morning ; and "by the pale blink of the moon" we went to 
the sea-side, where we had bespoke the bathing-women 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 445. 

t Ibid., i. 447. % Ibid., i. 452. Ibid., i. 459. 

|| Dr. Birkbeck Hill says, of her twelve children but these three were living, 
(iv. 157, note). There is a slight inaccuracy here. The three daughters re- 
ferred to were Hester, Susan, and Sophia. But Mrs. Thrale at this time had 
two younger daughters, Cecilia and Hairiet, whom she had left in a school at 
Streatham. Hayward's 'Piozzi,' i. 192. note ; ii. 53. 'Susan Thrale has just 
had her hair turned up and powdered, and taken to the womanly robe," wrote 
Miss Burney in December, 1782. Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 489. 

13 



194 The Attachment Confessed. 

to be ready for us, and into the ocean we plunged. It 
was cold, but pleasant. 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 here fixed her tent for this short winter, 
which will end with the beginning of April, when her 
foreign journey takes place.' 

The widow's passion had now passed beyond her 
control. Before she left Brighton she plainly confessed 
the state of her heart and mind to her eldest daughter, 
who, she says, must have known it already from a previous 
conversation at Streatham. She did this in order that 
the guardians might have ample time during the winter 
to take such steps as they might judge proper. Queeney, 
who inherited her father's temperament, showed herself 
cold, haughty, disdainful. Fanny Burney, on being taken 
into the conference, overflowed with tears and sympathy, 
but was more than ever determined to give no approval. 
Children, observed the writer of ' Cecilia,' religion,* 
situation, country, and character to say nothing of the 
diminution of income by 800 a year, which was the 
penalty imposed by Thrale's will on a remarriage were 
too much sacrifice to be made for any one man. Never- 
theless, on her arrival in London, the enamoured lady pro- 
ceeded to give her lover some hopes, while the guardians 
met to concert measures for preventing the three eldest 
girls from being carried out of England. It was not, 
however, deemed necessary or desirable to adopt any 
active proceedings. Mrs. Thrale took her full share in the 
ordinary engagements and employments of her London 
season. She gave parties, went to parties, was much 

* It will be remembered that Miss Burney herself married a Roman 
Catholic. 



Mental Struggles. 195 

with her Tyo, and paid an amount of attention to Johnson 
which proves anything rather than want of heart. 

On December 20 the old man had been worse than 
usual, and wrote to her in his usual querulous tone : ' You 
can hardly think how bad I have been while you were in 
all your altitudes at the opera, and all the fine places, 
and thinking little of me. Queeney never sent me a kind 
word. I hope, however, to be with you again in a short 
time, and show you a man again.'* On the 2yth Miss 
Burney writes : ' 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. 
Ord's, gave up her visit in order to stay with Dr. 
Johnson. Miss Thrale, therefore, and I went together.'f 

At this point a gap occurs in our materials. When 
the ' Thraliana ' were examined, it was found that several 
pages were missing, and we have no letters to supply 
the deficiency. Beyond the information contained in 
the following extract, we know little, but evidently 
concerted efforts were made to influence the widow, 
about whose affairs so many persons busied themselves. 
Pressure was brought to bear, and eventually she was 
induced to dismiss Piozzi. The following is abridged 
from ' Thraliana ' : " January 29, 1783 : 

" 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. . . . By these means the notion of my par- 
tiality took air, and whether Miss Thrale sent him word 
slyly 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 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 252. f Mme. d'Aiblay's ' Diary, 1.489. 

132 



196 Opposition of her Daughters. 

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,' re- 
plied 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, 
mamma ? 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 con- 
science, and threw me on my knees to pray for His 



Embarrassments. 197 

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 distressed; that borrow- 
ing 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 money, and lead this uncomfortable life 
no longer. They made little or no reply, and I am 
resolved to do as I declared."* 

After raising every penny that could be made by 
cutting timber and other expedients, it appeared that a 
considerable sum over 7,000 had still to be provided 
for the settlement of the lawsuit, the payment of debts, 
and necessary expenses. It was at length arranged that 
the thousands should be advanced out of the children's 
fortunes on their mother giving the trustees a mortgage 
for that sum over her property in Denbighshire. Mr. 

* Hayward's ' Piorzi,' i. 193, 



198 Argyll Street. 

Crutchley, a hard man, and suspected of wishing to marry 
Hester Thrale, found the remaining hundreds, and when 
the mortgage deeds were executed, bade the luckless 
borrower make her daughters her best curtsey, and thank 
them for keeping her out of gaol.* 

When Boswell, having reached London on March 20, 
1783, went next day to look for Johnson : ' I was glad,' 
he writes, ' to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house in Argyll 
Street, appearances of friendship between them being 
still kept up. . . . 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 
would 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.'f On the following day, which 
was Saturday, Johnson was still at Mrs. Thrale's, when 
Boswell called, though he was going home in the after- 
noon, according to his custom before-mentioned. It is 
always to be remembered that, in the interval between 
taking his notes and publishing his book, the biographer 
quarrelled with the lady. Having chosen to represent 
the departure from Streatham as a rupture of old ties, he 
was obliged to treat the apparently cordial relations in 
Argyll Street as illusory. Yet it is clear, from his express 
testimony, that Johnson retained his quarters in Mrs. 
Thrale's house down to the time of her leaving London ; 
and that she expressed affectionate anxiety as to what 
might become of him when she was gone. 

* Hayward's ' P\ozzi,' i. 175 ; ii. 57. t Boswell, iv. 166. 



Removal to Bath. 199 

Yet Mrs. Thrale confessed in her ' Anecdotes ' that 
the difficulty of keeping house with Johnson after her 
husband's death had something to do with her resolution 
to settle at Bath : 

" When there was nobody to restrain his dislikes, it was 
extremely difficult to find anybody 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 whisper- 
ing something to Mr. S d, which he endeavoured to 

explain away, so as not to affront the Doctor, whose suspi- 
cions were all alive. ' And have a care, sir,' said he, 
just as I came in, ' the old lion will not bear to be 
tickled.'* 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 

* This must be the quarrel between Johnson and Seward at which Miss 
Streatfield cried. 



2OO The Parting with Piozzi. 

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."* 

On Sunday, April 6, she left town for Bath. The day 
previous Johnson made this entry in his diary : ' April 5. 
I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I had 
some expostulations with her. She said that she was 
likewise affected. I commended the Thrales with great 
good will to God ; may my petitions have been heard !' 

On the morning of her departure she separated from 
Piozzi at a farewell breakfast. It had been arranged 
between them that he should quit England ; their parting 
was of course a tender one. To prevent it from becoming 
too painful, she had secured the presence of a young Italian 
friend of her lover, and when all was over she flung herself 
into the arms of Fanny Burney. 

She had requested Piozzi to return her letters, and 
leave the country. He agreed to do both. When he 
handed the packet of letters to Miss Thrale, he bade the 
girl take it to her mamma, and make of her a countess. 
' It shall kill me,' he said, ' but it shall kill her too.' 
Queeney took the papers, and turned -her back on the 
despised Italian. An unfounded report was spread that 
he had been bought off with the young ladies' money. 
Mrs. Thrale established herself in a house in Russell Street, 
Bath, on a plan of economy, with three daughters, three 
maids, and a man. But scarcely had she unpacked her 
trunks, when she was summoned to her two little 
girls, who had been seized with whooping-cough in the 
school where she had left them. Almost every ailment 

* There is more of this passage, to which we shall recur later on. 



Death of her Youngest Daughter. 201 

proved fatal to her children. She wrote to Bolt Court : 
' My health, my children, and my fortune, dear Sir, are 
coming fast to an end, I think : not so my sorrows. 
Harriet is dead, Cicely is dying.'* Cicely did not die, but 
recovered, and lived to grow up and marry. Johnson 
could always do himself justice with a pen ; he writes on 
May Day : ' I am glad that you went to Streatham, though 
you could not save the dear pretty little girl. I loved her, 
for she was Thrale's and yours, and by her dear father's 
appointment m some sort mine. I love you all, and 
therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, 
and reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived 
of one that was born your friend. To such friends, everyone 
that has them has recourse at last, when it is discovered, 
and discovered it seldom fails to be, that the fortuitous 
friendships of inclination or vanity are at the mercy of a 
thousand accidents. But we must still our disquiet with 
remembering that, where there is no guilt, all is for the 
best. I am glad to hear that Cicely is so near recovery. 'f 
A week after this Piozzi sailed for the Continent, having 
first lent his Dulcinea a thousand pounds, for which 
during his absence she remitted him interest to Italy. 
Perhaps the sense of loss gave something of sharpness to 
her next letter to Bolt Court. 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 253. t Ibid., ii. 255. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Discontent Johnson has a Stroke Mrs. Thrale's Situation Sir Philip 
Jennings Clerk An Old Friend Mrs. Thrale's Health Miss Burney's 
Sympathy Rep nings Irritation Want of Society Piozzi Recalled 
The News told to Johnson Correspondence Rupture Farewell Return 
of Piozzi The Marriage Baretti's Attack. 

ON June 15, 1783, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson : " 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 everyone 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 situ- 
ation which, however displeasing, is the best I can get 
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."* 

On June 19 he writes : " I am sitting down in no 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 264. 



Johnson has a Stroke. 203 

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." 

After describing a paralytic seizure by which two days 
before he had lost his speech for a time, he proceeds : 

" How this will be received by you I know not. I hope 
you will sympathize 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. ... I am 
almost ashamed of this querulous letter, but now it is 
written, let it go."* 

Mrs. Thrale's reply has not been preserved, but it 
appears to have contained a very practical proposal that 
she should go to town, and aid in nursing him. But 
neither did this please the fretful patient. He wrote : 
* Your offer, dear Madam, of coming to me, is charmingly 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 268. 



204 Sir Philip Jennings Clerk. 

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 and attention.'* 

Perhaps he thought her safer at Bath. The trustees do 
not seem to have been quite at one as to the best course 
for her to pursue. Cator would have had her return to 
Streatham, but Johnson considered this to be undesirable, 
' till the neighbourhood should have lost its habits of 
depredation/ He did not wish her to go back to be 
robbed by tradesmen and servants. It could not be said 
that her first attempts at governing herself and others 
had been very successful. She had mismanaged her 
affairs, incurred considerable debts, and involved herself 
in an attachment which displeased all her friends. It 
was better that she should remain in retirement until she 
had recovered herself, and retrieved her position. 

Meanwhile, her friends seem to have been very attentive 
in inquiring after the patient in Bolt Court. Among the 
callers was Murphy, and a man of much higher position 
than Murphy, Sir Philip Jennings Clerk, who has been 
mentioned more than once in these pages as a confi- 
dential friend of the Thrale family. He was a Member 
of Parliament, and is thus described by Boswell : ' Sir 
Philip had the appearance of a gentleman of ancient 
family, well advanced in life. He wore his own white 
hair in a bag of goodly size, a black velvet coat, with an 
embroidered waistcoat, and very rich laced ruffles, which 
Mrs. Thrale said were old-fashioned, but which, for that 
reason, I thought the more respectable, more like a Tory, 
yet Sir Philip was in opposition in Parliament. " Ah, 
Sir," said Johnson, " ancient ruffles and modern principles 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 278. 



Mrs. Thrales Situation. 205 

do not agree." Yet the two men were kept on good 
terms by Sir Philip's kindly nature, and his regard for 
Mrs. Thrale.' 

A few months later her old friend writes to her in a 
more satisfied tone : 

'November 13, 1783. 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 
goodwill 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 
awhile be suppressed by disgust or resentment, with or 
without a cause, is hourly revived by accidental recol- 
lection. To those that have lived long together, every- 
thing heard and everything seen recalls some pleasure 
communicated, 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.'* 

This is a fine piece of writing. We are not disposed to 
be irreverent ; but a flippant reader might observe that, 
when translated into the language of common life, it 
means : Johnson is the friend, not Piozzi. The next, to 
Susan Thrale, is in a different key : 

' November 18, 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 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 325. 



206 Mrs. Thrale s Health. 

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.'* 

At this time Mrs. Thrale was very unwell, and her 
third daughter, Sophia, had a dangerous sickness. John- 
son seems to have concerned himself much more for the 
latter than for the former, whose complaints he doubtless 
despised as sentimental and foppish lamentations. Yet 
she was really ill. On November 19 Miss Burney wrote: 
' Dr. Pepys had a long private conference with me con- 
cerning Mrs. Thrale, with whose real state of health he 
is better acquainted than anybody; and sad indeed was 
all he said . . .' ' The 22nd,' she adds, ' I passed in 
sorrow for my dear unhappy friend, who sent me one 
letter, that came early by the Bath diligence, and another 
by the post. I can only tell you that I love Mrs. Thrale 
with a never-to-cease affection, and pity her more than 
ever I pitied any human being ; and if I did not blame 
her, I could, I believe, almost die for her.' 

After protesting that she has revealed the secret to no 
one, the prudent Fanny declares her wish to go to her 
friend, whose failings, if multiplied a thousandfold, would 
be more than counterbalanced by ' her virtues and good 
qualities, the generosity and feeling of her heart, and the 
liberality and sweetness of her disposition. 't 

In the ' Memoirs,' Mme. d'Arblay has described an 
interview which she had about this time with Johnson, 
in which they joined in lamenting the widow's infatuation. 
On this Lord Brougham has commented in his usual 
trenchant style : ' Johnson, perhaps unknown to himself, 
was in love with Mrs. Thrale, but for Miss Burney's 
thoughtless folly there can be no excuse. And her father, 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 327 f Mme. d'Arblay 's 'Diary,' i. 543. 



Miss Burneys Sympathy. 207 

a person of the very same rank and profession with 
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 Sallzburg, 
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.' 

No doubt Mrs. Thrale was aware of the language 
Johnson used about her. On February 18, 1784, she 
writes to her Tyo : ' Johnson is in a sad way doubtless ; 
yet he may still with care last another twelvemonth, and 
every week's existence is gain to him who, like good 
Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life.'* 

Again, on March 23 : 

' You are a dear creature to write so soon and so 
sweetly ; but we shall never meet. I see that clearly, and 
have seen it long. My going to London would be a 
dreadful expense, and bring on a thousand enquiries and 
inconveniences visits to Johnson and from Cator ; and 
where must I live for the time, too ? Oh, I have desired 
nothing else since you wrote ; but all is impossibility. 
Why would you ever flatter me that you might, maybe, 
come to Bath ? I saw the unlikelihood even then ; and 
my retired life will not induce your friends to permit your 
coming hither now. I fancy even my own young ladies 
will leave me, and I sincerely think they will be perfectly 
right so to do, as the world they wish to live in is quite 
excluded by my style of living.' f 

On March 27 she wrote to Johnson : 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 558. f Ibid., i. 560. 



208 A Severn Salmon. 

" 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 dread- 
ful 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. . . . 

" 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 ; mine has been 
so long vitiated that it endures no aliment with pleasure, 
but coffee and those doses of Peruvian bark or cascarilla 
which Dobson gives me by turns, and which are become 
oddly enough delightful to my palate."* 

Johnson to her : " April 19, 1784. I received in the 
morning your magnificent fish, and in the afternoon your 
apology for not sending it. I have invited the Hooles 
and Miss Burney to dine upon it to-morrow. ... I 
am sensible of the ease that your repayment of Mr. 
[Crutchley] has given ; you felt yourself genee by that 
debt. Is there an English word for it ? 

" As you do not now use your books, be pleased to let 
Mr. Cator know that I may borrow what I want. I think 
at present to take only Calmet and the Greek Anthology. 
When I lay sleepless, I used to drive the night along by 
turning Greek epigrams into Latin. 

" It is time to return you thanks for your present. Since 
I was sick, I know not if I have not had more delicacies 
sent me than I had ever seen till I saw your table."f 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 359. t Ibid., ii. 363. 



Irritation. 209 

A few days later he said : ' While 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 cerainly give you 
riches, and all the accommodations that riches can 
procure.'* 

It is not difficult to follow the working of Mrs. Thrale's 
mind during the period of her retirement at Bath. For 
some time after her arrival she was submissive, having 
been persuaded that it was her duty to give up Piozzi. 
But as she felt the isolation of her position, she began to 
rebel against the influence which had placed her in it. 
She does not seem to have resented the remonstrances of 
Miss Burney, whom do doubt she regarded as a mere 
agent ; she did resent very strongly the part played by 
Johnson, who, though he had declined to concur in the 
strong measures proposed by Crutchley, had used all his 
authority to prevent her from going abroad. Fanny was 
full of sympathy and tenderness, though full also of the 
worldly prudence in which she had been disciplined by 
her father. Johnson took no pains to soothe the irritation 
which he had excited. Habitually rough, jealous, dic- 
tatorial, he was too much engrossed with his own 
ailments, and with the various opiates, cathartics, and vel- 
lications which he judged proper for their relief, to have 
much attention to spare for the distemper of a friend, 
whose case did not admit of the like drastic treatment. It 
is right to say that for what he considered the real evils of 
life such as the sickness and loss of children, the 
embarrassment of debt, the prospect of death he never 
wanted fellow-feeling. But though his mistress said that 
he knew more of physic than any doctor, he certainly was 
not fitted to advise as a specialist in nervous disorders. 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 369. 



2io Declining Health. 

What he had not experienced in his own person, he could 
not understand, nor, indeed, believe in another. Constantly 
complaining himself of being solitary in Bolt Court, 
where he had numberless visitors, he would not allow his 
correspondent to feel depressed at a watering-place, where 
she was not merely separated from her lover, but removed 
from nearly all her acquaintance. Thus he will close one 
letter with the formal exhortation : ' Take care of your 
own health, compose your mind, and you have yet 
strength of body to be well,' and end the next with such 
complaints as these : ' Visitors are no proper companions 
in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could 
rest or sleep; they stay till I am weary,' and so forth. 
' The amusements and consolations of languor and 
depression are conferred by familiar and domestic com- 
panions. . . . Such society I had with Levet and Williams; 
such I had where I am never likely to have it more.'* 
Can we wonder that an invalid who demanded so much 
sentimental sympathy, and was able to give so little in 
return, now and then provoked his correspondent into the 
use of hasty expressions ? She certainly said nothing 
of Johnson nearly so harsh as his judgment on her, 
when, on May 16, 1784, he talked to Boswell of her with 
much concern, saying : ' Sir, she has done everything 
wrong, since Thrale's bridle was off her neck.' 

Mrs. Thrale was not able to take Johnson's well-meant 
but somewhat perfunctory advice to compose her mind. 
Her health continued to decline. Her physician and 
friend, Sir Lucas Pepys, pronounced that her reason, if 
not her life, was in danger. At length her condition was 
pressed on the attention of her eldest daughter. It seems 
that her medical attendant in Bath insisted on the necessity 
of recalling Piozzi. The advice was taken. A letter was 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' ii. 341. Miss Williams had died in the autumn of 1783. 



Piozzi Recalled. 2 1 1 

despatched to Milan about the end of April, or the begin- 
ning of May, and from that time the distressed lady began 
to recover. About the middle of May she went to 
London for a week to make preparations for her marriage. 
This visit is mentioned in Miss Burney's diary: ' May 17. 
The rest of the week I devoted almost entirely 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. Garrick to 
meet Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Carter, Miss Hamilton, and Dr. 
and Mrs. Cadogan ; and one evening I went to Mrs. 
Vesey, to meet almost everybody. . . . 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 from 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.'* 

Mrs. Thrale returned to Bath to await her lover, and 
what ensued is told in the following letters : 

Mrs. Thrale 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 some- 
what more ; it requires that I should beg your pardon for 
concealing from you a connection 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 

* Mme. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' i. 566. 

142 



212 The News Told to Johnson. 

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.' 

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, etc., 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.' 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

* MADAM, 

' If I interpret your letter right, you are igno- 
miniously 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 



Rupture. 2 1 3 

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, 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.' 
To Dr. Johnson. 

'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 con- 
clusion 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 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 un- 
sullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who 
must henceforth protect it. 

' I write by coach, the more speedily and effectually to 
prevent your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I 



214 Farewells. 

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 en- 
joyed 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.' 



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 tender- 
ness, 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 radi- 
cally 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. 



Return of Piozzi. 215 

' 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 that sepa- 
rated 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 for- 
ward. 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, 

' Yours, etc. 

' Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me.' 

In a memorandum on this letter, she says : * I wrote 
him a very kind and affectionate farewell.' 

The following are entries in ' Thraliana ' : 

'Bath, July 2, 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 

* 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 
Scott's ' Abbot,' where the scene is laid on the seashore. 

f Johnson has the word irremeable in his ' Dictionary,' and explains it 
' admitting no return.' 

1 Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undae.' VIRGIL, ^n., vi. 425. 

' The keeper dreamed, the chief without delay 
Pass'd on, and took the irremeable way.' DRYDEN. 



216 The Marriage. 

to London about the affairs, and there be married in the 
Romish Church/ 

' July 25, 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 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.'* 

Some years after the marriage a malignant attack on 
Mrs. Piozzi was published by Baretti in the European 
Magazine. In this he refers to the circumstances attend- 
ing her second marriage, and alleges that when she left 
Bath with her three daughters for Brighton, she quitted 
them on some pretext at Salisbury, and posted off to town, 
deceiving Johnson, who continued to direct to her at 
Bath as usual. Baretti says that he knew this from the 
fact that she concealed herself in a lodging not far from 
his own habitation in Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital. 
His assertion would be of no importance, save for the 
circumstance of its having received credence from some 
writers unfavourable to Mrs. Piozzi, who suspect that she 
was guilty of a white lie in relating that she returned to 
Bath. But by whomsoever made or adopted, this charge 
seems to amount to very little. What could be more 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 226. 



A Storm of Obloqiiy. 2 \ 7 

natural than that an impatient woman should seek to 
meet her returning lover at the earliest possible moment, 
or that she should withhold her doing so from those who 
had no right to control her movements ? We do not 
defend the use of white lies under any circumstances, but 
if they are ever justifiable, it is when they are employed 
to defeat unwarranted interference. Yet, on consideration, 
Baretti's story is not probable. The inference drawn from 
it has been, that the marriage at the Spanish Embassy 
took place almost immediately after Piozzi's landing, and 
some weeks before the avowed marriage at Bath. This, 
however, is known not to have been the case. From a 
copy of the certificate found among Mrs. Piozzi's papers, 
it appears that the ceremony performed by Padre Smit 
was celebrated on July 23. 

" When her first engagement with Piozzi became 
known," says Mr. Hayward, " the newspapers rang the 
changes on the amorous disposition of the widow, and 
the adroit cupidity of the fortune-hunter. On the an- 
nouncement 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. The repug- 
nance 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 vaga- 
bonds ' are the epithets by which Lord Byron designates 
Catalani and Naldi in 1809, and such is the light in which 
they were undoubtedly regarded in 1784." Whatever 
passing fancies may have crossed Johnson's brain, it 
would be most unjust to suppose that his strong dis- 
approval of the match was caused by personal disappoint- 
ment. Many were the jokes about the philosopher's 
presumed wish to unite himself with the rich widow. 



218 



Baseless Stories. 



One wit produced an ode to Mrs. Thrale by Samuel 
Johnson on their approaching nuptials : 

"To rich felicity thus raised, 

My bosom glows with amorous fire ; 
Porter no longer shall be praised, 
'Tis I myself am Thrale 's Entire. " 

Boswell, referring to these stories, says : ' I believe 
they were without foundation.' Mrs. Piozzi wrote on the 
margin of the page, ' I believe so too.' 



