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Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) by Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

M >> Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi >> Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.)




"'When after some distinguished leap
She drops her pole and seems to slip,
Straight gath'ring all her active strength,
She rises higher half her length;'

and better than _now_ I have never stood with the world in general, I
believe. May the books just sent to press confirm the partiality of
the Public!"

"1789, _January_.--I have a great deal more prudence than people
suspect me for: they think I act by chance while I am doing nothing
in the world unintentionally, and have never, I dare say, in these
last fifteen years uttered a word to husband, or child, or servant,
or friend, without being very careful what it should be. Often have I
spoken what I have repented after, but that was want of _judgment_,
not of _meaning_. What I said I meant to say at the time, and thought
it best to say, ... I do not err from haste or a spirit of rattling,
as people think I do: when I err, 'tis because I make a false
conclusion, not because I make no conclusion at all; when I rattle, I
rattle on purpose."

"1789, _May_ 1_st_.--Mrs. Montagu wants to make up with me again. I
dare say she does; but I will not be taken and left even at the
pleasure of those who are much nearer and dearer to me than Mrs.
Montagu. We want no flash, no flattery. I never had more of either in
my life, nor ever lived half so happily: Mrs. Montagu wrote creeping
letters when she wanted my help, or foolishly _thought_ she did, and
then turned her back upon me and set her adherents to do the same. I
despise such conduct, and Mr. Pepys, Mrs. Ord, &c. now sneak about
and look ashamed of themselves--well they may!"

"1790, _March_ 18_th_.--I met Miss Burney at an assembly last
night--'tis six years since I had seen her: she appeared most fondly
rejoyced, in good time! and Mrs. Locke, at whose house we stumbled on
each other, pretended that she had such a regard for me, &c. I
answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humour: and we
talked of the King and Queen, his Majesty's illness and recovery ...
and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference."

"I saw _Master Pepys_[1] too and Mrs. Ord; and only see how foolish
and how mortified the people do but look."

[Footnote 1: This is Sir W. Pepys mentioned _ante_, p. 252.]

"Barclay and Perkins live very genteelly. I dined with them at our
brewhouse one day last week. I felt so oddly in the old house where I
had lived so long."

"The Pepyses find out that they have used me very ill.... I hope they
find out too that I do not care, Seward too sues for reconcilement
underhand ... so they do all; and I sincerely forgive them--but, like
the linnet in 'Metastasio'--

"'Cauto divien per prova
Ne piu tradir si fa.'

"'When lim'd, the poor bird thus with eagerness strains,
Nor regrets his torn wing while his freedom he gains:
The loss of his plumage small time will restore,
And once tried the false twig--it shall cheat him no more.'"

"1790, _July_ 28_th_.--We have kept our seventh wedding day and
celebrated our return to _this house_[1] with prodigious splendour
and gaiety. Seventy people to dinner.... Never was a pleasanter day
seen, and at night the trees and front of the house were illuminated
with coloured lamps that called forth our neighbours from all the
adjacent villages to admire and enjoy the diversion. Many friends
swear that not less than a thousand men, women, and children might
have been counted in the house and grounds, where, though all were
admitted, nothing was stolen, lost, or broken, or even damaged--a
circumstance almost incredible; and which gave Mr. Piozzi a high
opinion of English gratitude and respectful attachment."

[Footnote 1: Streatham.]

"1790, _December 1st_.--Dr. Parr and I are in correspondence, and his
letters are very flattering: I am proud of his notice to be sure, and
he seems pleased with my acknowledgments of esteem: he is a
prodigious scholar ... but in the meantime I have lost Dr. Lort."[1]

[Footnote 1: He died November 5th, 1790.]

In the Conway Notes, she thus sums up her life from March 1787 to
1791:

"On first reaching London, we drove to the Royal Hotel in Pall Mall,
and, arriving early, I proposed going to the Play. There was a small
front box, in those days, which held only two; it made the division,
or connexion, with the side boxes, and, being unoccupied, we sat in
it, and saw Mrs. Siddons act Imogen, I well remember, and Mrs.
Jordan, Priscilla Tomboy. Mr. Piozzi was amused, and the next day was
spent in looking at houses, counting the cards left by old
acquaintances, &c. The lady-daughters came, behaved with cold
civility, and asked what I thought of _their_ decision concerning
Cecilia, then at school. No reply was made, or a gentle one; but she
was the first cause of contention among us. The lawyers gave her into
my care, and we took her home to our new habitation in Hanover
Square, which we opened with music, cards, &c., on, I think, the 22nd
March. Miss Thrales refused their company; so we managed as well as
we could. Our affairs were in good order, and money ready for
spending. The World, as it is called, appeared good-humoured, and we
were soon followed, respected, and admired. The summer months sent us
about visiting and pleasuring, ... and after another gay London
season, Streatham Park, unoccupied by tenants, called us as if
_really home_. Mr. Piozzi, with more generosity than prudence, spent
two thousand pounds on repairing and furnishing it in 1790;--and we
had danced all night, I recollect, when the news came of Louis
Seize's escape from, and recapture by, his rebel subjects.'"

