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 /u
 
 AUTOBIOGKAPHY &c, OP MRS, PIOZZI 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 LONDOJf 
 
 miNTED BY 8POTTISWOODE AND CO. 
 ITEW-STREE SQUAEB
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 LETTERS AND LITERARY REMAINS 
 
 OF 
 
 MRS. PIOZZI (THRALE) //e 
 ^Lfxiuf4x ^A&t 
 
 EDITED WITH NOTES 
 
 AN INTRODUCTOEY ACCOUNT OF HEE LIFE AND WEITINGS 
 
 A. HAYWABD, ESQ. Q.C. 
 
 Welcome, Associate- Forms, where'er we turn; 
 
 Fill, Streatham's Hebe, the Johnsonian urn St. Stephen's 
 
 In Two Volumes 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 
 1861
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 Page 
 MISCELLANIES OK ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE . 1 
 
 The Three "Warnings . . . , . .3 
 
 Duty and Pleasure . . . . . .7 
 
 The Streatham Portraits . . . . .9 
 
 Asheri . . . . - . . . .19 
 
 Character of Thrale . . . . . .26 
 
 Translation . . . . . . .30 
 
 A Frightful Story . . . 32 
 
 Delia Crusca . . . . . . .35 
 
 Ode to Society . . . . . . .39 
 
 Epigrams and Translations . . . . .43 
 
 Dedication and Preface of the "Florence Miscellany" . 50 
 
 Occasional Versos . . . . . .53 
 
 LETTERS . . . . . . . .61 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM " THRALIANA " including sketches of " The charm- 
 ing S. S.," Baretti, the Burneys, the Misses Thrale, &c., with re- 
 flections on love, marriage, calumny, and self-sacrifice . . 329 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM " BRITISH SYNONYMY '' . 354
 
 ERRATA IN VOL. II. 
 
 p. 57, as heading to the verses 'on the top of the page read " On a 
 
 Watch." 
 
 p. 72, this letter and the one beginning at p. 81 should be transposed. 
 p. 155, for " 1814" read " 1816." 
 p. 174, note, for " swearing-list " read " Swearing Act."
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 OB 
 
 ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE/ 
 
 THE THREE WARNINGS. 
 A TALE. 
 
 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, 
 
 * Under this head I have printed only those which were found 
 detached. The majority of her fugitive pieces and occasional 
 verses are contained in the Letters. 
 
 B 2
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 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 urg'd 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 sumrnon'd to the grave : 
 Willing, for once, I'll quit my prey, 
 And grant a kind reprieve ; 
 In hopes you '11 have no more to say 
 But when I call again this way, 
 Well pleas'd the world will leave.
 
 THE THREE WARNINGS. 
 
 To these conditions both consented, 
 
 And parted perfectly contented. 
 
 What next the hero of our tale befell, 
 
 How long he lived, how wise, how well, 
 
 How roundly he pursued his course, 
 
 And smok'd 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 pass'd 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 time whose haste no mortal spares 
 
 Uncall'd, 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. 
 
 B 3
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 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, 
 
 Yet there's some comfort still, says Death ; 
 
 Each strives your sadness to amuse, 
 
 I warrant you have all the news.
 
 DUTY AND PLEASURE. 
 
 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 touch'd him with his dart ; 
 And now old Dobson, turning pale, 
 Yields to his fate so ends my tale. 
 
 DUTY AND PLEASURE. 
 
 DUTY and Pleasure long at strife, 
 
 Cross'd in the common walks of life ; 
 
 Pray, don't disturb me, get you gone, 
 
 Cries Duty in a serious tone : 
 
 Then with a smile keep off, my dear, 
 
 Nor force me thus to be severe. 
 
 Lord, Sir, she cries, you're grown so grave 
 
 You make yourself a perfect slave ; 
 
 I can't think why we disagree, 
 
 You may turn Methodist for me. 
 
 But if you'll neither laugh nor play, 
 
 At least don't stop me on my way ; 
 
 Yet sure one moment you might steal 
 
 To see our lovely Miss O'Neill ; 
 
 B 4
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 One hour to relaxation give, 
 Oh ! lend one hour from life to live. 
 And here's a bird and there's a flower, 
 Dear Duty, walk a little slower. 
 My youthful task is not half done, 
 Cries Duty, with an inward groan ; 
 False colours on each object spread, 
 I scarce see whence or where I'm led ; 
 Your bragg'd enjoyments mount the wind, 
 And leave their venom'd stings behind. 
 Where are you flown ? Voices around 
 Cry Pleasure long has left this ground : 
 Old age advances haste away ; 
 Nor lose the light of parting day. 
 See sickness follows, sorrow threats ; 
 Waste no more time in vain regrets. 
 One moment more to Duty given,. 
 Might reach perhaps the gates of heaven, 
 Where only each with each delighted, 
 Duty and Pleasure live united.
 
 THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS. 
 
 MADAME D'ARBLAY'S description of the Streatham 
 Portraits will be the best preface to the following verses 
 on them : " Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter were 
 in one piece, over the fire-place (of the library), at full 
 length. The rest of the pictures were all three- 
 quarters. Mr. Thrale was over the door leading to his 
 study. The general collection then began by Lord 
 Sandys and Lord Westcote (Lyttelton), two early noble 
 friends of Mr. Thrale. Then followed Dr. Johnson, Mr. 
 Burke, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Garrick, Mr. 
 Baretti, Sir Robert Chambers, and Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 himself all painted in the highest style of this great 
 master, who much delighted in this his Streatham 
 gallery. There was place left but for one more frame 
 when the acquaintance with Dr. Burney began at 
 Streatham^" 
 
 The whole of them were sold by auction in the spring 
 of 1816. According to Mrs. Piozzi's marked catalogue, 
 they fetched respectively the following prices, which 
 appear to vary according to the celebrity of the sub- 
 jects, and to make small account of the pictures con- 
 sidered as works of art : " Lord Sandys, 36?. 15s. 
 (Lady Downshire) ; Lord Lyttelton, 43 1. Is. (Mr. 
 Lyttelton, his son) ; Mrs. Piozzi and her daughter, 
 81?. 18s. (S. Boddington, Esq., a rich merchant); Gold- 
 smith (duplicate of the original), 133?. 7s. (Duke of 
 Bedford) ; Sir J. Reynolds, 128?. 2s. (R. Sharp, Esq.,
 
 10 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 M.P.); Sir K. Chambers, 84?. (Laxly Chambers, his 
 widow) ; David Grarrick, 183?. 15s. (Dr. Charles Burney) ; 
 Baretti, 31?. 10s. (Stewart, Esq., I know not who); Dr. 
 Burney, 84?. (Dr. C. Burney, his son) ; Edmund Burke, 
 252?. (R. Sharp, Esq., M.P.); Dr. Johnson, 378?. 
 (Watson Taylor, Esq.), by whom for Mr. Murphy was 
 offered 102?, 18s., but I bought it in." In 1780 
 Reynolds raised the price of his portraits (three-quarter 
 size) from thirty-five to fifty guineas, which, Mrs. 
 Piozzi complains, made the Streatham portraits in many 
 instances cost more than they fetched, as she had to pay 
 for them after Mr. Thrale's death at the increased 
 price. Her own prefatory remarks are : 
 
 "With the dismal years 1772 and 1773 ended much 
 of my misery, no doubt. The recollection of the sweet 
 and saint-like manner in which my incomparable mother 
 meekly laid down her temporal existence, sweetened 
 the loss of her who I shall see no more in this world, 
 and whose situation in the next will probably be too 
 high for my most fervent aspirations. The loss of our 
 dear boy fell so heavy on my husband, that it became my 
 duty to endure it courageously, and shake away as much 
 of the weight as it was possible. Among other efforts to 
 amuse myself and my eldest daughter, now my daily 
 companion, and a charming one, but never partial to a 
 mother who sought in vain to obtain her friendship, 
 was a fancy I took of writing little paltry verse cha- 
 racters of the gentlemen who sate for their portraits in 
 the library, and of whose sittings I was cruelly impatient. 
 No wonder ! when such calamity was hanging over our 
 heads as is mentioned in the last volume. Let that
 
 THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS. 11 
 
 reflection make you hesitate in censuring the satirical 
 vein which perhaps does run through them all : 
 
 i. 
 
 LORD SANDYS appears first, at the head of the tribe, 
 But flat insipidity who can describe ? 
 When such parents and wife as might check even 
 
 Pindar, 
 
 Form family compacts his progress to hinder : 
 Their oppression for forty long years he endur'd, 
 The nobleman sunk, and the scholar obscurd ; 
 Till rank, reason, virtue, endeav'ring in vain 
 To fling off their burden, and break off their chain, 
 Can at last but regret, not resist, his hard fate, 
 Like Enceladus, crush'd by the mountainous weight. 
 
 n. 
 
 Next him on the right hand, see Lyttelton hang ; 
 Polite in behaviour, prolix in harangue. 
 With power well matur'd, with science well bred, 
 He had studied, had travell'd, had reason'd, had read. 
 Yet the mind, as the body, was wanting in strength, 
 For in Lyttelton everything run into length ; 
 Of his long wheaten straw that the farmer complains, 
 Where the chaff is still found to outnumber the 
 grains. 
 
 in. 
 
 In these features* so placid, so cool, so serene, 
 What trace of the wit or the Welshwoman 's seen ? 
 
 * She complained in prose as well as in verse of the want of 
 likeness in her own portrait. Northcote, in his Life .of Reynolds,
 
 12 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 What trace of the tender, the rough, the refm'd, 
 The soul in which such contrarieties join'd! 
 Where, tho' merriment loves over method to rule, 
 Religion resides, and the virtues keep school : 
 Till when tir'd we condemn her dogmatical air, 
 Like a rocket she rises, and leaves us to stare. 
 To such contradictions d'ye wish for a clue ? 
 Keep vanity still, that vile passion, in view, 
 For 'tis thus the slow miner his fortune to make, 
 Of arsenic thin scatter'd pursues the pale track, 
 Secure where that poison pollutes the rich ground, 
 That it points to the place where some silver is found. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of a virgin so tender*, the face or the fame 
 Alike would be injur'd by praise or by blame ; 
 
 observed of Sir Joshua's pictures in general that " they possess a 
 degree of merit superior to mere portraits ; they assume the rank 
 of history. His portraits of men are distinguished by a certain 
 air of dignity, and those of women and children by a grace, a 
 beauty, and simplicity which have seldom been equalled and never 
 surpassed. In his attempts to give character where it did not 
 exist, he has sometimes lost likeness, but the deficiencies of the 
 portrait were often compensated by the beauty of the picture." 
 Mrs. Piozzi remarks on this passage : u True, in my portrait above 
 all, there is really no resemblance, and the character is less like 
 my father's daughter than Pharaoh's." Speaking of Sir Joshua's 
 picture of- Lady Sarah Bunbury " sacrificing to the Graces," Mrs. 
 Piozzi says : " Lady Sarah never did sacrifice to the Graces. Her 
 beauty was in her face, which had few equals ; but she was a 
 cricket player, and ate beefsteaks upon the Steyne at Brighthelm- 
 stone." 
 
 * Her eldest daughter, then a child.
 
 THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS. 13 
 
 To the world's fiery trial too early consign'd, 
 
 She soon shall experience it, cruel or kind. 
 
 His concern thus the artful enameller hides, 
 
 And his well-finish'd work to the furnace confides ; 
 
 But jocund resumes it secure from decay, 
 
 If the colours stand firm on the dangerous day. 
 
 v. 
 
 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, follies, 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. 
 
 VI. 
 
 From our Goldsmith's anomalous character, who 
 Can withhold his contempt, and his reverence too ? 
 From a poet so polished, so paltry a fellow ! 
 From critic, historian, or vile Punchinello !
 
 14 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 From a heart in which meanness had made her abode, 
 
 From a foot that each path of vulgarity trod ; 
 
 From a head to invent, and a hand to adorn, 
 
 Unskilled in the schools, a philosopher born. 
 
 By disguise undefended, by jealousy smit, 
 
 This lusus iwturce, nondescript in wit, 
 
 May best be compared to those Anamorphoses, 
 
 Which for lectures to ladies th' optician proposes ; 
 
 All deformity seeming, in some points of view, 
 
 In others quite accurate, regular, true : 
 
 Till the student no more sees the figure that shock'd 
 
 her, 
 But all in his likeness our odd little doctor. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Of Eeynolds 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 dis- 
 claim, 
 
 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. 
 
 vm. 
 
 In this luminous portrait requiring no shade, 
 See Chambers' soft character sweetly display'd :
 
 THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS. 15 
 
 Oh ! quickly return with that genuine smile, 
 Nor longer let India's temptations beguile, 
 But fly from a climate where moist relaxation 
 Invades with her torpor th' effeminate nation, 
 Where metals and marbles will melt and decay, 
 Fear, man, for thy virtue, and hasten away. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Here Grarrick's lov'd features our mem'ry may trace, 
 Here praise is exhausted, and blame has no place. 
 Many portraits like this would defeat my whole 
 
 scheme, 
 
 For what new can be said on so hackney'd a theme ? 
 "Tis thus on old Ocean whole days one may look, 
 Every change well recorded in some well-known 
 
 book ; 
 
 Till with vain expectation fatiguing our eyes, 
 Nor the storm nor the calm one new image supplies. 
 
 x. 
 
 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 confind. 
 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, 
 Eespected his wealth and applauded his merit: 
 Much like that empirical chemist was he 
 Who thought Anima Mundi the grand panacea.
 
 16 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Yet when every kind element help'd his collection, 
 Fell sick while the med'cine was yet in projection. 
 
 XI. 
 
 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 x and where 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. 
 
 XII. 
 
 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.
 
 THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS. 17 
 
 So sits the sweet violet close to the ground, 
 Whilst holy-oaks and sunflow'rs flant it around. 
 His character form'd free, confiding, and kind, 
 Grown cautious by habit, by station confin'd 1 : 
 Tho' born to improve and enlighten our days, 
 In a supple facility fixes his praise ; 
 And contented to sooth, 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. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 See Burke's bright intelligence beams from his face, 
 To his language gives splendour, his action gives grace ; 
 Let us list to the learning that tongue can display, 
 Let it steal all reflection, all reason away ; 
 Lest home to his house we the patriot pursue, 
 Where scenes of another sort rise to our view ; 
 Where Av'rice usurps sage Economy's look,* 
 And Humour cracks jokes out of Eibaldry's book : 
 Till no longer in silence confession can lurk, 
 That from chaos and cobwebs could spring even Burke. 
 Thus, 'mong dirty companions conceal'd in the ground, 
 And unnotic'd by all, the proud metal was found, 
 Which, exalted by place, and by polish refin'd, 
 Could comfort, corrupt, and confound all mankind. 
 
 * Till he got his pension, Burke was always poor ; and the 
 wonder is how he managed to make both ends meet at all. 
 VOL. II. C
 
 18 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 XIY. 
 
 Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength, 
 
 With Johnson our company closes at length : 
 
 So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past, 
 
 When, wisest and greatest, Ulysses came last, 
 
 To his comrades contemptuous, we see him look down 
 
 On their wit and their worth with a general frown : 
 
 While from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he 
 
 receives, 
 Who could shake the whole trunk while they turn'd 
 
 a few leaves. 
 
 Th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue, 
 Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong, 
 We suffer from Johnson, contented to find 
 That some notice we gain from so noble a mind ; 
 And pardon our hurts, since so many have found 
 The balm of instruction pour'd into the wound. 
 'Tis thus for its virtues the chymists extol 
 Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol. 
 From noxious putrescence preservative pure, 
 A cordial in health, and in sickness a cure : 
 But oppos'd to the sun, taking fire at his rays, 
 Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze.
 