CHAPTER IX. 

Departure for the Continent Calais Aspect of the Country Chantilly 
The Prince of Conde Paris The Palais Royal The Parisians Beau- 
marchais The English Austin Nuns An Air Balloon Animal Magnetism 
Mont Cenis Italian Costume Milan Christmas Festivities Free 
Manners The Theatre of La Scala The Lower Classes Cremona The 
Bells Dr. Burney Verona Venice Venetian Society The Po Ferrara 
Talassi's Visit to Streatham Bologna The Painters of the Bolognese 
School Journey to Florence. 

MRS. PIO/ZI, as we have seen, left England with her hus- 
band in the early part of September, 1784. They travelled 
through France to Italy, where they spent nearly two years, 
returning through Germany and Belgium, and reaching 
home in the early part of 1787. Two years later Mrs. Pioz/i 
published an account of this tour, in two volumes, 8vo., 
under the title of ' Observations and Reflections made in 
a Journey through France, Italy and Germany.' Thus 
her account of Continental society under the old regime, 
written without any presage of coming change, appeared 
in the very year which witnessed the outbreak of the 
French Revolution. The preface contains one brief 
allusion to the circumstances of her second marriage. 
' I have not,' she says, ' thrown my thoughts into the 
form of private letters ; because a work of which truth is 
the best recommendation should not, above all others, 
begin with a lie. My old acquaintance rather chose to 
amuse themselves with conjectures, than to flatter me 
with tender inquiries during my absence : our correspond- 



220 Calais. 

ence then would not have been any amusement to the 
public, whose treatment of me deserves every possible 
acknowledgment.' The last words refer to the reception 
of her ' Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson,' which had been 
published in the year 1786. 

The voyage from Dover to Calais, which is now 
reckoned by minutes, occupied six-and-twenty hours, 
during which the travellers had nothing to amuse them 
but ' the flights of shaggs, and shoals of maycril,' and the 
sight of the sun rising and setting ' upon an unobstructed 
horizon.' After dinner at Calais, she writes, * we set out 
to see Miss Grey, at her convent of Dominican Nuns, 
who, I hoped, would have remembered me, as many of 
the ladies there had seized much of my attention when 
last abroad : they had, however, all forgotten me, nor 
could call to mind how much they had once admired the 
beauty of my eldest daughter, then a child, which I 
thought impossible to forget : one is always more im- 
portant in one's own eyes than in those of others ; but no 
one is of importance to a nun, who is and ought to be 
employed in other speculations.' 

The journey was made, of course, after the manner of 
those days, when, if well-to-do people proposed to go to 
Italy, they took a carriage and drove there. Mrs. Piozzi 
notes the French postillions ' with greasy nightcaps and 
vast jack-boots, driving the carriage harnessed with ropes, 
and adorned with sheepskins.' Now and then she men- 
tions some small accident or breakage, but on the whole 
she gives few details of a mode of travelling then too 
familiar to need description. Our readers will remember 
how Mr. Ruskin, in his ' Praeterita,' dwells on all the 
incidents of it with fond recollection and passionate 
regret. 

As the travellers passed through France less than five 



Aspect of the Country. 221 

years before the Revolution, one or two remarks on the 
appearance of the country have a special interest. 'The 
country, as far as Montreuil, is a coarse one ; " thin 
herbage in the plains, and fruitless fields." The cattle, 
too, are miserably poor and lean ; but where there is no 
grass, we can scarcely expect them to be fat : they must 
not feed on wheat, I suppose, and cannot digest tobacco. 
Herds of swine, not flocks of sheep, meet one's eye upon 
the hills ; and the very few gentlemen's seats that we 
have passed by seem out of repair, and deserted.' The 
banks of the Yonne, on the other hand, are described as 
extremely rich and fertile, but ' every town that should 
adorn these lovely plains exhibits, upon a nearer ap- 
proach, misery; the more mortifying, as it is less expected 
by a spectator, who requires at least some 4ays' experi- 
ence to convince him that the squalid scenes of wretched- 
ness and dirt in which he is obliged to pass the night, 
will prove more than equivalent to the pleasures h'e has 
enjoyed in the day-time. . . . The French do seem, 
indeed, an idle race ; and poverty, perhaps for that reason, 
forces her way among them, through a climate that 
might tempt other mortals to improve its blessings ; but, 
as the motto to the arms they are so proud of expresses 
it, " they toil not, neither do they spin." ' 

At Montreuil she is much amused by the ' pert vivacity 
of lafille, which filled up my notions of French flippancy 
agreeably enough ; as no English wench would so have 
answered one, to be sure. She had complained of our 
avant-coureur's behaviour. " II parle sur le haut ton, 
mademoiselle," said I, " mais il a le cceur bon." " Ouida," 
replied she smartly, " mais c'est le ton qui fait le 
chanson." ' 

At Amiens, she observes that ' the rage for Lombardy 
poplars is in equal force here as about London.' At 



222 The Prince of Cond^. 

Chantilly she visits the palace and gardens, and re- 
members how the tame fish had fed from her hand 
eleven or twelve years ago. ' The theatre belonging to 
the house is a lovely one ; and the truly princely possessor, 
when he heard once that an English gentleman, travelling 
for amusement, had called at Chantilly too late to enjoy 
the diversion, instantly, though past twelve o'clock at 
night, ordered a new representation, that his curiosity 
might be gratified. This is the same Prince of Conde 
who, going from Paris to his country seat here for a 
month or two, when his eldest son was nine years old, 
left him fifty louis d'or as an allowance during his 
absence. At his return to town, the boy produced his 
purse, crying, " Papa, here's all the money safe ; I have 
never touched it once." The Prince, in reply, took him 
gravely to the window, and, opening it, very quietly poured 
all the louis d'or into the street, saying, " Now, if you 
have neither virtue enough to give away your money, nor 
spirit enough to spend it, always do this for the future, do 
you hear ; that the poor may at least have a chance for 

it:' ' 

Arrived in Paris, she is chiefly struck with the cheer- 
fulness and contentment of the people. On the boule- 
vards, ' as wine, beer, and spirits are not permitted to be 
sold there, one sees what England does not even pretend 
to exhibit, which is gaiety without noise, and a crowd 
without a riot. ... In the evening we looked at the new 
square called the Palais Royal, whence the Due de 
Chartres has removed a vast number of noble trees, 
which it was a sin and shame to profane with an axe, 
after they had adorned that spot for so many centuries. 
The people were accordingly as angry, I believe, as 
Frenchmen can be, when the folly was first committed ; 
the Court, however, had wit enough to convert the place 



The Parisians. 223 

into a sort of Vauxhall, with tents, fountains, shops, full 
of frippery, brilliant at once and worthless, to attract 
them ; with coffee-houses surrounding it on every side ; 
and now they are all again merry and happy, synonymous 
terms at Paris, though often disunited in London ; and 
" Vive le Due de Chartres !" 

' The French are really a contented race of mortals ; 
precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low 
Parisian leads a gentle, humble life, nor envies that 
greatness he never can obtain. . . . They see at the 
beginning of their lives how that life must necessarily 
end, and trot with a quiet, contented, and unaltered pace 
down their long, straight, and shaded avenue.' Strange 
words to have been written less than ten years before the 
Reign of Terror ! 

The Parisians were just then ' all wild for love of a new 
comedy, written by Mons. de Beaumarchais, and called 
" Le Mariage de Figaro," full of such wit as we were 
fond of in the reign of Charles the Second, indecent 
merriment, and gross immorality ; mixed, however, with 
much acrimonious satire, as if Sir George Etherege and 
Johnny Gay had clubbed their powers of ingenuity at 
once to divert and to corrupt their auditors ; who now 
carry the verses of this favourite piece upon their fans, 
pocket-handkerchiefs, etc., as our women once did those 
of the " Beggar's Opera.'" 

At Paris Mrs. Piozzi was introduced to Goldoni, then 
in his eighty-fifth year, and to other cultivated Italians, 
among whom she desired to live as much as possible 
before entering their country, 'where the language will 
be so very indispensable.' ' Meantime I have stolen a 
day to visit my old acquaintance the English Austin Nuns 
at the Fossee, and found the whole community alive and 
cheerful ; they are many of them agreeable women, and 



224 The English Austin Nuns. 

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 sat 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." 

' These ladies really live here as comfortably, for aught 
I see, as peace, quietness, and the certainty of a good 
dinner every day can make them. Just so much happier 
than as many old maids who inhabit Milman Street and 
Chapel Row, as they are sure not to be robbed by a 
treacherous, or insulted by a favoured, servant in the 
decline of life, when protection is grown hopeless and 
resistance vain ; and as they enjoy at least a moral 
certainty of never living worse than they do to-day : 
while the little knot of unmarried females turned fifty 
round Red Lion Square may always be ruined by a 
runaway agent, a bankrupted banker, or a roguish 
steward ; and even the petty pleasures of sixpenny quad- 
rille may become by that misfortune too costly for their 
income. Au reste, as the French say, the difference is 
small : both coteries sit separate in the morning, go to 
prayers at noon, and read the chapters for the day : 
change their neat dress, eat their little dinner, and play 
at small games for small sums in the evening, when 
recollection tires, and chat runs low.' 



Animal Magnetism. 225 

' All Paris, I think, myself among the rest, assembled 
to see the valiant brothers, Robert and Charles, mount 
yesterday into the air, in company with a certain Pilatre 
de Rosier, who conducted them in the new-invented 
flying chariot fastened to an air-balloon.' 

On inquiring the next day what had become of the 
aerial travellers, a very grave man replied, 'Je crois, 
madame, qu'ils sont deja arrives, ces messieurs la, au lieu 
bu les vents se forment.' 

From Paris they went to Lyons, where Mrs. Piozzi 
heard something of a subject of which our knowledge has 
scarcely been increased during the last hundred years. 
' Some conversation here struck me as curious ; the 
more so as I had heard the subject slightly touched 
upon at Paris ; but faintly there, as the last sounds of an 
echo, while here they are all loud, all in earnest, and all 
their heads seem turned, I think, about something, or 
nothing, which they call animal magnetism. I cannot 
imagine how it has seized them so : a man who under- 
takes to cure disorders by the touch is no new thing ; 
our philosophical transactions make mention of " Gretrex 
the stroaker," in Charles the Second's reign. The present 
mountebank, it is true, seems more hardy in his experi- 
ments, and boasts of being able to cause disorders in the 
human frame, as well as to remove them. A gentleman 
at yesterday's dinner-party mentioned that he took pupils, 
and, before I had expressed the astonishment I felt, pro- 
fessed himself a disciple, and was happy to assure us, he 
said, that though he had not yet attained the desirable 
power of putting a person into a catalepsy at pleasure, he 
could throw a woman into a deep swoon, from which no 
arts but his own could recover her. How difficult is 
it to restrain one's contempt and indignation from a 

15 



226 Mont Cents. 

buffoonery so mean, or a practice so diabolical ! This 
folly may possibly find its way into England I should be 
very sorry.' 

From Lyons they went on into Italy by way of Mont 
Cenis. Mrs. Piozzi would have liked to pass through 
Switzerland, ' the Derbyshire of Europe,' as she oddly 
styles it, but the season was too far advanced. She gives 
an animated description of her feelings in crossing the 
Alps, ' a sensation of fulness never experienced before, a 
satisfaction that there is something great to be seen on 
earth some object capable of contenting even fancy.' 
She had the satisfaction of seeing a chamois at a distance, 
and spoke with a fellow who had killed five hungry bears 
that made depredation on his pastures. ' We looked on 
him with reverence as a monster-tamer of antiquity, 
Hercules or Cadmus ; he had the skin of a beast wrapt 
round his middle, which confirmed the fancy but our 
servants, who borrowed from no fictitious records the few 
ideas that adorned their talk, told us he reminded them of 
John the Baptist. I had scarce recovered the shock of 
this too sublime comparison, when we approached his 
cottage, and found the felons nailed against the wall, like 
foxes' heads or spread kites in England.' 

As she was carried in a chair down the Italian side of 
the Alps, she heard the chairmen speaking to each other 
of the beauties of the scene, and the change of light since 
they had passed by last time, ' while a fellow who spoke 
English as well as a native told us that, having lived in a 
gentleman's service twenty years between London and 
Dublin, he at length begged his discharge, choosing to 
retire and finish his days a peasant upon these mountains, 
where he first opened his eyes upon scenes that made all 
other views of nature insipid to his taste.' 



Italian Costume. 227 

At a little town in Piedmont, where they stopped for 
dinner, she found their room decorated with a large map 
of London, which, she says, ' I looked on with sensations 
different from those ever before excited by the same 
object. Amsterdam and Constantinople covered the 
other sides of the wall ; and over the door of the chamber 
itself was written, as our people write the Lamb or the 
Lion, " Les trois Villes Heretiques." ; 

They reached Turin in the middle of October, spent a 
few days there and at Genoa, and arrived in Milan on 
the. 4th of November. ' The headdress of the women in 
this drive through some of the northern states of Italy 
varied at ever) 7 spot ; from the velvet cap, commonly a 
crimson one, worn by the girls in Savoia, to the Pied- 
montese plait round the bodkin at Turin, and the odd 
kind of white wrapper used in the exterior provinces of 
the Genoese dominions. Uniformity of almost any sort 
gives a certain pleasure to the eye, and it seems an in- 
variable rule in these countries that all the women of 
every district should dress just alike. It is the best way 
of making the men's task easy in judging which is hand- 
somest ; for taste so varies the human figure in France 
and England, that it is impossible to have an idea how 
many pretty faces and agreeable forms would lose and 
how many gain admirers in those nations, were a sudden 
edict to be published that all should dress exactly alike 
for a year.' 

At Milan they made a stay of five months, and Mrs. 
Piozzi had leisure to study the ways of the society to 
which she was introduced. ' Italians, by what I can 
observe, suffer their minds to be much under the dominion 
of the sky, and attribute every change in their health, or 
even humour, as seriously to its influence, as if there 

152 



228 Milan. 

were no nearer causes of alteration than the state of the 
air, and as if no doubt remained of its immediate power, 
though they are willing enough here to poison it with the 
scent of wood-ashes within doors, while fires in the grate 
seem to run rather low, and a brazier full of that per- 
nicious stuff is substituted in its place, and driven under 
the table during dinner. It is surprising how very elegant, 
not to say magnificent, those dinners are in gentlemen's 
or noblemen's houses ; such numbers of dishes at once 
not large joints, but infinite variety and I think their 
cooking excellent. Fashion keeps most of the fine people 
out of town yet ; we have, therefore, had leisure to estab- 
lish our own household for the winter, and have done so 
as commodiously as if our habitation was fixed here for 
life. . . . Candour, and a good-humoured willingness to 
receive and reciprocate pleasure; seems indeed one of the 
standing virtues of Italy ; I have as yet seen no fastidious 
contempt, or affected rejection of anything for being what 
we call low ; and I have a notion there is much less of 
those distinctions at Milan than at London, where birth 
does so little for a man, that if he depends on that, and 
forbears other methods of distinguishing himself from his 
footman, he will stand a chance of being treated no better 
than him by the world. Here a person's rank is ascer- 
tained, and his society settled, at his immediate entrance 
into life ; a gentleman and lady will always be regarded 
as such, let what will be their behaviour. . . . 

' The phrase of mistress is here not confined to servants 
at all ; gentlemen, when they address one, cry, mia 
padrona* mighty sweetly, and in a peculiarly pleasing 
tone. Nothing, to speak truth, can exceed the agreeable- 
ness of a well-bred Italian's address when speaking to a 

* My mistress. 



Christmas Festivities. 229 

lady, whom they alone know how to flatter, so as to 
retain her dignity, and not lose their own ; respectful, 
yet tender ; attentive, not officious ; the politeness of a 
man of fashion here is true politeness, free from all affecta- 
tion, and honestly expressive of what he really feels, a 
true value for the person spoken to, without the smallest 
desire of shining himself; equally removed from foppery 
on one side, or indifference on the other. The manners 
of the men here are certainly pleasing to a very eminent 
degree, and in their conversation there is a mixture, not 
unfrequent too, of classical allusions, which strike one 
with a sort of literary pleasure I cannot easily describe. 
Yet is there no pedantry in their use of expressions, 
which with us would be laughable or liable to censure : 
but Roman notions here are not quite extinct ; and even 
the housemaid, or donna di gros, as they call her, swears 
by Diana so comically, there is no telling. They christen 
their boys Fabius, their daughters Claudia, very commonly.' 
' The Christmas functions here were showy, and I 
thought well-contrived ; the public ones are what I speak 
of: but I was present lately at a private merrymaking, 
where all distinctions seemed pleasingly thrown down by 
a spirit of innocent gaiety. The Marquis's daughter 
mingled in country-dances with the apothecary's prentice, 
while her truly noble parents looked on with generous 
pleasure, and encouraged the mirth of the moment. 
Priests, ladies, gentlemen of the very first quality, romped 
with the girls of the house in high good-humour, and 
tripped it away without the encumbrance of petty pride, 
or the mean vanity of giving what they expressively call 
soggezione to those who were proud of their company 
and protection. A new-married wench, whose little 
fortune of a hundred crowns had been given her by the 
subscription of many in the room, seemed as free with 



230 Free Manners. 

them all as the most equal distribution of birth or riches 
could have made her : she laughed aloud, and rattled in 
the ears of the gentlemen ; replied with sarcastic coarse- 
ness when they joked her, and apparently delighted to 
promote such conversation as they would not otherwise 
have tried at. The ladies shouted for joy, encouraged 
the girl with less delicacy than desire of merriment, and 
promoted a general banishment of decorum ; though I do 
believe with full as much or more purity of intention, 
than may be often met with in a polished circle at Paris 
itself. 

' Such society, however, can please a stranger only as 
it is odd and as it is new ; when ceremony ceases, hilarity 
is left in a state too natural not to offend people ac- 
customed to scenes of high civilization ; and I suppose 
few of us could return, after twenty-five years old, to the 
coarse comforts of a roll and treacle.' 

The theatre excited her warmest admiration. ' Surely 
a receptacle so capacious to contain four thousand people, 
a place of entrance so commodious to receive them, a 
show so princely, so very magnificent to entertain them, 
must be sought in vain out of Italy. The centre front 
box, richly adorned with gilding, arms, and trophies, is 
appropriated to the Court, whose canopy is carried up to 
what we call the first gallery in England ; the crescent of 
boxes, ending with the stage, consist of nineteen on a side, 
small boudoirs, for such they seem ; and are as such fitted 
up with silk hangings, girandoles, etc., and placed so 
judiciously as to catch every sourid of the singers, if they 
do but whisper. I will not say it is equally advantageous 
to the figure as to the voice; no performers looking 
adequate to the place they recite upon, so very stately is 
the building itself, being all of stone, with an immense 
portico, and stairs which for width you might without 



The T^heatre of La Scala. 231 

hyperbole drive your chariot up. An immense sideboard 
at the first lobby, lighted and furnished with luxurious 
and elegant plenty, as many people send for suppers to 
their box, and entertain a knot of friends there with 
infinite convenience and splendour. A silk curtain, the 
colour of your hangings, defends the closet from intrusive 
eyes, if you think proper to drop it ; and when drawn up, 
gives gaiety and show to the general appearance of the 
whole ; while across the corridor leading to these boxes 
another small chamber, numbered like that it belongs to, 
is appropriated to the use of your servants, and furnished 
with every conveniency to make chocolate, serve lemonade, 
etc. 

' Can one wonder at the contempt shown by foreigners 
when they see English women of fashion squeezed into 
holes lined with dirty torn red paper, and the walls of it 
covered with a wretched crimson stuff ? Well, but this 
theatre is built in place of a church founded by the 
famous Beatrice della Scala, in consequence of a vow she 
made to erect one if God would be pleased to send her a 
son. The church was pulled down and the playhouse 
erected. The Archduke lost a son that year; and the 
pious folks cried, " A judgment !" but nobody minded 
them, I believe ; many, however, that are scrupulous will 
not go. Meantime, it is a beautiful theatre, to be sure ; 
the finest fabric raised in modern days, I do believe, for 
the purposes of entertainment ; but we must not be 
partial. While London has twelve capital rooms for the 
professed amusement of the public, Milan has but one ; 
there is in it, however, a ridotto chamber for cards, of a 
noble size, where some little gaming goes on in carnival 
time ; but though the inhabitants complain of the 
enormities committed there, I suppose more money is 



232 Travel. 

lost and won at one club in St. James's Street during a 
week than here at Milan in the whole winter. 

' Every nation complains of the wickedness of its own 
inhabitants, and considers them as the worst people in 
the world, till they have seen others no better ; and then, 
like individuals with their private sorrows, they find 
change produces no alleviation. . . . 

'A gentleman who had long practised as a solicitor, 
and was retired from business, stored with a perfect 
knowledge of mankind so far as his experience could 
inform him, told rne once, that whoever died before sixty 
years old, if he had made his own fortune, was likely to 
leave it according as friendship, gratitude, and public 
spirit dictated ; either to those who had served, or those 
who had pleased him; or, not unfrequently, to benefit 
some charity, set up some school, or the like. " But let 
a man once turn sixty," said he, " and his natural heirs 
are sure of him;" for having seen many people, he has 
likewise been disgusted by many; and though he does 
not love his relations better than he did, the discovery 
that others are but little superior to them in those 
excellencies he has sought about the world in vain for, 
he begins to inquire for his nephew's little boy, whom, as 
he never saw, never could have offended him ; and if he 
does not break the chain of a favourite watch, or any 
other such boyish trick, the estate is his for ever, upon 
no principle but this in the testator. 

' So it is by those who travel a good deal ; by what I 
have seen, every country has so much in it to be justly 
complained of that most men finish by preferring their 
own.' 

' Here is certainly much despotic power in Italy, but, I 
fancy, very little oppression ; perhaps authority, once 
acknowledged, does not delight itself always by the 



The Lower Classes. 233 

fatigue of exertion. " Sat est prostrasse leoni " is an old 
adage, with which perhaps I may be the better acquainted, 
as it is the motto to my own coat of arms ; and unless 
sovereignty is hungry, for aught I see, he does not 
certainly devour. 

' The certainty of their irrevocable doom, softened by 
kind usage from their superiors, makes, in the meantime, 
an odd sort of humorous drollery spring up among the 
common people, who are much happier here at Milan 
than I expected to find them ; every great house giving 
meat, broth, etc., to poor dependents with liberal good- 
nature enough, so that mighty little wandering misery is 
seen in the streets, unlike those of Genoa, who seem 
mocked with the word liberty, while sorrow, sickness, and 
the most pinching want pine at the doors of marble 
palaces, whose owners are unfeeling as their walls. 

' Our ordinary people here in Lombardy are well 
clothed, fat, stout, and merry, and desirous to divert 
themselves and their protectors, whom they love at their 
hearts. There is, however, a degree of effrontery among 
the women that amazes me, and of which I had no idea 
till a friend showed me one evening from my own box at 
the opera fifty or a hundred low shopkeepers' wives, dis- 
persed about the pit at the theatre, dressed in men's 
clothes, per disimpegno as they called it, that they might 
be more at liberty, forsooth, to clap and hiss, and quarrel 
and jostle, etc. I felt shocked. " One who comes from 
a free government need not wonder so," said he. " On 
the contrary, sir," replied I, " where everybody has hopes, 
at least possibly of bettering his station, and advancing 
nearer to the limits of upper life, none except the most 
abandoned of their species will wholly lose sight of such 
decorous conduct' as alone can grace them when they 
have reached their wish ; whereas your people know their 



234 Cremona. 

destiny, future as well as present, and think no more of 
deserving a higher post than they think of obtaining it." 