The following are some of the names most frequently mentioned in her
Diary as visiting or corresponding with her after her return from
Italy: Lord Fife, Dr. Moore, the Kembles, Dr. Currie, Mrs. Lewis
(widow of the Dean of Ossory), Dr. Lort, Sir Lucas Pepys, Mr. Selwin,
Sammy Lysons (_sic_), Sir Philip Clerke, Hon. Mrs. Byron, Mrs.
Siddons, Arthur Murphy, Mr. and Mrs. Whalley, the Greatheads, Mr.
Parsons, Miss Seward, Miss Lee, Dr. Barnard (Bishop of Killaloe,
better known as Dean of Derry), Hinchcliffe (Bishop of Peterborough),
Mrs. Lambert, the Staffords, Lord Huntingdon, Lady Betty Cobb and her
daughter Mrs. Gould, Lord Dudley, Lord Cowper, Lord Pembroke, Marquis
Araciel, Count Marteningo, Count Meltze, Mrs. Drummond Smith, Mr.
Chappelow, Mrs. Hobart, Miss Nicholson, Mrs. Locke, Lord Deerhurst.

Resentment for her imputed unkindness to Johnson might have been
expected to last longest at his birthplace. But Miss Seward writes
from Lichfield, October 6th, 1787:

"Mrs. Piozzi completely answers your description: her conversation is
indeed that bright wine of the intellects which has no lees.... I
shall always feel indebted to him (Mr. Perkins) for eight or nine
hours of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi's society. They passed one evening here,
and I the next with them at their inn."

Again to Miss Helen Williams, Lichfield, December, 25th, 1787:

"Yes, it is very true, on the evening he (Colonel Barry) mentioned to
you, when Mrs. Piozzi honoured this roof, his conversation greatly
contributed to its Attic spirit. Till that day I had never conversed
with her. There has been no exaggeration, there could be none, in the
description given you of Mrs. Piozzi's talents for conversation; at
least in the powers of classic allusion and brilliant wit."

Mrs. Piozzi's next publication was "Letters To and From the late
Samuel Johnson, LL.D., &c." In the Preface she speaks of the
"Anecdotes" having been received with a degree of approbation she
hardly dared to hope, and exclaims, "May these Letters in some
measure pay my debt of gratitude! they will not surely be the
_first_, the _only_ thing written by Johnson, with which our nation
has not been pleased." ... "The good taste by which our countrymen
are distinguished, will lead them to prefer the native thoughts and
unstudied phrases scattered over these pages to the more laboured
elegance of his other works; as bees have been observed to reject
roses, and fix upon the wild fragrance of a neighbouring heath."

Whenever Johnson took pen in hand, the chances were, that what he
produced would belong to the composite order; the unstudied phrases
were reserved for his "talk;" and he wished his Letters to be
preserved.[1] The main value of these consists in the additional
illustrations they afford of his conduct in private life, and of his
opinions on the management of domestic affairs. The lack of literary
and public interest is admitted and excused:

[Footnote 1: "Do you keep my letters? I am not of your opinion that I
shall not like to read them hereafter."--_Letters_, vol. i. p. 295.]

"None but domestic and familiar events can be expected from a private
correspondence; no reflexions but such as they excite can be found
there; yet whoever turns away disgusted by the insipidity with which
this, and I suppose every correspondence must naturally and almost
necessarily begin--will here be likely to lose some genuine pleasure,
and some useful knowledge of what our heroic Milton was himself
contented to respect, as

"'That which before thee lies in daily life.'

"And should I be charged with obtruding trifles on the public, I
might reply, that the meanest animals preserved in amber become of
value to those who form collections of natural history; that the fish
found in Monte Bolca serve as proofs of sacred writ; and that the
cart-wheel stuck in the rock of Tivoli, is now found useful in
computing the rotation of the earth."

In "Thraliana" she thus refers to the reception of the book:

"The Letters are out. They were published on Saturday, 8th of March.
Cadell printed 2,000 copies, and says 1,100 are already sold. My
letter to Jack Rice on his marriage (Vol. i. p. 96), seems the
universal favourite. The book is well spoken of on the whole; yet
Cadell murmurs. I cannot make out why."