 19 
 
 ASHERI. 
 
 ARABIAN tales, all Oriental tales indeed, are full of 
 "imagination, void of common sense. The lady who 
 recounts can scarcely fail to amuse. She is herself so 
 handsome and so charming, the story must please, be it 
 what it will ; but they must be listeners like Sir James 
 Fellowes who can feel interest in an old man's narration, 
 and hear attentively the Eabbinical story concerning 
 A search after Asheri. 
 
 Four young men, then, stood round their father's 
 death-bed. " I cannot speak what I wish you to hear," 
 whispered the dying parent ; " but there is a Genius 
 residing in the neighbouring wood, who pretends to 
 direct mortals to Asheri. Meanwhile, accept my house 
 and lands ; they are not large, but will afford an 
 elegant sufficiency. Farewell." 
 
 Three of the brothers set out instantly for the wood. 
 The fourth staid at home ; and, having performed the last 
 filial duties to a father he revered, began to cultivate 
 his farm, and court his neighbour's daughter to share it 
 with him. She was virtuous, kind, and amiable. We 
 will leave them, and follow the adventurers, who soon 
 arrived at the obscure habitation of the reputed sage, 
 bosomed in trees, and his hut darkened with ivy. Scarce 
 could the ambiguous mandates be heard ; still less could
 
 20 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the speaker (Imagination) be discerned through the 
 gloom. " What is this Asheri we are to look out for ? " 
 said one brother. " Oh ! when once seen, no eye can 
 be mistaken," replied a voice from within the grot. 
 " Three beautiful forms uniting under one radiant head, 
 compose the sighed-for object." "/ am a passionate 
 admirer of beauty," interrupted the youth. " Shall I 
 not find the lovely creature at Grand Cairo ? " " Seek 
 your desire there," was the reply ; " the soil will be con- 
 genial to your nature." He set off without studying for 
 an answer. 
 
 When the next brother made application: "I wonder," 
 said he, "how this renowned Asheri should ever be 
 found without obtaining court-favour, and permission 
 to proceed in the search." "At Ispahan, Sir, you 
 may procure both. Here are letters for the young 
 Sophy of Persia, scarce thirteen years old, and her 
 mother the Sultana Valadiv" A respectful bow con- 
 stituted this youth's adieu, and he put himself imme- 
 diately on progress. 
 
 The third, who till now had been employed in laugh- 
 ing at and mimicking his companions, remained a 
 moment with the Genius of the wood ; and " Well, 
 Sir," said he, " which way shall 1 take towards find- 
 ing this fabulous being, this faultless wonder, this 
 non-existent chimera, Asheri ? " " Oh, you are a wit : 
 make your debut at Delhi ; 'tis the only mart for talents." 
 Aboul, willing to try 'his fortune, soon set out : and 
 after fifteen years for so long my tale lasts he was 
 observed by two mendicants of ragged and wretched
 
 ASHERI. 21 
 
 appearance ; who, fainting with hunger and exhausted 
 by disease, addressed him as he sate upon a stone by the 
 wayside leading to Kouristan, 400 miles from Delhi. 
 " I have no money, my honest friends," said he ; " but 
 you shall share my dinner of brown bread and goat's 
 milk. You have scarcely strength, I see, to reach the 
 cottage : I will run home and fetch two wooden bowls 
 full." He did so, and they were refreshed, and recog- 
 nised each other. It was now who should tell his 
 hapless history; but Aboul was ablest and gave the 
 following account : 
 
 " You left me," said he, " with that rascally con- 
 juror, Imagination by name, whose delight it is to dress 
 up a phantom for po.or afflicted mortals to follow, and 
 he calls it Asheri. My destiny led me to seek in Delhi 
 the bright reward of superior talents ; but it was never 
 my attention to claim applause till I had deserved it ; 
 so my lamp went not out at night till I had composed 
 a book of tales for publication, short ones, but well- 
 varied, for novels were the mode at Delhi. In a 
 week's time the book was in every hand that could hold 
 one. The reviews criticised, but the ladies bought it, 
 and the criticisms did me more good than harm. An 
 ill-spent note called me to the toilette of a great lady ; 
 invitations then crowded round me, suppers without 
 end, and dinners undesired. At first this was not un- 
 pleasant, and I began to think Asheri not far distant. 
 I wrote elaborate poems in praise of my protectress, 
 entered into none of her intrigues ; lout against all the 
 people she hated there were store of lampoons and 
 
 C 3
 
 22 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 choice of epigrams ready, composed by the fashionable 
 author, your hapless brother Aboul. Favoured by one 
 society, therefore, persecuted by another; adored by 
 one set of ignorant females, tormented by another set ; 
 stared at by a neutral class as if I had been a monster ; 
 everything I said repeated, and wrong repeated ; every- 
 thing I did related, and wrong related; I gained in- 
 formation that my patroness was on the eve of losing 
 her friend the vizier's confidence, which a younger beauty 
 (a woman she despised) was stealing away. My business 
 was to satirize the vizier, who could not read ; but soon 
 understanding from others that it was done with acri- 
 mony of which Aboul only was capable, my Fatima 
 was threatened ; and to save herself, promised to give me 
 up ; but, in the clothes I exchanged instantly for those 
 of a grateful slave, my escape was perfected, and you 
 will not suspect me of seeking this invisible Asheri in 
 the mean character of a village pedagogue, for such 
 you find mej after fifteen years' separation, though, 
 really, explaining to babies the rudiments of literature 
 is at least a far less offensive employment than that of 
 trying to instruct self-sufficient fools who take up their 
 teachers out of vanity and discard them out of pride. 
 I have been long enough a wit and an author. Now 
 tell me your adventures." 
 
 " Mine" said the passionate admirer of beauty, " are 
 soon told. I dashed at Cairo into the full tide of what 
 the world calls pleasure, till dissipation was no more a 
 name. Five of the fifteen years were spent in ruining my- 
 self and others. The ten remaining proved too few for
 
 ASHERI. 23 
 
 my repentance, too many for my endurance. My frame 
 exhausted, my very mind enfeebled, life is to me only a 
 lengthening calamity. What was your course, Mesrou ?" 
 " My course was wretched," replied Mesrou ; " but 
 my aim was well taken, and the goal I aimed at grand. 
 Resolving to subdue all meaner passions, and dedicate 
 myself to ambitious pursuits^ I entered Ispahan with 
 hope swelling in rny heart, and presented my credentials 
 to Sultana Valadi. She was old and ugly, amorous and 
 vindictive. No matter ; she guided the helm of State 
 for her young son, whose honour she conceived would 
 still be best secured by keeping his subjects continually 
 at war. I was a coadjutor completely to her taste in 
 public and private, having small care for the nation, 
 and few scruples of delicacy. We spared no expenses 
 for the support of the army, but our generals were some- 
 times beaten and disgraced, us ; sometimes victorious, and 
 then they came home to insult us. My sultana's temper, 
 crooked as her person, grew wholly insupportable ; every 
 misfortune was set down to my account as minister, and 
 money became hard to find. Taxes offended the people, 
 and the soldiers refused to enforce them. The lady 
 was affrighted at the spirit she had raised ; and, when 
 I observed her one evening as if mixing some powders 
 in the Cherbette we were to drink after stlpper, I was 
 affrighted too : and, grasping her so roughly that resist- 
 ance was vain, I held the prepared potion to her own 
 lips. Fortunately for my innocence, the Yaladi, in her 
 ungovernable fury at such treatment, broke a blood- 
 vessel, and I left her to expire unpitied on the sofa, while 
 
 c 4
 
 24 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the bustle gave me time to drop my turban ; and, snatch- 
 ing the lay frock from off a dervise in the crowd, covered 
 myself up, and escaped from being the prime minister 
 at Ispahan. Let us now try to find our fourth brother, 
 Ittai, and return, though ragged, to our father's house." 
 The first man they met showed the leading path, and 
 pointed out the way. Arrived, they saw the fields so 
 much improved, it was scarce possible to recognise the 
 place. The man of talents, however, climbing a ladder 
 which was reared against the wall for some reason, looked 
 in, and perceived Ittai dancing at the celebration of his 
 son's birthday. " Oh, brother ! " he exclaimed, " here we 
 are ; we have never found Asheri." " That is a truth, 
 indeed," replied a little figure from behind the screen, 
 " for I have never moved for fifteen years from this very 
 spot." " Is that the beautiful creature we were taught to 
 expect ? " cried out the man of pleasure. Ittai set wide 
 his door, and a burst of brilliancy illuminated the dwell- 
 ing. Virtue, Love, and Friendship three forms under 
 one radiant head dazzled their sight ; and, " Keep your 
 distance," said the well-tuned voice : " Asheri abhors 
 men who deny the existence of what all must wish, but 
 none will ever find in pleasure, fame, or power. Asheri 
 dwells in heaven, visiting in disguise even the favoured 
 mortals who, like Ittai, send up their pious aspirations 
 there, and live contented with their lot below." The 
 brothers waked as from a dream, resolving to forget all 
 their projects of felicity in this life ; which they closed 
 in company with Ittai ; and each half hoped he saw a
 
 ASHERI. 25 
 
 gleam of Asheri, as this world gradually receded from 
 their view, and soft futurity advanced to meet them. 
 
 Streatham Park, April 3, 1816. Mrs. Piozzi gave 
 me this (the foregoing) paper in the Library. After 
 telling several amusing anecdotes, she mentioned one of 
 Sir R. Jebb. One day somebody had given him a bottle 
 of castor oil, very pure ; it had but lately been brought 
 into use. Before he left his home, he gave it in charge 
 to his man, telling him to be careful of it. After the 
 lapse of a considerable time, Sir Eichard asked his 
 servant for the oil. "Oh, it's all used!" replied he. 
 " Used ! " said Sir Richard ; " how and when, Sir ? " "I 
 put it in the castor when wanted, and gave it to the 
 company." The way of telling this story by Mrs. Piozzi 
 added to the humour, and renders all description useless. 
 Sir James Fellmues.
 
 26 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 HER CHARACTER OF THRALE. 
 
 As this is Thraliana, I will now write Mr. Thralls 
 character in it. It is not because I am in good or ill- 
 humour with him or he with me, for we are not ca- 
 pricious 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 mimickry. 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,
 
 HER CHARACTER OF THRALE. 27 
 
 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 1000 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 
 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 do- 
 mestic 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 pleasingly 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 extremely reserved and uncommunicative, yet one
 
 28 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 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. 
 
 (Here follow Master Pepys' verses addressed to Thrale 
 on his wedding-day, October, 1776.) 
 
 People have a strange propensity to making vows 
 on trifling occasions, a trick one would not think of, 
 but I once caught my husband at it, and have since 
 then been suspicious that 'tis oftener done than believed. 
 For example : Mr. Thrale and I were driving through 
 E. Grinsted, and found the inn we used to put up at 
 destroyed by fire. He expressed great uneasiness, and 
 I still kept crying, * Why can we not go to the other 
 inn ? 'tis a very good house ; here is no difficulty in the 
 case.' All this while Mr. Thrale grew violently impatient, 
 endeavoured to bribe the post-boy to go on to the next 
 post-town, &c., but in vain ; till, pressed by inquiries 
 and solicitations he could no longer elude, he confessed 
 to me that he had sworn an oath or made a vow, I 
 forget which, seventeen years before, never to set his 
 foot within those doors again, having had some fraud 
 practised on him by a landlord who then kept the house, 
 but had been dead long enough ago. When I heard 
 this all was well ; I desired him to sit in the chaise 
 while the horses were changed, and walked into the 
 house myself to get some refreshment the while. 
 
 In 1779, June, after his recovery from the first fit of 
 paralysis, she writes : 
 
 His head is as clear as ever; his spirits indeed are
 
 HER CHAKACTER OP THRALE. 29 
 
 low, but they will mend ; few people live in such a state 
 of preparation for eternity, I think, as my dear master 
 has done since I have been connected with him ; re- 
 gular in his public and private devotions, constant at 
 the Sacrament, temperate in his appetites, moderate in 
 his passions, he has less to apprehend from a sudden 
 summons than any man I have known who was young 
 and gay, and high in health and fortune like him.
 
 30 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF LAURA BASSI'S VERSES. 
 
 MESSER CHRISTOFOEO, who shewed us the Specola at 
 Bologna, and made his short but pathetic eulogium on 
 the lamented Dottoressa, pointed with his finger (I 
 believe he could not speak) to her much admired and 
 well-known verses on the gate : 
 
 " Si tibi pulchra domus, si splendida mensa, quid inde ? 
 Si species auri, argenti quoque massa, quid inde ? 
 Si tibi sponsa decens, si sit generosa, quid inde ? 
 Si tibi sunt nati; si prsedia magna, quid inde? 
 Si fueris pulcher, fortis, divesve, quid inde? 
 Si doceas alios in qualibet arte ; quid inde ? 
 Si longus servorum inserviat ordo : quid inde ? 
 Si faveat mundus, si prospera cuncta, quid inde ? 
 Si prior, aut abbas, si dux, si papa, quid inde ? 
 Si felix annos regnes per mille, quid inde ? 
 Si rota Fortunes se tollit ad astra, quid inde ? 
 Tam cito, tamque cito fugiunt haec ut nihil, inde. 
 Sola manet Virtus ; nos glorificabimur, inde. 
 Ergo Deo pare, bene nam tibi provenit inde." 
 
 I brought them home of course, and tried to trans- 
 late them; but ventured not the translation out of 
 my sight till now. 
 
 26th October, 1815.
 
 TRANSLATION OF LAURA BASSl's VERSES. 31 
 
 TRANSLATION OR IMITATION OF LAURA BASSl'S VERSES. 
 
 Thy mansion splendid, and thy service plate, 
 
 Thy coffers fill'd with gold ; well ! what of that ? 
 
 Thy spouse the envy of all other men, 
 
 Thy children beautiful and rich, what then ? 
 
 Vig'rous thy youth, unmortgag'd thy estate, 
 
 Of arts the applauded teacher ; what of that ? 
 
 Troops of acquaintance, and of slaves a train, 
 
 This world's prosperity complete, what then ? 
 
 Prince, pope, or emperor's thy smiling fate, 
 
 With a long life's enjoyment, what of that? 
 
 By Fortune's wheel tost high beyond our ken, 
 
 Too soon shall following Time cry Well ! what then? 
 
 Virtue alone remains ; on Virtue wait, 
 
 All else / sweep away ; but what of that ? 
 
 Trust (rod, and Time defy : eternal is your date.
 
 32 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 A FRIGHTFUL STORY. 
 
 HERE (at Florence) our little English coterie printed a 
 book, and called it the " Florence Miscellany," you 
 have seen it at my lodgings, and here, one day, for 
 a frolic, we betted a wager who could invent the most 
 frightful story, and produce by dinner time.* The 
 clock struck three, and by five we were to meet again. 
 
 Merry brought a very fine one, but Mr. Grreatheed 
 burned his, and the following 
 
 " FRAGMENT OF A SCENE NEAR NAPLES " 
 
 carried off the palm of victory. 
 
 He tore her from the bleeding body of her hus- 
 band, and throwing her across his horse, spurred him 
 forward, till even the imaginary noises, which for a while 
 pursued his flight, began to fade away and leave him 
 leisure to reanimate his brutal passion. He alighted 
 in a distant and deserted place, and by the faint light 
 which the new moon afforded some moments ere she 
 sunk below the horizon, examined his companion, and 
 found her dead. A crowd of horrid images possessed 
 his mind, but that which prevailed was the fear of 
 discovery. He regained his seat, intent upon escape, 
 
 * A somewhat similar compact or competition produced 
 " Frankenstein " and rt The Vampire."
 
