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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.)




"Mr. Thrale talks now of going to Spa and Italy again; how shall we
drag him thither? A man who cannot keep awake four hours at a stroke
&c. Well! this will indeed be a tryal of one's patience; and who must
go with us on this expedition? Mr. Johnson!--he will indeed be the
only happy person of the party; he values nothing _under_ heaven but
his own mind, which is a spark _from_ heaven, and that will be
invigorated by the addition of new ideas. If Mr. Thrale dies on the
road, Johnson will console himself by learning how it is to travel
with a corpse: and, after all, such reasoning is the true
philosophy--one's heart is a mere incumbrance--would I could leave
mine behind. The children shall go to their sisters at Kensington,
Mrs. Cumyns may take care of them all. God grant us a happy meeting
some _where_ and some _time_!

"Baretti should attend, I think; there is no man who has so much of
every language, and can manage so well with Johnson, is so tidy on
the road, so active top to obtain good accommodations. He is the man
in the world, I think, whom I most abhor, and who _hates_ and
_professes_ to _hate me_ the most; but what does that signifie? He
will be careful of Mr. Thrale and Hester whom he _does_ love--and he
won't strangle _me_, I suppose. Somebody we _must_ have. Croza would
court our daughter, and Piozzi could not talk to Johnson, nor, I
suppose, do one any good but sing to one,--and how should we _sing
songs in a strange land_? Baretti must be the man, and I will beg it
of him as a favour. Oh, the triumph he will have! and the lyes he
will tell!" Thrale's death is thus described in "Thraliana":

"On the Sunday, the 1st of April, I went to hear the Bishop of
Peterborough preach at May Fair Chapel, and though the sermon had
nothing in it particularly pathetic, I could not keep my tears within
my eyes. I spent the evening, however, at Lady Rothes', and was
cheerful. Found Sir John Lade, Johnson, and Boswell, with Mr. Thrale,
at my return to the Square. On Monday morning Mr. Evans came to
breakfast; Sir Philip and Dr. Johnson to dinner--so did Baretti. Mr.
Thrale eat voraciously--so voraciously that, encouraged by Jebb and
Pepys, who had charged me to do so, I checked him rather severely,
and Mr. Johnson added these remarkable words: "Sir, after the
denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little
better than suicide." He did not, however, desist, and Sir Philip
said, he eat apparently in defiance of control, and that it was
better for us to say nothing to him. Johnson observed that he thought
so too; and that he spoke more from a sense of duty than a hope of
success. Baretti and these two spent the evening with me, and I was
enumerating the people who were to meet the Indian ambassadors on the
Wednesday. I had been to Negri's and bespoke an elegant
entertainment.

"On the next day, Tuesday the 3rd, Mrs. Hinchliffe called on me in
the morning to go see Webber's drawings of the South Sea rareties. We
met the Smelts, the Ords, and numberless _blues_ there, and displayed
our pedantry at our pleasure. Going and coming, however, I quite
teazed Mrs. Hinchliffe with my low-spirited terrors about Mr. Thrale,
who had not all this while one symptom worse than he had had for
months; though the physicians this Tuesday morning agreed that a
continuation of such dinners as he had lately made would soon
dispatch a life so precarious and uncertain. When I came home to
dress, Piozzi, who was in the next room teaching Hester to sing,
began lamenting that he was engaged to Mrs. Locke on the following
evening, when I had such a world of company to meet these fine
Orientals; he had, however, engaged Roncaglia and Sacchini to begin
with, and would make a point of coming himself at nine o'clock if
possible. I gave him the money I had collected for his
benefit--35_l_. I remember it was--a banker's note--and burst out o'
crying, and said, I was sure I should not go to it. The man was
shocked, and wondered what I meant. Nay, says I, 'tis mere lowness of
spirits, for Mr. Thrale is very well now, and is gone out in his
carriage to spit cards, as I call'd it--sputar le carte. Just then
came a letter from Dr. Pepys, insisting to speak with me in the
afternoon, and though there was nothing very particular in the letter
considering our intimacy, I burst out o' crying again, and threw
myself into an agony, saying, I was sure Mr. Thrale would dye.