Mrs. Piozzi and her husband left Milan on April 6. 
' Exactly five months have now since last November been 
passed among those who have, I hope, approved our 
conduct and esteemed our manners. That they should 
trouble themselves to examine our income, report our 
phrases, and listen, perhaps with some little mixture of 
envy, after every instance of unshakable attachment 
shown to each other, would be less pleasing ; but that I 
verily believe they have at last dismissed us with general 
good wishes, proceeding from innate goodness of heart, 
and the hope of seeing again, in a year's time or so, two 
people who have supplied so many tables here with 
materials for conversation when the fountain of talk was 
stopped by deficiencies, and the little stream of prattle 
ceased to murmur for want of a few pebbles to break its 
course.' 

From Milan the travellers went to Venice by way of 
Cremona. Mantua and Verona. At Cremona they climbed 
up the tower to see the view of the Lombard plains. ' An 
old man who has the care of the bells delighted much in 
telling us how he rung tunes upon them before the Duke 
of Parma, who presented him with money, and bid him 
ring again ; and not a little was the good man amazed 
when one of our company sat down and played on them 
himself, a thing he had never before been witness to, he 
said, except once, when a surprising musician arrived 
from England, and performed the like feat. By his 
description of the person, and the time of his passing 
through Cremona, we conjectured he meant Dr. Burney.' 

Verona struck her as the gayest-looking town she had 
ever lived in. ' I see nothing seemingly go forward here 
but improvvisatori, reciting stories or verses to entertain 



Verona. 235 

the populace ; boys flying kites, cut square like a diamond 
on the cards, and called Stelle ; men amusing themselves 
at a game called Pallamajo, something like our cricket, 
only that they throw the ball with a hollow stick, not 
with the hand, but it requires no small corporal strength, 
and I know not why our English people have such a 
notion of Italian effeminacy ; games of very strong 
exertion are in use among them, and I have not yet felt 
one hot day since I left France.' 

Here, however, she found an explanation of a business 
phrase which had puzzled her in dingy Southwark. 
' That everything useful and everything ornamental, first 
revived in Italy, is well known ; but I was never aware 
till now, though we talk of Italian book-keeping, that the 
little cant words employed in compting-houses took their 
original from the Lombard language, unless perhaps that 
of ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning " detto," 
or " sudetto," as that which was already said before ; 
but this place has afforded me an opportunity of dis- 
covering what the people meant who called a large por- 
tion of ground in Southwark some years ago a " plant," 
above all things. The ground was destined to the pur- 
poses of extensive commerce, but the appellation of a 
" plant " gave me much disturbance from my inability to 
fathom the meaning of it. I have here found out that 
the Lombards call many things a " plant "; and say of 
their cities, palaces, etc., in familiar discourse, " che la 
pianta e buona, la pianta e cattiva," etc.'* 

At Padua she was reminded of one of Garrick's pieces. 
' A transplanted Hollander, carried thither originally from 
China, seems to thrive particularly well in this part of 
the world. The little pug dog, or Dutch mastiff, which 
our English ladies were once so fond of, that poor 

* ' The " plant " is a good or a bad one,' etc. 



236 Venice. 

Garrick thought it worth his while to ridicule them for it 
in the famous dramatic satire called " Lethe," has quitted 
London for Padua, I perceive ; where he is restored 
happily to his former honours, and every carriage I meet 
here has a pug in it. That breed of dogs is now so near 
extirpated among us that I recollect only Lord Penryn 
who possesses such an animal.' 

Here the coach was disposed of, and they went down 
the Brenta in a barge that brought them in eight hours 
to Venice, ' La Bella Dominance, as they call it prettily,' 
where they remained till May 21, with such unceasing 
enjoyment that Mrs. Piozzi finds on leaving that she has 
written more in five weeks than at Milan in five months. 
' Well,' she exclaims, ' this is the first place I have seen 
which has been capable in any degree of obliterating the 
idea of Genoa la Superba, which has till now pursued me, 
nor could the gloomy dignity of the cathedral at Milan, 
or the striking view of the arena at Verona, nor the Sala 
di Giustizia at lettered Padua, banish her beautiful image 
from my mind : nor can I now acknowledge without 
shame, that I have ceased to regret the mountains, the 
chestnut groves, and slanting orange trees, which climbed 
my chamber-window there, and at this time, too ! when 

' ' ' Young-ey'd Spring profusely throws 

From her green lap the pink and rose. " 

' . . . For it is sure there are in this town many 
astonishing privations of all that are used to make other 
places delightful ; and as poor Omai the savage said, when 
about to return to Otaheite : " No horse there ! no ass ! 
no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea ! Ah, missey ! 
I go without everything I always so content there 
though." 

' It is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice ; one 
has heard of a horse being exhibited for a show there, 



Venetian Ladies. 237 

and yesterday I watched the poor people paying a penny 
a piece for the sight of a stuffed one, and am more than 
persuaded of the truth of what I am told here, that 
numberless inhabitants live and die in this great capital, 
nor ever find out or think of inquiring how the milk 
brought from terra firma is originally produced. 

Of the Venetian ladies she says, ' Few remain un- 
married till fifteen, and at thirty have a wan and faded 
look. " On ne goute pas ses plaisirs ici, on les avale," 
said Madame la Presidente yesterday, very judiciously,' 
and, indeed, Mrs. Piozzi made no attempt to deny the 
truth of the current account of Venetian society in the 
eighteenth century. She only says, in extenuation, that 
' to try Venetian dames by English rules would be 
worse than all the tyranny complained of when some 
East Indian was condemned upon the Coventry Act for 
slitting his wife's nose ; a common practice in his country, 
and perfectly agreeable to custom and the " usage du 
pays." Here is no struggle for female education as with 
us, no resources in study, no duties of family manage- 
ment ; no bill of fare to be looked over in the morning, 
no account-book to be settled at noon ; no necessity of 
reading, to supply without disgrace the evening's chat : 
no laughing at the card-table, or tittering in the corner 
if a lapsus lingua has produced a mistake, which malice 
never fails to record. A lady in 'Italy is sure of applause, 
so she takes little pains to obtain it. A Venetian lady 
has in particular so sweet a manner naturally, that she 
really charms without any settled intent to do so, merely 
from that irresistible good-humour and mellifluous tone of 
voice which seize the soul, and detain it in despite of 
Juno-like majesty or Minerva-like wit.' 

' A woman of quality, near whom I sat at the fine ball 
Bragadin made two nights ago in honour of this gay 



238 Venetian Society. 

season, inquired how I had passed the morning. I 
named several churches I had looked into, particularly 
that which they esteem beyond the rest as a favourite 
work of Palladio, and called the Redentore. " You do 
very right," says she, " to look at our churches, as you 
have none in England, I know but then you have so 
many other fine things such charming steel buttons, for 
example ;" pressing my hand to show that she meant no 
offence : " For," added she, " Chi pensa d' una maniera, 
chi pensa d' un altra." '* 

' Late hours must be complied with at Venice, or you 
can have no diversion at all, as the earliest casino 
belonging to your soberest friends has not a candle 
lighted in it till past midnight. . . . The ladies, who 
never hardly dine at all, rise about seven in the evening, 
when the gentlemen are just got ready to attend them ; 
and sit sipping their chocolate on a chair at the coffee- 
house door with great tranquillity, chatting over the 
common topics of the times ; nor do they appear half so 
shy of each other as the Milanese ladies, who seldom 
seem to have any pleasure in the soft converse of a female 
friend. But, though certainly no women can be more 
charming than these Venetian dames, they have forgotten 
the old mythological fable that the youngest of the Graces 
was married to Sleep. . . . 

' All literary topics are pleasingly discussed at Quirini's 
Casino, where everything may be learned by the con- 
versation of the company, as Dr. Johnson said of his 
literary club ; but more agreeably, because women are 
always half the number of persons admitted here.' 

' Gray and Young are the favourite writers among us, 
as far as I have yet heard them talked over upon the 
Continent ; the first has secured them by his residence at 

* ' One person is of one mind, you know, another of another." 



The Po. 239 

Florence, and his Latin verses, I believe ; the second by 
his piety and brilliant thoughts. Even Romanists are 
disposed to think dear Dr. Young very near to Christianity.' 

The travellers left Venice with great regret, and Mrs. 
Piozzi exclaims : ' It is really pity ever to quit the sweet 
seducements of a place so pleasing, which attracts the 
inclination and flatters the vanity of one who, like myself, 
has received the most polite attentions, and been diverted 
with every amusement that could be devised. Kind, 
friendly, lovely Venetians, who appear to feel real fond- 
ness for the inhabitants of Great Britain !' 

They started on May 21, returning up the Brenta to 
Padua, and going by way of Ferrara and Bologna to 
Florence, where they intended to pass the hottest months 
of summer. Mrs. Piozzi confessed herself disappointed 
with the Po, having let her imagination ' wander over all 
that the poets had said about it ... but I might have 
recollected a comical contest enough between a literary 
lady once and Dr. Johnson, to which I was myself a 
witness ; when she, maintaining the happiness and purity 
of a country life and rural manners, with her best 
eloquence, and she had a great deal, added as corrobora- 
tive and almost incontestable authority, that the poets 
said so. " And didst thou not know, then," replied he, 
" my darling dear, that the poets lie ?" ' 

The stateliness of Ferrara impressed them, and ' my 
pen was just upon the point of praising its cleanliness 
too, till I reflected there was nobody to dirty it. I looked 
half-an-hour before I could find one beggar, a bad account 
of poor Ferrara ; but it brought to my mind how 
unreasonably my daughter and myself had laughed, 
seven years ago, at reading in an extract from some of 
the foreign gazettes, how the famous Improvisatore 
Talassi, who was in England about the year 1770, and 



240 Ferrara. 

entertained with his justly-admired talents the literati at 
London, had published an account of his visit to Mr. 
Thrale, at a villa eight miles from Westminster Bridge, 
during that time, when he had the good fortune, he said, 
to meet many celebrated characters at his country seat ; 
and the mortification which nearly overbalanced it, to 
miss seeing the immortal Garrick, then confined by 
illness. In all this, however, there was nothing 
ridiculous ; but we fancied his description of Streatham 
village truly so, when we read that he called it " Luogo 
assai popolato ed ameno,"* an expression apparently 
pompous, and inadequate to the subject ; but the jest 
disappeared when I got into his town ; a place which, 
perhaps, may be said to possess every other excellence 
but that of being " popolato ed ameno " ; and I sincerely 
believe that no Ferrara man could have missed making 
the same or a like observation ; as in this finely-con- 
structed city, the grass literally grows in the street ; nor 
do I hear that the state of the air and water is such as is 
likely to tempt new inhabitants. How much, then, and 
how reasonably must he have wondered, and how easily 
must he have been led to express his wonder, at seeing a 
village no bigger than that of Streatham, contain a num- 
ber of people equal, as I doubt not but it does, to all the 
dwellers in Ferrara!' 

Bologna la Grassa, though handsomely built and set 
in a country particularly beautiful, covered with vines 
and mulberry-trees, did not please the lively lady. ' This 
fat Bologna has a tristful look, from the numberless 
priests, friars, and women, all dressed in black, who fill 
the streets, and stop on a sudden to pray, when I see 
nothing done to call forth immediate addresses to heaven. 
Extremes do certainly meet, however, and my Lord Peter 
* ' A populous and delightful place.' 



Bologna. 241 

in this place is so like his fanatical brother Jack, that I 
know not what is come to him.' 

Here, however, begin her artistic criticisms, for, after 
the fashion of the time, the Bolognese School was the 
one which excited her warmest admiration, and she heaps 
epithets pf affection and adoration upon painters whom 
we are far from placing in the front rank. ' Here the 
great Caraccis kept their school ; here then was every idea 
of dignity and majestic beauty to be met with. . . . The 
boasted Raphael here does not in my eyes triumph over 
the wonders of this Caracci school.' Of the ' Madonna 
della Seggiola,' at Florence, she says that ' it wants that 
heavenly expression of dignity divine and grace unutter- 
able which breathes through the school of the Caraccis.' 
A picture by Correggio ' lacks the taste, character and 
expression which are found only in the Caraccis and their 
school.' She speaks of ' the majestic pencil of the demi- 
divine Caracci ;' but Guercino is her special divinity, not 
half, but wholly divine. ' Other painters remind one of 
nature, but nature when most lovely makes me think of 
Guercino and his works.' 'A St. John by dear Guercino 
is transcendent.' ' I once more half worshipped the 
works of divine Guercino. Nothing shall prevent my 
going to his birthplace at Cento, whether in our way or 
out of it.' When there she exclaims before a picture of 
his : ' How often have I said this is the finest picture we 
have seen yet ! when looking on the Caraccis and their 
school. I will say no more ; the painter's art can go no 
further than this,' With Guido she sometimes ventures 
to find fault, but his * Magdalen ' ' effaces every beauty, 
of softness mingled with distress.' Domenichino she 
seems to admire more as a matter of duty. His ' Diana 
among her Nymphs ' strikes her as very laboured and 
very learned ; and she asks irreverently : ' Why did it put 

16 



242 Journey to Florence. 

me in mind of Hogarth's strolling actresses dressing in a 
barn ?' The two volumes of her ' Journey ' contain a con- 
siderable mass of art criticism, which, except as an 
illustration of changing fashions in art, would not much 
interest readers of the present day. 

In spite of her aesthetic raptures, however, Mrs. Piozzi 
left Bologna with little regret. ' I am glad that we 
shall now be soon released from this, upon the whole, 
disagreeable town, where there is the best possible food, 
too, for body and mind ; but where the inhabitants seem to 
think only of the next world, and do little to amuse those 
who have not yet quite done with this. . . . Those travel- 
lers who pass through will find some amends in the rich 
cream and incomparable dinners every day for the insects 
that devour them every night ; and will, if they are wise, 
seek compensation from the company of the half-animated 
pictures that crowd the palaces and churches for the 
half-dead inhabitants who kneel in the streets of Bologna.' 

They went on to Florence, ' passing apparently through 
a new region of the earth, or even air ; clambering up 
mountains covered with snow, and viewing with amaze- 
ment the little valleys between, where, after quitting the 
summer season, all glowing with heat and spread into 
verdure, we found cherry-trees in blossom, oaks and 
walnuts scarcely beginning to bud. . . . We arrived late 
at our inn, an English one they say it is ; and many of 
the last miles were passed very pleasantly by my maid 
and myself in anticipating the comforts we should receive 
by finding ourselves among our own country folks, and 
by once more eating, sleeping, etc., all in the English way, 
as her phrase is.' 



CHAPTER X. 

Florence An English Inn Sir Horace Mann Fruits An Eulogium on 
Captain Cook A Cardinal The Lingua Toscana Hasty Burials Lucca 
Completion and Despatch of the ' Anecdotes ' The Bagni di Pisa Illness 
of Mr. Piozzi Insects First View of Rome The Coliseum The King of 
Sweden Queen Christina Dislike of Perfumes Insanitary Streets 
Escape of Mr. Piozzi from Assassination Arrival at Naples Vesuvius St. 
Januarius The King of Naples The Grotto del Cane Reminiscence of 
the Southwark Brewery The Hermit of Vesuvius Return to Rome The 
Carnival Kissing the Slipper Anecdote of the Emperor Angelica Kauff- 
man Loretto Correggio Return to Milan The Emperor Joseph's 
Reforms Lugano Farewell to Italy Innsbruck Munich Salzburg 
Vienna The Emperor Metastasio Prague Dresden Berlin Antwerp 
Return to England. 

AT the English inn in Florence their anticipations were 
fully realized. ' Here are small low beds again, soft and 
clean, and down pillows ; here are currant tarts, which 
the Italians scorn to touch, but which we are happy and 
delighted to pay not ten, but twenty times their value for, 
because a currant tart is so much in the English way ; and 
here are beans and bacon in a climate where it is im- 
possible that bacon should be either wholesome or agree- 
able ; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at Milan, 
Venice or Bologna, and infinitely dearer too ; but that 
makes it still more completely in the English way.' 

' Sir Horace Mann is sick and old ; but there are con- 
versations at his house of a Saturday evening, and some- 
times a dinner, to which we have been almost always 
asked. 

' The fruits in this place begin to astonish me ; such 

1 6 2 



244 Fruits. 

cherries did I never yet see, or even hear tell of, as when 
I caught the laquais de place weighing two of them in a 
scale to see if they came to an ounce. These are, in the 
London street phrase, " cherries like plums," in size at 
least, but in flavour they far exceed them, being exactly 
of the kind that we call bleeding-hearts, hard to the bite, 
and parting easily from the stone, which is proportionately 
small. Figs, too, are here in such perfection that it is not 
easy for an English gardener to guess at their excellence ; 
for it is not by superior size, but taste and colour that 
they are distinguished ; small and green on the outside, 
a bright full crimson within, and we eat them with raw 
ham, and truly delicious is the dainty. By raw ham I 
mean ham cured, not boiled or roasted. It is no wonder, 
though, that fruits should mature in such a sun as this 
is; which, to give a just notion of its penetrating fire, I 
will take leave to tell my countrywomen is so violent that 
I use no other method of heating the pinching-irons to 
curl my hair than that of poking them out at a south 
window, with the handles shut in, and the glasses 
darkened to keep us from being actually fired in his 
beams.' 

As visitors from England, they received an invitation 
to a gathering at one of the libraries ' to hear an eulogium 
finely pronounced upon our circumnavigator Captain 
Cook, whose character has attracted the attention and 
extorted the esteem of every European nation. Far less 
was the wonder that it forced my tears; they flowed from 
a thousand causes my distance from England, my 
pleasure in hearing an Englishman thus lamented in a 
language with which he had no acquaintance !' 

At the house of a lady in Florence ' I had the honour 
of being introduced to Cardinal Corsini, who put me a 
little out of countenance by saying suddenly : ' Well, 



A Cardinal. 245 

madam, you never saw one of us red-legged partridges 
before, I believe ; but you are going to Rome, I hear, 
where you will find such fellows as me no rarities." The 
truth is, I had seen the amiable Prince d' Orini at Milan, 
who was a cardinal, and who had taken delight in show- 
ing me prodigious civilities. Nothing ever struck me 
more than his abrupt entrance one night at our house, 
when we had a little music, and everybody stood up the 
moment he appeared. The Prince, however, walked for- 
ward to the harpsichord, and blessed my husband in a 
manner the most graceful and affecting; then sat the 
amusement out, and returned the next morning to break- 
fast with us, when he indulged us with two hours' con- 
versation at least ; adding the kindest and most pressing 
invitations to his country-seat among the mountains of 
Brianza, when we should return from our tour of Italy in 
the spring of 1786. Florence, therefore, was not the first 
place that showed me a cardinal.' 

At Florence one of the first things to be noticed ' is the 
superior elegance of the language ; for till we arrive here 
all is dialect. The laquais de place, who attended us at 
Bologna, was one of the few persons I had met then who 
spoke a language perfectly intelligible to me. " Are you 
a Florentine, pray, friend ?" said I. "No, madam, but 
the combinations of this world having led me to talk 
much with strangers, I contrive to tuscanize it all I can, 
for their advantage, and doubt not but it will tend to my 
own at last." 

They spent the whole summer at Florence, and her 
last reflection is that ' this is no good town to take 
one's last leave of life in, as the body one has been so 
long taking care of would in twenty-four hours be hoisted 
up upon a common cart, with those of all the people who 
died the same day, and being fairly carried out of Porto 



246 Lucca. 

San Gallo toward the dusk of evening, would be shot into 
a hole dug away from the city, properly enough, to protect 
Florence, and keep it clear of putrid disorders and dis- 
agreeable smells. All this with little ceremony, to be 
sure, and less distinction ; for the Grand-Duke suffers the 
pride of birth to last no longer than life, and demolishes 
every hope of the woman of quality lying in a separate 
grave from the distressed object who begged at her carriage 
door when she was last on an airing. 

' Let me add that his liberality of sentiment extends to 
virtue on the one hand, if hardness of heart may be com- 
plained of on the other. He suffers no difference of 
opinions to operate on his philosophy, and I believe we 
heretics here should sleep among the best of his Tuscan 
nobles. But there is no comfort in the possibility of 
being buried alive by the excessive haste with which 
people are catched up and hurried away before it can be 
known almost whether all sparks of life are extinct or no.' 

The travellers left Florence and the paternal despotism 
of the Grand-Duke on September 12, and drove through 
the Vale of Arno to Lucca, ' where the panther sits at 
the gate, and liberty is written up on every wall and 
door.' The capital of the little commonwealth she 
describes as ' larger than Salisbury, and prettier than 
Nottingham, the beauties of both which places it unites 
with all the charms peculiar to itself.' The territory she 
takes ' to be about the size of Rutlandshire, and their 
revenues about equal to the Duke of Bedford's, eighty or 
eighty-five thousand pounds a year.' 

From Lucca they went to Pisa, and thence, with a 
special object, to Leghorn. During her stay in Italy Mrs. 
Piozzi had been busy with her first literary production. 
' I have here finished that work which chiefly brought me 
hither, the " Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson's Life." It is from 



Illness of Mr. Piozzi. 247 

this port they take their flight for England, while we 
retire for refreshment to the Bagni di Pisa.' 

It was perhaps the consciousness of having herself 
entered on a literary career that gave to her description 
of the baths a touch of the Johnsonian manner. ' Not 
only the waters here are admirable, every look from every 
window gives images unentertained before ; sublimity 
happily wedded with elegance, and majestic greatness 
enlivened, yet softened, by taste.' Soon, however, she 
returns to a more familiar style. ' Mr. Piozzi has been 
ill, and of a putrid complaint in his throat, which above 
all things I should dread in this hot climate. This 
accident, assisted by other concurring circumstances, 
has convinced me that we are not shut up in measureless 
content, as Shakespeare calls it, even under St. Julian's 
Hill ; for here was no help to be got in the first place, 
except the useless conversation of a medical gentleman, 
whose accent and language might have pleased a dis- 
engaged mind, but had little chance to tranquillize an 
affrighted one. What is worse, here was no rest to be 
had, for the multitudes of vermin upstairs and below. 
When we first hired the house, I remember my maid 
jumping up on one of the kitchen chairs while a ragged 
lad cleared that apartment for her of scorpions to the 
number of seventeen. But now the biters and stingers 
drive me quite wild, because one must keep the windows 
open for air, and a sick man can enjoy none of that, 
being closed up in the Zanzariere, and obliged to respire 
the same breath over and over again, which, with a sore 
throat and fever, is most melancholy ; but I keep it wet 
with vinegar, and defy the hornets how I can. 

' What is more surprising than all, however, is to hear 
that no lemons can be procured for less than twopence 
English apiece, and now I am almost ready to join 



248 Insects. 

myself in the general cry against Italian imposition . . . 
as I am confident they cannot even be worth twopence a 
hundred here, where they hang like apples in our cyder 
countries ; but the rogues know that my husband is sick, 
and upon poor me they have no mercy. 

' I have sent our folks out to gather fruit at a venture ; and 
now this misery will soon be ended with his illness, driven 
away by deluges of lemonade, I think, made in defiance 
of wasps, flies, and a kind of volant beetle, wonderfully 
beautiful and very pertinacious in his attacks ; and who 
makes dreadful depredations on my sugar and currant- 
jelly, so necessary on this occasion of illness, and so 
attractive to all these detestable inhabitants of a place 
so lovely. 