 A FRIGHTFUL STORY. 33 
 
 but the horse trembled, and refused to stir. Euggiero 
 resolved to lose no time in fruitless contentions with 
 his steed, but fly away as fast as it was possible. He 
 ran for a full hour, then found himself entangled by 
 some unseen substance that hindered him from pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 The mountain, which had for thirty years been si- 
 lent, then gave a hollow groan. Euggiero knew not 
 that it was the mountain : but a column of blue flame 
 shot up from the crater convinced him, while gather- 
 ing clouds and solemn stillness of the air announced 
 an approaching earthquake. Euggiero's joynts began 
 to loosen with the united sensations of guilt and fear; 
 surrounded on all sides by torrents of indurated lava, 
 which he recollected to have heard flowed from Vesu- 
 vius the year that he was born, when both his parents 
 perished in the flames, and he himself was saved as if 
 by miracle, his feet stood fixed by difficulty, whilst 
 his mind ran rapidly over past events. The mountain 
 now swelled with a second sigh, more solemn than be- 
 fore. The hollow ground heaved under him, and by 
 the light of an electrick cloud which caught the blaze 
 as it blew over the hill, he happily discovered a dis- 
 tant crucifix, and seeking with steps become somewhat 
 more steady to gain it. Tears for the first time eased 
 his heart, and gave hope of returning humanity. 
 Euggiero now prayed for life only that he might gain 
 time to request forgiveness ; and after a variety of 
 penances courageously endured, he lives at this day, a 
 hermit on Vesuvius^ religion making that residence 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 delightful, the sight of which, when guilty, chilled him 
 with horror, and he scruples not to relate the story 
 of his conversion to those who, passing that way, are 
 sure to partake his hospitality. 
 
 This story was never seen since that day by any one.
 
 35 
 
 BELLA CRUSCA VERSES. 
 
 AMONG many other undeserved praises I received at 
 generous Florence, I select these from Mr. Merry, whom 
 we called Delia Crusca, because he was a member of 
 their academy: 
 
 " Oh you ! whose piercing azure eye 
 
 Heads in each heart the feelings there ; 
 You ! that with purest sympathy 
 
 Our transports and our woes can share ; 
 You ! that by fond experience prove, 
 
 The virtuous bliss of Piozzi's love ; 
 Who while his breast affection warms, 
 
 With merit heightens music's charms ; 
 
 " Oh deign to accept the verse sincere 
 
 Nor yet deride my rustic reed ; 
 But pitying wait my woes to hear, 
 
 For pity sure is folly's meed : 
 The good, the liberal, and the kind, 
 
 Possess a tolerating mind : 
 Nor view the madman with a frown 
 Because of straw he weaves a crown." 
 
 These were sincere .verses indeed ; for he wanted me 
 not to join the Greatheeds and Parsons and Piozzi, who 
 
 D 2
 
 36 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 were all persuading him to go home, and not fling any 
 more time away in prosecuting his dangerous passion 
 for Lady Cowper ; while the Grand Duke himself was 
 his rival. I answered his application, poor fellow ! in 
 the concluding verses of our " Florence Miscellany." 
 They wanted it larger ; so I said : 
 
 The book's imperfect you declare 
 And Piozzi has not given her share ; 
 What's to be done ? some wits in vogue, 
 Would quickly find an epilogue ; 
 Composed of whim, and mirth, and satire, 
 Without one drop of true good nature ; 
 But trust me ; 'tis corrupted taste 
 To make so merry with the last : 
 When in that fatal word we find 
 Each foe to gayety combined. 
 Since parting then on Arno's shore 
 We part perhaps to meet no more ; 
 Let these last lines some truths contain, 
 More clear than bright, less sweet than plain. 
 
 Thou first ; to sooth whose feeling heart 
 The Muse bestowed her lenient art ; 
 Accept her counsel, quit this coast 
 With only one short lustrum lost : 
 Nor longer let the tuneful strain 
 On foreign ears be poured in vain ; 
 The wreath which on thy brow should live, 
 Britannia's hand alone can give.
 
 BELLA CKUSCA VERSES. 3? 
 
 Meanwhile for Bertie Fate prepares * 
 A mingled wreath of joys and cares ; 
 When politics and party-rage 
 Shall strive such talents to engage, 
 And call him to controul the great, 
 And fix the nicely balanced state : 
 Till charming Anna's gentler mind, 
 For storms of faction ne'er designed, 
 Shall think with pleasure on the times 
 When Arno listened to his rhymes ; 
 And reckon among Heav'n's best mercies, 
 Our Piozzi's voice, and Parson's verses. 
 
 Thou too ; who oft hast strung the lyre 
 To liveliest notes of gay desire ; 
 No longer seek these scorching flames, 
 And trifle with Italian dames ; 
 But haste to Britain's chaster isle, 
 Receive some fair one's virgin smile, 
 Accept her vows, reward her truth, 
 And guard from ills her artless youth. 
 Keep her from knowledge of the crimes 
 That taint the sweets of warmer climes ; 
 But let her weaker bloom disclose 
 The beauties of a hothouse rose : 
 Whose leaves no insects ever haunted, 
 Whose perfume but to one is granted ; 
 
 * Mr. Greatheed. She describes him as completely under the 
 influence, of his wife, the charming Anna. 
 
 D 3
 
 38 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Pleased with her partner to retire 
 And cheer the safe domestic fire. 
 
 While I who, half-amphibious grown, 
 
 Now scarce call any place my own 
 
 Will learn to view with eye serene 
 
 Life's empty plot, and shifting scene ; 
 
 And trusting still to Heav'n's high care, 
 
 Fix my firm habitation there : 
 
 'Twas thus the Grecian sage of old, 
 
 As by Herodotus we're told, 
 
 Accused by them who sate above, 
 
 As wanting in his country's love : 
 
 " 'Tis that," cried he, " which most I prize," 
 
 And pointing upwards, shewed the skies.
 
 39 
 
 ODE TO SOCIETY. 
 
 I. 
 
 SOCIETY ! gregarious dame ! * 
 Who knows thy favour'd haunts to name ? 
 Whether at Paris you prepare 
 The supper and the chat to share, 
 While fix'd in artificial row, 
 Laughter displays its teeth of snow : 
 Grimace with raillery rejoices, 
 And song of many mingled voices, 
 Till young coquetry's artful wile 
 Some foreign novice shall beguile, 
 Who home return'd, still prates of thee, 
 Light, flippant, French Society. 
 
 II. 
 
 Or whether, with your zone unbound, 
 You ramble gaudy Venice round, 
 Resolv'd the inviting sweets to prove, 
 Of friendship warm, and willing love ; 
 
 * See Yol. I. p. 202. Moore has substituted Posterity for Society. 
 His reports of conversations are both meagre and inaccurate. Thus 
 (vol. iii. p. 196) he says : " In talking of letters being charged by 
 weight, he (Canning) said the post-office once refused to carry a 
 letter of Sir J. Cox Hippesley's, it was so dull." Canning said 
 " so heavy " ; the letter being the worthy baronet's printed letter 
 against Catholic Emancipation.
 
 40 MISCELLANIES 
 
 Where softly roll th' obedient seas, 
 Sacred to luxury and ease, 
 In coffee-house or casino gay 
 Till the too quick return of day, 
 Th' enchanted votary who sighs 
 For sentiments without disguise, 
 Clear, unaffected, fond, and free, 
 In Venice finds Society. 
 
 in. 
 
 Or if to wiser Britain led, 
 Your vagrant feet desire to tread 
 With ineasur'd step and anxious care, 
 The precincts pure of Portman-square 
 While wit with elegance combin'd, 
 And polish'd manners there you'll find : 
 The taste correct and fertile mind : 
 Kemember vigilance lurks near, 
 And silence with unnotic'd sneer, 
 Who watches but to tell again 
 Your foibles with to-morrow's pen ; 
 Till titt'ring malice smiles to see 
 Your wonder grave Society. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Far from your busy crowded court, 
 Tranquillity makes her resort ; 
 Where ? mid cold Staffa's columns rude, 
 Besides majestic solitude ; 
 
 * The residence of her old rival, Mrs. Montague. 
 
 1
 
 ODE TO SOCIETY. 41 
 
 Or where in some sad Brachman's cell, 
 Meek innocence delights to dwell, 
 Weeping with unexperienc'd eye, 
 The death of a departed fly : 
 Or in Hetruria's heights sublime, 
 Where science self might fear to climb, 
 But that she seeks a smile from thee, 
 And wooes thy praise, Society. 
 
 v. 
 
 Thence let me view the plains below, 
 From rough St. Julian's rugged brow ; 
 Hear the loud torrents swift descending, 
 Or mark the beauteous rainbow bending, 
 Till Heaven regains its favourite hue, 
 ^Ether divine ! celestial blue ! 
 Then bosom' d high in myrtle bower, 
 View letter'd Pisa's pendent tower ; 
 The sea's wide scene, the port's loud throng, 
 Of rude and gentle, right and wrong ; 
 A motley group which yet agree 
 To call themselves Society. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! thou still sought by wealth and fame, 
 Dispenser of applause and blame : 
 While flatt'ry ever at thy side, 
 With slander can thy smiles divide ; 
 Far from thy haunts, oh ! let me stray, 
 But grant one friend to cheer my way,
 
 42 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Whose converse bland, whose music's art, 
 May cheer my soul, and heal my heart ; 
 Let soft content our steps pursue, 
 And bliss eternal bound our view : 
 Pow'r I'll resign, and pomp, and glee, 
 Thy best-lov'd sweets Society. 
 
 DIDO EPIGRAMS. 
 
 We were speaking the other day of the famous 
 epigram in Ausonius : 
 
 " Infelix Dido, nulli bene nupta marito, 
 Hoc moriente fugis, hoc fugiente peris." 
 
 Two lords, in vain, unlucky Dido tries, 
 
 One dead, she flies the land ; one fled, she dies.* 
 
 u Pauvre Didon ! on t'a reduite 
 De tes maris le triste sort ; 
 L'un en mourant cause ta fuite, 
 L'autre en fuyant cause ta mort." 
 
 is reckoned a beautiful version of this epigram. 
 
 * To the same class of jeu-x d 'esprit as this epitaph on Dido, 
 belongs one made on Thynne, " Tom of Ten Thousand," after his 
 assassination by Konigsmark, who wished to marry the widow, the 
 heiress of the Percys. Thynne's marriage had not been con- 
 summated, and he was said to have promised marriage to a maid 
 of honour whom he had seduced. 
 
 " Here lies Tom Thynne of Longleat Hall, 
 Who never would so have miscarried, 
 Had he married the woman he lay withal, 
 Or lay with the woman he married."
 
 DIDO EPIGRAMS. 43 
 
 There is, however, a very old passage in Davison, 
 alluding to the same story: 
 
 " Oh, most unhappy Dido ! 
 
 Unlucky wife, and eke unhappy widow : 
 Unhappy in thy honest mate, 
 And in thy love unfortunate." 
 
 When Lady Bolingbroke led off the Grim. Con. Dance, 
 about thirty-five years ago, the town made a famous 
 bustle concerning her ladyship's name Diana. She 
 married Topham Beauclerc, and when her first husband 
 died, some wag made these verses : 
 
 " Ah ! lovely, luckless Lady Di, 
 
 So oddly link'd to either spouse : 
 Who can your Grordian knot untie ? 
 Or who dissolve your double vows ? 
 
 " And where will our amazement lead to ? 
 
 When we survey your various life ? 
 Whose living lord made you a widow, 
 Whose dead one leaves you still a wife." 
 
 Can you endure any more nonsense about Dido ? 
 
 " Make me (says a college tutor) some verses on the 
 gerunds di, do, dum, as a punishment for the strange 
 grammatical fault I found in your last composition." 
 
 " Here they are, Sir "- 
 
 When Dido's spouse to Dido would not come, 
 Then Dido wept in silence, and was Dido dumb. 
 
 Will it amuse you to read some of the unmerited
 
 44 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 praises I picked up in this charming society? When 
 we all stood round the pianoeforte, and I felt encouraged 
 to reply to Bertola's complimentary verses, which were 
 certainly improvised ; when he sung : 
 
 " Esser mi saran fatali 
 
 Cento rivali e cento ; 
 Ma piu che i rniei rivali 
 La tua virtu pavento. 
 
 " Non in sen d'angliche mura 
 
 I tuoi be' lumi al di se schiuse ; 
 Tu nascesti, de un dio me lo giura, 
 
 Ove nacquero le Muse." 
 
 To which I replied : 
 
 Delicati al par che forti 
 
 Son li versi di Bertola ; 
 Dolce fiuon che mi consola 
 
 Mentre lui cantando va ; 
 
 Ma tentando d' imitarli 
 
 S' io m' ingegno, oh, Dio ! invano : 
 Dall' inusitata mano, 
 
 II plettrino caschera. 
 
 We were in a large company last night, where a beau- 
 tiful woman of quality came in dressed according to the 
 present taste, with a gauze head-dress, adjusted turban- 
 wise, and a heron's feather; the neck wholly bare. 
 Abate Bertola bid me look at her, and, recollecting 
 himself a moment, made this epigram improvise :
 
 DELLA CRTJSCA VERSES. 45 
 
 Volto e crin hai di Sultana, 
 Perche mai mi vien disdetto, 
 
 Sodducente Mussulmana 
 Di gittarti il fazzoletto ? 
 
 of which I can give no better imitation than the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 While turban 'd head and plumage high 
 A Sultaness proclaims my Cloe ; 
 
 Thus tempted, tho' no Turk, I'll try 
 
 The handkerchief you scorn to throw ye. 
 
 This is however a weak specimen of his powers, 
 whose charming fables have so completely, in my 
 mind, surpassed all that has ever been written in that 
 way since La Fontaine. I am strongly tempted to 
 give one little story, and translate it too : 
 
 Una lucertoletta 
 Diceva al cocodrillo, 
 Oh quanto mi diletta 
 Di veder finalmente 
 Un della mia famiglia 
 Si grande e si potente ! 
 Ho fatto mille miglia 
 Per venirvi a vedere, 
 Mentre tra noi si serba 
 Di voi memoria viva ; 
 Benche fuggiam tra 1' erba
 
 46 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 E il sassoso sentiero : 
 In sen pero non langue 
 L' onor del prisco sangue. 
 
 L' anfibio re dormiva 
 A quest! complimenti, 
 Pur sugli ultimi accent! 
 Dal sonno se riscosse 
 E dimando chi fosse ? 
 La parentela antica, 
 II viaggio, la fatica, 
 Quella torno a dire, 
 Ed ei torne a dormire. 
 Lascia i grand! ed i potent!, 
 A sognar per parent! ; 
 Puoi cortesi stimarli 
 Se dorm on mentre parli. 
 
 Walking full many a weary mile 
 The lizard met the crocodile 
 And thus began How fat, how fair, 
 How finely guarded, Sir, you are ! 
 Tis really charming thus to see 
 One's kindred in prosperity, 
 I've travell'd far to find your coast, 
 But sure the labour was not lost : 
 For you must think we don't forget 
 Our loving cousin now so great ;
 
 BELLA CRUSCA VERSES. 47 
 
 And tho' our humble habitations 
 Are such as suit our slender stations, 
 The honour of the lizard blood 
 Was never better understood. 
 
 Th' amphibious prince, who slept content, 
 
 Ne'er listening to her compliment, 
 
 At this expression rais'd his head, 
 
 And Pray who are you ? coolly said. 
 
 The little creature now renew'd, 
 
 Her history of toils subdu'd, 
 
 Her zeal to see her cousin's face, 
 
 The glory of her ancient race ; 
 
 But looking nearer, found my lord 
 
 Was fast asleep again and snor'd. 
 