"Miss Owen came to dinner, and Mr. Thrale came home so well! and in
such spirits! he had invited more people to my concert, or
conversazione, or musical party, of the next day, and was delighted
to think what a show we should make. He eat, however, more than
enormously. Six things the day before, and eight on this day, with
strong beer in such quantities! the very servants were frighted, and
when Pepys came in the evening he said this could not last--either
there must be _legal_[1] restraint or certain death. Dear Mrs. Byron
spent the evening with me, and Mr. Crutchley came from Sunning-hill
to be ready for the morrow's flash. Johnson was at the Bishop of
Chester's. I went down in the course of the afternoon to see after my
master as usual, and found him not asleep, but sitting with his legs
up--_because_, as he express'd it. I kissed him, and said how good he
was to be so careful of himself. He enquired who was above, but had
no disposition to come up stairs. Miss Owen and Mrs. Byron now took
their leave. The Dr. had been gone about twenty minutes when Hester
went down to see her papa, and found him on the floor. What's the
meaning of this? says she, in an agony. I chuse it, replies Mr.
Thrale firmly; I lie so o' purpose. She ran, however, to call his
valet, who was gone out--happy to leave him so particularly _well_,
as he thought. When my servant went instead, Mr. Thrale bid him
begone, in a firm tone, and added that he was very well and chose to
lie so. By this time, however, Mr. Crutchley was run down at Hetty's
intreaty, and had sent to fetch Pepys back. He was got but into Upper
Brook Street, and found his friend in a most violent fit of the
apoplexy, from which he only recovered to relapse into another, every
one growing weaker as his strength grew less, till six o'clock on
Wednesday morning, 4th April, 1781, when he died. Sir Richard Jebb,
who was fetched at the beginning of the distress, seeing death
certain, quitted the house without even prescribing. Pepys did all
that could be done, and Johnson, who was sent for at eleven o'clock,
never left him, for while breath remained he still hoped. I ventured
in once, and saw them cutting his clothes off to bleed him, but I saw
no more."

[Footnote 1: (_Note_ by Mrs. T.). "I rejected all propositions of the
sort, and said, as he had got the money, he had the best right to
throw it away.... I should always prefer my husband, to my children:
let him do his _own_ way."]

We learn from Madame D'Arblay's Journal, that, towards the end of
March, 1781, Mr. Thrale had resolved on going abroad with his wife,
and that Johnson was to accompany them, but a subsequent entry states
that the doctors condemned the plan; and "therefore," she adds, "it
is settled that a great meeting of his friends is to take place
before he actually prepares for the journey, and they are to encircle
him in a body, and endeavour, by representations and entreaties, 'to
prevail with him to give it up; and I have little doubt myself but,
amongst us, we shall be able to succeed." This is one of the oddest
schemes ever projected by a set of learned and accomplished gentlemen
and ladies for the benefit of a hypochondriac patient. Its execution
was prevented by his death. A hurried note from Mrs. Thrale
announcing the event, beginning, "Write to me, pray for me," is
endorsed by Madame D'Arblay: "Written a few hours after the death of
Mr. Thrale, which happened by a sudden stroke of apoplexy, on the
morning of a day on which half the fashion of London had been invited
to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square." These
invitations had been sent out by his own express desire: so little
was he aware of his danger.

Letters and messages of condolence poured in from all sides. Johnson
(in a letter dated April 5th) said all that could be said in the way
of counsel or consolation:

"I do not exhort you to reason yourself into tranquillity. We must
first pray, and then labour; first implore the blessing of God, and
those means which He puts into our hands. Cultivated ground, has few
weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for
useless regret.

"We read the will to-day; but I will not fill my first letter with
any other account than that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I
am satisfied; and that the other executors, more used to consider
property than I, commended it for wisdom and equity. Yet, why should
I not tell you that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate
expenses, and two thousand pounds a-year, with both the houses and
all the goods?

"Let us pray for one another, that the time, whether long or short,
that shall yet be granted us, may be well spent; and that when this
life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a
better may begin which shall never end."

On April 9th he writes:

"DEAREST MADAM,--That you are gradually recovering your tranquillity,
is the effect to be humbly expected from trust in God. Do not
represent life as darker than it is. Your loss has been very great,
but you retain more than almost any other can hope to possess. You
are high in the opinion of mankind; you have children from whom much
pleasure may be expected; and that you will find many friends, you
have no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, be it worth more or less,
I hope you think yourself certain, without much art or care. It will
not be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have received; but I
hope to be always ready at your call. Our sorrow has different
effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into
company. _I_ am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such
a friend before. Let me have your prayers and those of my dear
Queeny.

