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 n 