 Ne'er press upon a rich relation 
 
 Eais'd to the ranks of higher station ; 
 
 Or if you will disturb your coz, 
 
 Be happy that he does but doze. 
 
 Here, then, are Abate Eavasi's verses, which he 
 called his 
 
 PARTENZA. 
 
 Ah ! non resiste il cuore 
 
 A vedermi lasciar, 
 
 lo sento a palpitar 
 Ei manca, ei muore. 
 E in mezzo a tal dolore
 
 43 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Co' tronchi accenti, 
 
 Co' flebili lamenti, 
 Altro non sa dir 1' animo mio, 
 Ch'addio, gran donna! eccelsa, donna, 
 addio ! 
 
 RONDO. 
 
 Ne' viaggi tuoi rammentati 
 D' un fido servidor ; 
 Nell' Inghilterra ancor, 
 Non ti scordar di me. 
 Ch' io, dovunque vado, 
 Sempre verrammi in mente, 
 Che donna si eccellente 
 Non trovasi di te. 
 
 Conservami 1'amico 
 L' amato tuo consorte, 
 Dilli che anche la morte 
 Potra violar mia fe.
 
 49 
 
 VERSES ON BUFFON. 
 
 WHILE we were daily receiving some tender adieux 
 from our Milanese friends, the famous Buffon died, and 
 changed the conversation. He was blind a few days 
 before his death, and occasioned this epigram : 
 
 " Ah ! s'il est vrai que Buffon perd les yeux, 
 
 Que le jour se refuse au foyer des lumieres : 
 La nature a la fin punit les curieux, 
 Qui penetroient tous ses mysteres." 
 
 The Abate Bossi translated it thus : 
 
 " Ah ! s'e ver che Buffon cieco diventa, 
 Se alle pupille sue il di s' asconde ; 
 Natura alia fin gelosa confonde 
 Chi entro gl' arcani suoi penetrar tenta." 
 
 Buffon's bright eyes at length grow dim, 
 Dame Nature now no more will yield ; 
 
 Or longer lend her light to him 
 Who all her mysteries revealed. 
 
 This last of course was done by your own little 
 friend ; who was careful to preserve a power over her 
 own language, although beginning almost to think in 
 Italian, by such constant use. 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 FLORENCE MISCELLANY. 
 
 Dedication (writer not specified). 
 
 WHAT a whimsical task, my dear friends, you impose 
 To contribute a fine Dedication in prose ! 
 Our Piozzi, methinks, is much fitter for this, 
 For she writes the Preface, and can't write amiss. 
 But my thoughts neither beautiful are nor sublime, 
 So I wrap them in metre, and tag them with rhime, 
 Like theatrical dresses, if tinsel'd enough, 
 The tinsel one stares at, nor thinks of the stuff, 
 
 We mean not our book for the public inspection, 
 Then why should we court e'en a Monarch's protection? 
 For too oft the good Prince such a critic of lays is, 
 He scarcely knows how to peruse his own praises. 
 Ourselves and our friends we for Patrons will chuse, 
 No others will read us, and these will excuse. 
 
 Preface, by Mrs. Piozzi.* 
 
 PREFACES to Books, like Prologues to Plays, will seldom 
 be found to invite Readers, and still less often to convey 
 importance. Excuses for mean Performances add only 
 the baseness of submission to poverty of sentiment, and 
 
 * See Vol. I. p. 133.
 
 FLORENCE MISCELLANY. 51 
 
 take from insipidity the praise of being inoffensive. We 
 do not however by this little address mean to deprecate 
 public Criticism, or solicit Eegard ; why we wrote the 
 verses may be easily explain'd, we wrote them to divert 
 ourselves, and to say kind things of each other ; we col- 
 lected them that our reciprocal expressions of kindness 
 might not be lost, and we printed them because we had 
 no reason to be ashamed of our mutual partiality. 
 
 Portrait Painting, though unadorn'd by allegorical 
 allusions and unsupported by recollection of events or 
 places, will be esteem'd for ever as one of the most 
 durable methods to keep Tenderness alive and preserve 
 Friendship from decay : nor do I observe that the room 
 here where Artists of many Ages have contributed their 
 own likenesses to the Royal Grallery is less frequented 
 than that which contains the statue of a slave and the 
 picture of a Sibyl. Our little Book can scarcely be less 
 important to Readers of a distant Age or Nation than 
 we ourselves are ready to acknowledge it : the waters of 
 a mineral spring which sparkle in the glass, and exhi- 
 larate the spirits of those who drink them on the spot, 
 grow vapid and tasteless by carriage and keeping ; and 
 though we have perhaps transgress'd the Persian Rule 
 of sitting silent till we could find something important 
 or instructive to say, we shall at least be allow'd to have 
 glisten'd innocently in Italian Sunshine, and to have 
 imbibed from it's rays the warmth of mutual Benevo- 
 lence, though we may have miss'd the hardness and 
 polish that some coarser Metal might have obtain'd by 
 heat of equal force. I will not however lengthen out 
 
 E 2
 
 52 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 my Preface ; if the Book is but a feather, tying 1 a stone 
 to it can be no good policy, though it were a precious 
 one ; the lighter body would not mate the heavy one 
 swim, but the heavy body would inevitably make the 
 light one sink.
 
 53 
 
 SOCIAL VERSES, 
 
 ON Tuesday evening, the 26th December, 1815, (writes 
 Mr. Fellowes) we met at the Vineyards, our conversa- 
 tion led to the House of Commons, and my father 
 expressed a wish that I had been a member, adding 
 that he believed I should have followed that line with 
 more pleasure than physic. Mrs. Piozzi assented to 
 this, in her usual good humoured complimentary man- 
 ner. I made an observation about illusion, &c., and 
 something was said about Spain, and the beauties of 
 the language, and I read the following Spanish verses 
 to her, which pleased from their simplicity and neat- 
 ness: 
 
 " La otra noche sonaba, 
 
 Que feliz sueno, 
 A decirte lo iva, 
 
 Pero no quieso. 
 Permita el Amor, 
 
 Que algun dia tu suenes, 
 
 Lo que sone yo." 
 
 On the following morning I received from Mrs. 
 Piozzi these lines : 
 
 " The amorous Spaniard's glowing dream, 
 Joined with our doctor's soberer scheme, 
 
 E 3
 
 54 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Caused in my brain confusion ; 
 Yet when before my closing eyes, 
 I saw Saint Stephen's chapel rise, 
 
 Say ; was that all illusion ? 
 
 " Oh, if the stream of eloquence, 
 I saw you gracefully dispense, 
 
 Was fancied all and vain : 
 Daylight no more I wish to see, 
 But drive back dull reality, 
 
 And turn to dream again. 
 
 " Mr. Linton takes this imitation of the verses you 
 showed me last night. H. L. P." 
 
 During her stay in Italy (writes Sir J. Fellowes) 
 in this delightful society, upon the banks of the Arno, 
 which was duly enli vened by brilliant wit and classic 
 taste, the conversation often turned upon more serious 
 subjects, and one day it was proposed to write an im- 
 promptu upon the fatal monosyllable now, the present 
 moment passing away even before the word is written 
 that explains it. This pretty quatrain was produced 
 by Delia Crusca, who had been asserting that all past 
 actions are nihilitic, and that the immediate raoment 
 was the whole of human existence : 
 
 " One endless Now stands o'er th' eventful stream 
 Of all that may be with colossal stride ;
 
 VERSES. | 
 
 And sees beneath life's proudest pageants gleam, 
 And sees beneath the wrecks of empire glide." 
 
 To this H. L. P. replied : - 
 
 'Tis yours the present moment to redeem, 
 And powerful snatch from Time's too rapid stream ; 
 While self-impell'd, the rest redundant roll, 
 Slumb'ring to stagnate in oblivion's pool." 
 
 LINES WRITTEN JULY 28lH, 1815. 
 
 Is it of intellectual powers, 
 
 Which time developes, time devours, 
 
 Which twenty years perhaps are ours, 
 
 That man is vain ? 
 
 Of such the infant shows no sign, 
 
 And childhood shuns the dazzling shine, 
 
 Of knowledge bright with rays divine, 
 
 As mental pain. 
 
 Still less when passion bears the sway, 
 Unbridled youth brooks no delay, 
 He drives dull reason far away, 
 
 With scorn avow'd. 
 
 For twenty years she reigns at most, 
 Labour and study pay the cost ; 
 Just to be rais'd is all our boast, 
 
 Above the crowd. 
 
 E 4
 
 56 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Sickness then fills th' uneasy chair, 
 Sorrow, and loss, and strife, and care ; 
 While faith just saves us from despair, 
 
 Wishing to die. 
 
 Till the farce ends as it began, 
 Eeason deserts the dying man, 
 And leaves to encounter as he can 
 
 Eternity. 
 
 ON A WEEPING WILLOW PLACED OVER AGAINST THE 
 SUNDIAL AT BRYNBELLA, NOV. 28TH, 1802. 
 
 Mark how the weeping willow stands, 
 
 Near the recording stone ; 
 It seems to blame our idle hands, 
 
 And mourn the moments flown. 
 
 Thus conscience holds our fancy fast, 
 
 With care too oft' affected ; 
 Pretending to lament the past, 
 
 The present still neglected. 
 
 Yet shall the swift improving plant 
 With spring her leaves resume ; 
 
 Nor let the example she can grant, 
 Descend on winter's gloom. 
 
 Loiter no more then near the tree, 
 
 Nor on the dial gaze ; 
 If but an hour be giv'n to thee, 
 
 Act right while yet it stays.
 
 VERSES. 57 
 
 When Pleasure marks each hour that flies, 
 
 And Youth rejoyces in his prime, 
 It may be good, it may be wise, 
 
 To watch with care the flight of time. 
 
 But now ; when friends and hours are seen 
 
 To part, and ne'er return again ; 
 Who would admit of a machine 
 
 To mark how few there yet remain ? 
 
 I am asked to produce some etrennes for dear Mrs. 
 Lutwyche. Will these verses do, accompanied by a 
 bouquet ? 
 
 The charms we find Maria still possess, 
 Deciduous plants like these but ill express : 
 Your emblem in a brighter clime we see, 
 No season robs of flow'rs the Orange Tree. 
 
 HER LAST VERSES. 
 TIME, DEATH, AND H. L. P. 
 
 MOKS (loquitur). 
 
 Tell her, old Time of foot so fleet, 
 Once caught, she can't our strokes avoid 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 I know it ; but when next we meet, 
 'Twill be to see you both destroyed.
 
 LETTERS.
 
 61 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 THE two brothers to whom the first batch of the fol- 
 lowing letters are addressed, were members of a county 
 family settled for more than two centuries at Hempsted 
 in Gloucestershire. Both were eminently distinguished 
 by the extent and variety of their antiquarian and 
 literary acquirements, as well as highly esteemed for 
 their social qualities. It is sufficient to mention their 
 principal work, the "Magna Britannia," which they 
 undertook in copartnership. The younger, Samuel, 
 afterwards Keeper of the Eecords in the Tower and a 
 V.P.E.S., was presented to Johnson and favourably re- 
 ceived by him ; but the acquaintance commenced only 
 a few months before Johnson's death. 
 
 The present proprietor of Hempsted Court and 
 rector of Eodrnarton (the family living) amply sustains 
 the hereditary reputation of his family, being the 
 author of several works of learning, ingenuity and 
 research. 
 
 A selection of letters from Mrs. Piozzi to the same
 
 62 LETTERS. 
 
 gentlemen, of an earlier date, appeared in " Bentley's 
 Miscellany," in 1849. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 4 o'clock in the morning of 
 Saturday 16, 1794. 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, Here are we returned home from 
 a concert at one house, a card assembly at a second, a 
 ball and supper at a third. The pain in my side, which 
 has tormented me all evening, should not however have 
 prevented my giving the girls their frolic, and enjoying 
 your company myself; but servants and horses can't 
 stand it if I can, and even Cecilia consents not to be 
 waked in four hours after she lies down. Excuse us all, 
 therefore, and believe me ever truly yours, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Denbigh, N. W., Wednesday, 
 7th January, 1795. 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, I write to you, knowing that you 
 are stationary, and you will tell your brother that 
 we are coming back to Streatham Park, where our first 
 pleasure will be to see and converse with our long 
 absent friends, among which I hope long to reckon you 
 both. Many strange events, but I think no good ones, 
 have taken place since we parted ; yet, although many 
 accidents have happened, I see not that the fog clears
 
 LETTERS. 63 
 
 or dissipates, so as to give us any good view of the end 
 yet. Those who live nearer the centre may perhaps 
 obtain better intelligence, and see further than we do ; 
 and more light may break in still before the fourth or 
 fifth of February, when we shall request your company, 
 or his, or both for a day's comfortable chat. What do 
 the Opposition say concerning their projects for peace 
 with a nation that continues, or rather renews, pre- 
 datory hostilities, while the armistice (themselves were 
 contented to grant) remains in full force ? 
 
 Has no, caricatura print been made yet of a French- 
 man shaking Nic Frog by the hand in a sinister manner, 
 at the same time that the other arm is employed in 
 cutting his throat ? They are terrible fellows, to be 
 sure ; and if they take Pampeluna, the King and Queen 
 of Spain will have to run away from Madrid, as the 
 Stadhtholder and his lady from Holland, I suppose ; so 
 you will do well to finish your Environs of London* 
 quickly while that lasts. 
 
 How do your amiable neighbours, the Miss Petti- 
 wards ? You will have dear Siddons amongst you soon, 
 I hear, for they have taken Mr. Cologon's pretty villa. 
 Write once more, do, before we meet, and say you will 
 come to Streatham Park soon, and make a world of chat 
 with my master, and Cecy, and, dear Sir, yours ever, 
 
 very sincerely, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Pick me up some literary intelligence if any can be 
 
 * Mr. Lysons was engaged in a topographical work entitled 
 " The Environs of London."
 
 G4 LETTERS. 
 
 found. I hear Miss Burney that was Madame D'Ar.- 
 blaye is writing for the stage. 
 
 To ike Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Denbigh, Sunday night, 15th February, 1795. 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, A thousand thanks for your 
 letter, and literary intelligence. I suspect the tragedy 
 &c.* will prove a second Chattertonism ; this is an age 
 of imposture. What became of the philosopher in St. 
 Martin's Lane, who advertised a while ago that he gave 
 life and motion to stone figures, that moved and turned 
 in every direction at the word of command ? I never 
 saw it in the paper but once ; 'twas a curious advertise- 
 ment. So is Mr. Kemble's in another way; he has 
 proved himself no conjuror, sure, to get into such a 
 scrape, but Alexander and Statira will pull him out, I 
 suppose, f Poor dear Mrs. Siddons is never well long 
 together, always some torment, body or mind, or both. 
 Are people only sick in London (by the way), or do 
 they die ? not of any one contagious disorder, but of 
 various maladies. I suspect there is disposition to mor- 
 tality in the town, sure enough, for never did I read of 
 so many deaths together ; these violent changes from cold 
 to heat, and from heat to cold, occasion a great deal of it. 
 
 For the Princess of "Wales, I think little about her 
 just now, and still less about that horrid Mr. Brothers ; 
 
 * The celebrated Ireland forgeries. 
 
 f lie was obliged to make a public apology for indecorous 
 behaviour to a lady, afterwards his sister-in-law.
 
 LETTERS. 65 
 
 but it will be a dreadful thing to see the King and 
 Queen of Spain setting out upon their travels, as appears 
 by no means improbable, if the French are in possession 
 of Pampeluna. The Spaniards can fight nothing but 
 bulls ; we shall have that royal family unroosted, I verily 
 believe, and in a few months too. The capture of 
 Holland will seem a light thing in comparison of so 
 heavy a calamity when it comes to pass, for all the 
 riches of Mexico will then drop into the wrong scale. 
 