"The prudence and resolution of your design to return so soon to your
business and your duty deserves great praise; I shall communicate it
on Wednesday to the other executors. Be pleased to let me know
whether you would have me come to Streatham to receive you, or stay
here till the next day."

Johnson was one of the executors and took pride in discharging his
share of the trust. Mrs. Thrale's account of the pleasure he took in
signing the documents and cheques, is incidentally confirmed by
Boswell:

"I could not but be somewhat diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a
pompous manner of his new office, and particularly of the concerns of
the brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold. Lord Lucan
tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly
characteristical; that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going
forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in
his button-hole, like an excise-man; and on being asked what he
really considered to be the value of the property which was to be
disposed of, answered, 'We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers
and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of
avarice.'"

The executors had legacies of 200_l._ each; Johnson, to the surprise
of his friends, being placed on no better footing than the rest. He
himself was certainly disappointed. Mrs. Thrale says that his
complacency towards Thrale was not wholly devoid of interested
motives; and she adds that his manner towards Reynolds and Dr. Taylor
was also softened by the vague expectation of being named in their
wills. One of her marginal notes is: "Johnson mentioned to Reynolds
that he had been told by Taylor he was to be his heir. His fondness
for Reynolds, ay, and for Thrale, had a dash of interest to keep it
warm." Again, on his saying to Reynolds, "I did not mean to offend
you,"--"He never would offend Reynolds: he had his reason."

Many and heavy as were the reproaches subsequently heaped upon the
widow, no one has accused her of having been found wanting in energy,
propriety, or self-respect at this period. She took the necessary
steps for promoting her own interests and those of her children with
prudence and promptitude. Madame D'Arblay, who was carrying on a
flirtation with one of the executors (Mr. Crutchley), and had
personal motives for watching their proceedings, writes, April
29th:--

"Miss Thrale is steady and constant, and very sincerely grieved for
her father.

"The four executors, Mr. Cator, Mr. Crutchley, Mr. Henry Smith, and
Dr. Johnson, have all behaved generously and honourably, and seem
determined to give Mrs. Thrale all the comfort and assistance in
their power. She is to carry on the business jointly with them. Poor
soul! it is a dreadful toil and worry to her."

In "Thraliana":

"_Streatham, 1st May_, 1781.--I have now appointed three days a week
to attend at the counting-house. If an angel from heaven had told me
twenty years ago that the man I knew by the name of _Dictionary
Johnson_ should one day become partner with me in a great trade, and
that we should jointly or separately sign notes, drafts, &c., for
three or four thousand pounds of a morning, how unlikely it would
have seemed ever to happen! Unlikely is no word tho',--it would have
seemed _incredible_, neither of us then being worth a groat, God
knows, and both as immeasurably removed from commerce as birth,
literature, and inclination could get us. Johnson, however, who
desires above all other good the accumulation of new ideas, is but
too happy with his present employment; and the influence I have over
him, added to his own solid judgment and a regard for truth, will at
last find it in a small degree difficult to win him from the dirty
delight of seeing his name in a new character flaming away at the
bottom of bonds and leases."

* * * * *

"Apropos to writing verses in a language one don't understand, there
is always the allowance given, and that allowance (like our excise
drawbacks) commonly larger than it ought to be. The following
translation of the verses written with a knife, has been for this
reason uncommonly commended, though they have no merit except being
done quick. Piozzi asked me on Sunday morning if ever I had seen
them, and could explain them to _him_, for that he heard they were
written by his friend Mr. Locke. The book in which they were
reposited was not ferreted out, however, till Monday night, and on
Tuesday morning I sent him verses and translation: we used to think
the original was Garrick's, I remember."

Translation of the verses written with a knife.

"Taglia Amore un coltello,
Cara, l'hai sentita dire;
Per l'Amore alla Moda,
Esso poco puo soffrire.
Cuori che non mai fur giunti
Pronti stanno a separar,
Cari nodi come i nostri
Non son facili tagliar.
Questo dico, che se spezza
Tua tenera bellezza,
Molto ancor ci restera;
Della mia buona fede
Il Coltello non s'avvede,
Ne di tua gran bonta.
Che tagliare speranze
Ben tutto si puo,
Per piaceri goduti
Oh, questo poi no?
Dolci segni!
Cari pegni!
Di felecita passata,
Non temer la coltellata,
Resterete--Io loro:
Se del caro ben gradita,
Trovo questa donatura,
Via pur la tagliatura
Sol d'Amore sta ferita."