This entry is not dated; the next is dated March 27th, 1788.

"This collection," says Boswell, "as a proof of the high estimation
set on any thing that came from his pen, was sold by that lady for
the sum of 500_l_." She has written on the margin: "How spiteful."

Boswell states that "Horace Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable
character after reading his Letters to Mrs. Thrale, but never was one
of the true admirers of that great man." Madame D'Arblay came to an
opposite conclusion; in her Diary, January 9th, 1788, she writes:

"To-day Mrs. Schwellenberg did me a real favour, and with real good
nature, for she sent me the letters of my poor lost friends, Dr.
Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, which she knew me to be almost pining to
procure. The book belongs to the Bishop of Carlisle, who lent it to
Mr. Turbulent, from whom it was again lent to the Queen, and so
passed on to Mrs. S. It is still unpublished. With what a sadness
have I been reading! What scenes has it revived! What regrets
renewed! These letters have not been more improperly published in the
whole than they are injudiciously displayed in their several parts.
She has given all, every word, and thinks that perhaps a justice to
Dr. Johnson, which, in fact, is the greatest injury to his memory.

"The few she has selected of her own do her, indeed, much credit; she
has discarded all that were trivial and merely local, and given only
such as contain something instructive, amusing, or ingenious."

She admits only four of Johnson's letters to be worthy of his exalted
powers: one upon Death, in considering its approach, as we are
surrounded, or not, by mourners; another upon the sudden death of
Mrs. Thrale's only son. Her chief motive for "almost pining" for the
book, steeped as she was in egotism, may be guessed:

"Our name once occurred; how I started at its sight! 'Tis to mention
the party that planned the first visit to our house."

She says she had so many attacks upon "her (Mrs. Piozzi's) subject,"
that at last she fairly begged quarter. Yet nothing she could say
could put a stop to, "How can you defend her in this? how can you
justify her in that? &c. &c." "Alas! that I cannot defend her is
precisely the reason I can so ill bear to speak of her. How
differently and how sweetly has the Queen conducted herself upon this
occasion. Eager to see the Letters, she began reading them with the
utmost avidity. A natural curiosity arose to be informed of several
names and several particulars, which she knew I could satisfy; yet
when she perceived how tender a string she touched, she soon
suppressed her inquiries, or only made them with so much gentleness
towards the parties mentioned, that I could not be distressed in my
answers; and even in a short time I found her questions made in so
favourable a disposition, that I began secretly to rejoice in them,
as the means by which I reaped opportunity of clearing several points
that had been darkened by calumny, and of softening others that had
been viewed wholly through false lights. To lessen disapprobation of
a person, and so precious to me in the opinion of another, so
respectable both in rank and virtue, was to me a most soothing task,
&c."

This is precisely what many will take the liberty to doubt; or why
did she shrink from it, or why did she not afford to others the
explanations which proved so successful with the Queen?

The day following (Jan. 10th), her feelings were so worked upon by
the harsh aspersions on her friend, that she was forced, she tells
us, abruptly to quit the room; leaving not her own (like Sir Peter
Teazle) but her friend's character behind her:

"I returned when I could, and the subject was over. When all were
gone, Mrs. Schwellenberg said, 'I have told it Mr. Fisher, that he
drove you out from the room, and he says he won't do it no more.'

"She told me next, that in the second volume I also, was mentioned.
Where she may have heard this I cannot gather, but it has given me a
sickness at heart, inexpressible. It is not that I expect severity;
for at the time of that correspondence, at all times indeed previous
to the marriage with Piozzi, if Mrs. Thrale loved not F. B., where
shall we find faith in words, or give credit to actions. But her
present resentment, however unjustly incurred, of my constant
disapprobation of her conduct, may prompt some note, or other mark,
to point out her change of sentiment. But let me try to avoid such
painful expectations; at least not to dwell upon them. O, little does
she know how tenderly at this moment I could run into her arms, so
often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable.
And it was sincere then, I am satisfied; pride, resentment of
disapprobation, and consciousness if unjustifiable proceedings--these
have now changed her; but if we met, and she saw and believed my
faithful regard, how would she again feel all her own return! Well,
what a dream I am making!"