 " But we will not be over- exquisite 
 To scan the fashion of uncertain evils/' 
 
 as Milton says ; but keep out famine by liberality, and 
 contagion by cleanliness, as long as ever we can ; loving 
 our gallant seamen meantime, and rewarding them with 
 all the honours and profits old England has to bestow. 
 
 I should like to read your Fast sermon ; we shall 
 have a very good one here, for among other comforts 
 Denbigh possesses that of an excellent preacher and 
 reader. Pray tell how the day is observed in London 
 and its environs : I shall be curious to hear ; and do 
 assure you with the greatest sincerity that letters- 
 from you and your brother are most desirable treats. 
 He is cruel, though, and keeps close Mum. Pray 
 are the Greatheeds in town ? what do they say of Mr. 
 Kemble's conduct ? and what of their countryman 
 Shakespeare's extraordinary resuscitation? It seems 
 to me a sort of tub to the whale, a thing to catch 
 attention, and detain it from other matters. When we 
 see Mr. Lloyd of Wickwor, whom we here justly call 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 66 LETTERS. 
 
 the philosopher, I shall find what he thinks of the dis- 
 covery. Give my kindest regards to your very amiable 
 neighbours, Miss Pettiwards; they must take double 
 care of their mother now, if possible, for all the people 
 past a certain age seem to be dropping off. 
 
 'Tis very wicked in me to send you these sixpenny- 
 worths of interrogations every time I feel my ignorance 
 of what passes in the world painful to myself, or dis- 
 graceful among those whom I wish to entertain ; but 
 whoever is rich will be borrowed from : so Adieu ! and 
 write soon, and accept my master's and Cecilia's best 
 compliments from, dear Sir, yours most faithfully, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, 9th February, 1796. 
 
 You really can scarcely believe, dear Mr. Lysons, how 
 much entertainment and pleasure was given us by your 
 agreeable and friendly letter, in which however you do 
 not mention your brother, but I doubt not he is well 
 and happy. You do not mention the high price of 
 provisions neither, though sufficient to make everybody 
 unhappy ; but this mild season, and good plenty of 
 coals, I trust, contribute to keep people quiet, assisted 
 by our new laws against sedition. I have found a wise 
 book at last Miss Thrale sent it me on Monopoly 
 and Eeform of Manners ; printed for Faulder. It should 
 be given about, I think, like Hannah More's penny 
 books, and got by heart for a task by servants, appren-
 
 LETTERS. 67 
 
 tices, &c., and much finer people, though they are too 
 fine by half. 
 
 The Chinese embassy * will not tempt three guineas 
 out of my pocket, say what they will, and say it how 
 they will. ^Eneas Anderson has convinced me that it 
 was an empty business at best. 
 
 Your account of Shakespear's being forged and fooled 
 after so many years' peace and quietness, most exactly 
 tallies with what my heart told me upon reading the 
 queen's supposed letter to him in our newspaper. I 
 have seen no other, but was struck with the word 
 amuse. She would have said pastyme. The other 
 phrase was hardly received in France (whence we got it) 
 so early as the days of Elizabeth. The dates, however, 
 are decisive, when you tell me she is made to promote 
 the -amusement of a man then known to be dead. The 
 Earl of Leicester was ranger here of Denbigh Green, 
 you know ; and my ancestor, Salusbury of Bachygraig, 
 opposed his innovation when he sought to enclose the 
 common for his use. The tyrant followed him up, 
 though, till he got his life ; and not contented with 
 that, brought his first cousin, Salusbury of Llewenney, 
 my mother's ancestor, to death likewise, by way of 
 revenge ; all which shall serve as my pretext for a good 
 piece of the Green whenever it is ordered for cultiva- 
 tion. Meantime, let me request an early narrative of 
 Vortigern's success. I -think they will pluck his painted 
 vest from him, but we shall see. 
 
 * The work on Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, price three 
 guineas, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LETTERS. 
 
 It has been long matter of surprise to me that 
 the less-instructed part of our common audiences in 
 London never miss being right in their judgment of a 
 play, or even of the language ; for as to incidents, those 
 are as obvious to one set of men as to another, if pro- 
 bable or not. But what I mean is this : when Lady 
 Macbeth tells them that the grooms of Duncan's chamber 
 she will with wine and wassel so convince, &c., they 
 think it (as it certainly is) perfectly right, and in cha- 
 racter with the times ; but let Cumberland or Jephson 
 use the same phrase, and say they will convince a knot 
 of friends with drink, a loud shout of laughter would, 
 without any instigation, burst from the upper gallery ; 
 every single member of which, talked to apart, would 
 appear to know very little, if anything, concerning the 
 history of their native tongue. For these reasons it is 
 scarce a fair wager how this new tragedy is received, 
 without they bring it out in Shakspear's name, which I 
 do think would save it harmless, so long as they be- 
 lieved the imposition. 
 
 Meantime, I see by the newspapers people continue 
 to insult the king, throwing stones at him as he passes. 
 Methinks the very word stone should be offensive to all 
 his family : one mad fool of the name persecuted Princess 
 Sophia, as I remember, with offers of marriage ; and this 
 coachmaker or coal-merchant, or what was the anagram- 
 matical gentleman who signed Enots, he seems to have 
 escaped by testimonials to his character from the rich 
 Democrates. I think they are all Gall Stones, and I 
 heartily wish we were rid of them.
 
 LETTERS. 69 
 
 What becomes of the Beavor family ? I never write 
 to Mrs. Grillies, because I know she hates letters ; but 
 my true esteem of her brave brothers does not lessen 
 by absence. Mrs. D'Arblaye's new novel is not adver- 
 tised yet. Somebody told me Lady Eglinton is turned 
 writer now she has married the son of Doctor More ; 
 but perhaps it was a joke. Will Miss Farren's coronet 
 never be put on ? I thought the paralytic countess 
 would have made way for her long ago. 
 
 Dear, charming Siddons keeps her empire over all 
 hearts still, I hope ; if an Irish plan takes place in her 
 arrangements this spring, we shall not despair to see 
 her at Brynbella. Tell her so with my true love. 
 
 There is a new pamphlet supposed by Jones, the 
 Hutchinsonian, to say that our Saviour's Coming (but 
 not the end of the world) is at hand. I cannot recol- 
 lect the title of it, but do buy and send it to Streatham 
 Park with any other little thing worth notice, but no 
 three-guinea books. I wonder who wrote the small 
 tract about Monopoly ; 'tis monstrously clever, and 
 clever only because its true. So is my conclusion of 
 this letter, saying that I am most sincerely, dear Sir, 
 yours, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 My master * unites in compliments. 
 
 * It is curious that she could call her second husband by this 
 name, so well calculated to revive the memory of her first.
 
 70 LETTERS. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, 9th July, 1796. 
 
 BEAR MR. LYSONS, This is a letter of mere request, 
 to beg remembrances from old and distant friends. Do 
 pray write now and then, and make me up a good long 
 letter of small London chat: you can scarcely think 
 how welcome living intelligence is to those who have 
 chiefly the dead to converse with, and I work hard at 
 old stuff all morning, and sigh for some evening con- 
 versation about literature and politics, and the common 
 occurrences of the day. 
 
 Esher, or Asher, in Surrey, is a place I cannot find in 
 your Environs. It was my grandmother's property, and 
 she sold it to the Pelhams ; her mother lies buried there 
 with a painted or coloured monument if I recollect 
 rightly, though 'tis many years since I saw it. Mr. 
 Piozzi used to promise me a drive thither, but we never 
 went. 
 
 Hume says that Cardinal "Wolsey retired to that seat 
 when the king withdrew his favour from him ; and Mr. 
 Fitzmaurice, from whose library I borrowed the book, 
 queries the place, and doubts whether he ever was there ; 
 although Stowe tells for I remember it how Wolsey 
 alighted from his horse in the road between Asher and 
 Richmond, to receive the ring which Henry sent him, 
 and threw himself on his knees in the dirt from thank- 
 fulness that he was not wholly out of favour. I wish 
 you would set me right. Likewise I want to know 
 where the spot once called Castle-risings now stands.
 
 LETTERS. 71 
 
 Edward II.'s queen Isabella was confined there to her 
 death, but lived very grand, I trust, for she had 3000^. 
 a year, a sum equal to a royal jointure now, I suppose. 
 Hume says it was ten miles from London, and it must 
 be nearer now. 
 
 Do Mr. Walpole's works sell, and is his Love Story 
 that you once read to me in them ? I liked the letters 
 to Hannah More mightily. 
 
 If Mr. Bunbury's Little Gray Man is printed, do 
 send it hither ; the ladies at Llangollen are dying for it. 
 They like those old Scandinavian tales and the imita- 
 tions of them exceedingly; and tell me about the 
 prince and princess of this loyal country, one province 
 of which alone had disgraced itself; and now no Angle- 
 sey militiaman is spoken to by the Cymrodorion, but 
 all completely sent to Coventry, for nobody wants them 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The mysterious expedition of Buonaparte will I hope 
 end at worst in revolutionising the Greek Islands, and 
 restoring the old names to Peloponnaesus, Eubcea, &c. 
 I should be sorry he ever got to India, but waking the 
 Turks from their long sleep will not grieve me. The 
 Knights of Malta make a triste figure at last ; I suppose 
 Mr. Weishoupt's emissaries were beforehand with the 
 hero of Italy, as they call him. 
 
 My husband is particularly disgusted with the people 
 that exalt Buonaparte's personal courage and valorous 
 deeds. "He goes nowhere unless he is called," says 
 Mr. Piozzi ; if he wanted to show his prowess, why 
 did not he come here, or to Ireland ? we would have 
 
 F 4
 
 72 LETTERS. 
 
 shown him sport ; but like Caliban, those fellows will be 
 wise henceforward and sue for grace, and worship the 
 French no more, unless they are still greater blunderers 
 than even J take them for, who am ever, dear Sir, yours 
 
 faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, Tuesday Evening 1 , 1797. 
 
 I THANK you very sincerely for the entertaining letter 
 I received the other day. Indeed, my dear Sir, you can 
 scarcely imagine how much a cargo of London chat en- 
 livens our conversation here in the country, where those 
 deceased topics of the town revive and flourish which 
 were withering away upon their native seed-bed. When 
 you have anything fit for transplantation, pray send 
 hither, where there is more soil than trees in almost 
 every sense. Burke's pamphlet and his answerers "are 
 in full bloom with us now; but you have forgotten 
 them, I trust, and are busy about what is in succession. 
 Miss Thrale has promised me Watson's Apology. Could 
 you, as you walk about and examine books upon stalls, 
 find me a second, or third, or thirteenth-hand. History 
 of Poetry, by Warton, or of Music, by Hawkins ; I 
 should be much obliged to you ; but it must be under 
 a guinea price. I have the good editions myself at 
 Streatham Park. Your book of " Ladies' Dresses " must 
 have received curious addition, by what I see and hear 
 of the present fashions ; but cutting off hair is the 
 foolishest among the foolish. When they are tired of
 
 LETTERS. 73 
 
 going without clothes, 'tis easy putting them on again ; 
 but what they will do for the poor cropt and shorn 
 heads, now there are no convents, I cannot guess. 
 
 Do people rejoice now wheat falls in price? they 
 made heavy lament when it was high, or do we only 
 sigh for peace that we may b6 at leisure to meditate 
 mischief ? 
 
 And so I see that both Ministry and Opposition have 
 at last agreed in one point ; they join against the 
 Lapdogs : 
 
 " So when two dogs are fighting in the streets, 
 "With a third dor/ one of these two dogs meets ; 
 "With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, 
 And this dog smarts for what that dog had done." 
 
 These verses are somewhat too soft and mellifluous for 
 the occasion, being Fielding's, but I half long to ad- 
 dress a doggrel epistle to Mr. Dent * ; he would be as 
 angry as Mr. Parsons, no doubt, and I understand his 
 wrath is very great. What becomes of Ireland, I wonder, 
 now his solemn mockery is ended. It was a forged 
 bill, you see, and the public did well to protest it.f 
 
 If Mrs. Siddons was to work at Drury Lane all winter 
 and run about all summer, she would have had no 
 
 * Who gained the nickname of Dog Dent by this piece of legis- 
 lation. 
 
 f " Yortigern " was acted and damned on April 2, 1796. The 
 last audible line was 
 
 " And when this solemn mockery is o'er," 
 
 which Kemble was accused of uttering in a manner to precipitate 
 the catastrophe.
 
 74 LETTERS. 
 
 enjoyment of Putney ; and the young ones, for whose 
 sake she is to work and run, would never have delighted 
 in an out of town residence. Cecilia is coming to the 
 scene of action, London, where I think there were 
 enough just such half-hatched chickens without her 
 and Mr. Mostyn adding to the number ; but then they 
 do not care what I think, so 'tis all one. The Bishop 
 of Bangor likes Wales no better than she does, I sup- 
 pose, but he ought not to have said so ; because an old 
 bishop should be wiser than a -pretty wench, and much 
 will be endured from her, very little from him, espe- 
 cially in these days ; he is got into a cruel embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 Tell something about our Princess of Wales and her 
 domestiques, and of our infant queen-expectant, pietty 
 creature ! I should somehow like to see that baby ex- 
 cessively. My hope is that every English heart will 
 devote itself to the service of so much innocence and 
 sweetness. 
 
 I depend upon an excellent account of " Almeyda ;" * 
 the epilogue is charming. Only one fault ; 'tis an epi- 
 logue would do for any play. I call such things verses 
 to be let. Prologues and epilogues should, to be perfect, 
 be appropriate, referring to what has been presented, or 
 is to present itself before the audience. This, however, 
 is playful and pretty, and so far as I know or can re- 
 member, quite original. 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, and bid your brother not quite forget 
 
 * Miss Lee's play.
 
 LETTERS. 75 
 
 me. The arm of an old vestal virgin kept under ground 
 since Agricola's time, is cold compared with the hand of 
 
 his and your faithful servant, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, Sunday. 
 
 (post-mark, 1796.) 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, You have at last written me 
 so kind and so entertaining a letter, that no paper on 
 my part shall be wasted in reproaches ; I thank you 
 very kindly, but you should never suppose me in- 
 formed of things which you cannot help hearing ; but 
 they escape me easily enough. I do hear of the Arch 
 Duke's successes however, and of poor Italy's dis- 
 grace ; I hear of peace too when shall we see it ? Mr. 
 Ireland is a pleasant gentleman indeed, and his 
 last act his best act in my mind ; absolution follows 
 confession ; I have done being angry with him now. 
 There is a note in Mr. Malone's pamphlet * for which 
 I would give half a dozen publications of fifty pages 
 each concerning the times; it contains my senti- 
 ments so exactly that I may easily commend the 
 writer's good sense and sound judgment. The mys- 
 teries of Carlton House surpass those of Udolpho : 
 may they end as those do, in mere nihility. I will not 
 quarrel with you for making no reply to my questions 
 about " Camilla," f because I have read it myself, and 
 
 * Against the Ireland forgeries, 
 t Madame D'Arblay's novel.
 
 76 LETTERS. 
 
 because these are really not times for any man of the 
 living world to waste his moments in weighing of fea- 
 thers ; he, however, who neglects to read Burke's last 
 pamphlet, loses much of a very rational pleasure. 
 