"The power of emptying one's head of a great thing and filling it
with little ones to amuse care, is no small power, and I am proud of
being able to write Italian verses while I am bargaining 150,000_l_.,
and settling an event of the highest consequence to my own and my
children's welfare. David Barclay, the rich Quaker, will treat for
our brewhouse, and the negotiation is already begun. My heart
palpitates with hope and fear--my head is bursting with anxiety and
calculation; yet I can listen to a singer and translate verses about
a knife."

"Mrs. Montagu has been here; she says I ought to have a statue
erected to me for my diligent attendance on my compting-house duties.
The _wits_ and the _blues_ (as it is the fashion to call them) will
be happy enough, no doubt, to have me safe at the brewery--_out of
their way_."

"A very strange thing happened in the year 1776, and I never wrote it
down,--I must write it down now. A woman came to London from a
distant county to prosecute some business, and fell into distress;
she was sullen and silent, and the people with whom her affairs
connected her advised her to apply for assistance to some friend.
What friends can I have in London? says the woman, nobody here knows
anything of me. One can't tell _that_, was the reply. Where have you
lived? I have wandered much, says she, but I am originally from
Litchfield. Who did you know in Litchfield in your youth? Oh, nobody
of any note, I'll warrant: I knew one _David Garrick_, indeed, but I
once heard that he turned strolling player, and is probably dead long
ago; I also knew an obscure man, _Samuel Johnson_, very good he was
too; but who can know anything of poor Johnson? I was likewise
acquainted with _Robert James_, a quack doctor. _He_ is, I suppose,
no very reputable connection if I could find him. Thus did this woman
name and discriminate the three best known characters in
London--perhaps in Europe."

"'Such,' says Mrs. Montagu, 'is the dignity of Mrs. Thrale's virtue,
and such her superiority in all situations of life, that nothing now
is wanting but an earthquake to show how she will behave on _that_
occasion.' Oh, brave Mrs. Montagu! She is a monkey, though, to
quarrel with Johnson so about Lyttleton's life: if he was a great
character, nothing said of him in that book can hurt him; if he was
not a great character, they are bustling about nothing."

"Mr. Crutchley lives now a great deal with me; the business of
executor to Mr. Thrale's will makes much of his attendance necessary,
and it begins to have its full effect in seducing and attaching him
to the house,--Miss Burney's being always about me is probably
another reason for his close attendance, and I believe it is so. What
better could befall Miss Burney, or indeed what better could befall
_him_, than to obtain a woman of honour, and character, and
reputation for superior understanding? I would be glad, however, that
he fell honestly in love with her, and was not trick'd or trapp'd
into marriage, poor fellow; he is no match for the arts of a
novel-writer. A mighty particular character Mr. Crutchley is:
strangely mixed up of meanness and magnificence; liberal and splendid
in large sums and on serious occasions, narrow and confined in the
common occurrences of life; warm and generous in some of his motives,
frigid and suspicious, however, for eighteen hours at least out of
the twenty-four; likely to be duped, though always expecting fraud,
and easily disappointed in realities, though seldom flattered by
fancy. He is supposed by those that knew his mother and her
connections to be Mr. Thrale's natural son, and in many things he
resembles him, but not in person: as he is both ugly and awkward. Mr.
Thrale certainly believed he was his son, and once told me as much
when Sophy Streatfield's affair was in question but nobody could
persuade him to court the S.S. Oh! well does the Custom-house officer
Green say,--

"'Coquets! leave off affected arts,
Gay fowlers at a flock of hearts;
Woodcocks, to shun your snares have skill,
You show so plain you strive to kill.'"

"_3rd June_, 1781.--Well! here have I, with the grace of God and the
assistance of good friends, completed--I really think very
happily--the greatest event of my life. I have sold my brewhouse to
Barclay, the rich Quaker, for 135,000_l_., to be in four years' time
paid. I have by this bargain purchased peace and a stable fortune,
restoration to my original rank in life, and a situation undisturbed
by commercial jargon, unpolluted by commercial frauds, undisgraced by
commercial connections. They who succeed me in the house have
purchased the power of being rich beyond the wish of rapacity[1], and
I have procured the improbability of being made poor by flights of
the fairy, speculation. 'Tis thus that a woman and men of feminine
minds always--I speak popularly--decide upon life, and chuse certain
mediocrity before probable superiority; while, as Eton Graham says
sublimely,--

"'Nobler souls,
Fir'd with the tedious and disrelish'd good,
Seek their employment in acknowledg'd ill,
Danger, and toil, and pain.'