The ingrained worldliness of the diarist is ill-concealed by the mask
of sensibility. The correspondence that passed between the ladies
during their temporary rupture (_ante_, p. 230) shews that there was
nothing to prevent her from flying into her friend's arms, could she
have made up her mind to be seen on open terms of affectionate
intimacy with one who was repudiated by the Court. In a subsequent
conversation with which the Queen honoured her on the subject, she
did her best to impress her Majesty with the belief that Mrs.
Piozzi's conduct had rendered it impossible for her former friends to
allude to her without regret, and she ended by thanking her royal
mistress for her forbearance.

"Indeed," cried she, with eyes strongly expressive of the complacency
with which she heard me, "I have always spoken as little as possible
upon this affair. I remember but twice that I have named it: once I
said to the Bishop of Carlisle that I thought most of these letters
had better have been spared the printing; and once to Mr. Langton, at
the drawing-room I said, 'Your friend Dr. Johnson, Sir, has had many
friends busy to publish his books, and his memoirs, and his
meditations, and his thoughts; but I think he wanted one friend
more.' 'What for, Ma'am?' cried he. 'A friend to suppress them,' I
answered. And, indeed, this is all I ever said about the business."

Hannah More's opinion of the Letters is thus expressed in her
Memoirs:

"They are such as ought to have been written but ought not to have
been printed: a few of them are very good: sometimes he is moral, and
sometimes he is kind. The imprudence of editors and executors is an
additional reason why men of parts should be afraid to die.[1] Burke
said to me the other day, in allusion to the innumerable lives,
anecdotes, remains, &c. of this great man, 'How many maggots have
crawled out of that great body!'"

[Footnote 1: In reference to the late Lord Campbell's "Lives of the
Lord Chancellors," it was remarked, that, as regards persons who had
attained the dignity, the threatened continuation of the work had
added a new pang to death. I am assured by the Ex-Chancellor to whom
I attributed this joke, that it was made by Sir Charles Wetherell at
a dinner at Lincoln's-Inn.]

Miss Seward writes to Mrs. Knowles, April, 1788:

"And now what say you to the last publication of your sister wit,
Mrs. Piozzi? It is well that she has had the good nature to extract
almost all the corrosive particles from the old growler's letters. By
means of her benevolent chemistry, these effusions of that expansive
but gloomy spirit taste more oily and sweet than one could have
imagined possible."

The letters contained two or three passages relating to Baretti,
which exasperated him to the highest pitch. One was in a letter from
Johnson, dated July 15th, 1775:

"The doctor says, that if Mr. Thrale comes so near as Derby without
seeing us, it will be a sorry trick. I wish, for my part, that he may
return soon, and rescue the fair captives from the tyranny of B----i.
Poor B----i! do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be
sufficient. He means only to be frank, and manly, and independent,
and perhaps, as you say, a little wise. To be frank, he thinks is to
be cynical, and to be independent, is to be rude. Forgive him,
dearest lady, the rather, because of his misbehaviour, I am afraid he
learned part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better example."

The most galling was in a letter of hers to Dr. Johnson:

"How does Dr. Taylor do? He was very kind I remember when my
thunder-storm came first on, so was Count Manucci, so was Mrs.
Montagu, so was everybody. The world is not guilty of much general
harshness, nor inclined I believe to increase pain which they do not
perceive to be deserved.--Baretti alone tried to irritate a wound so
very deeply inflicted, and he will find few to approve his cruelty.
Your friendship is our best cordial; continue it to us, dear Sir, and
write very soon."

In the margin of the printed copy is written, "Cruel, cruel Baretti."
He had twitted her, whilst mourning over a dead child, with having
killed it by administering a quack medicine instead of attending to
the physician's prescriptions; a charge which he acknowledged and
repeated in print. He published three successive papers in "The
European Magazine" for 1788, assailing her with the coarsest
ribaldry. "I have just read for the first time," writes Miss Seward
in June, 1788, "the base, ungentleman-like, unmanly abuse of Mrs.
Piozzi by that Italian assassin, Baretti. The whole literary world
should unite in publicly reprobating such venomed and foul-mouthed
railing." He died soon afterwards, May 5th, 1789, and the notice of
him in the "Gentleman's Magazine" begins: "Mrs. Piozzi has reason to
rejoice in the death of Mr. Baretti, for he had a very long memory
and malice to relate all he knew." And a good deal that he did not
know, into the bargain; as when he prints a pretended conversation
between Mr. and Mrs. Thrale about Piozzi, which he afterwards admits
to be a gratuitous invention and rhetorical figure of his own, for
conveying what is a foolish falsehood on the face of it.