' My patient, however, complaining that although I 
kept these harpies at a distance, no sleep could yet be 
obtained, I resolved when he was risen, and had 
changed his room, to examine into the true cause ; and 
with my maid's assistance, unripped the mattress, which 
was, without exaggeration or hyperbole, all alive with 
creatures wholly unknown to rne. Nondescripts in nasti- 
ness I believe they are, like maggots with horns and 
tails ; such a race as I never saw or heard of, and as 
would have disgusted Mr. Leeuenhoeck himself.' 

A tremendous thunderstorm completed their discom- 
fort, and quickened their willingness ' to quit the place 
and its hundred-footed inhabitants. ... I waited its 
abatement in a darkened room, packed up our coach 
without waiting to copy over the verses my admiration of 
the place had prompted, and drove forward to Sienna, 
through Pisa again, where our friends told us of the 
damages done by the tempest, and showed us a pretty 
little church just out of town, where the officiating priest 
at the altar was saved almost by miracle, as the lightning 



The Coliseum. 249 

melted one of the chalices completely, and twisted the bra- 
zen-gilt crucifix quite round in a very astonishing manner.' 
From Sienna they went towards Rome. 'The first 
view of Rome is wonderfully striking 

' " Ye awful wrecks of ancient times ! 
Proud monuments of ages past 
Now mould'ring in decay." 

MERRY. 

But mingled with every crowding, every classical idea, 
comes to one's recollection an old picture painted by 
R. Wilson about thirty years ago, which I am now 
sure must have been a very excellent representation. 

' Well, then ! here we are, admirably lodged at Stro- 
fani's in the Piazza di Spagna, and have only to choose 
what we will see and talk on first among this galaxy of 
rarities which dazzles, diverts, confounds, and nearly 
fatigues one.' 

Her description of these occupies some sixty pages, 
from which it would be superfluous to quote much. 
A few passages have a personal interest A visit to 
the Coliseum suggests to her the possibility of the unifi- 
cation of Italy. ' The modern Italians have not lost 
their taste of a prodigious theatre ; were they once more 
a single nation they would rebuild this, I fancy. ... I 
must not, however, quit the Coliseum without repeating 
what passed between the King of Sweden and his Roman 
laqiiais de place when he was here ; and the fellow, in 
the true cant of his ciceroneship, exclaimed, as they 
looked up, " Ah. Maesta ! what cursed Goths those were 
that tore away so many fine things here, and pulled down 
such magnificent pillars, etc." " Hold, hold, friend," re- 
plies the King of Sweden ; " I am one of those cursed Goths 
myself, you know ; but what were your Roman nobles 
a-doing, I would ask, when they laboured to destroy an 
edifice like this, and build their palaces with its materials ?" ' 



250 Queen Christina. 

At the Circus of Caracalla she says, ' I must not 
forbear mentioning his bust, which so perfectly resembles 
Hogarth's idle 'prentice ; but why should they not be 
alike ? 

' " For blackguards are blackguards in every degree," 

I suppose, and the people here who show one things, 
always take delight to souse an Englishman's hat upon 
his head, as if they thought so too.' 

' The Strada del Popolo,' she says, ' is so called with 
infinite propriety, for except in that strada there is little 
populousness enough, God knows. Twelve men to a 
woman even there, and as many ecclesiastics to a layman ; 
all this, however, is fair, when celibacy is once enjoined 
as a duty in one profession, encouraged as a virtue in all. 
Where females are superfluous, and half prohibited, it 
were foolish to complain of the decay of population.' 

' When I was told the story of Queen Christina 
admiring the two prodigious fountains before St. Peter's 
Church, and begging that they might leave off playing, 
because she thought them occasional, and in honour of 
her arrival, not constant and perpetual ; who could help 
recollecting a similar tale told about the Prince of 
Monaco, who was said to have expressed his concern, 
when he saw the roads lighted up round London, that 
our King should put himself to so great an expense on his 
account in good time ! thinking it a temporary illumi- 
nation made to receive him with distinguished splendour.' 

' The conversations of Cardinal de Bernis and Madame 
de Boccapaduli are what my countrywomen talk most of; 
but the Roman ladies cannot endure perfumes, and faint 
away even at an artificial rose. I went but once among 
them, when Memmo, the Venetian Ambassador, did me 
the honour to introduce me somewhere, but the conver- 
sation was soon over, not so my shame ; when I perceived 



Escape from Assassination. 251 

all the company shrink from, me very oddly, and stop 
their noses with rue, which a servant brought to their 
assistance on open salvers. I was by this time more like 
to faint away than they from confusion and distress ; 
my kind protector informed me of the cause : said I had 
some grains of marechale powder in my hair, perhaps, 
and led me out of the assembly ; to which no entreaties 
could prevail on me ever to return, or make further 
attempts to associate with a delicacy so very susceptible 
of offence.' 

At the Barberini Palace this incident recurs to her. 
' Nothing can equal the nastiness at one's entrance to 
this magazine of perfection ; but the Roman nobles are 
not disgusted with all sorts of scents, it is plain ; these 
are not what we should call perfumes indeed, but cer- 
tainly odori, of the same nature as those one is obliged to 
wade through before Trajan's Pillar can be climbed.' 

At Rome Mr. Piozzi had a narrow escape of being 
murdered. ' A man asked importunately in our ante- 
chamber this morning for the padrone, naming no names, 
and our servants turned him out. He went, however, 
only five doors further, found a sick old gentleman sitting 
in his lodging attended by a feeble servant, whom he 
bound, stuck a knife in the master, rifled the apartments, 
and walked coolly out again at noon-day ; nor should we 
have ever heard of such a trifle, but that it happened just 
by so ; for here are no newspapers to tell who is 
murdered, and nobody's pity is excited, unless for the 
malefactor when they hear he is caught/ 

' On the tenth day of this month,' says Mrs. Piozzi, 
' we arrived early at Naples,' but she quite forgets to say 
what month. It would seem, however, to have been 
December, 1785, and it was certainly early, for it was 
about two o'clock in the morning. ' Sure, the providence 



252 Vesuvius. 

of God preserved us, for never was such weather seen 
by me since I came into the world thunder, lightning, 
storm at sea, rain and wind, contending for mastery, and 
combining to extinguish the torches bought to light us 
the last stage ; Vesuvius, vomiting fire, and pouring tor- 
rents of red-hot lava down its sides, was the only object 
visible ; and that we saw plainly in the afternoon thirty 
miles off, where I asked a Franciscan friar if it was the 
famous volcano, " Yes," replied he ; " that's our moun- 
tain, which throws up money for us, by calling foreigners 
to see the extraordinary effects of so surprising a phe- 
nomenon." . . . 

' My poor maid had by this time nearly lost her wits 
with terror, and the French valet, crushed with fatigue, 
and covered with rain and sea - spray, had just life 
enough left to exclaim: "Ah, madame ! il me semble 
que nous sommes venus ici expres pour voir la fin du 
monde." '* 

They secured rooms with a full view of the mountain, 
which called her the first night twenty times away from 
sleep and supper, ' though never so in want of both as at 
that moment, surely. . . . Upon reflection it appears to 
me that the men most famous at London and Paris for 
performing tricks with fire have been always Italians in 
my time, and commonly Neapolitans. No wonder, I 
should think, Naples would produce prodigious connois- 
seurs in this way. We have almost perpetual lightning 
of various colours, according to the soil from whence the 
vapours are exhaled ; sometimes of a pale straw or lemon 
colour; often white, like artificial flame produced by 
camphor : but oftenest blue, bright as the rays emitted 
through the coloured liquors set in the window of a 

* ' Lord, madam ! why, we came here on purpose, sure, to see the end of the 
world.' 



St. Januarius. 253 

chemist's shop in London ; and with such thunder ! 
" For God's sake, Sir," said I to some of them, " is there 
no danger of the ships in the harbour here catching fire ? 
Why, we should all fly up in the air directly if once these 
flashes should communicate to the room where any of the 
vessels keep their powder !" " Gunpowder, madam !" 
replies the man, amazed. " Why, if St. Peter and St. 
Paul came here with gunpowder on board, we should soon 
drive them out again. Don't you know," added he, " that 
every ship discharges her contents at such a place 
(naming it), and never comes into our port with a grain 
onboard?'" 

The veneration of St. Januarius struck her as the most 
heathenish thing she had seen in Italy. 'The Neapo- 
litans, who are famous for blasphemous oaths, and a 
facility of taking the most sacred words into their mouths 
on every, and, I may say, on no occasion, are never heard 
to repeat his name without pulling off their hat, or making 
some reverential sign of worship at the moment. And I 
have seen Italians from other states greatly shocked at 
the grossness of these their unenlightened neighbours, 
particularly the half-Indian custom of burning figures 
upon their skins with gunpowder ; these figures large, 
and oddly displayed, too, according to the coarse notions 
of the wearer. 

' As the weather is exceedingly warm, and there is little 
need of clothing for comfort, our Lazzaroni have small 
care about appearances, and go with a vast deal of their 
persons uncovered, except by these strange ornaments. 
The man who rows you about this lovely bay has perhaps 
the angel Raphael or the Blessed Virgin Mary delineated 
on one brawny sunburnt leg, the saint of the town upon 
the other; his arms represent the Glory, or the seven 
spirits of God, or some strange things, while a brass 



254 The King of Naples. 

medal hangs from his neck expressive of his favourite 
martyr.' 

' The King of Spain, or Re Cattolico, as these people 
always call him, has still much influence, and they seem 
to think nearly as respectfully of him as of their own 
immediate sovereign, who is, however, greatly beloved 
among them ; and so he ought to be, for he is the repre- 
sentative of them all. He rides and rows, and hunts the 
wild boar, and catches fish in the bay, and sells it in the 
market as dear as he can, too, but gives away the money 
they pay him for it, and that directly ; so that no sus- 
picion of meanness, or of anything worse than a little 
rough merriment, can be ever attached to his truly honest, 
open, undesigning character. 

* Stories of monarchs seldom give me pleasure, who 
seldom am persuaded to give credit to tales told of per- 
sons few people have any access to, and whose behaviour 
towards those few is circumscribed within the laws of 
insipid and dull routine ; but this prince lives among his 
subjects with the old Roman idea of a window before his 
bosom, I believe. They know the worst of him is that 
he shoots at the birds, dances with the girls, eats maca- 
roni, and helps himself to it with his fingers, and rows 
against the watermen in the bay, till one of them burst 
out o' bleeding at the nose last week with his uncourtly 
efforts to outdo the King, who won the trifling wager by 
this accident ; conquered, laughed, and leaped on shore 
amidst the acclamations of the populace, who huzzaed 
him home to the palace, from whence he sent double the 
sum he had won to the waterman's wife and children, 
with other tokens of kindness. Meantime, while he 
resolves to be happy himself, he is equally determined 
to make no man miserable.' 

The Grotto del Cane reminded her of a terrifying 



The Grotto del Cane. 255 

accident which she ' once saw arise in a great brewhouse ' 
(her first husband's, no doubt) ' from the headstrong 
stupidity of a workman who would go down into a vat, 
the contents of which had lately been drawn off, without 
sending his proper precursor, the candle, to inquire if all 
was safe. The consequence was half expected by his 
companions, who, hearing him drop off the steps and fall 
flat to the bottom, began instantly hooking him up again ; 
but there were no signs of life. Some ran for their master, 
others for a surgeon, but we were nearest at hand, and, 
recollecting what one had read of the recovery of dogs at 
Naples by tossing them suddenly into the lake Agnano, 
we made the men carry their patient to the cooler, and, 
plunging him over head and ears, restored his life exactly 
in the manner of the Grotto del Cane experiment, which 
succeeded so completely in this fellow's case, I remember, 
that, waking after the temporary suspension, we had 
much ado to impress so insensible a mortal with a due 
sense of the danger his rashness had incurred.' 

The repeated experiments with the unfortunate dog 
disgusted her. ' Sporting with animal life is always 
highly offensive. . . . Truth is, human life is lower 
rated in all parts of Italy than with us. They think 
nothing of an individual, but see him perish (excepting 
by the hand of justice) as a cat or dog. A young man 
fell from our carriage at Milan one evening. He was not 
a servant of ours, but a friend whom, after we were gone 
home, the coachman had picked up to go with him to the 
fireworks which were exhibited that night near the Corso. 
There was a crowd and an embarras, and the fellow 
tumbled off and died upon the spot, and nobody even 
spoke, or I believe thought about the matter, except one 
woman, who supposed that he had neglected to cross 
himself when he got up behind.' 



256 The Hermit of Vesuvius. 

The King's menagerie they found neither rich in animals 
nor particularly well kept. ' The bears, however, were as 
tame as lapdogs. There was a wolf, too, larger than ever 
I saw a wolf, and an elephant that played a hundred 
tricks at the command of his keeper, little less a beast 
than he.' 

Of course, they climbed Vesuvius, and at the Hermitage 
had some talk with ' the poor, good old man, who sets up a 
little cross wherever the fire has stopped near his cell. . . . 
This hermit is a Frenchman. " J'ai danse dans mon lit 
tant de fois," said he. The expression was not sublime 
when speaking of an earthquake, to be sure. I looked 
among his books, however, and found Bruyere. " Would 
not the Due de Rochefoucault have done better?" said 
1. " Did I never see you before, madam ?" said he. 
" Yes, sure I have, and dressed you, too, when I was a 
hairdresser in London, and lived with Monsieur Marti- 
nant, and I dressed pretty Miss Wynne, too, in the same 
street. ' Vit-elle encore ? Vit-elle encore ?' Ah, I am 
old now." continued he. " I remember when black pins 
first came up." This was charming, and in such an 
unexpected way, I could hardly prevail upon myself ever 
to leave the spot ; but Mrs. Greathead having been quite 
to the crater's edge with her only son, a baby of four 
years old, shame rather than inclination urged rrxe for- 
ward. I asked the little boy what he had seen. " I saw 
the chimney," replied he, " and it was on fire ; but I liked 
the elephant better." ' 

' A festa di hallo, or masquerade, given here, was ex- 
ceedingly gay, and the dresses surprisingly rich. Our 
party, a very large one, all Italians, retired at one in 
the morning to quite the finest supper of its size I ever 
saw. Fish of various sorts, incomparable in their kinds, 
composed eight dishes of the first course. We had 



The Carnival at Rome. 257 

thirty-eight set on the table in that course, forty-nine 
in the second, with wines and dessert truly magnificent, 
for all which Mr. Piozzi protested to me that we paid 
only three shillings and sixpence a-head English money ; 
but for the truth of that he must answer.' 

The travellers left Naples after a stay of three months, 
and returned to Rome, to which fifty pages more of the 
' Observations ' are devoted. They arrived in time for 
the three last days of the carnival. * One high joke 
seems to consist in the men putting on girls' clothes. 
A woman is somewhat a rarity at Rome, and strangely 
superfluous, as it should appear by the extraordinary 
substitutes found for them on the stage. It is more than 
wonderful to see great strong fellows dancing the women's 
parts in these fashionable dramas pastoral and heroic 
ballets, as they call them; but these clumsy figurantes, all 
stout, coarse-looking men, kicking about in hooped petti- 
coats, were to me irresistibly ridiculous. The gentlemen 
with me, however, both Italians and English, were top 
much disgusted to laugh.' 

They attended the ' various functions that really make 
Rome a scene of perpetual gala during the Holy Week, 
which an English friend here protested to me he had 
never spent with so little devotion in his life before. . . . 
Even the Miserere has much of its effect destroyed from 
the admission of too many people. Crowd and bustle, 
and struggle for places, leave no room for any ideas to 
range themselves, and, least of all, serious ones ; nor 
would the opening of our sacred music in Westminster 
Abbey, when nine hundred performers join to celebrate 
Messiah's praises, make that impression which it does 
upon the mind, were not the King, and Court, and all the 
audience, as still as death when the first note is taken.' 

' The Pope powders his hair like any other of the 



258 Kissing the Slipper. 

Cardinals, and is, it seems, the first who has ever done 
so. When he takes the air it is in a fashionable carriage, 
with a few, a very few, guards on horseback, and is by no 
means desirous of making himself a show. Now and 
then an old woman begs his blessing as he passes; but 
I almost remember the time when our Bishops of Bangor 
and St. Asaph were followed by the country people in 
North Wales full as much or more, and with just the 
same feelings. One man in particular we used to talk of 
who came from a distant part of our mountainous pro- 
vince, with much expense in proportion to his abilities, 
poor fellow, and terrible fatigue. He was a tenant of 
my father's, who asked him how he ventured to undertake 
so troublesome a journey. " It was to get my good Lord's 
blessing," replied the farmer. "/ hope it will cure my 
rheumatism" Kissing the slipper at Rome will probably, 
in a hundred years more, be a thing to be thus faintly 
recollected by a few very old people, and it is strange to 
me it should have lasted so long. No man better knows 
than the present learned and pious successor of St. Peter 
that St. Peter himself would permit no act of adoration 
to his own person.' 

They went to see Raphael's ' Transfiguration,' and Mrs. 
Piozzi heard an anecdote of the Emperor Joseph. ' It 
was the first thing the Emperor did visit when he came 
to Rome, and so a Franciscan friar, who shows it, told 
us. He saw a gentleman walking into church, it seems, 
and, leaving his friends at dinner, went out to converse 
with him. " Pull aside the curtain, sir," said the stranger, 
"for I am in haste to see this masterpiece of your im- 
mortal Raphael." " I was as willing to be in a hurry as 
he," says the friar, " and observed how fortunate it was 
for us that it could not be moved, otherwise we had lost 
it long ago. ' For, Sir,' said I, ' they would have carried 



The Emperor at Rotne, 259 

it away from poor Monte Citoria to some finer temple 
long ago ; though, let me tell you, this is an elegant Doric 
building, too, and one of Bramante's best works, much 
admired by the English in particular. I hope, if it please 
God now that I should live but a very little longer, I may 
have the honour of showing it the Emperor/ " " Is he 
expected ?" inquired the gentleman. " Every day, Sir," 
replies the friar. " And well now," cries the foreigner, 
" what sort of man do you expect to see ?" " Why, sir, 
you seem a traveller ; did you ever see him ?" quoth the 
Franciscan. " Yes, sure, my good friend, very often 
indeed. He is as plain a man as myself, has good 
intentions, and an honest heart ; and I think you would 
like him if you knew him, because he puts nobody out of 
their way." 

' This dialogue, natural and simple, had taken such 
hold of our good religieux's fancy, that not a word would 
he say about the picture, while his imagination was so 
full of the Prince and of his own amazement at the salu- 
tation of his companions when returning to the refectory. 
" Why, Gaetano," cried they, " thou hast been conversing 
with Caesar!" I, too, liked the tale, because it was art- 
less, and because it was true.' 

Of the Vatican Library, * to her perpetual regret,' she 
saw scarcely anything. ' Neither book nor MS. could I 
prevail on the librarian to show me, except some love- 
letters from Henry the Eighth of England to Anne Boleyn, 
which he said were most likely to interest me. They were 
very gross and indecent ones, to be sure ; so I felt offended, 
and went away in a very ill humour.' 

' I must not quit Rome, however, without a word of 
Angelica Kauffman, who, though neither English nor 
Italian, has contrived to charm both nations, and show 
her superior talents both here and there. Beside her 

17 2 



260 7 7ie Falls of Terni. 

paintings, of which the world has been the judge, her 
conversation attracts all people of taste to her house, 
which none can bear to leave without difficulty and 
regret.' 

They left Rome on April 19, 1786. ' The first night 
of our journey was spent at Otricoli, where I heard the 
cuckoo sing in a shriller, sharper note than he does in 
England. I had never listened to him before since I left 
my own country, and his song alone would have convinced 
me I was no longer in it. ... The next day's drive carried 
us forward to Terni, where a severe concussion of the 
earth, suffered only three nights since, kept all the little 
town in terrible alarm ; the houses were deserted, the 
churches crowded, supplications and processions in every 
street, and people singing all night to the Virgin under 
our window.' 

Next morning, going to see the Falls, they found that 
' the earthquake had twisted the torrent out of its proper 
channel, and thrown it down another neighbouring rock, 
leaving the original bed black and deserted, as a dismal 
proof of the concussion's force.' 

' At Foligno the people told us that it was the quality 
of those waters to turn the clothing of many animals 
white, and accordingly all the fowls looked like those of 
Dorking. I had, however, no taste of their beauty, 
recollecting that when I kept poultry some accident 
poisoned me a very beautiful black hen, the breed of 
Lord Mansfield at Caen Wood. She recovered her 
illness, but at the next moulting season her feathers 
came as white as the swan's. " Let us look," says Mr. 
Sh , " if all the women here have got gray hair." ' 

' At Loretto it is very entertaining to see inscriptions 
in twelve different tongues, giving an account of the 
miraculous removal and arrival here of the Santa Casa. 



Fatigues of Travel. 261 

I was delighted with the Welsh one ; and our conductor 
said there came not unfrequently pilgrims from the Vale 
of Clwyd, who in their turns told the wonders of their 
holy well.' 

' Ravenna T Antica tired more than it pleased us/ is 
her sole mention of that wonderful place. No doubt her 
appetite for sightseeing was nearly satisfied. ' A charm- 
ing lady of our country, for whom I have the highest 
esteem, protests she shall be happy to get back to 
London, if it is only for the relief of sitting still, and 
resolving to see no more sights; exchanging fasto, fiera, 
and frittura for a muffin, a mop, and a morning news- 
paper three things equally unknown in Italy as the 
other three among us/ 

Coming to Bologna, Mrs. Piozzi complains of it again 
as ' hot, and loud, and pious, though less empty of occu- 
pation than last time ; for here is a new Gonfaloniere 
chosen in to-day, and the drums beat, and the trumpets 
sound, and some donations are distributed about, much 
in the proportions Tom Davies describes Garrick's to have 
been ; small pieces of money, and large pieces of cake, 
with quantities of meat, bread, and birds, borne about 
the town in procession, to make display of his bounty, 
who gives all this away at the time he is elected into 
office.' 

They found it difficult to get to Padua, the roads being 
very bad. ' Had we come three days sooner we might 
have seen the transit of Mercury from Abate Toaldo's 
observatory ; but our own transit took up all our thoughts, 
and it is a very great mercy that we are come safe at last. 
I think it was as much as four bulls and six horses could 
do to drag us into Rovigo. . . . Now we are hastening 
to Venice, and shall leave our cares and our coach behind, 
in a city which admits of neither.' Floating down the 



262 Correggio. 

Brenta, Mrs. Piozzi read Merry's ' Paulina,' * that glorious 
poem.' The poet's glories have so entirely faded that 
few people remember even his name. At Venice the 
travellers rested till June 12, and, returning to Padua, 
observed how surprisingly quick had been the progress 
of summer. ' In these countries vegetation is so rapid 
that everything makes haste to come and more to go. 
Scarce have you tasted green peas or strawberries before 
they are out of fashion ; and if you do not swallow your 
pleasures, as Madame la Presidente said, you have a 
chance to miss of getting any pleasures at all. Here is 
no mediocrity in anything no moderate weather, no 
middle rank of life, no twilight ; whatever is not night 
is day, and whatever is not love is hatred ; and that the 
English should eat peaches in May, and green peas in 
October, sounds to Italian ears as a miracle. They com- 
fort themselves, however, by saying that they must be 
very insipid, while we know that fruits forced by strong 
fire are at least many of them higher in flavour than 
those produced by sun ; the pineapple particularly, which 
West Indians confess eats better with us than with them. 
Figs and cherries, however, defy a hot-house, and grapes 
raised by art are worth little except for show. Peaches, 
nectarines, and ananas are the glory of a British gar- 
dener, and no country but England can show such.' 