 I turn the page to talk of yours and your brother's 
 discoveries*, of which I honestly wish you much joy. 
 There are medals at Capo di Monte with a pagan triumph 
 on one side, and on the other the monogram of Christ ; 
 but connoisseurs told me those were Constantino's, who 
 was, you know, enrolled among the heathen gods ; but I 
 can give no account of its connection with a temple to 
 Neptune, and what a little temple it is ! only thirty 
 feet long ; are you sure it is a temple after all ? We 
 had a base-born Constantine in Britayne, had we not, 
 about Honorius's time? he made his son Csesar if I 
 remember well ; was he in Dorsetshire ? or was this 
 long room mere private property, and Neptune no- 
 thing but an ornament as he is now. I should 
 like to know if the 3 was concealed or plainly set 
 in view. Christians wore them of divers kinds I be- 
 lieve in places of persecution, much as the Eoyalists 
 in France carried the effigies of Louis Seize about 
 them in unsuspected forms ; and the ill treatment 
 of those who professed our religion did not cease im- 
 mediately in remote parts of the empire, although it 
 ended in the capital after the outspread Labarum had 
 swept its foes away. Perhaps, too, the mark was not 
 unknown to Constantine, when he saw it somehow 
 
 * Of Roman antiquities at Woodchester, on which Mr. Samuel 
 Lysons based two valuable publications.
 
 LETTERS. 77 
 
 miraculously displayed with the Greek words expres- 
 sive of In hoc Signo vinces under it ; perhaps (but 
 these are too bold conjectures) it had been a private 
 sign among Christians before, and was exalted only 
 not first recognised at the grand battle between him 
 and Maxentius. The 24th chapter of St. Matthew and 
 the 30th verse, give one an idea that it shall again ap- 
 pear ; as the sign of the Son of Man is there spoken of 
 as preceding our Saviour's second coming. There are 
 medals with another monogram upon them resembling 
 the arbitrary mark of a planet, with a triumph on the 
 other side and a hand held out from the clouds ; if they 
 mean Constantine, 'tis awkwardly expressed, because he 
 refused to triumph after the ancient manner. 
 
 I doubt whether ^Etius thrice consul, to whom the 
 groans of the Britons . . . was a Christian ; Placidia 
 we know was. Could he have had any share in your 
 marine worship? When the sea drove them back to 
 the barbarians who by dint of numbers forced them 
 forward on the sea, perhaps they tried what pleasing- 
 old Neptune might do for them ; some heathens in 
 the Roman army might recommend the measure. Num- 
 berless are the connections between Christian and 
 pagan ornaments in Italy. I saw a Madonna in the 
 Vatican with Cybele's tower on her head, and other 
 insignia of that goddess, from the workman's confusion, 
 as it appears, between Mater Dei and Mater Deorum ; 
 and there is an altar in the church where Sannazarius 
 reposes at Naples, decorated with the story of Jupiter 
 and Leda. But I have left no room for Mr. Piozzi's
 
 78 LETTERS. 
 
 compliments: he talks of being at Streatham Park 
 early next spring, where I hope to thank you for many 
 a kind letter received before that time. Write soon, do, 
 and believe me ever with just esteem, 
 
 Dear Sir, yours and your brother's obliged 
 and faithful servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, Thursday. 
 (No other date, and no post-mark.) 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, Accept a renewal of inquiries, 
 literary and domestic ; but 'tis for yourself I inquire ; 
 your brother, we know, is well and busy with his subter- 
 ranean discoveries. What statues has he found ? they 
 will be very valuable ; and tell me for mercy's sake 
 what this Apology for the Bible * means : we live in 
 fine times sure when the Bible wants an apology from 
 the bishops. How is Mr. Burke's book received ? and 
 what will his regicide peace be ? I see no sign of peace 
 except in the books: for they make them ready to battle 
 in all parts of the world, and we shall have the Turks 
 upon us directly if we chase French ships into their 
 very harbours so. No matter ! my half-crown for Flo 
 shall be willingly contributed, though I do think seri- 
 ously that the Dog Tax and Repeal of Grame Laws will 
 have an exceeding bad effect on the country, where 
 
 * Bishop Watson's celebrated answer to Paine and Gibbon.
 
 LETTERS. 97 
 
 gentlemen will want inducements to remain when 
 hunting and coursing and shooting are at an end. 
 Horses will lower in price, however, and little oats will 
 be sown at all. I think democracy in all her insidious- 
 ness could not have contrived a more certain principle 
 of levelling, and republicanism in all her pride could 
 not plan more perfect gratification than that of seeing 
 the young farmers' sons cocking their guns in face of a 
 landlord upon whom no man feeling any dependence, 
 he will shelter himself among the crowds of London, 
 and prefer being jostled at Vauxhall by his taylor, to 
 the being robbed of innocent amusements by those who 
 were bred on his land, and fed on his bounty.* 
 
 Our Chester paper even now reproaches the rich with 
 their donations of bread and meat, which are already 
 styled insults on the poor's independence ; and Mr. 
 Chappelon, who has been here on a visit, protested he 
 was glad to get alive out of Norfolk, because he had 
 presumed to give his parishioners barley and potatoe 
 bread baked in his own oven. I wish you would write 
 me a long letter, and tell me a great deal about the 
 living world ; and something of the dead too, for I see 
 Mr. Howard's epitaph, but cannot guess who wrote it. 
 
 Vortigern will, I trust, be condemned almost without 
 a hearing, so completely does the laugh go against 
 it. This is the age of forgeries. I never read of so 
 
 * If indignation makes verses, it does not supply syntax ; 
 and tliis sentence, which I have not attempted to correct, bears a 
 strong resemblance to that of the county member who described 
 Sir Robert Peel as " not the sort of man that you could put salt 
 upon his tail."
 
 80 LETTERS. 
 
 many causes celebres in that way as of late ; but poor 
 dear Mrs. Siddons saves Ireland awhile, I suppose, by 
 her ill health, and keeps Miss Lee from fame and for- 
 tune which she expects to acquire by " Almeyda." Does 
 Madame D'Arblay's novel promise well ? Fanny wrote 
 better before she was married than since, however 
 that came about. I understand nothing concerning the 
 young baronet that lost so much at backgammon. 
 Those tales are seldom true to the extent they are 
 related : much like the stories of mad dogs, which 
 chiefly exist in newspapers; but I fear Lady West- 
 meath's Divorce Bill, like Mrs. Mullins, will carry con- 
 viction of her infidelity all over the world. We knew 
 her and her lord at Bath, very well. I try every time 
 I write to get some intelligence of the Beavor family, 
 but without effect. 
 
 Selden says marriage is the act of a man's life 
 which least concerns his acquaintance, yet, adds he, 
 'tis the very act of his life which they most busy 
 themselves about. Now Heaven knows, I never did 
 disturb myself or him by Dr. Gillies's marriage, though 
 it affected me exceedingly ; his amiable lady and 
 her family being of my most favourite acquaintance, 
 and they are all lost to me somehow. Mr. Rogers' 
 name has crost me but once since we left London 
 either : it was when he gave evidence in favour of 
 that anagrammatic Mr. Stone*, who wrote his name 
 
 * On Stone's trial, the author of " The Pleasures of Memory " 
 proved a conversation with him. in the streets, tending to show 
 that he made no mystery of that which was charged as treason- 
 able.
 
 LETTERS. 81 
 
 backwards, as witches are said to do; who deal in 
 deeds of darkness, and sing 
 
 " When good kings bleed we rejoice," &c. 
 
 How does your book of fashionable dresses go on ? 
 it must, I think, receive some curious additions by what 
 one hears and sees ; for a caricature print of a famous 
 fine lady who leads the Mode has already reached poor 
 little Denbigh. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, 5th Jan. 1796. 
 
 DEAK MR. LYSONS, After making repeated in- 
 quiries for you of all our common friends, I begin to 
 find out that the best way is to ask yourself. Dear 
 Siddons was always a slow correspondent, though a kind 
 wellwisher ; and she has so much to do in good earnest, 
 that we must forgive her not sitting down to write 
 letters either of fact or sentiment ; for a little of both 
 these I apply to you, and beg a little chat for informa- 
 tion of what is going forward. Tell me, in the first 
 place, concerning your own health and your wicked 
 brother's, who forgets his old correspondent very shame- 
 fully; after that, let the sedition bills or the Shakes- 
 pear manuscripts take post according to the bustle made 
 about them in London. Make me understand why 
 Mr. Hayley writes Milton's life, and why Doctor Ander- 
 son publishes Johnson's. Those roads are so beaten 
 they will get dust in their own eyes sure, instead of 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 82 LETTERS. 
 
 throwing any into the eyes of their readers; at this 
 distance from the scene of action I cannot guess their 
 intents. Tell what other new books attract notice, and 
 what becomes of the Whig Club now 'tis divided like 
 Paris into sections. I fancy France will be divided 
 into sections at last, a bit to Royalists, another bit to 
 Republicans; and perhaps the very name of a nation 
 so disgraced by crimes and follies will be lost for ever. 
 No matter ! I long to see Burke's letter to Arthur 
 Young : his predictions have the best claim to attention 
 of any living wight. 
 
 Oh pray what becomes of the man who set mankind 
 a staring this time last year ? he is in a madhouse, is 
 not he? We had a slight earthquake about eight or 
 ten weeks ago, and such extraordinary weather as never 
 did I witness ; very providential sure that it should 
 continue so warm and mild and open while bread 
 remains at such an advanced price. Yesterday the 
 prospect was clear and bright as spring ; nor have we 
 B3en ice hitherto ; but storms enough to blow the very 
 bouse down, and I fear prevent our West India fleet 
 from ever arriving at its place of destination. A beauti- 
 ful prismatic halo round the moon in an elliptic form 
 very elegant on Christmas Day, was said by our rural 
 philosophers to be a rare but certain precursor of tem- 
 pest, and so it proved : I was, however, glad to have 
 seen a meteor so uncommon. 
 
 Has your brother examined any of the gold from our 
 new mine in Ireland ? The bishop showed us some, and 
 Mr. Lloyd, I think, sent specimens to Sir Joseph Banks
 
 LETTERS. 83 
 
 it is supposed purer, and less drugged with alloy than 
 what comes immediately from Peru could we but get 
 enough of it. Meanwhile / had half a ticket in the 
 Irish Lottery with Mr. Murphy, but can hear nothing 
 either of my fortune or my partner. Take compassion 
 do, and send us a long letter. Mr. Piozzi adds his best 
 compliments to mine, with wishes of a happy New Year. 
 The pianoforte is not quite neglected, though he has 
 lost Mrs. Bagot, who sings such sweet duets. Cecilia 
 and her husband are well and merry; my other 
 daughters write me word from Clifton that they like 
 Mrs. Pennington and attend her benefit balls, which I 
 am glad of. You will expect no news from me, but I 
 shall be very desirous to receive your thanks for oblig- 
 ing inquiries. They are all I have to send, except the 
 truest regards of Brynbella to Putney ; and pray tell 
 me that those agreeable Miss Pettiwards are well who 
 have probably quite forgotten by this time, dear Mr. 
 
 Lyson's 
 
 Ever faithful humble servant, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To the Rev. Daniel Lysons. 
 
 Brynbella, 3rd Sept. 1802. 
 
 AND now we are come home at last after an eight 
 months' absence, and a 500 miles' tour, 'tis high time 
 to congratulate dear Mr. and Mrs. Lysons on the 
 happy event of which the newspapers informed us, 
 whilst in a/ar country, though none more pleasing than 
 Gloucestershire. We passed a fortnight or three weeks 
 
 a 2
 
 84 LETTERS. 
 
 at Cheltenham, where I remembered the pretty planted 
 walk finishing with a tall spire, when I was there a 
 child in company of my mother and my aunts ; and I 
 think I remember the Smith's epitaph in the church- 
 yard, because when reading " Camden's Remains " many 
 years after, it came in my head how much cleverer that 
 is, which he preserves, and in the same style. John 
 English's inscription on his monument was however too 
 deep for me then to be struck with, 'tis almost too deep 
 now. The marking capitals to denote the name of 
 Jesus in that strange way, neither anagram nor acrostic, 
 is exceedingly curious ; I warrant you have a true copy 
 of it, and perhaps will give me one. Write to me, dear 
 Mr. Lysons, and tell me something. Tell me particu- 
 larly about the new comer to Rodmarton's Health, 
 Strength, and Beauty. The excellence of so new a 
 comer will be comprised in those three words ; and if the 
 truth were well known, the first implies the other two 
 completely. 
 
 Here am I without anything to feed on but my own 
 thoughts ; our house is painting and ornamenting, and 
 they have thrust the few books I possess, all into one 
 closet on a heap. My thoughts are fuller than they 
 were though ; by the addition of your brother's kind- 
 ness in showing me the stone at Somerset House, from 
 which if I could lecum but little, for want of more skill 
 in languages, I can please my busy fancy well enough, 
 perhaps better than if sullen truth intruded and catched 
 imagination by the bridle. For example, my recollec- 
 tion says that among the hieroglyphicks, I saw a croiv
 
 LETTERS. 85 
 
 perpetually, and I do think, that this same crow came 
 originally out of the same nest as old Odin's reafan 
 that King Kegner Lodbrog's three weird sisters worked 
 for Hialmar, a standard of victory (ladies still present 
 consecrated colours to the troops you know), and a 
 raven then was the lucky impress in every part of the 
 world, which had not perhaps wholly forgotten its being 
 dismissed from the ark as a bird chosen for purpose of 
 fixing future nations in permanent happiness. The 
 Egyptians least of all forgot that great event, and when 
 I see in the library at Somerset House a vase brought 
 from the Musquito shore adorned with Grecian fret- 
 work, I cannot wonder at any marks of affinity be- 
 tween old Coptic and Scandinavian ideas. 
 
 Besides does not Justin say? I told you true that 
 1 could not get at a book ; does not some one say how 
 Ptolemy that finished the Cut from Nile to the Red 
 Sea, and whose deification act is said to be now in our 
 antiquarians' room in the Strand, joined with Grallo 
 Greeks and Galatians against Antigonus ? The Gauls, 
 wherever planted, considered a crow as their coat 
 armour, if we may call it so ; and lost all courage for 
 that very reason, when the fatal bird perched on a 
 Roman's helmet, called Corvinus from that day by his 
 own countrymen, who readily adopted all neighbouring 
 superstitions. I do believe the croaking raven * meant 
 victory in hieroglyphic language, and am impatient now 
 till clear translation shows the analogy, and makes some 
 
 * Hardly in Macbeth, act i. so. 3. 
 G 3
 
 80 LETTERS. 
 
 explanation. If the British Critic was to see this stuff, 
 he would say my letters were in rhyme I suppose, as he 
 says "Retrospection" is written in blank verse. Lord 
 bless the people, what things do come into their heads ! 
 Mine is at present very full of Kader Idris : I never saw 
 it till this summer, and a grand sight it is. We crossed 
 South Wales, and bathed in the sea at Tenby; Mr. 
 Piozzi kept clear of confinement at least, though he 
 complains of being very tender- footed. He unites with 
 me in true regards and compliments; or more properly 
 in sincere uncomplimentary . good wishes to you and 
 yours; and bears me witness, that I am always very 
 
 truly, dear Mr. Lyson's 
 
 Faithful servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 Pray write me a long letter. 
 
 To Samuel Lysons, Esq. 
 
 Wednesday, 10th Feb. 1808. 
 
 DEAR MB. LYSONS, I have not written to you a long 
 time, and now I cannot help writing. I loved your 
 brother so much, and wished him happy so sincerely, 
 his change of life affects me, and my feelings will not 
 permit me to tell him so. Tell him yourself, my good 
 friend,, and assure yourself that the account of his wife's 
 death in the papers gave me a sensation beyond what 
 my acquaintance with her called for. But she was 
 pretty when we last met, and she was young, and it 
 seems so odd and melancholy to look in the grave for 
 those one used to see at the tea-table ! Well ! you
 
 LETTERS. 87 
 
 who live among the records of past life will bear these 
 things better ; my spirits are much depressed by Mr. 
 Piozzi's miserable state of health, nor can the gaieties 
 I hear of draw my attention from the sorrows that I see. 
 Mrs. Mostyn has politely taken a week's share of them 
 just now while her sons are absent, and the London 
 winter not begun. Our winter commenced in No- 
 vember, and when it will end I know not. The moun- 
 tains are still covered with snow, and such tempestuous 
 weather did I never witness. 
 