Baretti's death is thus noticed in "Thraliana," 8th May, 1789:

"Baretti is dead. Poor Baretti! I am sincerely sorry for him, and as
Zanga says, 'If I lament thee, sure thy worth was great.' He was a
manly character, at worst, and died, as he lived, less like a
Christian than a philosopher, refusing all spiritual or corporeal
assistance, both which he considered useless to him, and perhaps they
were so. He paid his debts, called in some single acquaintance, told
him he was dying, and drove away that _Panada_ conversation which
friends think proper to administer at sick-bedsides with becoming
steadiness, bid him write his brothers word that he was dead, and
gently desired a woman who waited to leave him quite alone. No
interested attendants watching for ill-deserved legacies, no harpy
relatives clung round the couch of Baretti. He died!

"'And art thou dead? so is my enmity:
I war not with the dead.'

"Baretti's papers--manuscripts I mean--have been all burnt by his
executors without examination, they tell me. So great was his
character as a mischief-maker, that Vincent and Fendall saw no nearer
way to safety than that hasty and compendious one. Many people think
'tis a good thing for me, but as I never trusted the man, I see
little harm he could have done me."

In the fury of his onslaught Baretti forgot that he was strengthening
her case against Johnson, of whom he says: "His austere reprimand,
and unrestrained upbraidings, when face to face with her, always
delighted Mr. Thrale and were approved even by her children. 'Harry,'
said his father to her son, 'are you listening to what the doctor and
mamma are talking about?' 'Yes, papa.' And quoth Mr. Thrale, 'What
are they saying?' 'They are disputing, and mamma has just such a
chance with Dr. Johnson as Presto (a little dog) would have were he
to fight Dash (a big one).'" He adds that she left the room in a huff
to the amusement of the party. If scenes like this were frequent, no
wonder the "yoke" became unendurable.

Baretti was obliged to admit that, when Johnson died, they were not
on speaking terms. His explanation is that Johnson irritated him by
an allusion to his being beaten by Omai, the Sandwich Islander, at
chess. Mrs. Piozzi's marginal note on Omai is: "When Omai played at
chess and at backgammon with Baretti, everybody admired at the
savage's good breeding and at the European's impatient spirit."

Amongst her papers was the following sketch of his character, written
for "The World" newspaper.

"_Mr. Conductor_.--Let not the death of Baretti pass unnoticed by
'The World,' seeing that Baretti was a wit if not a scholar: and had
for five-and-thirty years at least lived in a foreign country, whose
language he so made himself completely master of, that he could
satirise its inhabitants in their own tongue, better than they knew
how to defend themselves; and often pleased, without ever praising
man or woman in book or conversation. Long supported by the private
bounty of friends, he rather delighted to insult than flatter; he at
length obtained competence from a public he esteemed not: and died,
refusing that assistance he considered as useless--leaving no debts
(but those of gratitude) undischarged; and expressing neither regret
of the past, nor fear of the future, I believe. Strong in his
prejudices, haughty and independent in his spirit, cruel in his
anger,--even when unprovoked; vindictive to excess, if he through
misconception supposed himself even slightly injured, pertinacious in
his attacks, invincible in his aversions: the description of Menelaus
in 'Homer's Iliad,' as rendered by Pope, exactly suits the character
of Baretti:

"'So burns the vengeful Hornet, soul all o'er,
Repuls'd in vain, and thirsty still for gore;
Bold son of air and heat on angry wings,
Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.'"

In reference to this article, she remarks in "Thraliana":

"There seems to be a language now appropriated to the newspapers, and
a very wretched and unmeaning language it is. Yet a certain set of
expressions are so necessary to please the diurnal readers, that when
Johnson and I drew up an advertisement for charity once, I remember
the people altered our expressions and substituted their own, with
good effect too. The other day I sent a Character of Baretti to 'The
World,' and read it two mornings after more altered than improved in
my mind: but no matter: they will talk of _wielding_ a language, and
of _barbarous_ infamy,--sad stuff, to be sure, but such is the taste
of the times. They altered even my quotation from Pope; but that was
too impudent."

The comparison of Baretti to the hornet was truer than she
anticipated: _animamque in vulnere ponit_. Internal evidence leads
almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he was the author or
prompter of "The _Sentimental_ Mother: a Comedy in Five Acts. The
Legacy of an Old Friend, and his 'Last Moral Lesson' to Mrs. Hester
Lynch Thrale, now Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi. London: Printed for James
Ridgeway, York Street, St. James's Square, 1789. Price three
shillings." The principal _dramatis personae_ are Mr. Timothy Tunskull
(Thrale), Lady Fantasma Tunskull, two Misses Tunskull, and Signor
Squalici.

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