At Parma Mrs. Piozzi does not refuse to admire Cor- 
reggio's pictures, though with the customary reference to 
the higher merits of the Caracci. ' Correggio,' she says, 
' was perhaps one of the most powerful geniuses that has 
appeared on earth. Destitute of knowledge, or of the 
means of acquiring it, he has left glorious proofs of what 
uninstructed man may do, and is, perhaps, a greater 
honour to the human species than those who, from fer- 
menting erudition of various kinds, produce performances 



The Emperors Reforms. 263 

of more complicated worth. The " Fatal Curiosity" and 
" Pilgrim's Progress " will live as long as the " Prince of 
Abyssinia " or " Les Aventures de Telemaque," perhaps ; 
and who shall dare say that Lillo, Bunyan, and Antonio 
Correggio were not naturally equal to Johnson, Michael 
Angelo, and the Archbishop of Cambray ? Have I said 
enough, or can enough be ever said, in praise of a painter 
whose works the great Annibale Caracci delighted to 
study, to copy, and to praise ?' 

Returning to Milan, 'where we have cool apartments 
and warm friends,' they observed how much the general 
look of the place was improved in the last fifteen months. 
The reforming Emperor Joseph had been at work, and 
the town was become neater, the ordinary people smarter, 
the roads round their city mended, and the beggars 
cleared away from the streets. ' We did not find, how- 
ever, that the people we talked to were at all charmed 
with these new advantages : their convents demolished, 
their processions put an end to, the number of their 
priests, of course, contracted, and their church plate 
carried by cartloads to the mint ; holidays forbidden, and 
every saint's name erased from the calendar, excepting 
only St. Peter and St. Paul ; whilst those shopkeepers 
who worked for monasteries, and those musicians who 
sung or played in oratorios, are left to find employment 
how they can cloud the countenances of all, and justly ; 
as such sudden and rough reforms shock the feelings of 
the multitude ; offend the delicacy of the nobles ; make 
a general stagnation of business, and of pleasure, in a 
country where both depend upon religious functions, and 
terrify the clergy into no ill-grounded apprehensions of 
being found in a few years more wholly useless, and as 
such dismissed.' 

The} went to see the Lake of Lugano, and were 



264 Lugano. 

speedily made aware that they had crossed the frontier 
into Switzerland. ' Our cicerone there, in reply to the 
question asked in Italy three times a day, I believe 
"Che principe fa qui la sua residenza ?"* replied that 
they were plagued with no principi at all, while the 
thirteen cantons protected all their subjects ; and though, 
as the man expressed it, only half of them were Christians, 
and the other half Protestants, no church or convent had 
ever wantsd respect ; while their town regularly received 
a monthly governor from every canton, and was perfectly 
contented with this ambulatory dominion.' 

After a visit to Bergamo they returned to Milan, and 
began their preparations for quitting Italy. ' We are 
now cutting hay here for the last time this season, and 
all the environs smell like spring on this I5th September, 
1786. The autumnal tint, however, falls fast upon the 
trees, which are already rich with a deep yellow hue. 
A wintery feel upon the atmosphere early in a morning, 
heavy fogs about noon, and a hollow wind towards the 
approach of night, make it look like the very last week 
of October in England, and warn us that summer is 
going. The same circumstances prompt me, who dm 
about to forsake this her favourite region, to provide furs, 
flannels, etc., for the passing of those Alps which look 
so formidable when covered with snow even at their pre : 
sent distance. Our swallows are calling their clamorous 
council round me while I write ; but the butterflies still 
flutter about in the middle of the day. and grapes are 
growing more wholesome, as with us, when the mornings 
begin to be frosty.' 

A week later they quitted Milan with some tears, took 
a still more tender farewell of Verona, and, passing the 
Tyrolese Alps, came to Trent. There she remarks upon 

* ' What Prince makes his residence here ?' 



Innsbruck. 265 

the pleasing sight ' of two nations, not naturally con- 
genial, living happily together, as the Germans and 
Italians here do.' At Innsbruck they find themselves 
' cruelly distressed for want of language ' ; but it is ' no 
small comfort to find one's self once more waited on by 
clean-looking females, who make your bed, sweep your 
room, etc., while the pewters in the little neat kitchens, 
as one passes through, amaze me with their brightness, 
that I feel as if in a new world, it is so long since I have 
seen any metal but gold unencrusted by nastiness, and 
gold will not be dirty. 

' The clumsy churches here are more violently crowded 
with ornaments than I have found them yet, and for one 
crucifix or Madonna to be met with on Italian roads, here 
are at least fort)'. An ill-carved, and worse painted figure 
of a bleeding Saviour, large as life, meets one at every 
turn ; and I feel glad when the odd devotion of the 
inhabitants hangs a clean shirt, or laced waistcoat over 
it, or both.' 

' The women that run about the town, meantime, take 
the nearest way to be warm, wrapping themselves up in 
cloth clothes, like so many fishermen at the mouth of the 
Humber, and wear a sort of rug cap grossly unbecoming. 
But too great an attention to convenience disgusts as 
surely as too little ; and while a Venetian wench appa- 
rently seeks only to captivate the contrary sex, these 
German girls as plainly proclaim their resolution not to 
sacrifice a grain of personal comfort for the pleasure of 
pleasing all the men alive.' 

At Munich Mrs. Piozzi is in no humour to be pleased 
with German art, and goes to see the galleries with little 
hope of entertainment. ' The patient German is seen in 
all they shew us, from the painting of Brueghel to the 
music of Haydn. A friend here who speaks good Italian 



266 Salzburg. 

showed us a collection of rarities, among which was a 
picture formed of butterflies' wings, and a set of boxes one 
within another, till my eyes were tired with trying to dis- 
cern, and the patience of my companions was wearied with 
counting them, when the number passed seventy-three. 
This amusement has at least the grace of novelty to 
recommend it.' 

' An old nobleman came to dine with us yesterday in 
a dressed coat of fine, clean, white broad-cloth, laced all 
down with gold, and lined with crimson satin, of which 
likewise the waistcoat was made, and laced about with a 
narrower lace, but pretty broad, too ; so that I thought 
I saw the very coat my father went in to the old King's 
birthday five-and-thirty years ago.' 

At Salzburg she goes to the Benedictine convent ' seated 
on the top of a hill above the town, of exceeding anti- 
quity, founded before the conquest of England by William 
the Norman ; under which lie its founder and protectors, 
the old Dukes of Bavaria, which they are happy to shew 
travellers, with the registered account of their young 
Prince Adam, who came over to our island with William 
and gained a settlement. They were pleased when I 
proved to them that his blood was not yet wholly extinct 
among us. . . . The taste of gardening seems just what 
ours was in England before Stowe was planned, and 
they divert you now with puppets moved by concealed 
machinery, as I recollect their doing at places round 
London, called the Spaniard at Hampstead and Don 
Saltero's at Chelsea.' 

Arriving at Vienna, she is surprised to find ' many 
devotional figures and chapels left in the streets, which, 
from the tales told in Austrian Lombard}", one had little 
reason to expect ; but the Emperor is tender even to the 



Illness of Mrs. Piozzi. 207 

foibles of his Viennese subjects, while he shows little 
feeling to Italian misery.' 

' On the ist of November we tried at an excursion into 
Hungary, where we meant to have surveyed the Danube 
in all its dignity at Presburgh, and have heard Haydn at 
Esterhazie. But my being unluckily taken ill prevented 
us from prosecuting our journey further than a wretched 
village, where I was laid up with a fever, and disappointed 
my company of much hoped-for entertainment. It was 
curious, however, to find one's self within a few posts of 
the places one had read so much of; and the words 
" Route de Belgrade " upon a finger-post gave me sensa- 
tions of distance never felt before. ... It was a melan- 
choly country that we passed through, very bleak and 
dismal, and, I trust, would not have mended upon us 
had we gone further. The few people one sees are all 
ignorant, and can all speak Latin such as it is very 
fluently.' 

Of the Emperor Joseph and his ways Mrs. Piozzi gives 
some account. ' He rises at five o'clock every morning, 
even at this sharp season ; writes in private till nine ; 
takes some refreshment then, and immediately after calls 
his Ministers, and employs the time till one professedly 
in state affairs ; rides out till three ; returns and studies 
alone, letting the people bring his dinner at the appointed 
hour ; chooses out of all the things they bring him one 
dish, and sets it on the stove to keep hot, eating it when 
nature calls for food, but never detaining a servant in the 
room to wait ; at five he goes to the corridor just near 
his own apartment, where poor and rich, small and great, 
have access to his person at pleasure, and often get him 
to arbitrate their lawsuits, and decide their domestic 
differences, as nothing is more agreeable to him than 
finding himself considered by his people as their father, 



268 The Emperor Joseph. 

and dispenser of justice over all his extensive dominions. 
His attention to the duties he has imposed upon himself 
is so great that, in order to maintain a pure impartiality 
in his mind towards every claimant, he suffers no man or 
woman to have any influence over him, and forbears even 
the slight gratification of fondling a dog, lest it should 
take up too much of his time. The Emperor is a stranger 
upon principle to the joys of confidence and friendship, 
but cultivates the acquaintance of many ladies and gentle- 
men, at whose houses (when they see company) he drops 
in, and spends the evening cheerfully in cards or con- 
versation, putting no man under the least restraint ; and 
if he sees a new comer-in look disconcerted, goes up to 
him and says kindly : " Divert yourself your own way, 
good sir, and do not let me disturb you." His coach is 
like the commonest gentleman's of Vienna ; his servants 
distinguished only by the plainness of their liveries ; and, 
lest their insolence might make his company troublesome 
to the houses where he visits, he leaves the carriage in 
the street, and will not even be driven into the courtyard, 
where other equipages and footmen wait. A large dish 
of hot chocolate thickened with bread and cream is a 
common afternoon's regale here, and the Emperor often 
takes one, observing to the mistress of the house how 
acceptable such a meal is to him after so wretched a 
dinner. 

' A few mornings ago showed his character in a strong 
light. Some poor women were coming down the Danube 
on a float, the planks separated, and they were in danger 
of drowning. As it was very early in the day, and no one 
awake upon the shore, except a sawyer that was cutting 
wood, who, not being able to obtain from his phlegmatic 
neighbours that assistance their case immediately re- 
quired, ran directly to call the Emperor, who he knew 



German Art. 269 

would be stirring, and who came flying to give that help 
which, from some happy accident, was no longer wanted. 
But Joseph lost no good humour on the occasion ; on the 
contrary, he congratulated the women on their deliver- 
ance, praising at the same time and rewarding the fellow 
for having disturbed him. 

' My informer told me, likewise, that if two men dispute 
about any matter till mischief is expected, the wife of 
one of them will often cry out : " Come, have done- 
have done directly, or I'll call our master, and he'll make 
you have done." ' 

German art did not please Mrs. Piozzi, and German ex- 
clusiveness offended her. ' Our architecture here can 
hardly be expected to please an eye made fastidious from 
the contemplation of Michael Angelo's works at Rome, 
or Palladio's at Venice ; nor will German music much 
delight those who have been long accustomed to more 
simple melody, though intrinsic merit, and complicated 
excellence will always deserve the highest note of praise. 
Whoever takes upon him to underrate that which no one 
can obtain without infinite labour and study, will ever be 
censured, and justly, for refusing the reward due to deep 
research ; but if a man's taste leads him to like Cyprus 
wine, let him drink that, and content himself with com- 
mending the old hock. 

' Apropos, we hear that Sacchini, the Metastasio of 
musical composers, is dead ; but nobody at Vienna cares 
about his compositions. Our Italian friends are more 
candid ; they are always talking in favour of Bach and 
Brueghel, Handel and Rubens.' 

At Vienna Mrs. Piozzi made the acquaintance of the 
Mesdemoiselles de Martinas, ladies of fashion, very eminent 
for their musical abilities, in whose family the Italian poet 
Metastasio had lived for sixty-five years. ' They set his 



270 Metastasio. 

poetry and sing it very finely, appearing to recollect his 
conversation and friendship with infinite tenderness and 
delight. He was to have been presented to the Pope the 
very day he died, I understand, and in the delirium which 
immediately preceded dissolution he raved much of the 
supposed interview. Unwilling to hear of death, no one 
was ever permitted even to mention it before him ; and 
nothing put him so certainly out of humour as finding 
that rule transgressed even by his nearest friends. Even 
the small-pox was not to be named in his presence, and 
whoever did, name that disorder, though unconscious of 
the offence he had given, Metastasio would see him no 
more. The other peculiarities I could gather from Miss 
Martinas were these : That he had contentedly lived half 
a century at Vienna, without ever even wishing to learn 
its language ; that he had never given more than five 
guineas English money in all that time to the poor ; that 
he always sat in the same seat at church, but never paid 
for it, and that nobody dared ask him for the trifling sum ; 
that he was grateful and beneficent to the friends who 
began by being his protectors, but ended much his debtors, 
for solid benefits, as well as for elegant presents, which it 
was his delight to be perpetually making them, leaving to 
them at last all he had ever gained without the charge 
even of a single legacy ; observing in his will that it was 
to them he owed it, and other conduct would in him have 
been injustice. Such were the sentiments, and such the 
conduct of this great poet, of whom it is of little conse- 
quence to tell that he never changed the fashion of his 
wig, the cut or colour of his coat, so that his portrait 
taken not very long ago looks like those of Boileau or 
Moliere at the head of their works. His life was arranged 
with such methodical exactness, that he rose, studied, 
chatted, slept, and dined at the same hours for fifty years 



Metastasio. 2 7 1 

together, enjoying uninterrupted health, which probably 
gave him that happy sweetness of temper, or habitual 
gentleness of manners, which never suffered itself to be 
ruffled, but when his sole injunction was forgotten, and 
the death of any person whatever was unwittingly men- 
tioned before him. No solicitation had ever prevailed on 
him to dine from home, nor had his nearest intimates 
ever seen him eat more than a biscuit with his lemonade, 
every meal being performed with even mysterious privacy 
to the last. When his end approached by steps so very 
rapid, he did not in the least suspect that it was coming ; 
and Mademoiselle Martinas has scarcely yet done rejoicing 
in the thought that he escaped the preparations he so 
dreaded. His early passion for a celebrated singer is well 
known upon the Continent ; since that affair finished, all 
his pleasures have been confined to music and conver- 
sation. He had the satisfaction of seeing the seventieth 
edition of his works, I think they said, but am ashamed 
to copy out the number from my own notes, it seems so 
very strange ; and the delight he took in hearing the lady 
he lived with sing his songs was visible to everyone. An 
Italian Abate here said, comically enough, " Oh ! he looked 
like a man in the state of beatification always when Made- 
moiselle de Martinas accompanied his verses with her fine 
voice and brilliant finger." The father of Metastasio was 
a goldsmith at Rome, but his son had so devoted himself 
to the family he lived with, that he refused to hear, and 
took pains not to know, whether he had in his latter days 
any one relation left in the world.' 

The travellers left Vienna on November 23, and went 
to Prague, but Mrs. Piozzi has little to say of it. ' Dr. 
Johnson was very angry with a gentleman at cur house 
once, I well remember, for not being better company, 
and urged that he had travelled into Bohemia and seen 



272 



Dresden. 



Prague. "Surely," added he, "the man who has seen 
Prague might tell us something new, and something 
strange, and not sit silent for want of matter to put his 
lips in motion !" Horresco referens ! I have now been at 
Prague, as well as Doctor Fitzpatrick, but have brought 
away nothing very interesting, I fear.' 

On December 4 they arrived at Dresden, having found 
the roads so bad that at Aussig they put their ' shattered 
coach on board a bark, and floated her down to Dresden, 
whither we drove forward in the little carts of the country, 
called chaises, but very rough and with no springs, as our 
very old-fashioned curricles were about the year 1750.' 

Dresden pleased Mrs. Piozzi better than other German 
cities. ' The general air and manner, both of place and 
people, puts one in mind of the pretty clean parts of our 
London, about Queen Square, Ormond Street, Lincoln's- 
Inn-Fields, and Southampton Row.' 

The gallery, with its famous collection of Italian 
pictures, is of course noticed at length. ' The gaiety and 
good-humour of the Court are much desired by the 
Saxons, who have a most lofty notion of Princes, and 
repeat all they say, and all that is said of them, with a 
most venerating affection. I see no national partiality to 
England, however, as in many other parts of Europe, 
though our religions are so nearly allied : and here is a 
spirit of subordination beyond what I have yet been 
witness to an aunt kissing the hand of her own niece (a 
baby not six years old), and calling her " ma chere comtesse /" 
carried it as high, I think, as it can be carried.' 

With Berlin Mrs. Piozzi was not much enchanted. It 
was, she said, the first place of any consequence she had 
felt in a hurry to run away from. At Potsdam they saw 
the tomb of Frederick the Great, who had died but a few 
months before. On January 13, 1787, they set off for 



Antwerp. 273 

Hanover, and thence hastened to Brussels, ' very weary 
of living on the high roads of Teuchland all winter long.' 
Antwerp she found ' a dismal, heavy-looking town so 
melancholy ! the Scheld shut up ! the grass growing in 
the streets ! those streets so empty of inhabitants !' Here 
her many ' reflections upon painting ' find a conclusion 
in some warm expressions of admiration for the master- 
pieces of Rubens. They went by way of Lille to Calais, 
and found themselves once more in the Ship Inn at 
Dover. 



18 



CHAPTER XI. 

Macaulay's Account of the Flight to Italy Obloquy Insults from Baretti 
Continuing Regard for Johnson His Death Projected Work on Him 
The Florence Miscel!any The 'Anecdotes' Rupture with Boswcll In- 
accuracies in the 'Anecdotes' Show Resentment against Johnson 
Walpole's Censures Sale of the Book Peter Pindar Bozzy and Piozzi 
Extracts Miss Thrale The Piozzis Return to England Their Reception 
Miss Seward's Impressions of Mrs. Piozzi and her Husband. 

YET Mrs. Piozzis life on the Continent was not a period 
of unmixed enjoyment. Lord Macaulay says that ' she 
fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and 
countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, 
hastened across Mont Cenis, and learned while passing a 
merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties at 
Milan that the great man with whose name hers is in- 
separably associated had ceased to exist.' There is a 
good deal of extravagance about both parts of this sen- 
tence. Dr. Birkbeck Hill calls the former part of it 'a 
monstrous exaggeration.' Yet it is true that a vast 
amount of gossip, most of it idle, but some malignant, 
had been expended on her marriage. The newspapers 
and magazines assailed her with offensive personalities, 
and inserted epigrams, neither witty nor decent, at the 
expense of the fortune-hunter and the amorous widow. 
What Johnson termed ' an adumbration ' of his first letter 
denouncing her union with Piozzi appeared in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine. These attacks pursued her abroad. On 
November 3, 1784, she writes in her diary : 



Insults from Baretti. 275 

' 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 re- 
lieved 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.'* 

Yet she continued to write not unkindly of Johnson. 

' Milan, zjth November, 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.'t 

In a letter to Mr. Lysons, from Milan, dated December 
7, 1784, she says : ' 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. 'I 

Meanwhile Johnson was writing to Hawkins that the 
woman he had once called ' his mistress ' had now ' become 
a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, 
if she has any left, to forget or pity ' ; and he was telling 
Miss Burney, at her last interview with him, that he drove 
that despicable person, whose eldest daughter had visited 
him the day before, entirely from his mind, burning every 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 267. f Ibid., i. 248. Ibid. 

18 2 



276 Death of Johnson. 

letter of hers on which he could lay his hand. He had 
passed the first part of the summer at Oxford, with the 
master of his old college ; thence he had gone to Lich- 
field and Ashbourne ; and, after another visit to Dr. 
Adams, had returned in the middle of November to 
London, where he died of dropsy on December 13, 
1784. He could not have complained of being neglected 
in his last illness by the woman he was driving from 
his mind, even had she been in England. As to the 
1 merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties,' Mr. 
Hayward remarks : ' An Italian concert is not a merry 
meeting; and a lemonade-party, I presume, is a party 
where, instead of eau sucree, as at Paris, the refreshment 
handed about is lemonade not an enlivening drink at 
Christmas.'* Probably Lord Macaulay referred to the 
Christmas entertainment which Mrs. Piozzi attended as 
a traveller, and which, as we have seen, she did not 
regard with complete satisfaction or approval. 

In January, 1785, she complains of a fresh outburst 
of insolence to her in the English newspapers, for which 
the death of Johnson had furnished an excuse. By 
the end of the month she had begun to contemplate 
publishing an account of her acquaintance with the 
Doctor. ' Six persons/ she writes, ' have already under- 
taken to write his life, I hear, of whom 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 / should disregard, but my heart is made vulner- 
able by my late marriage, and I am certain that, to spite 
me, they would insult my husband. 'f 

Boswell was first in the field with his 'Journal of a Tour to 

* Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 265. f Ibid., i. 269. 



The Florence Miscellany. 277 

the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,' which appeared 
at the end of September, 1785. This book had great suc- 
cess, three editions being published within the twelve- 
month. It led to a public rupture between the author and 
Mrs. Piozzi. In his ' Journal ' Boswell makes Johnson say 
of Mrs. Montagu's ' Essay on Shakspeare' : ' Reynolds is 
fond of her book, and I wonder at it ; for neither I, nor 
Beauclerk, nor Mrs. Thrale could get through it.' On 
reading this, Mrs. Piozzi published a letter to Mrs. Mon- 
tagu, disclaiming the unflattering opinion thus imputed 
to her. The matter is referred to in a letter, dated 
March 6, 1786, from Horace Walpole to his correspon- 
dent Sir Horace Mann, the British Minister at Florence: 

' I have lately been lent a volume of poems composed 
and printed at Florence, in which another of our ex- 
heroines, 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 lettei 
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.'* 

The volume of poems mentioned in the foregoing 
extract was ' The Florence Miscellany,' the production of 
what was called the Delia Crusca School, the principal 
members of which were Merry, Greathead, and Parsons, 
the associates of Mrs. Piozzi above referred to. The 
* ' Letters,' ix. 44. 



278 The ' Anecdotes! 

Piozzis had entertained Parsons, and received compli- 
mentary verses from him, at Milan. 'We met again,' 
writes the lady, ' the following summer at Florence, where 
we were living in a sort of literary coterie with Mr. and 
Mrs. Greathead, Mr. Merry, whom his friends called 
Delia Crusca, and a most agreeable et cetera of English 
and Italians.' It was against this school that William 
Gifford some years later directed his satires of the Baviad 
and Maeviad. In the former of these the author names 
the female poet of the ' Miscellany ' : 

' See Thrale'sgray widow with a satchel roam, 
And bring in pomp laborious nothings home.' 