 The political wonders have increased since the sus- 
 pension of our correspondence so much, that we are all 
 tired of wondering at them ; but this new discovery of 
 a nest of Christians in Travancore must be considered 
 as curious by everybody who reads of it. Tell me the 
 price of Buchanan's book and its character ; I see no- 
 thing but extracts, and those imperfect ones ; and tell 
 me some literary chat, remembering our distance from 
 all possibility of adding a new idea to our stock, except 
 by the voluntary subscriptions and contributions (to use 
 an hospital phrase) of the nobility, gentry, and others. 
 Hospital phrases, indeed, best suit the dwellers at Bryn- 
 bella ; but Doctor Johnson never wrong was right, 
 pre-eminently right in this : That chronic diseases are 
 never cured; and acute ones, if recovered from, cure 
 themselves. The maxim has been confirmed by my 
 experience every day since to me first pronounced, 
 and I dare say the late unfortunate event in your own 
 family affords it no contradiction. 
 
 Has your brother many children left him by his lady, 
 
 G 4
 
 88 LETTERS. 
 
 and is he living at Hempstead Court ? He had better 
 get to London, and lose his cares in the crowd. 
 
 Dear Mr. Lysons, do write to me, and in the mean- 
 time pity me and my poor husband, whose sufferings 
 one should believe, on a cursory view of them, wholly 
 insupportable ; but God gives the courage, with the 
 necessity of exerting it. 
 
 Adieu, and believe me, ever faithfully yours, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 I hear all good of Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 To Samuel Lysons, Esq. 
 
 Brynbella, 22 Aug. 1813. 
 
 MRS. PIOZZI presents her most respectful compliments 
 to her old friend Mr. Lysons, as Governor of the 
 British Institution, with an earnest request that he will 
 protect her portraits from being copied, as she was 
 strictly promised before she could consent to lend them. 
 It would break her heart, and ruin the value of the 
 pictures to posterity, and now some artist living at No. 
 50, Eathbone Place, who spells his name so that she 
 cannot read it, unless 'tis Joseph, writes to her, begging 
 he may copy the portrait of Doctor Johnson, when she 
 was hoping all the four were by this time restored to 
 their places at old Streatham Park. Mrs. Piozzi wishes 
 Mr. Lysons joy of his brother's marriage, but hopes he 
 himself is not now at Hemstead Hall, as she knows not 
 where to apply.
 
 LETTERS. 89 
 
 To Samuel Lysons, Esq. 
 
 Brynbella, 17 Feb. 1814. 
 
 DEAR MR. LYSONS, I was desired by some dispu- 
 tants to obtain correct information, and felt immediately 
 that I could be sure of it from none but yourself. The 
 question is, What authority can be produced, for an 
 account given in some public print, of a frost on the 
 River Thames, equal, or nearly equal to this last, in 
 the second or third centuries ? Do me the very great 
 kindness to let me know ; and where you read the fact, 
 whether in Holinshed, Stowe, Speed, or Strype's Annals, 
 and from what record the incident is taken, it having 
 been averred that no records could then have been 
 kept. I mean in 260 or 270 A. D. 
 
 Having now discharged my commission, I take the 
 opportunity, though late, of wishing you and your bro- 
 ther a happy new year, and full enjoyment of the feli- 
 cities which people seem in such strong expectation 
 of. Your living world is so remote from us here, and 
 the intelligence so limited, that I know absolutely 
 nothing of what is going forward. My correspondents 
 always begin their letters with, You have heard so 
 much of, &c., &c., that I am precluded hearing at all. 
 Come now, do send me a kind letter, and tell me if 
 Madame D'Arblaye gets 3000^. for her book or no *, and 
 if Lord Byron is to be called over about some verses f 
 
 * " The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties," published in 1814. 
 t The verses beginning : 
 
 " Weep, daughter of a royal line."
 
 90 LETTERS. . 
 
 he has written, as the papers hint. And tell me how 
 the peacemakers will accommodate the Pope, and the 
 little King of Rome too ; and the Emperor of Germany 
 beside, whose second title was King of the Romans, and 
 how all this and ten times more is to be settled, before 
 St. David's Day. Wonders! wonders! wonders! Why 
 Katterfelto and his cat never pretended to such im- 
 possibilities. What says your brother to these days? 
 He used to feel amazed at the occurrences of twenty-one 
 years ago ; but if everything we saw so tumbled about 
 then, can be so easily and swiftly arranged now, much 
 of our horror and surprise might have been saved. 
 
 The fire at the Custom House must have been very 
 dreadful ; I hope you suffered nothing but sorrow for 
 the general loss. Devonshire Square is a place, the 
 situation of which is unknown to me, but I have friends 
 there, who I should grieve for, if they came to any 
 harm. 
 
 Adieu, dear Mr. Lysons : if I live, which no other old 
 goose does I think through this winter, we shall meet 
 at old Streatham Park, and I shall once more tell you 
 truly, and tell you personally, how faithfully 
 
 I am yours, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI.
 
 LETTERS. 91 
 
 MISS WYNN'S COMMONPLACE BOOK. 
 
 THE following extracts from some of Mrs. Piozzi's letters 
 to a Welsh neighbour, are copied from Miss Williams 
 Wynn's commonplace book : 
 
 1797. 'Tis really not unworthy observation, how 
 the vital part of every country has been struck at during 
 the last ten years. Loyalty and love of their Grand 
 Monarque was a characteristic of Parisian manners. 
 Their Sovereign has been executed. Eeligion and the 
 fine arts comforted the Italians for loss of liberty and of 
 conquests. Their ceremonies are now insulted, their 
 models of excellence taken forcibly away. Our English 
 John, safe in his wooden walls, counted the treasures of 
 the Bank and feared no ill while ships and money lasted. 
 Our guineas are turned to paper, our fleets mutiny, and 
 our boobies here in London run to crown the dead 
 delegates with flowers, forgetting how we were all terri- 
 fied when the Thames was blocked up, the trade stopt, 
 and an actual civil war at Sheerness, not twenty miles 
 from the capital. 
 
 1799. Your heart would melt to hear the horrid 
 tales from Italy.! Poor Conte di Frow, late Turinese
 
 92 LETTERS. 
 
 Ambassador, comes now and then to disburthen his 
 heart and vent his sorrows on us, and, lamenting more 
 his King's misfortunes than his own, tells how that 
 hapless Prince knelt on the ground in vain before the 
 unfeeling general of the French forces begging a 
 brother's life, while that commander, lately a low at- 
 torney of some country town, showed him humbled to 
 his brother officers, and made the scene a matter of 
 encouragement to France to persist in her resolves 
 against crowned heads. This was Sardinia's King. 
 The royal family of Naples suffered little less, &c. &c. 
 Dear Mr. Piozzi's countrymen tell him that the oxen, 
 &c. in the North of Italy have been so put in requisi- 
 tion, that large tracts of land lie waste for want of cul- 
 tivation, whilst civil war of opinions among the inhabi- 
 tants, some holding fast by the old way, and some 
 embracing the new notions brought amongst them by 
 the French, make that once lovely country a theatre of 
 agony, and produce such dearness of provisions, that 
 at Grenoa a dog's head was sold for five shillings during 
 the siege, and friends, enemies, soldiers, traders, alike 
 perished more by hunger than by the sword. 
 
 1813. Compliments of the season. It is a very 
 old fashion. Our ancestors used to send mistletoe to 
 each other. The Eomans presented dates and dried 
 figs to their friends, and the modern Italians make up 
 elegant boxes of sweetmeats for the same purpose. We 
 keep our oaks as clean as we can from all parasitical 
 plants. We leave the sugar plums for children, and 
 send empty wishes of a merry Christmas and a happy
 
 LETTERS. 93 
 
 New Year, even that good custom is going out apace. 
 Well, Ovid's line to Grermanicus was the prettiest: 
 
 " Dii tibi dent annos, a te nam caetera sumes." 
 
 Buonaparte doubtless thought such a speech would suit 
 him some months ago, but he must renounce all hope 
 of being Germanicus. 
 
 1814. Your partiality will encourage me to along 
 chat with you concerning the atmospheric stones which 
 have attracted much of my attention. I do believe that 
 Diana of the Ephesians was no other than one ef 
 these, and it was thought, you know, that she fell down 
 from Jupiter, but I have heard a Camb-man maintain 
 that it was possible that the moon might produce them 
 an idea best befitting to a lunatic. Dr. Milner's joke 
 on such im mechanical notions is the very best I know 
 the ready-furnished house. They must, I think, go 
 up before they fall down, and certainly there are more 
 volcanoes at work than we are watching, which fill the 
 air with substances of an attractive kind, which, for the 
 most part, assume conical shapes, as Nature when alone 
 appears particularly to delight in. The Dea Pessinuntia, 
 or Cybele of classic mythology, was, I fancy, a mere 
 meteoric composition. They washed her with much 
 silly reverence, you remember, and Heliogabalus's black 
 stone, which he drove into Eome with four white horses, 
 was nothing better, only the form happened to be 
 perhaps a more regular and perfect cone. He was a 
 Syrian, you know, and this, dropping from heavea
 
 94 LETTERS. 
 
 as they believed, served excellently to represent their 
 Bel, or Baal, or lost Thammuz, the Sun, in short, of 
 which divinity he was priest, as a pyraeum of aspiring 
 flame. . . . 
 
 Let me hope that you will not pursue geology till 
 it leads you into doubts destructive of all comfort in 
 this world, and all happiness in the next. I am 
 not afraid of Gibbon. Whoever has a true taste of 
 Cicero's sweetness and Virgil's majesty, will not take his 
 modern terseness of expression or neatness of finish, 
 
 so completely French, for perfection With 
 
 regard to our own nobility and people of fashion getting 
 into these horrid scrapes of swindling and stock -jobbing*, 
 and the Lord knows what they fright me to read of 
 them. We need no longer say with Capt. Macheath, 
 
 ^" I wonder \ve han't better company 
 Upon Tyburn tree." 
 
 The executive Power should really address them now in 
 the official phrase of 
 
 My lords and gentlemen ! 
 
 Meanwhile Alexander deserved much of the bustle 
 we made about him. When a child, it seems, his grand- 
 mother, the great autocratix Catherine, took an English 
 boy out of a merchant's counting-house at Petersburgh 
 and put him about the young Czar as a playfellow and 
 to teach him our language. When she had done with 
 him he was sent off of course, and Alexander confessed 
 
 * This evidently alludes to the fraud for which Lord Dun- 
 donald was unjustly punished.
 
 LETTERS. 95 
 
 that his companion was forgotten. One day, however, 
 in the crowds of London, the Emperor recognised a face 
 that he knew, and made the man come up and say in 
 what way he was now, and how he could be served ; 
 after which interview no time was lost, till the Prince 
 Regent had not promised only, but actually provided, 
 this old companion of his new friend with a place in the 
 Treasury of 5001. a-year. Such actions are like those 
 related in novels, and acted on the stage 
 
 I refused every invitation for the shows in the Park, 
 and saw the red glare over London so plainly from my 
 own gate, that every moment added to my rejoicing that 
 I was no nearer the crush and the crowd when so many 
 unnamed human creatures perished. Miles Peter 
 Andrews, the rich and gay, sent out two hundred cards 
 of invitation to see the festivities from his windows, 
 verandah, &c., but Miles Peter Andrews (his friends 
 say) went off before the fireworks ; so his heir removed 
 the body and received company himself. You and I 
 have read of a golden age, a silver, and an iron age : 
 is not that we live in, the marble age ? so smooth, so 
 cold, so polished 
 
 Meantime 'tis really curious to hear the different 
 opinions of those who live at the Fountain Head 
 of information. London at this moment exhibits bills 
 stuck up on every post, with Murder in large letters 
 on it, soliciting the apprehension of a felon who has 
 killed his sweetheart, and the lawyers all declare 
 that the annals of Newgate are disgraced (comical 
 enough) by the proceedings of the common people
 
 96 LETTERS. 
 
 these last three years. . . . Per contra, as shop- 
 keepers would express it, you may see the good people 
 (I visit many of those who style themselves the Evan- 
 gelicals) congratulating me and each other on the 
 diffusion of religious knowledge and consequent virtuous 
 behaviour. Jews, say they, are converting, slaves re- 
 leasing, and heathen nations obtaining instruction by 
 means of missionaries warm in the cause of piety, and 
 useful in researches for bettering the general condition 
 of mankind. Preachers, no longer supine, vie with 
 each other in eloquent persuasion of their hearers. Who, 
 twenty or thirty years ago, would have run after any 
 one of those who now adorn our pulpits ? and are, as 
 far as I can observe, very coolly listened to. Such is my 
 survey of London in 1814. 
 
 1817. The improvements in London amused me 
 very much, and such a glare is cast by the gas lights, I 
 knew not where I was after sunset. Old Father Thames, 
 adorned by four beautiful bridges, will hardly remember 
 what a poor figure he made eighty years ago, I suppose, 
 when gay folks went to Yauxhall in barges*, an attendant 
 barge carrying a capital band of music playing Handel's 
 water music as it has never been played since. 
 
 I saw Mr. Wanzey yesterday evening. His account 
 of the procession at Eome, consisting of Christian slaves 
 
 * " One evening, at Mrs. Doyley's, when the party had been 
 talking of the glories of Waterloo bridge, then just opened, a 
 gentleman turned to the lady of the house and said, ' You and I, 
 Mrs. Doyley, remember the time when London had but one 
 bridge.' Miss Grimston was p.esent." Note by Miss W, Wynn.
 
 LETTERS. 97 
 
 liberated by Lord Exmouth, was very Interesting.* They 
 walked up the long street, Strada del Popolo, in uni- 
 form, and up to St. Peter's Church, attended by all 
 the priesthood singing Litanies, Thanksgivings, &c. ; 
 then depositing their standards at the foot of the altar, 
 prostrated themselves before the cross, and returned 
 blessing the English, and crying, as soon as they had 
 passed the church doors, " Vivan i bravi Inglesi ! Viva 
 la santa religione, &c." 
 
 We are party mad here. I do not mean politically 
 so, but the people run to numberless parties of a night. 
 No illness or affliction keeps them out of a crowd. A 
 lady at my next door almost had her party on Sunday 
 night, and her husband invited a large company to 
 dinner on the Tuesday following. "Nay," said Dr. 
 
 Gribbs, " I doubt whether Mrs. will live beyond 
 
 Tuesday. She is very ill indeed." At three o'clock the 
 husband sent to put off his company, and at eight o'clock 
 she died. He sent his cards out that day fortnight, and 
 had his party again. So runs our world away. The 
 men play at macko and lose their thousands all morn- 
 ing; one gentleman was seen to pay seven guineas for 
 the cards he had used in four hours only. 
 
 1818. Mrs. Lutwych will have the loss not only of 
 
 * " It ia very strange that the vulgar mistake of writing ad- 
 jectives with capital letters occurs frequently in these letters. I 
 have copied some of her oddly affected orthography. She is always 
 set (flauyhing. Through a long negociation she speaks always 'of 
 the Piano e forte which they are buying for Boddylwyddau." 
 Note by Miss W. Wynn. Was it a vulgar mistake at the time ? 
 