"On this principle partly, and partly on worse, was dear Mr. Johnson
something unwilling--but not much at last--to give up a trade by
which in some years 15,000_l._ or 16,000_l._ had undoubtedly been
got, but by which, in some years, its possessor had suffered agonies
of terror and tottered twice upon the verge of bankruptcy. Well! if
thy own conscience acquit, who shall condemn thee? Not, I hope, the
future husbands of our daughters, though I should think it likely
enough; however, as Johnson says very judiciously, they must either
think right or wrong: if they think right, let us now think with
them; if wrong, let us never care what they think. So adieu to
brewhouse, and borough wintering; adieu to trade, and tradesmen's
frigid approbation; may virtue and wisdom sanctify our contract, and
make buyer and seller happy in the bargain!"

[Footnote 1: There is a curious similarity here to Johnson's phrase,
"the potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice."]

After mentioning some friends who disapproved of the sale, she adds:
"Mrs. Montagu has sent me her approbation in a letter exceedingly
affectionate and polite. 'Tis over now, tho', and I'll clear my head
of it and all that belongs to it; I will go to church, give God
thanks, receive the sacrament and forget the frauds, follies, and
inconveniences of a commercial life this day."

Madame D'Arblay was at Streatham on the day of the sale, and gives a
dramatic colour to the ensuing scene:

"_Streatham, Thursday_.--This was the great and most important day to
all this house, upon which the sale of the brewery was to be decided.
Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr.
Barclay, the Quaker, who was the _bidder_. She was in great agitation
of mind, and told me, if all went well she would wave a white
pocket-handkerchief out of the coach window.

"Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Five
o'clock followed, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the
lawn, where we sauntered, in eager expectation, till near six, and
then the coach appeared in sight, and a white pocket-handkerchief was
waved from it. I ran to the door of it to meet her, and she jumped
out of it, and gave me a thousand embraces while I gave my
congratulations. We went instantly to her dressing-room, where she
told me, in brief, how the matter had been transacted, and then we
went down to dinner. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley had accompanied
her home."

The event is thus announced to Langton by Johnson, in a letter
printed by Boswell, dated June 16, 1781: "You will perhaps be glad to
hear that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered of her brewhouse, and that it
seemed to the purchaser so far from an evil that he was content to
give for it 135,000_l_. Is the nation ruined." _Marginal note_: "I
suppose he was neither glad nor sorry."

Thrale died on the 4th April, 1781, and Mrs. Thrale left Streatham on
the 7th October, 1782. The intervening eighteen months have been made
the subject of an almost unprecedented amount of misrepresentation.
Hawkins, Boswell, Madame D'Arblay, and Lord Macaulay have vied with
each other in founding uncharitable imputations on her conduct at
this period of her widowhood; and it has consequently become
necessary to recapitulate the authentic evidence relating to it. As
Piozzi's name will occur occasionally, he must now be brought upon
the scene.

He is first mentioned in "Thraliana" thus:

"_Brighton, July_, 1780.--I have picked up Piozzi here, the great
Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach
Hester."

A detailed account of the commencement of the acquaintance is given
in one of the autobiographical fragments. She says he was recommended
to her by letter by Madame D'Arblay as "a man likely to lighten the
burthen of life to her," and that both she and Mr. Thrale took to him
at once. Madame D'Arblay is silent as to the introduction or
recommendation; but gives an amusing account of one of their first
meetings:

"A few months after the Streathamite morning visit to St. Martin's
Street, an evening party was arranged by Dr. Burney, for bringing
thither again Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, at the desire of Mr. and
Mrs. Greville and Mrs. Crewe; who wished, under the quiet roof of Dr.
Burney, to make acquaintance with these celebrated personages." The
conversation flagged, and recourse was had to music--

"Piozzi, a first-rate singer, whose voice was deliciously sweet, and
whose expression was perfect, sung in his very best manner, from his
desire to do honour to _il Capo di Casa_; but _il Capo di Casa_ and
his family alone did justice to his strains: neither the Grevilles
nor the Thrales heeded music beyond what belonged to it as fashion:
the expectations of the Grevilles were all occupied by Dr. Johnson;
and those of the Thrales by the authoress of the Ode to Indifference.
When Piozzi, therefore, arose, the party remained as little advanced
in any method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as upon its
first entrance into the room....

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