The other collection expected from her by Walpole 
was her ' Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, during 
the last twenty years of his life.' This little book was 
finished at Florence, transcribed for the press at Leghorn, 
and forwarded thence to London, where it was revised 
by Sir Lucas Pepys and Mr. Lysons, under the advice of 
Dr. Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, and Dr. Lort,* 
and was finally published by Cadell at the end of March, 
1786. Most of the anecdotes were written from memory, 
which will explain and excuse a good many inaccuracies. 
She accounts for the inferiority of her work to Boswell's 
when she says : ' 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 confi- 
dence would soon be exiled from society, and a conver- 
sation assembly-room would become tremendous as a 
court of justice.'-f- This reflection was of course aimed at 

* Michael Lort, D.D., an eminent collector of books, 
f 'Anecdotes,' p. 44. 



Rupture with Bo swell. 279 

Boswell. It stung him deeply, as appears from the terms 
in which he refers to it : doubtless it contributed much 
to embitter the quarrel which had already arisen between 
them, and accounts for his eagerness to fasten a mistake 
on the lady at every possible opportunity. Miss Seward, 
who was herself subsequently involved in controversy 
with Boswell, has remarked with much force that the 
censures on Mrs. Piozzi's carelessness of truth, which the 
biographer constantly attributes to his hero, are absolutely 
in conflict with the high esteem which Johnson expresses 
for her in his printed letters. 

Mrs. Piozzi's disavowal of having concurred in Johnson's 
expression of contempt for Mrs. Montagu's essay was 
repeated by her in a postscript to her ' Anecdotes,' and 
was met by Boswell by a letter published in the Gazetteer 
on April 17, 1786. 

After all, the errors in the 'Anecdotes/ which several 
years of patient research enabled Boswell to expose in his 
' Life of Johnson,' are by no means so numerous or so 
gross as has sometimes been represented. We shall find 
space for a few examples. Take as a first instance the 
following : 

Mrs. Piozzi wrote : ' 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.' Against 
this Boswell quotes the version given by Baretti : ' Mrs. 
Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid down 
her knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, " Oh, 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." 



280 The 'Anecdotes' Inaccurate. 

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." ' 

In a marginal note on this passage, Mrs. Piozzi wrote : 
' I never addressed Johnson so familiarly in my life. I 
never did eat an}' supper, and there were no larks to eat.' 
In a further note she adds : ' Never was a hot dish seen 
on the table after dinner at Streatham Park.' In this 
statement she is confirmed by Miss Burney, who, in a 
passage already quoted, says that no supper was the 
rule at Thrales's. Even had Baretti, therefore, been a 
credible and unprejudiced witness, his testimony must 
in this case have been rejected. When the Thrales were 
giving evening parties Johnson told the mistress of the 
house that though few people might be hungry after a 
late dinner, she should keep a supply of cakes and sweet- 
meats on a side table. 

Again, Mrs. Piozzi writes : ' He once bade a very cele- 
brated 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 choked him with it.' Boswell 
characterizes this story as a perversion, on the authority 
of Malone, who supplied the biographer with a number 
of qualifying circumstances, which the latter considers to 
have taken off the edge of the reproof. Yet these circum- 
stances do not seem to make much difference ; and here 
again we may appeal to Miss Burney, who in one passage 
of her Diary repeats a story which she had from Mrs. 
Thrale about Hannah More, substantially identical with 
that given in the ' Anecdotes,' and, in another passage 
occurring shortly afterwards, records that Mrs. Thrale, 



S/iow Marks of Resentment. 281 

in her presence, said to Johnson : ' We have told her 
what you said to Miss More, and I believe that makes 
her afraid ;' and that he replied : Well, and if she was to 
serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing 
to her.' 

We can make room for only one instance more. ' Mrs. 
Piozzi,' says Boswell, ' has given a similar misrepresenta- 
tion 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 

' " Unelbowed 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. The biographer himself gives us 
the following : 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 ?' 

When we turn from the matter of the ' Anecdotes ' to 
the tone in which they speak of their subject, we cannot 
but perceive a constant struggle going on in the mind of 
the writer, between her old feelings of regard for Johnson, 
and the resentment which his recent behaviour to her 
had occasioned. Hers was an extremely sweet temper, 
but the sweetest of tempers must have been soured for a 
time by the affronts which he had heaped on her in re- 
lation to her second marriage ; hence we cannot be sur- 
prised at such a paragraph as the following, which occurs 
at the close of a passage of which we have already 
extracted the earlier portions : 

" Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, 
delight in his conversation, and habitual endurance of a 



282 Walpoles Censures. 

yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he con- 
tentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, 
made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson ; but the per- 
petual 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 pam- 
phlets, 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 con- 
ferred on anyone, 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 comprehen- 
sion of common mortals, and good beyond all hope of 
imitation from perishable beings.'* 

With respect to the literary merits of this produc- 
tion, it is not possible to differ very much from the 
severe estimate expressed by Walpole, whatever we may 
think of the latter's judgment in other respects. On 
March 28, 1786, he wrote to Mann: '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 
* 'Anecdotes,' 293. 



The Book Successful. 283 

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. 
Her panegyric is loud in praise of her hero ; and almost 
every fact she relates disgraces him. She allows and 
proves he was arrogant, yet affirms he was not proud : 
as if arrogance were not the flower of pride. A man may 
be proud, and may conceal it ; if he is arrogant, he 
declares he is proud. She, and all Johnson's disciples, 
seem to have taken his brutal contradictions for bons- 
mots. Some of his own works show that he had, at 
times, strong, excellent sense ; and that he had the virtue 
of charity to a high degree is indubitable ; but his friends 
(of whom he made a woeful choice) have taken care to 
let the world know, that in behaviour he was an ill-natured 
bear, and in opinions as senseless a bigot as an old 
washerwoman a brave composition for a philosopher !'* 
Good or bad, the book met with immediate and great 
success. The first edition was exhausted on the day of 
publication, so that when the King sent for a copy in the 
evening there was none to be had. In April Hannah 
More wrote to her sister that Mrs. Piozzi's book was 
much in fashion, and was indeed entertaining, though she 
complained of the author for having needlessly printed 
some of Johnson's rough speeches. She had before 
begged Boswell to mitigate some of their departed friend's 
asperities, and had received from James the answer that 
he would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to 
please anybody. The public interest in all relating to 
Johnson, and the dispute between the rival collectors of 
anecdotes, kept attention fixed on the matter. 'The Bozzi, 
etc., subjects,' wrote Hannah More later in April, ' are not 
exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of them. 

* ' Letters,' ix. 46. 



284 Peter Pindar. 

Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. 
That, the Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace spoilt 
all conversation, and destroyed a very good evening at 
Mr. Pepys' last night/ At the end of the same month 
Walpole wrote to Mann : 

'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 Madam 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 com- 
pliment 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 expects, 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. Wolcot,* 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 on them ; one, in 
which Boswell, as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the 

* Dr. John Wolcot, previously preacher to a congregation of negroes in 
Jamaica, had settled in London as a physician, and made his first appearance 
as Peter Pindar in 1782. 



Bozzy and Piozzi. 285 

bear, has this witty inscription, " My friend delineavit." 
But enough of these mountebanks.'* 

We give some extracts from the burlesque referred 
to by Horace, which is written in the vein of humour 
that came into vogue in the period succeeding Charles 
Churchill. The oddity and boldness of the author's style, 
the easy flow of his irregular verse, and the pungency of 
his lampoons, procured him celebrity in an age which 
cared more for vigour than refinement. 

' Bozzy and Piozzi ; or, The British Biographers,' is an 
excellent specimen of Peter Pindar's peculiar manner, and 
is nearly free from the grossness which disfigures much of 
his work. It is entitled 'A Town Eclogue,' and describes 
a contest between the speakers for the honour of writing 
Johnson's life : 

At length rushed forth two candidates' for fame 

A Scotchman one, and one a London Dame : 

That by th' emphatic Johnson christened Bozzy ; 

This, by the Bishop's license, Dame Piozzi, 

Whose widowed name, by topers loved, was Thrale, 

Bright in the annals of Election Ale 

A name by marriage that gave up the ghost, 

In poor Pidocchio,f no, Piozzi, lost. 

Each seized with ardour wild the gray-goose quill, 

Each set to work the intellectual Mill, 

That pecks of Bran so coarse began to pour 

To one poor solitary grain of flour. 

Forth rushed to light their books ; but who should say 

Which bore the palm of Anecdote away ? 

This to decide, the rival wits agreed 

Before Sir John their tales and jokes to read, 

And let the Knight's opinion in the strife 

Declare the properest pen to write Sam's life : 

Sir John, renowned for musical palavers, 

The Prince, the King, the Emperor of quavers. J 



'* ' Letters,' ix. 49. 

f ' Pidocchio ' signifies in Italian what we now call ' a nameless insect.' 

J Vide his ' History of Music.' 



286 A Competition. 



MADAME PIOZZI. 

The Doctor said, ' In literary matters 
A Frenchman goes not deep he only smatters ;' 
Then asked what could be hoped for from the dogs, 
Fellows that lived eternally on frogs. 

BOZZY. 

In grave procession to St. Leonard's College, 
Well stuffed with every sort of useful knowledge, 
We stately walked as soon as supper ended : 
The Landlord and the Waiter both attended. 
The landlord, skilled a piece of grease to handle, 
Before us marched, and held a tallow candle ; 
A lantern (come famed Scotchman its creator) 
With equal grace was carried by the waiter. 
Next morning from our beds we took a leap, 
And found ourselves much better for our sleep. 

MADAME PIOZZI. 

I asked him if he knocked 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 pondered on the properest mode to treat him ; 
The dog was impudent, and so I beat him. 
Tom, like a fool, proclaimed his fancied wrongs ; 
Others that 1 belaboured held their tongues.' 

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 banished all by tea and bread-and-butter ! 

MADAME PIOZZI. 

Travelling in Wales, at dinner-time we got on 

Where, at Lleweny, lives Sir Robert Cotton ; 

At table, our great Moralist to please, 

Says I, ' Dear Doctor, aren't those charming peas ?' 

Quoth he, to contradict, and run his.rig, 

' Madam, they possibly might please a pig.' 

BOZZY. 

Of thatching well the Doctor knew the art, 
And with his threshing-wisdom made us start ; 
Described the greatest secrets of ihe Mint, 
And made folks fancy that he had been in't. 
Of hops and malt 'tis wondrous what he knew ; 
As well as any brewer he could brew. 



Quarrel. 287 

MADAME PIOZZI. 

In ghosts the Doctor strongly did believe, 
And pinned his faith on many a liar's sleeve. 
He said to Dr. Lawrence, ' Sure I am 
I heard my poor dear mother call out " Sam " '! 
' I'm sure," said he, ' that I can trust my ears ; 
And yet my mother had been dead for years.' 

BOZZY. 

When young ('twas rather silly, I allow), 

Much was I pleased to imitate a cow. 

One time, at Drury Lane, with Doctor Blair, 

My imitations made the playhouse stare. 

So very charming was I in my roar, 

That both the galleries clapped and cried ' Encore !' 

Blessed by the general plaudit and the laugh, 

I tried to be a jackass and a calf. 

But who, alas ! in all things can be great? 

In short, I met a terrible defeat. 

So vile I brayed and bellowed, I was hissed ; 

Yet all who knew me wondered that I missed. 

Blair whispered me, 'You've lost your credit now ; 

Stick, Boswell, for the future to the cow.' 

At length the contest between the rivals turns to an 

angry dispute : 

MADAME PIOZZI. 

Who told of Mistress Montagu the lie 
So palpable a falsehood ? Bozzy fie ! 

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. 

I'm sure you've mentioned 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 formed to flatter : 
' Madam, If that most ignominious matter 

Be not concluded" * Farther shall I say? 

No ; we shall have it from yourself some day, 

* Referring to the ' adumbration ' of Johnson's letter above mentioned. 



288 Miss Thrale. 

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 ! 

***** 

The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale 
Fed on her pork, poor souls ! and swilled her ale, 
May sicken at Piozzi, nine in ten 
Turn up the nose of scorn ; but, pray, what then ? 

***** 

When they, poor owls ! shall beat their cage, a jail, 

I, unconfined, 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 !* 

Mrs. Piozzi wrote from Venice in May, 1786 : ' Cadell 
says he never published a work the sale of which was so 
rapid, and the rapidity of so long continuance. I suppose 
the fifth edition will meet me at my return.' And from 
Milan, in July : ' 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.' 

In December, 1786, her friend Dr. Lort wrote to 
Bishop Percy : ' I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi, 
dated Vienna, 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.' 

The lady, Miss Nicholson, whom Mrs. Piozzi had 
selected as the companion of her three eldest daughters 
during her absence, soon left them ; or, says Mr. Hayward, 
' according to another version, was summarily dismissed 
by Miss Thrale (afterwards Viscountess Keith), who, for- 

* Works of Peter Pindar, i. 341, et sey. 



Return from the Continent. 289 

tunately, was endowed with high principle, firmness, and 
energy. This young lady 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 at the house at Brighton, limited her 
expenses to her allowance of 200 a year, and resolutely 
set about the course of study which seemed best adapted 
to absorb attention and prevent her thoughts from wander- 
ing.' Hebrew, mathematics, and perspective are said to 
have been included in the list of her studies. 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.* 

The Piozzis arrived, as expected, early in March, 1787, 
and took a house in Hanover Square. 'On reaching 
London,' she wrote afterwards, '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 connec- 
tion, 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, etc. 
The lady-daughters came, behaved with cool 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, etc., on, I think, the 22nd 
of March. Miss Thrales refused their company, so we 
managed as well as we could. Our affairs were in good 

* Hayward's ' Piozzi,' i. 234. 

19 



290 Miss Seward on the Piozzis. 

order, and money ready for spending. The World, as it 
is called, appeared good-humoured, and we were soon 
followed, respected, and admired.' 

Mr. Cator, in whose hands her pecuniary matters had 
been placed at her going abroad, had ably discharged his 
trust, and his management had been loyally seconded by 
her husband's economy, with the result that, on their return, 
they found the mortgage paid off, and "1,500 in the bank. 
On May i she wrote : ' We were 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.' A few days later : ' We had a fine 
assembly last night indeed : in my best days I never had 
a finer ; there were near a hundred people in the rooms, 
which were besides much admired. . . . The summer 
months sent us about visiting and pleasuring.' 

Miss Seward writes from Lichfield in October, 1787 : 
' I am become acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi. 
Her conversation is that bright wine of the intellect 
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 ex- 
pression. 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.' 



CHAPTER XII. 

Life in England Publication of the Letters Opinions on them Baretti's 
Libels Mrs. Piozzi's Character of him after his Death ' The Sentimental 
Mother 'The Blues Ashamed The Book of Travels Walpole's Sentence 
MissSeward's Opinion Samuel Rogers Conduct of the Daughters Mrs. 
Piozzi and Miss Burney Return to Streatham Park Gaieties there Mr. 
Piozzi lays out Money Society in London Dr. Parr Boswell's Life 
Published Boswell's Attack on her Walpole sides with her 'British 
Synonymy ' Gifford's Opinion on It Walpole's Criticism Removal to 
Wales Brynbella Piozzi's Amiable Character His Prudent Economy 
Adoption of an Heir Sir John Salusbury ' Retrospection ' Piozzi's Gout 
Her Care of him Her Irrepressible Spirits Miss Thrale marries Lord 
Keith A Visit from Dr. Burney Death of Piozzi His Will. 

' PREVAIL on Mr. Piozzi to settle in England ' had been 
Johnson's parting advice to his mistress. It corresponded 
exactly with Mr. Piozzi's intentions, for ' he always,' says 
his wife, ' preferred this island to any other place !' 

On New Year's Day, 1788, she wrote: " How little I 
thought this day four years that I should celebrate this 
ist 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 every- 
body 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 

* Mrs. Byron was the wife of the admiral (" Foul-weather Jack") and the 
poet's grandmother. 

19 2 



292 Publication of the Letters. 

with every entertainment that is going forward ; what 
need I think about three sullen misses ? . . . And yet !" 

In the spring of this year she published the ' Letters 
to and from Dr. Johnson.' In the preface she says : 
' The good taste by which our countrymen are dis- 
tinguished, 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. The main value of 
these letters consists in the additional illustrations they 
afford of his conduct in private life, and of his opinions 
on the management of domestic affairs.' 

The ' Letters ' were published on March 8. ' Cadell,' 
writes the editor a few days afterwards, ' printed 2,000 
copies, and says 1,000 are already sold. The book is 
well spoken of on the whole, yet Cadell murmurs. I 
cannot make out why.' Boswell mentions as a proof of 
the high estimation set on anything which came from 
Johnson's pen, that Mrs. Piozzi sold the copyright of this 
collection for 500. We need say little about these 
* Letters,' from which we have made frequent extracts. 
Boswell states that Horace Walpole thought Johnson a 
more amiable character after reading his letters to Mrs. 
Thrale, though he was never one of the Doctor's admirers. 
Miss Burney, on the other hand, thought that they were 
injurious to his memory. Johnson himself wished them 
to be preserved, and he must have known that, if pre- 
served, they would surely be given to the world. Probably 
the publication was premature. At all events, it drew 
down several attacks on Mrs. Piozzi. Foremost among 
her assailants was the malignant Baretti, who was pro- 
voked by a passage in one of the published letters in 
which Johnson wrote : ' Poor B i ! do not quarrel with 



Barettis Libeis. 293 

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.'* This was more than 
enough to make Italian blood boil. Baretti retaliated by 
three papers in the European Magazine, assailing Mrs. 
Piozzi with the coarsest brutality. There he calls her ' the 
frontless female, who goes now by the mean appellation 
of Piozzi, La Piozzi, as my fellow-countrymen term her, 
who has dwindled down into the contemptible wife of her 
daughter's singing master.' The attack contained much 
more insolent abuse, but the writer refrained from repeat- 
ing in the magazine the worst charges which he had 
hurled against her in the private letter before referred to. 
' I could not have suspected him,' wrote Miss Burney, 'of 
a bitterness of invective so cruel, so ferocious.' 

Baretti died in May, 1789, and the placable nature of 
the woman he had calumniated is shown by the comment 
on that event which she inserted in ' Thraliana ' : 

' 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 

* ' Piozzi Letters,' i. 277. 



294 The Blues Ashamed. 

alone. No interested attendant 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 told me. 
So great was his character as a mischief-maker, that 
Vincent and Kendall 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.'* 

Respecting some others of her old acquaintance, she 
wrote at the beginning of 1789 : 

' 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. Garrick, 
more prudent than any of them, left a loophole for 

* Hay ward, i. 316. ' Among Mrs. Piozzi's papers,' says Mr. Hay ward, 
' was found a sketch of Baretti's character, written for The World newspaper, 
in which she quotes as applicable to him four lines from Pope's version of 
the description of Menelaus in the Iliad : 

' " So burns the vengeful Hornet, soul all o'er, 
Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still for gore ; 
Bold son of air and heat on angry wings, 
Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings." 

The comparison of Baretti to the hornet,' continues Mr. Hayward, ' 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 Piozzi. London, 1789." The 
principal dramatis persona are Mr. Timothy Tunskull, a respectable and com- 
placent nonentity ; Lady Fantasma Tunskull, vain, affected, silly, and amorous 
to excess ; two Misses Tunskull ; and Signer Squalid, the lady's gallant, and in 
league with her to cheat the daughters of their patrimony. 



The Book of Travels. 295 

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. Garrick ; 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 risks 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.' Soon afterwards she says : ' 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.' 

In June, 1789, she published her book of travels. The 
extracts which we have given from this book will enable 
our readers to form their own opinion of its merits. It 
seems, as the author says, to have been, upon the whole, 
exceedingly well liked and much read ; but the colloquial 
negligence of the style provoked the animadversion of the 
critics. Walpole, according to his wont, was unsparingly 
severe. ' It was said that Addison might have written 
his travels without going out of England. By the exces- 
sive 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 



296 Miss Sewanfs Criticism. 

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.'* 

Anna Seward, in a more friendly spirit, mingled warm 
praise with her blame. On December 21, 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.'^ 

* In a letter to Mrs. Carter, dated June 13, 1789, ' Letters,' ix. 179. On 
June 30 he returns to the charge in a letter to Miss Berry : ' If you could wade 
through two octavos of Dame Piozzi's though 's and so's and I (row's, and cannot 
listen to seven volumes of Scheherezade's recitations, I will sue for a divorce 
in foro Parnassi.' ' Letters,' ix. 184. 

t In order to assign their due weight to the strictures of the fair lady who 



Samuel Rogers. 297 

The style of the ' Observations ' was, in fact, an attempt 
by an unqualified writer to substitute something more 
easy and idiomatic for the sustained language and formal 
constructions of the Johnsonian style. The experiment 
was not successful, as it hardly would have been, by 
whomsoever tried, within five years from the dictator's 
death. 

Shortly after the publication of the 'Journey' she set 
out, with her husband and youngest daughter, on an 
excursion to Scotland.* ' We had been all over Scotland,' 
she wrote of a later season, ' except the Highlands, where 
we were afraid of carrying Cecy because of her unsteady 
health.' We have two notes from her to Mr. Lysons, 
written from Edinburgh in July, 1789. In one she says : 
' I am glad the book swims, poor thing ! What does Dr. 
Lort say of it ? Yet he would have written himself, I 
fear, had it much pleased him.' In the other : ' I wish 
Cadell had sent my money to Drummond's before he left 
London; but I warrant he forbore only because he felt 
that it was too little for such a book, so means to do 
something handsome just at harvest season; and "the 
genteel thing is the genteel thing at any time," as Gold- 
smith's bear-leader says in the play.'^ 

Samuel Rogers met with them during this trip. In 
his ' Table Talk ' we read : 

was once known as ' The Swan of Lichfield,' we should have some acquaint- 
ance with the style which she herself affected. In her ' Memoirs of Dr. 
Darwin,' she tells us that the doctor, about the year 1777, purchased 'a liule 
wild umbrageous valley, a mile from Lichfield, irriguous from various springs, 
and swampy from their plenitude.' This he soon dressed up into a very neat 
imitation of Paradise, and then, having till now ' restrained his friend Miss 
Seward's steps to this her always favourite scene,' he allowed her to visit it, 
when, the lady informs us, ' she took her tablets and pencil, and, seated on a 
flower-bank in the midst of that luxurious retreat, wrote the following verses, 
while the sun was gilding the glen, and while birds of every plume poured 
their song from the bough.' Certainly Mrs. Piozzi never attained to this elegance 
of diction. 

* Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' ii. 226. t P. 45- 



298 Conduct of the Daughters. 

* My acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi began at 
Edinburgh, brought about by the landlord of the hotel 
where they and I were staying. He thought that I should 
be gratified by "hearing Mr. Piozzi's performance," and 
they called upon me, on learning from the landlord who 
I was, and that Adam Smith,* Robertson, and Mackenzie 
had left cards for me. 

' I was afterwards very intimate with the Piozzis, and 
visited them often at Streatham. The world was most 
unjust in blaming Mrs. Thrale for marrying Piozzi ; he 
was a very handsome, gentlemanly, and amiable person, 
and made her a very good husband. In the evening he 
used to play to us most beautifully on the piano. Her 
daughters never would see her after that marriage, and 
(poor woman !) when she was at a very great age, I have 
heard her say that " she would go down upon her knees 
to them, if they would only be reconciled to her." : 

That the poet was in error in the last statement 
appears from what has been already mentioned, and Mr. 
Hayward's inquiries seem to have proved that Mrs. 
Piozzi's accounts scarcely did her daughters justice : 
' 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 unkind- 
ness, 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 sup- 

* Adam Smith died on July 17, 1790, after a protracted illness. 



Miss Burney. 299 

pressed by the utmost exertion of good feeling and good 
sense.'* 

We have the following notes from her pen in the year 
1790: 

'March 18, 1790. I met Miss Burneyat an assembly last 
night, 'tis six years since I had seen her ; she appeared 
most fondly rejoiced. In good time ! and Mrs. Locke, at 
whose house we stumbled on each other, pretended that 
she had such a regard for me, etc. 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,f too, and Mrs. Ord, and only see 
how foolish and how mortified the people do but look.' 

' 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 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 
Ne piii tradir si fa !" 

' " When lim'd, the poor bird thus with eagerness strains, 
Nor regrets 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." 'J 

In the summer of this year, Streatham Park, unoccu- 
pied by tenants, called them home. 

' July 28, 1790. We have kept our seventh wedding 
day and celebrated our return to this house with pro- 

* Hay ward's ' Piozzi,' i. 236. 

t This is Sir W. Pepys, mentioned above. 

J Hayward, i. 203. 



300 At Streathani Park. 

digious 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.' 

Mr. Piozzi, she says, with more generosity than pru- 
dence, spent 2,000 in 1790 on the repairs and refur- 
nishing of the house, and, she adds, ' we had danced 
all night I recollect, when the news came of Louis 
Seize's escape from, and recapture by, his rebel subjects.' 
This, of course, was at midsummer, 1791. 

Her Diary furnishes a large list of persons who visited 
at her house in the years succeeding her return from Italy. 
The names of Burke, Reynolds, Boswell, Dr. Burney and 
his daughter, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord West- 
cote, Miss Streatfield, and some others no longer occur ; 
but we still find mention of Dr. Lort, Sir Lucas Pepys, 
Dr. Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, Mr. Selwin, Sir 
Philip Clerk, Mrs. Byron, Arthur Murphy, Mrs. Siddons ; 
and to these are now added : Lord Fife, the Kembles, 
the Greatheads, Mr. Parsons, Miss Seward, Miss Lee, 
Lord Huntingdon, Lord Dudley, Lord Cowper, Lord 
Pembroke, Lord Deerhurst, Mrs. Locke, Mrs. Hobart, 
Lady Betty Cobb and her daughter, the Marquis 
Araciel, Count Martinengo, Count Moltze, and many 
more. 

In December, 1790, she wrote : ' Dr. Parr and I are in 



Boswetts Johnson. 301 

correspondence, and his letters are very flattering. I am 
proud of his notice, and he seems pleased with my 
acknowledgments of esteem ; but in the meantime I have 
lost Dr. Lort.'* 

Boswell's ' Life of Johnson ' appeared in May, 1791, 
and of course fell at once under her notice. She writes 
a few days afterwards in ' Thraliana ' : 

" 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, 
the}' 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 ; 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 resent- 
ment 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."f 

The death of young Henry Thrale is, in fact, mentioned 
by Boswell in no unfeeling terms, but the reflections on 
* He died November 5, 1790. f Hay ward, i. 342. 



302 ' British Synonymy? 

Mrs. Thrale's veracity, which he ascribes to his hero, 
depend entirely on James's envious and hostile testimony. 
Walpole, to whom Johnson was always a bear, and his 
biographer a jackanapes, ranges himself on the side of 
the lady : 

" Boswell's book is gossiping ; but, having numbers of 
proper names, would be more readable, at least by me, 
were it reduced from two volumes to one ; but there are 
woful longueurs, both about his hero and himself, thefidus 
Achates; about whom one has not the smallest curiosity. 
But I wrong the original Achates : one is satisfied with 
his fidelity in keeping his master's secrets and weaknesses, 
which modern led-captains betray for their patron's glory 
and to hurt their own enemies ; which Boswell has done 
shamefully, particularly against Mrs. Piozzi, and Mrs. 
Montagu, and Bishop Percy. Dr. Blagden says justly, 
that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse 
anybody, by saying some dead person said so-and-so of 
somebody alive."* 

In 1794 she produced another book in two volumes, 
entitled ' British Synonymy,' an imitation of Girard's 
' Synonimes Fran9ais.'-f The truculent Gifford, who 
about this time published his ' Baviad ' and ' Maeviad,'| 
assailed the ' Synonymy ' and its author in unmeasured 
terms : 

* 'Letters,' ix. 318. 

t The ' Synonymy' was translated in Paris, with some omissions, in 1804. 

J The ' Baviad ' appeared in 1794, the ' Maeviad ' in 1795. ' She one even- 
ing,' says Mr. Mangin, ' asked me abruptly if I did not remember the scurrilous 
lines in which she had been depicted by Gifford in his " Baviad " and " Mseviad." 
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,' p. 4. 



Walpoles Criticism. 303 

" 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." 

Walpole on this occasion showed himself a somewhat 
more indulgent censor, admitting that there was some 
merit in the illustrative matter, though he found nothing 
deserving notice in the definitions. ' Here and there she 
does not want parts, has some good translations, and 
stories that are new, particularly an admirable bon-mot of 
Lord Chesterfield.'* We may cite this passage as a 
specimen of the book. The writer is dealing with the 
words symbol, type, emblem, etc. : 

' In these latter days the taste for EMBLEMS and em- 
blematical DEVICES, which are all of Oriental original, 
is fallen into decay from the mere propagation of litera- 
ture, as beacons are useless in a broad noonday sun. 
The last I recollect was when the famous witty Lord 
Chesterfield was sent ambassador to some foreign Court, 
I forget which. The nobleman Envoy e de Louis Quinzc 
at the same place, being called upon for a health, drank 
that of his master under the EMBLEM of the sun taken 
by his predecessor (the scene of our story is laid at a 
public feast) when the Russian, standing up, begged leave 

* ' Letters,' ix. 434. 



304 Lord Chesterfield. 

to toast his Empress under the EMBLEM of a rising moon. 
Next came Great Britain in turn ; and it was then Lord 
Chesterfield, though unaccustomed to such DEVICES, 
showed his promptness of invention, by saying readily, 
" I'll give you, gentlemen, as my King's EMBLEM, then, 
Joshua, the leader of Heaven's chosen host, at whose command 
the sun and moon stopped in the midst of their career" '* 

Walpole, who had heard most things, says that he had 
never heard this anecdote before. His characteristic 
comment is : ' The story, I dare to say, never happened, 
but was invented by the Earl himself, to introduce his 
reply. The sun never was the emblem of Louis Quinze, 
but of Louis Quatorze ; in whose time his Lordship was 
not Ambassador, nor the Czarina Empress ; nor, foolish 
as some ambassadors are, could two of them propose 
devices for toasts, as if, like children, they were playing 
at pictures and mottoes ; and what the Signora styles a 
public feast, the Earl, I conclude, called a great dinner then. 
I have picked out a motto for her work in her own words, 
and written it on the title-page : " Simplicity cannot 
please without eloquence !" 

Other critics found enough value in the work to make 
them suspect that the great lexicographer, though dead, 
was somehow speaking through its pages. On January 2, 
1795, the author wrote in ' Thraliana ' : 

' My " Synonyms " 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.'^ 

The entry just quoted is dated Denbigh. About this 
time the writer and her husband quitted Streatham for 

* ' Synonymy,' ii. 291. f Hayward's 'Piozzi.'i. 337. 



Removal to Wales. 305 

the lady's property in North Wales. We have reached 
the close of Mrs. Piozzi's London life. If she lost some 
friends by her second marriage, she replaced them by 
others. The editor of the early diary of Frances Burney, 
lately published, says that Mrs. Piozzi withdrew from 
those of her friends who were intimate enough to show 
disapprobation of what she had done. How far this is 
true may be gathered in part from what has been related 
above. How much of the coolness which arose between 
her and the Burneys was due to her, and how much to 
them, it is not quite easy to decide. Miss Burney says 
that Mrs. Piozzi broke off the intimacy, but Dr. Burney 
had brought up his family in excessive awe of public 
opinion. It seems clear from numerous passages in the 
d'Arblay diary that Fanny never met her ancient Tyo 
after she became Mrs. Piozzi, never even heard her 
name mentioned, without a feeling of nervous apprehen- 
sion. Mrs. Piozzi has left an account of her removal 
from her old home : 

' We went on spending our money at and upon 
Streatham Park, till old Mr. Jones and the wise Marquis 
Trotti advised Piozzi to make the tour of North Wales, 
and see my country, my estate, etc. I stayed with dear 
Mrs. Siddons, at Rose Hill, while our friends made their 
ramble, and came back as much delighted with Denbigh- 
shire and Flintshire as Mr. Thrale had been disgusted 
with them. This was charming. Piozzi had fixed upon 
a spot, and resolved to build an Italian villa on the banks 
of the Clwyd. Even Mr. Murphy applauded the project, 
and we drew in our expenses, preparing to engage in 
brick and mortar. . . . Mr. Piozzi built his pretty villa 
in North Wales, and, conforming to our religious opinions, 
kindly set our little church at Dymerchion in a state it 
never before enjoyed, spending sums of money on its 
decoration, and making a vault for my ancestors and for 

20 



306 Brynbella. 

ourselves to repose in. I wrote verses for the opening 
of our tiny temple, and dear Piozzi set them most 
enchantingly to music. . . . The house, our dwelling- 
house I mean, was built from a design of its elegant 
masters own hand, and he set poor old Bachygraig up 
too ; repaired and beautified it, and to please his silly 
wife, gilt the Lleweny lion on its top. The scroll once 
held in his paw was broke arid gone. . . . Mr. Piozzi 
built the house for me, he said ; my Own old chateau, 
Bachygraig by name, though very curious, was wholly 
uninhabitable, and we called the Italian villa he set up 
as mine in the Vale of Clwyd, Brynbella, or the beautiful 
brow, making the name half Welsh and half Italian, as 
we were.' 

Till he was disabled by the gout, Piozzi's 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/ 
wrote Mr. Hayward, ' is that his spirit, playing on his 
favourite instrument, still haunts one wing of Brynbella.' 
If he designed the building, his architectual taste does 
not merit the praises she lavished 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 Clwyd, 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 



Character of Piozzi. 307 

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. 

Whilst Piozzi lived, her affairs were faithfully and care- 
fully administered. Although they built Brynbella, spent 
a good deal of money on Streatham, and lived hand- 
somely, 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 moneys 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. 

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 familiarize 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. 

About the end of the century she wrote from Brynbella : 
' 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 

20 2 



308 Adoption of Piozzis Nephew. 

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 comfortable they live. As for the old hut 
you so justly abhorred, and so kindly noticed it is 
knocked down, and its coarse name too, Polticho ; we 
call it Cottage-o'-the-Park. Some recurrence to the 
original derivation in soup season will not, however, be 
much amiss, I suppose.' 

Tom Moore 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, humshly ; " then pray tell her I can be 
as indifferent as she ;" and walked away.* 

In a letter, dated January, 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 sheep's 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 

* Hay ward. 



4 Retrospection' 309 

among our islanders by talent, diligence, and educa- 
tion." 

The boy was to be naturalized and make his career in this 
country; ' and then we shall see,' says the adoptive mother, 
' whether he will be more grateful and natural and comfort- 
able than the Misses Thrale have been to their parent.' 

And now the restless little lady engaged in the last and 
most ambitious of her literary labours. She undertook 
to write 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.' This was an enterprise about 
as hopeful as the ' History of Human Error,' to which 
Mr. Caxton devoted his life, or the ' Key to all Possible 
Mythologies/ whereby the Reverend Isaac Casaubon 
expected to achieve immortality. However, Mrs. Piozzi 
did complete her task, and in January, 1801, published 
' Retrospection,' in two volumes, quarto, containing 
together rather more than a thousand pages. The book 
was of course a failure ; and by the needless cruelty of 
fate, the bulky volumes were disfigured by innumerable 
press errors, which the author accounted for by her ' being 
obliged to print on New Year's Day, during an insur- 
rection of the printers.' ' The Critical Review,' she says, 
' laid hold of these errors with an acuteness sharpened by 
malignity.' Yet anyone who takes the trouble to turn 
over a few of those multitudinous leaves will be repaid by 
lighting on some curious trait of character or manners, 
some quaint legend, or some interesting piece of un- 
familiar history told in a lively and entertaining manner. 
We have found in one place the story of the Pied Piper 
of Hamelin,* set forth with brief details, which are to 
Browning what Shakspeare's Italian sources are to 

* See vol. i., p. 418. 



3io Ill-health of Piozzi. 

Shakspeare. The developments of liturgical worship 
had evidently a strong attraction for our author, who 
returns to these matters with a frequency and zest which 
might induce the belief that she was a Ritualist born out 
of due time. 

It was just about the date of the publication of this 
work that she entertained at Brynbella the young Lord 
Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, who repeated 
to Mr. Hay ward his recollection of the visit : 

" 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. I 
remember her taking me into her bedroom 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."* 

When Piozzi's gout became serious, they usually spent 
their winters in Bath. The period of his decline was 
long, and he was waited on by his wife with unwearied 
patience and affection. But her vivacity never left her, 
and the elasticity of her spirits bore up against every kind 
of depression. Hearing that Hannah More's health had 
broken down under a controversial attack, she wrote in 
December, 1801 : ' We shall go to Bath next month, and 
then I will try to comfort her. A sister in affliction may 
have peculiar chance for success ; but, I don't know how 
it is, I never was in affliction. My countenance, unlike 
that of old Hamlet's ghost, was more much more in 

* Hayward, i. 345. 



Miss Thrales Marriage. 3 1 1 

anger than in sorrow; and so grew less like a ghost, I do 
believe, in proportion as my critics charged me with loss 
of youth and beauty. They had need be very young and 
handsome themselves to make such nonsense tolerated.' 

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.' 

Time goes on, however, and on January 31, 1807, we 
have the following : 

' That quack lady who magnetizes the people in 
London is accused of her (a patient's) death, I 
observe, and many patients do come here oppressed by 
the half-broiled beef and hot buttered ale with which 
physicians say that Miss Prescott loads those who place 
themselves under her care. But poor Mr. Piozzi is as ill 
as they can be, though he prefers boiled mutton and 
macaroni to all that a table can offer him ; and he is in 
bed now with gout on his breast, hands, arms, etc., a 
cough beside shaking his harassed frame to pieces. You 
may be sure I never quit him, except for an hour's walk 
o' mornings, when I go out to hear what passes, and 
bring him accounts how Buonaparte was first to turn 
about, and Le Troisieme des Fuyards that got safe into 
Warsaw.'* 

Miss Thrale's marriage with Lord Keith took place in 
1808, and 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 aught I hear ; a rich man 

* Hayward, ii. 266. 



312 Dr. Burney at Bath. 

for aught I am told ; a brave man we have always heard ; 
and a wise man I trow by his choice. Elphinstone is no 
new name, and it is an excellent one for a charade.'* 

Notwithstanding the somewhat sarcastic tone of this 
notice, there was no breach between the writer and her 
daughters, for in a letter dated in August of this year, she 
speaks of their having spent some days at Brynbella a 
few days before. 

During this summer Dr. Burney writes to his daughter, 
Madame d'Arblay, who was then living in France : 

" Last autumn I had an alarming seizure in my left 
hand ; and mine being pronounced a Bath case, on Christ- 
mas Eve I set out for that city, and after remaining there 
three months I found my hand much more alive, and my 
general health considerably amended. 

" 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. When her name was sent 
in I was much surprised, but desired she might be ad- 
mitted ; and I received her as an old friend, with whom 
I had spent much time very happily, and never wished to 
quarrel. She still looks well, but is grave, and candour 
itself; though still she says good things, and writes 
admirable notes and letters, I am told, to my grand- 
daughters C. and M., of whom she is very fond.-f- We 
shook hands very cordially, and avoided any allusion to 
our long separation and its cause. The Caro Sposo still 
ives, 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 

* Her third daughter, Sophia, had been married in 1807 to Mr. Merrick 
Hoare. The fourth daughter, Cecilia, had become Mrs. Mostyn some years 
previously ; we have not been able to ascertain the exact date of her marriage. 
' t C. and M. were Charlotte and Marianne Frances, daughters of Dr. Burney 's 
fourth daughter, Charlotte Ann, by her first marriage. 



Death of Piozzi. 3 1 3 

wish. She nurses him with great affection and tender- 
ness, never goes out or has company when he is in pain.'* 

In some of her notes she says : ' Piozzi's fine hand upon 
the organ and pianoforte deserted him. Gout, such as 
I never knew, fastened up his fingers, distorting them 
into every dreadful shape. ... A 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." 
"Ah, 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, 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.' 

The last entry in the six manuscript books composing 
' Thraliana ' runs : 

'March 30, 1809. Everything most dreaded has en- 
sued. . . . All is over, and my second husband's death 
is the last thing recorded in my first husband's present. 
Cruel Death !' 

Piozzi was buried in a vault constructed by his wife's 
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. 

* Printed in Madame d'Arblay's ' Diary,' iv. 185. 



314 Piozzi' s Will. 

' He left Brynbella to his widow.' she says, ' and every- 
thing else, never naming his nephew in his will, only 
leaving among his father's children 6,000 in the three 
per cent., being the whole of his savings during the 
twenty-five years he had shared and enjoyed my fortune.' 
Her daughters being amply provided for, and the eldest 
having, she says, declined the Welsh estate, she fixed her 
care, as well as her affections, on her adopted son. Re- 
ferring to the later years of her life with Piozzi, she wrote 
at the end of her life : ' 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 anyone 
I could not spoil.' 

In spite of spoiling, the youth did not turn out badly. 
In June, 1810, she wrote of him 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.' Yet she carried her 
indulgence so far that, when he was at college, instead of 
suffering him to travel to and from the University by 
coach, she insisted on his taking a post-chaise. In after- 
years she wrote to her last-named correspondent : ' You 
remember me hoping and proposing to make dear Salus- 
bury 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.' 

* Dr. Robert Gray, who was made Bishop of Bristol in 1827, and died in 
1834, was distinguished by piety, learning, and a wide knowledge of general 
literature. He was the author of ' The Key to the Old Testament and the 
Apocrypha,' and ' Connection between the Sacred Writings and the Literature 
of the Jewish and Heathen Authors,' works which Mrs. Piozzi much admired 
and often referred to in her correspondence with him. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Cession of Brynbella Subsequent Life Lavish Expenditure Sir James 
Fellowes Attempt to Dispose of Streatham A Bath Cat The Streatham 
Portraits Sold by Auction Improvement in London Bath Life Mr. 
Mangin's Account of her Her Handwriting Rouge Anecdotes of John- 
son Acquirements Literary Conversation at Bath Sir William Pepys 
Miss Hawkins Fickleness of Public Taste Bennet Langton Fazio Miss 
O'Neill The Conway Episode Renewed Acquaintance with Madame 
d'Arblay Moore's Impression of her Celebration of her Eightieth Birth- 
day Her Death and Will Madame d'Arblay 's Parallel between her and 
Madame de Stael Mr. Hayward's Criticism His Estimate of Mrs. Piozzi 
Sayings and Anecdotes. 

MRS. PIOZZI continued to live at Brynbella until 1814, 
when she gave up the house and property to her adopted 
son on his marriage. From that time she resided princi- 
pally at Bath and Clifton, occasionally visiting Streatham, 
or making summer excursions to the seaside. Rightly or 
wrongly, she considered that Piozzi's behaviour to her 
demanded the sacrifice she made. Here is her account 
of the matter : ' Unexampled generosity ! And true love ! 
Could I do less than repay it to the child whose situa- 
tion in life I now felt responsible for ? I bred him with 
his friends at Oxford, yet he stood alone, -insulated in a 
nation where he had no natural friend. Incapacitated to 
return where his religion would have rendered him miser- 
able, and petted, and spoiled, till any profession would 
have been painful, what could I do ? The boy had, besides 
all this, formed an attachment to his friend's sister. What 
could I do ? I gave them my estate, and resolving that 
Mr. Thrale's daughters should suffer as little as possible 



316 Lavish Expenditure. 

by this arrangement, I repaired and new-fronted their 
house at Streatham Park.' 

Her expenditure at Streatham was not indeed wholly 
voluntary, but it was doubtless carried much further than 
necessity required. On November 27, 1814, she writes 
to Dr. Gray : 

' Streatham Park was worth anyone's seeing six months 
ago. Upon some threats concerning dilapidation, I set 
heartily to work, new-fronted the house, new-fenced the 
whole of the hundred acres completely round ; repaired 
stables, out-buildings, barns which I had no use for, and 
hot-houses which are a scourge to my purse, a millstone 
round my neck. 6,500 sterling just covers my expenses, 
of which 4,000 are paid ; but poor old dowager as I am, 
the remainder kept me marvellous low in pocket, and 
drives me into a nutshell here at Bath, where I used to 
live gay and grand in Pulteney Street. Direct, however, 
Post Office, when you are kind enough to write, and I 
shall get your letter. Count Lieven is my tenant, and 
pays me liberally, but so he should, for his dependents 
smoke their tobacco in my nice new beds, and play a 
thousand tricks that keep my steward, who I have left 
there, in perpetual agony. I am famous for tenants, you 
know.'* 

Besides this lavish outlay, she distressed herself by her 
habits of profuse personal expenditure. Whether living 
at Streatham or Bath, she constantly entertained very 
large parties. She was, in fact, one of those persons who 
never learn the value of money, and as, after her cession 
of the Welsh estate, she had nothing left but a life income, 
she found it difficult as she grew old to obtain sufficient 
credit, and it is said that executions were sometimes 
levied on her goods. She does not seem, however, to 

* Hayward, ii. 269. 



Sir James Fe Howes. 3 1 / 

have ever regretted her liberality to her adopted son. 
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. 

From about the beginning of the year 1815 she appears 
to have become intimate with two of her latest friends : 
Sir James Fellowes, whom she made one of her executors, 
and Mr. Mangin, the author of ' Piozziana.' The former 
seems to have been early in her confidence in matters of 
business. When her acquaintance with him began, she 
seems to have been deeply in debt. In the summer of 
1815 she came to town to try to sell her interest in 
Streatham Park to her daughters, but received, as she 
tells Sir James, ' a cold, short note from Mr. Merrick 
Hoare, who married one of the sisters, to say that Lord 
Keith, who married the other, wished to decline pur- 
chasing ; so here I am no whit nearer disposing of 
Streatham Park than when I sat still in Bath. Money 
spent and nothing done ; but bills thronging in every 
hour. Mr. Ward, the solicitor, has sent his demand of 
116 i8s. 3d., I think, for expenses concerning Salusbury's 
marriage. I call that the felicity bill ; those which pro- 
duce nothing but infelicity all refer to Streatham, of 
course.' . . . ' Well, now,' she continues, ' the rest of this 
letter shall be like other people's letters, and say how hot 
the streets are, and how disagreeable London is in the 
summer months, and how sincerely happy I should have 
been to pass the next six or seven weeks at Sidmouth, 
but that Oh, such speeches are not like other people's 
letters at all but that I have not (with an income of 
2,000 a year) 5 to spend on myself, so encumbered 
am I with debts and taxes. Leak says he must pay 40 
property tax now, this minute. He is a good creature, 



318 Streatham Park Disposed of. 

and will be a bitter loss to his poor mistress, whenever 
we part ; although the keeping him, and his wife, and 
his child is dreadful, is it not ? Since, however, in mental 
as in bodily plagues, despondency brings on ruin faster 
than it would come of itself: 

' " What yet remains ? but well, what's left to use, 

And keep good-humoured still, whate'er we lose." '* 

In October, 1815, she writes to the same friend from 
Bath: 

' I have had a nice dish of flattery dressed to my taste 
this morning. That grave Mr. Lucas brought his son 
here, that he might see the first woman in England for- 
sooth. So I am now grown one of the curiosities of Bath, 
it seems, and one of the antiquities. 

'This evening a chair will carry me to Mrs. Holroyd's, 
to meet two other females, whom Richardson taught the 
town to call old tabbies, attended, says he, by young 
grimalkins. Now that's wrong ; because they are young 
tabbies, and when grown gray are gris malkins, I suppose. 
Is not this fine nonsense for the first woman ? Prima 
Donna, in good time !' 

In the course of the next few months, she had suc- 
ceeded in getting rid of her expensive house, and wrote 
to Dr. Gray from Gay Street, Bath : 

' My affairs here being all settled, Streatham Park 
disposed of, and my poor steward, Leak, being dead, I 
have got a pretty neat house and decent establishment 
for a widowed lady, and shall exist a true Bath cat for 
the short remainder of my life, hearing from Salusbury 
of his increasing family, and learning from the libraries in 
this town all the popular topics Turks, Jews, and ex- 
Emperor Buonaparte remembering still that now my 
debts are all paid, and my income set free, which was so 

* Hayward, ii. 288. 



The Streatham Portraits. 3 1 9 

long sequestered to pay repairs of a house I was not rich 
enough to inhabit, and could not persuade my daughters 
to take me : 

' " Malice domestic, foreign levy nothing 
Can touch me further," 

as Macbeth says of Duncan when he is dead. Things 
will at worst last my time, I suppose.' 

Before possession of Streatham Park was given to the 
purchaser, the collection of portraits there was sold by 
action. The sale took place in the spring, and is thus 
referred to in a letter from Madame d'Arblay to her son, 
dated April 30, 1816 : 

' Your uncle has bought the picture of my dearest 
father at Streatham. I am truly rejoiced it will come 
into our family, since the collection for which it was 
painted is broken up. Your uncle has also bought the 
Garrick, which was one of the most agreeable and 
delightful of the set. To what recollections, at once 
painful and pleasing, does this sale give birth ! In 
the library, in which those pictures were hung, we 
always breakfasted ; and there I have had as many 
precious conversations with the great and good Dr. 
Johnson as there are days in the year. Dr. Johnson 
sold the highest of all ! 'Tis an honour to our age, that 
360 ! My dear father would have been mounted higher, 
but that his son Charles was there to bid for himself, and, 
everybody must have seen, was resolved to have it. There 
was besides, I doubt not, a feeling for his lineal claim and 
pious desire.'* 

In 1817 she was in town, and on her return wrote : 
' The improvements in London amused me very much, 

* Printed in Mrrie. d'Arblay's ' Diary,' iv., at p. 302. According to a list of 
the prices, with which Mrs. Piozzi furnished Mr. Mangin, Dr. Johnson sold for 
^378, that being the highest price, while Dr. Burney produced ^84, and 
Baretti went for 31 IDS., which was the least sum paid for any of the pictures. 
' Piozziana,' p. 51. 



320 Excitement at Bath. 

and such a glare is cast by the gas-lights, I knew not 
where I was after sunset. Old Father Thames, adorned 
by four beautiful bridges, will hardly remember what a 
poor figure he made eighty years ago, I suppose, when 
gay folks went to Vauxhall in barges, an attendant 
barge carrying a capital band of music playing Handel's 
" Water Music " as it has never been played since.'* 

The following letter refers to an event of which our 
grandfathers, and the fathers of some among us, used to 
speak with the strongest feeling : 

'Bath, November n, 1817. My dear Dr. Gray's kind 
letter arrived the same day as the Queen ;{ and such a 
day of gaiety and triumph Bath certainly never did 
witness. Now, Lord be praised, and let us keep our 
wits ! was my exclamation ; the delight of the people was 
boundless. Everybody was on the alerte ; numbers of 
women (who had been presented) left their names, and 
some had a notion she would send for others who did not. 
Madame d'Arblay, ci-devant Miss Burney, was believed by 
many to have a claim on her remembrance ; and some 
prepared to sing, and some to read, and some to talk. 
The illumination was more gaudy than I ever saw London 
exhibit ; and a prodigious expense was incurred by sub- 
scriptions to pillars, arches, and I know not what besides. 
The Mayor and Corporation put on new dresses, the 
cooks prepared a magnificent repast, and Death J un- 
invited came to the dinner. The Duke of Clarence really 
could not articulate the fatal words that extinguished hope 
and merriment ; he threw the paper to Lord Camden, and 
left the room it was empty in five minutes. All this in 
one short week !' 

Mr. Mangin describes her as he knew her in her later 
days. After giving the account of her personal appearance, 

* Hay ward, ii. 281. f Queen Charlotte, 

i The death of the Princess Charlotte. Hay ward, ii. 272. 



Mrs. Piozzi in Old Age. 321 

to which we have referred in a former chapter, he pro- 
ceeds : 

' 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 nowa- 
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, said she : " 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." 

' Her countenance is constantly in my recollection ; but 
could I have forgotten it, I should have been reminded of 
its striking features by a good miniature of her in my 
possession. This was her gift to me in her seventy-seventh 
year, accompanied by some lines of her own composition, 
enclosed in the case containing this valuable memorial. 
She gave the ingenious artist, Roche, of Bath, many 
sittings, and enjoined him to make the painting in all 
respects a likeness ; to take care to show her face deeply 
rouged, which it always was, and to introduce the trivial 
deformity of the lower jaw, of which mention has been 
made before.'* 

Respecting the rouge, Mr. Mangin has written in 
another place : ' She carefully put it upon her cheeks 
every day before she went out, and sometimes before she 
would admit a visitor or sometimes in his presence. 
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 

* ' Piozziana,' p. 8. 

21 



322 Use of Rouge. 

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 part of dress, 
and after continuing the habit for some years discovered 
that it had introduced a dead yellow colour into her com- 
plexion, quite unlike that of her natural skin, and that she 
wished to conceal the deformity.'* 

' She told a story incomparably well ; omitting every- 
thing frivolous or irrelevant, she would throw into her 
narrative a gentle imitation not mimicry of the parties 
concerned, at which they might themselves have been 
present without feeling offended. 

* In this way she once, I remember, gave us two scenes, 
one at Streatham, and the other, I think, in London. 
The first referred to one of Johnson's eccentric habits. 
A large company had just sat down to the dinner-table, 
where Johnson's chair was, however, still vacant ; for, 
though the doctor had been descending the stairs, he was 
not yet withinside the door, " So," said Mrs. Piozzi, " I 
supposed there was something wrong, and making my 

* ' Piozziana,' p. 212. In her earlier life the rouge must have assisted in 
making her look much younger than she really was. Thus, when Charlotte 
burney, Fanny's younger sifter, was introduced to her in 1777 or I 77&> sne 
wrote: 'I fancy she (Mrs. Thrale) is about thirty, though she hardly looks 
twenty-eight, for she is blooming and pretty enough to prove that nature has 
r.ot been a little partial to her.' ' Early Diary of F. Burney,' iu 280. Yet she 
was then over thirty-six at least. 



Anecdotes. 323 

excuses, started up, and ran in search of my loiterer ; and 
there was he in the passage, indulging in one of his strange 
whims ; stepping forward, drawing back his leg, and then 
another step ! I scolded him soundly, not for affectation 
nor absence of mind, for, to do him justice, of all such 
absurdities he was incapable ; but for pursuing a queer 
practice at a time when others were waiting. At length 
I got him in, and after dinner he made up ample amends 
by his talk, as he did invariably." In telling this she 
bent her neck sideways, looking solemn, and stepped to 
and fro, so as to transmit, I have no doubt, a very good 
notion of Johnson's air.' 

The other anecdote told by Mr. Mangin relates to her 
old jealousy of Miss Streatneld. Mrs. Piozzi said : 

'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 lady 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. Thrale very un- 
ceremoniously 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 erelong the lady 
might be at the head of Mr. Thrale's table, without dis- 
placing the mistress of the house, etc., 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 

21 .; 



324 Female Learning. 

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 out- 
raged." 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, etc., you were 
meekness itself!" Johnson coloured, and Burke, I 
thought, looked foolish ; but I had not a word of answer 
from either.'* 

Mr. Mangin recollected her showing him a valuable 
china bowl, in the inside of which was pasted a slip of 
paper, and on it written, " With this bowl Hester Lynch 
Salusbury was baptized, 1740. "f 

The author of ' Piozziana ' doubtless exaggerates her 
acquirements when he 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 
was indeed an omnivorous reader, but there is nothing, 
so far as we are aware, to show that she knew more of 
Hebrew or Greek than the characters. Among her 
printed letters there is one to Sir James Fellowes, in 

* ' Piozziana,' p. 20. 

t /bid., p. 167. According to Mr. Hayward, the bowl came into the 
possession of the Mr. Salusbury who placed her papers in Mr. Hayward's 
hands, and the exact words on the slip of paper were : 'In this basin was 
baptized Hes.e Lynch Salusbury, i6th January, 1740-41, O.S., at Bodville in 
Carnarvonshi e.' This Mr. Salusbury's father copied from the original bit of 
paper (probibly of her own handwriting), which was worn only by time. In 
I hose days, and even much later, it was common to baptize infants privately, 
without much regard for there being ''great cause or necessity for it," as the 
rubric ordains. 1 he best china bowl in the house (which served as the punch- 
bowl at supper-time), was used on these occasions. ' Early Diary of F. 
Burney,' ii. 87. 



Mr. Mangin. 325 

which, referring to the captain of the host of Jabin, King 
of Canaan, she writes the name Sisera in Hebrew letters, 
and instructs her correspondent that the termination in a 
does not in Hebrew feminize a name, any more than the 
termination in o renders a name masculine in the Greek ! 
This wears a learned air, but probably the latter piece of 
information has no more recondite source than the former. 
In one of Johnson's letters to her he says : ' I have 
learned since I left you, that the names of two of the 
Pleiades were Coccymo and Lampado ;'* alluding, Mrs. 
Piozzi says, to a search made at that time by the Streat- 
ham coterie for female names ending in o. The old joke 
of inviting a friend to eta beta pi, which she was fond of 
repeating, and fathered on Hogarth, was Greek enough 
in those days for a lady or an artist ; but the capacity 
to enjoy it would scarcely be accepted at Girton or 
Newnham as affording sufficient proof of scholarship. 
The fame of Sophy Streatfield in her peculiar field of dis- 
tinction was never challenged by Mrs. Piozzi, and though, 
in the second half of her life, she added greatly to her 
reading, there is no reason to suppose that she enlarged 
her knowledge of the learned languages. 

Her chief resource for literary conversation, in her 
closing years, seems to have been Mr. Mangin. The old 
set she had known in Bath forty years before had well- 
nigh disappeared. Dr. Harrington, the last survivor of 
them, had long passed his eightieth year. Her own 
memory, too, was no longer what it had been. The 
writer of ' Piozziana ' mentions a discussion which he had 
with her respecting the authorship of the well-known 
lines : 

' To die is landing on some silent shore, 
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar : 
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er !' 



' Piozzi Letters,' i. 32. 



326 Transitory Fame. 

She had spoken of these verses as Dryden's, on the 
authority of a passage in Warton, when Mr. Mangin 
pointed out to her that Warton was mistaken, and that 
the lines in question occur in Garth's ' Dispensary.'* She 
would hardly have been thus at fault when she was at 
Bath with Miss Burney, in 1780. 

She seldom, visited London in the last few years of her 
life. There the fame which her social talents had pro- 
cured her gradually died out. As late as 1825, her old 
friend Sir William Pepys told Miss Wynn that he never 
met with any other human being who possessed the talent 
of conversation in an equal degree. But very few people 
then remembered the days of which Miss Laetitia Hawkins 
wrote when she said : ' I have heard it said that into what- 
ever company she fell, Mrs. Thrale could be the most 
agreeable person in it.'t As early as 1809, when Piozzi 
died, his death was mentioned in the Gentleman 's Magazine 
as that of ' the husband of Mrs. Piozzi, the once justly 
celebrated Mrs. Thrale.' Autres temps autres mceurs. The 
conversation which is considered brilliant in one age is 
generally found tedious in the next. The Earl of Norwich, 
who ranked as the wit of Charles I.'s Court, was voted a 
bore at the Court of Charles II. And Mrs. Piozzi was not 
the only member of the old Streatham circle who ex- 
perienced the fickleness of the capital's esteem. She 
wrote in 1817 : ' The Dean of Winchester's account of 
Bennet Langton coming to town some few years after the 
death of Dr. Johnson, and finding no house where he 
was even asked to dinner, was exceedingly comical. Mr. 
Wilberforce dismissed him with a cold " Adieu, dear sir ; 
I hope we shall meet in heaven !" How capricious is the 
public taste ! I remember when to have Langton in a 
man's house stamped him at once a literary character.'! 

* Canto iv., 225-7. t ' Memoirs,' i., n. 56. J Hayward, ii. 370. 



Miss O'Neill. 327 

Yet the clever, bright-eyed, alert little old lady con- 
tinued to be admired by her personal acquaintance down 
to the latest days of her long life. When the son of Sir 
Francis Milman, the physician, had written a play, she 
was invited to contribute an epilogue, but prudently 
declined. The piece referred to was Dean Milman's fine 
play ' Fazio,' in which an actor named Conway performed 
with Miss O'Neill, afterwards Lady Becher. Conway had 
also the honour of acting Romeo and Jaffier to the 
Juliet and Belvidera of the same celebrated actress. 
Mrs. Piozzi has left her impressions of the latter when 
she visited Bath in the summer of 1818 : 

' Miss O'Neill has fascinated all eyes : no wonder : she 
is very fair, very young, and innocent-looking ; of gentlest 
manners in appearance certainly, and lady-like to an 
exactness of imitation. The voice and emphasis are not 
delightful to my old-fashioned ears ; but all must feel that 
her action is quite appropriate. Where passionate love 
and melting tenderness are to be expressed she carries 
criticism quite away. The scene with Stukely disap- 
pointed me ; I hated to see indignation degenerate into 
shrewishness, and hear so lovely a creature scold the man 
in a harsh accent such as you now are hearing in the 
street ! My aristocratic prejudices, too, led me to think 
she under-dressed her characters ; one is used to fancy an 
audience entitled to respect from all public performers ; 
and Belvidera's plain black gown, and her fine hair 
twisted up, as the girls do for what they call an old cats' 
card-party, pleased me not.'' 55 ' . 

To another correspondent she wrote of Miss O'Neill's 
visit : ' Our ladies are all in hysterics, our gentlemen's 
hands quite blistered with clapping, and her stage com- 
panions worn to a thread with standing up like chairs in 

* ' Piozziana,' p. 91. 



328 Conway. 

a children's country dance, while she alone commands the 
attention of such audiences as Bath never witnessed till 
now. The box-keepers said last night that the numbers 
Kean drew after him were nothing to it.' 

For Conway Mrs. Piozzi presently conceived a senti- 
mental attachment. ' The actor,' says Mr. Hay ward, 
' 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 was rumoured, after her death, that she had wished 
to marry him, and had offered Sir John Salusbury a large 
sum of ready money to restore Brynbella, that it might 
be settled on Conway. But the latter part of this story 
is certainly untrue ; she never had much money at 
command, and though it has been stated that Conway 
once showed a letter from her, offering him marriage, 
it seems more reasonable, on the whole, to suppose that 
her attachment was merely an old woman's warm friend- 
ship for a young man whom she admired. 

To complete the account of this episode, we may 
mention here that Conway threw himself overboard and 
was drowned on a voyage from New York to Charleston, 
in 1828, and that fourteen years after his death seven 
letters purporting to have been addressed to him by 
Mrs. Piozzi were published in London. The genuineness 
of these letters is doubtful, and Mr. Hay ward remarks 
that, taken as they stand, they do not amount to very 
much, while the change of three or four sentences would 
alter their entire tenor. 

In the early part of 1818, the long estrangement 
between Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Piozzi came to an 
end, and from that time till the death of the latter occa- 



Eightieth Birthday. 329 

sional letters passed between them, some of which are 
printed in Madame d'Arblay's Diary. In one of these 
letters, 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.' In a later one : ' The once 
charming S. S. had inquired for me of Nornaville and Fell, 
the Old Bond Street booksellers, so I thought she medi- 
tated writing, but was deceived.' In the summer of 1818, 
Mrs. Piozzi spent some time with Sir John Salusbury 
at Brynbella, and in the following spring we hear of her 
in London. Moore writes 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, etc. Though turned eighty, she has all the 
quickness and intelligence of a gay young woman.' 

She celebrated her eightieth birthday by a concert and 
a ball and supper to between six and seven hundred 
people, at the Kingston Assembly Rooms, Bath. Her 
health was proposed by Admiral Sir James Saumarez, 
and was drunk with three times three. The supper was 
provided by Tully, who was then the Gunter of Bath. 
The hostess exhorted her guests to profit to the utmost 
by Tully's Offices ; she led off the dancing with her 
adopted son, Sir John Salusbury, and, Mangin says, with 
' astonishing elasticity.' The next day the friends who 
called expecting to hear that she had exerted herself too 
much, found her not only quite well, but full of jokes and 
lively sallies of wit. Speaking of fatigue, she said : 
' This sort of thing is greatly in the mind, and I am 
almost tempted to say the same of growing old at all, 
and especially as regards those usual concomitants of 
age : laziness, defective sight, and ill-temper.' 



330 DeatJi. 

In May, 1821, while travelling from Penzance to Clifton, 
she met with an accident and broke her leg. The fall 
proved fatal. She died after an illness of ten days, with 
very little suffering. Her daughters, Lady Keith and 
Mrs. Hoare, reached Clifton in time to be recognised, and 
to take an affectionate farewell of her. On hearing of 
their arrival, she remarked cheerfully : ' Now I shall die 
in state.' Her unmarried daughter, Susan, came only 
just before she expired. Mrs. Mostyn, the youngest 
daughter, does not appear to have been present. She 
had breathed her last before her adopted son could 
come over from Brynbella. These circumstances are 
mentioned in a letter by Mrs. Pennington, of the Hot 
Wells, Clifton, who is mentioned in Miss Seward's 
correspondence as the beautiful and agreeable Sophia 
Weston. Mrs. Pennington told Mr. Mangin that the 
dying woman's last words were : ' I die in the trust and 
the fear of God.'* When visited by her old medical 
attendant, Sir George Gibbs, of Bath, being unable to 
articulate, she traced the outline of a coffin in the air 
with her hand, and then lay calmly down.-f- 

Mrs. Piozzi was buried in the little church of Dymer- 
chion, in Flintshire. With the exception of some family 
pictures and trifling mementoes to her daughters, and a 
watch to Conway, she left all her real and personal 
property to Sir John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury, appoint- 
ing him and Sir James Fellowes executors of her will, 
which was dated the 2Qth March, 1816. 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 acknow- 
ledged the validity of the will.' j 

* 'Piozziana,' p. 6. f Ibid., p. 8. J Hayward, i. 364. 



Madame cTArblays Account of Her. 331 

In the autumn of 1857, soon after Mrs. Mostyn's death, 
her collection of curiosities and relics of Mrs. Piozzi and 
Dr. Johnson was sold at Silwood Lodge, Brighton. An 
odd volume of ' Saurin on the Bible,' with a memorandum 
by Dr. Johnson on the title-page, and some manuscript 
notes by Mrs. Piozzi, fetched 42 at this sale. The 
teapot which used to stand on Mrs. Piozzi's table, and 
from which Dr. Johnson drank innumerable cups of the 
cheering fluid, was bought at the same time by Mrs. 
Marryatt. It held more than three quarts, and was of 
Oriental porcelain, painted and gilt. 

On receiving the news of her old friend's death, 
Madame .d'Arblay wrote in her Diary : ' 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 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 Stae'l 
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 conver- 
sation 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 



33 2 Compared with De Stael. 

of them was delicate nor polished, though each was 
flattering and caressing; but both had a fund inex- 
haustible 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 
the}' 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 Stael 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.'* 

Doubtless Madame d'Arblay, who for a short time had 
been intimate with Madame de Stael, considered that she 
was paying her ancient Tyo a high compliment in com- 
paring her with the greatest female writer she herself had 
known. But the parallel wholly fails : it afforded Mr. 
Hayward scope for the exercise of his peculiar talent ; 
and it is impossible, we think, to dispute the justice of his 
criticism : 

' The superiority in the highest qualities of mind will 
be awarded without hesitation to the Frenchwoman, 
although M. Thiers terms her writings the perfection of 
mediocrity. . . . 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 deguises en femmes." This was a material draw- 
back on her agreeability ; in a moment of excited con- 

* Madame d'Arblay's ' Diary,' iv. 461. 



The Parallel Fails. 333 

sciousness she exclaimed that she would give all her fame 
for the power of fascinating.' 

After quoting Byron's petulant remarks about her, 
which he summed up in the words, ' She would have 
made a great man,' Mr. Hayward proceeds : 

' 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 weari- 
some ; 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, surprise 
by some new combination of colour or of form. She pro- 
fessed 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.' 

He continues : ' Her verses are advantageously dis- 
tinguished amongst those of her blue-stocking con- 
temporaries 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 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." 

' She was wanting in refinement, which very few of the 



334 Estimate of Mrs. Piozzi. 

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 circum- 
stances at distant intervals or to different persons. 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 Bos well) 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 at had the due effect. I wrote this note in 1820."' 



Her Sayings. 335 

We give a few specimens of her sayings and anecdotes : 
' 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 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.' 
When gaslights were first introduced into London, she 

quoted from Milton : 

' " From the arched roof, 
Pendent by subtle magic, many a rosv 
Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed 
With naphtha and asphaltus yielded light 
As from a sky." ' 

' 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 
show us that sleep is as necessary as bread.' 

When complaint was made of the scanty dresses worn 
by fashionable ladies, she said : ' 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.' 

' 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 Inde- 
pendence 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.' 

' You will think me as stupid as Lord Carlisle's cook, 



336 Her Sayings. 

who begged permission to examine the library one day, 
because, says he, I have been told when a child about 
Nelson's " Feasts and Fasts," and 'tis time to read it in 
earnest and fix upon some good recipes/ 

' Dr. Johnson used to beg for Samuel Boyce ; but did 
not relate, till after his decease, how, when he had pro- 
cured a guinea, and laid it out in roast beef and port 
wine, Boyce quarrelled with him, because he had forgotten 
their favourite sauce ; " and how can a man eat roast 
beef," said he, " without mushrooms or catsup ?" 

' A lady once asked me at Streatham Park to lend her 
a book. " What sort of a book would you like ?" said I. 
" An abridgment," was the unexpected reply; "the last 
pretty book I had was an abridgment." 

' " White figs in England as good/' says Sir William 
Temple, " as any of that sort in Italy." The art of 
cultivating them must have been lost, for our figs now 
resemble not in any wise those of Italy.-' 

' There is a story of Sir Roger L'Estrange going to see 
Lee, the poet, when confined for lunacy. The first 
expressing his concern to see his old friend in so dull a 
place, " Ay, sir," replied the other : 

' " Manners may alter, circumstances change ; 

But I am strange Lee still, and you Le Strange !" ' 



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*l '"V 




SEELEI, LEQNABD 

BENTON 



7SL 
3619 



Mrs. Thrale, afterward 




TITLE 



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SEELEI, IEONARD BENTON 

Mrs. Thrale, afterward 
Mrs. Piozzi. 



Ptt 

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