 VOL. ii. ir
 
 98 LETTERS. 
 
 a good husband and certain friend, but she will lose her 
 greatest admirer too, which few people could boast of in 
 conjugal life, besides herself and me. Alas! alas! but 
 we must lose or be lost. Her death would have broken 
 his heart. The most painful sight of all is a sick baby, 
 for there is such a vegetating power, such a disposition 
 in the habit to drive that death away which grown 
 people often seem half to invite, that it shocks one ; 
 and I hoped poor Angelo would have been the staff of 
 my age. You can scarce think how low-spirited all these 
 things make me. I am glad the sea is at hand to wash 
 care away. This weather is melancholy, and so is all one 
 hears of riots and conspiracies, and people that call 
 aloud for murderers, as the Jews did for Barabbas. The 
 trifling spasms which assailed me this morning will do 
 very little indeed nothing, I trust, towards releasing 
 me from this busy world, described by many as daily 
 improving. P. S. You wonder at my saying the people 
 call aloud for murderers, but my paper says there were 
 placards distributed in Court while the trials went for- 
 ward, saying, We want a Bellingham. 
 
 1819. Llewenney Hall pulled down too! and its 
 forests Alia cadit quercus ; but schools are made of the 
 bricks, and Teachery, as I call it in a word of my own 
 inventing, goes on at a famous rate ; yet one does not 
 remember it is ever said in the Old or New Testament, 
 te If you study My ways, and learn My commandments ; " 
 but " if you walk in My ways, and observe My command- 
 ments to do them,'" which was surely never so little prac- 
 tised as now. Well, the work of reformation runs
 
 LETTERS. 99 
 
 forward apace. Female associations are forming every 
 day and everywhere. They come into your kitchens, 
 instruct your servants, tell them how their masters and 
 ladies run to perdition, give them books against tyranny, 
 and tell them they are all slaves. 
 
 Your vraie amie octogenaire, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 1820. I certainly feel sorry for his death; and if I 
 do not feel alarmed, who am three or four years older, 
 it is because even the grim Lion Death may be rendered 
 familiar by stroking, and never suffering him long out of 
 
 sight Will you hear the story of my 
 
 present neighbour ? Zenobia Stevens, of a good family 
 not far off, had a lease of ninety-nine years under the 
 Duke of Bolton, and lived it out. When she went 
 herself arid gave it up, her kind landlord begged her to 
 keep the house during her life, and offering her a glass 
 of wine, " One, if your Grace pleases," was her prudent 
 reply, " but as I am to ride twelve miles on a young colt 
 these short evenings, I am afraid of being giddy-headed." 
 
 H 2
 
 100 LETTERS. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 17th January, 1815. 
 
 ACCEPT a thousand compliments ; I found the pas- 
 quinade after a long search as it was given me on the 
 inauguration of Buonaparte. 
 
 " Romani ! vi mostro un bel Quadro, 
 II santo Padre va coronar un Ladro ; 
 Un Pio per conservar la Fede 
 
 Lascia la Sede, 
 Un altro Pio per serbar la Sede 
 
 Lascia la Fede." 
 
 Romans ! behold a picture new, 
 The Holy Father crowns a thief; 
 
 Our group exhibits to your view 
 Wonders which far exceed belief. 
 
 Pius the Sixth his seat could leave 
 To save alive our Christian faith ; 
 
 His successor that seat to save, 
 Abandon'd her to certain death. 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS. 101 
 
 The sense is kept, and the point blunted in the 
 translation, but so it is in all translations. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, April 10, 1815. 
 
 I RETURN your paper, dear Sir, and thank you for the 
 additional conviction it has given me, that argument 
 and eloquence can be found in Free States only, de- 
 cision and promptitude in Despotic Governments alone. 
 While we are talking, they will act however, and our 
 pelf will put the puppets in motion. 
 
 Do you remember the French Fable of Dragon a 
 plusieurs Testes, and Dragon a plusieurs Queues? I 
 will look for it. Meanwhile I wish Buonaparte was 
 pulled down. Too long he has made the world his 
 pedestal, mankind the gazers, the sole figure, he ! 
 
 Mrs. Dimond is just come in, and invites me to her 
 box to see Mr. Betty. 
 
 The Star containing Lord Liverpool's and Castle- 
 reagh's speeches on the Prince's message. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 10 April, 1815. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, This is a copy of the memorandum 
 I took when the Bishop of Killala (Stock) showed me 
 the fact in Mezeray's History of France. 
 
 " When Hugh Capet was first set in the seat of power, 
 he consulted an astrologer, who told him his descen- 
 
 H 3
 
 102 LETTERS. 
 
 dants would scarcely wear the crown above 800 years. 
 * Will it ' (says the King), ' make any difference to the 
 dynasty, if I consent, not to be crown'd at all ? ' * Oh 
 yes ! ' was the reply. * They will then sit at least 806 
 years.' " . . . . and so they did : for if you add 806 to 
 the year 987 when Hugh Capet was inaugurated, it gives 
 you the year 1793 when his descendant Louis XVII. 
 was murdered in prison. Les Horoscopes etoient fort a 
 la mode en ces Terns la. The bishop said it was 816 
 I remember, and I took the memorandum in haste : if 
 it was really so, their time was not expired till two 
 years ago. ? Tis an odd circumstance at any rate : an 
 odder still, that you should prefer my version of Adrian's 
 lines, to those of better poets. 
 
 " Animula vagula, blandula, 
 Hospes comesque corporis, 
 Qvse nunc abibis in loca ! 
 Pallidula, rigida, nudula, 
 Nee ut soles dabis joca." 
 
 Grentle soul ! a moment stay, 
 Whither wouldst thou wing thy way ? 
 Cheer once more thy house of clay, 
 Once more prattle and be gay : 
 See, thy fluttering pinions play ; 
 Grentle soul ! a moment stay.* 
 
 * Thus translated by Pope : 
 
 {l Oh, fleeting spirit, wandering fire, 
 
 That long has warm'd my tender breast, 
 Wilt thou no more my frame inspire ? 
 No more a pleasing cheerful guest ?
 
 LETTERS. 103 
 
 The conversation we had that serious evening last 
 week on the most serious of all subjects, put the verses 
 in my head which you will read over leaf, with your 
 accustomed partiality to, Dear Sir, 
 
 Your very much obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 I had some of the lines lying unremembered in my 
 mind ever since the year 1809, but I believe never 
 written out. 
 
 Heart ! where heav'd my earliest sigh, 
 
 First to live, and last to die ; 
 
 Fortress of receding life, 
 
 Why maintain this useless strife ? 
 
 Weary of their long delay 
 
 Time and Death demand their prey : 
 
 Worne with cares, and wearied, thou ; 
 
 Willingly their claim allow : 
 
 Soon shall Time and Death destroy'd 
 
 Drop in th' illimitable void, 
 
 Whilst thou thy petty powers shalt ply, 
 
 An atom of eternity. 
 
 For when the trumpet's lofty sound 
 
 Shall echo thro' the vast profound ; 
 
 When with revivifying heat 
 
 All nature's numerous pulses beat, 
 
 Whither, ah ! whither art thou flying, 
 To what dark, undiscover'd shore ? 
 
 Thou seem'st all trembling 1 , shivering, dying, 
 And wit and humour are no more." 
 
 H 4
 
 104 LETTERS. 
 
 Touch'd by the Master's hand : shall come 
 
 Thy unforgotten pendulum ; 
 
 No longer feeble, cold, and slow ; 
 
 Eetarded still by grief or woe ; 
 
 But firm to mark th' unfmish'd hour, 
 
 That shall all grief and woe devour. 
 
 To Miss Fellowes. 
 
 Monday Night, 24 April, 1815. 
 
 MY DEAR Miss FELLOWES, I send you the strangest 
 thing I ever saw ; an adaptation of the mystical beast 
 described in the thirteenth chapter of >t. John's Apoca- 
 lypse, to the name of Napoleon Buonaparte, in Spanish. 
 It has been done in England various times, and in 
 various manners ; but that it should be done as it is 
 here in a country of bigotted Romanists, is indeed sur- 
 prising. If you send it to Sir James, send it very 
 carefully, for it cannot be got again, and he alone de- 
 serves it; perhaps 'tis better, keep it for him. My 
 letter contains nothing but some verses he liked when 
 he heard them read last night : I send it open that you 
 may read the lines if you please, and say you like them 
 too. Farewell ! If I find I can go to Sidmouth this 
 year, it must be for the two months, September and 
 October : and I must be here again to begin November. 
 What folly and madness, at my age, to be talking of 
 pleasure I am to receive six months hence ! ! But I 
 must talk what the Spaniards call disparates while 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS. 105 
 
 A FABLE FOB APRIL, 1815. 
 
 A modern traveller, they say, 
 Crossing the wilds of Africa, 
 Saw a strange serpent at a distance, 
 Moving majestically slow : 
 With fifty heads at least in show, 
 Not placed together in a row, 
 
 As if to yield assistance ; 
 But here and there, and up and down, 
 Some with and some without a crown, 
 Foaming with rage and grinning with vexation 
 Against a dragon which behind a brake 
 Waited without much fear the attack, 
 
 And swell'd with indignation. 
 His lofty head disdain'd'the ground, 
 
 His neck was long and pliant ; 
 Could stretch to earth's remotest bound, 
 Or lick the scraps that lie on't. 
 Of ugly tails a tortuous train 
 
 Still twisted in his rear ; 
 But whilst to follow they were fain, 
 He viewed their motions with disdain, 
 
 In that alone sincere. 
 To watch these mighty monsters greeting 
 Our traveller climb'd a lofty tree ; 
 Where safe and clearly he could see 
 All that befell their meeting. 
 But whilst the various heads combiu'd, 
 From every hedge resistance find ;
 
 106 LETTERS. 
 
 Till hope's grown fat and anger cooling 
 
 Each his companion ridiculing, 
 
 The sly insinuating snake 
 
 Slipt his long body through the brake. 
 
 Defied his followers to find him, 
 
 And tuck'd his servile tails behind him. 
 
 To Sir James Felloiues. 
 
 Blake's Hotel, Monday, July 31st, 1815. 
 Mr dear Sir James Fellowes's friendly heart will 
 feel pleased that the spasms he drove away, returned 
 no more : altho' you were really scarce out of the street 
 before I received a cold short note from Mr. Merrik 
 Hoare, who married one of the sisters, to say that Lord 
 Keith, who married the other, wished to decline pur- 
 chasing : so here I am no whit nearer disposing of 
 Streatham Park than when I sate still in Bath. Money 
 spent and nothing done : but bills thronging in every 
 hour. Mr. Ward, the solicitor, has sent his demand of 
 116. 18s. 3d. I think, for expences concerning Salus- 
 bury's marriage. I call that the felicity bill : those 
 which produce nothing but infelicity, all refer to Strea- 
 tham of course. But you ran away without your epi- 
 gram translated so much apropos : 
 
 " Creanciers ! maudite canaille, 
 Commissaire, huissiers et recors ; 
 Vous aurez bien le diable au corps 
 Si vous emportez la muraille."
 
 LETTERS. 107* 
 
 Creditors ! ye cursed crew, 
 Bailiffs, blackguards, not a few : 
 Look well around, for here's my all : 
 You've left me nothing but this wall, 
 And sure to give each dev'l his due, 
 This wall's too strong for them or you. 
 
 I must make the most of my house now they have 
 left it on my hands, must I not ? may I not ? and, like 
 my countrymen at Waterloo, sell my life as dear as I 
 can. Oh terque quaterque beati ! those who fell at 
 the battle of St. Jean, when compared to the miseries 
 of Cadiz and Xeres ; and oh, happy Sir James Fellowes ! 
 whose book, well disseminated, will save us from these 
 horrors, or from an accumulation of them ; when the 
 Cambridge fever shall break out again among the Lin- 
 colnshire fens, if we have unfavourable seasons. The 
 best years of my temporal existence I don't mean the 
 happiest ; but the best for powers of improvement, ob- 
 servation, &c. were past in what is now Park Street, 
 Southwark, but then Deadman's Place ; so called be- 
 cause of the pest houses which were established there in 
 the Great Plague of London. From clerks, and black- 
 guards not a few, I learn'd there that Long Lane, Kent 
 Street, and one other place of which the name has slipt 
 my memory, were exempt from infection during the 
 whole time of general sickness, and that their safety 
 was imputed to its being the residence of tanners. I 
 am, however, now convinced from your book, that it 
 was seclusion, not tan, that preserved them. And do
 
 108 LETTERS. 
 
 not, dear Sir, despise your sibyl's prediction: for that 
 (rod's judgments are abroad, it is in vain to deny; and 
 though France will support the heaviest weight of them 
 till her phial is run out ; our proximity, and fond in- 
 clination to connect with her, may, and naturally will 
 produce direful effects in many ways upon the morals, 
 the purses, and the health of Great Britain. 
 
 Do you observe that there is already a pretender 
 started to the Bourbon throne ? You cannot (as I can) 
 recollect in the very early days of the Eevolution, that 
 Abbe Sieyes declared he had saved the real Dauphin 
 from Robertspierre, and substituted another baby of 
 equal age to endure the fury of the homicides. Some 
 of us believed the tale, and some, the greater number } 
 laughed at those who did believe it. But an intelli- 
 gent Italian, since dead, assured me that the last Pope, 
 Braschi, believed it ; and marked the youth, in conse- 
 quence of that belief, with a Fleur-de-Lys upon his 
 leg. Whether the young man described in the news- 
 paper as seizing the Duchess d'Angoulesme, is that 
 person or another : or whether some fellow under the 
 influence of national insanity, imagines himself the 
 Dauphin ; he is likely enough to disturb them and 
 divide their friends. Such times by the violence of 
 fermentation produce extraordinary virtues; but your 
 incomparable Don Diego Alvarez de la Fuente would 
 never have had his excellence of character properly 
 appreciated, had you not been the man to hand his 
 fame down to posterity. JSneas would have been for- 
 gotten but for Virgil.
 
 LETTERS. 109 
 
 I am not yet aware that any suspicion of promoting 
 contagion during the fearful moments you describe, 
 lighted on the Jews : the propensity they show to deal 
 in old clothes makes it very likely that they should now 
 and then propagate infectious diseases among their 
 Christian persecutors, but I hope those days are coming 
 fast to an end ; when France has been disposed of, their 
 turn will come. You will find a kind word or two for 
 them in the first chapter of my second volume (of 
 " Eetrospection ") but the last chapter in the first vo- 
 lume is my favourite, and should be read before the 
 short dissertation on the Hebrews for twenty reasons. 
 I hope you like my preface, and find it modest enough, 
 tho' the critics had no mercy on my sauciness. 
 
 Well ! now the' rest of this letter shall be like other 
 people's letters, and say how hot the streets are, and 
 how disagreeable London is in the summer months ; and 
 how sincerely happy I should have been to pass the 
 next six or seven weeks at Sidmouth, but that, 
 Oh, such speeches are not like other people's letters at 
 all : but that, I have not (with an income of 
 20001. a year) 51. to spend on myself, so encumber'd am 
 I with debts and taxes. Leak says he must pay 401. 
 Property Tax, now, this minute. He is a good creature, 
 and will be a bitter loss to his poor mistress, whenever 
 we part ; although the keeping him, and his wife, and 
 his child, is dreadful, is it not? Since, however, in 
 mental as in bodily plagues, despondency brings on ruin 
 faster than it would come of itself: 
 
 " What yet remains ? but well what's left to use, 
 And keep good humour still, whate'er we lose."
 
 1 10 LETTERS. 
 
 Give my best love to dear Miss Fellowes, compli- 
 ments to Mrs. Dorset if with you, and true regards to 
 your venerable and happy parents, beseeching them all 
 to remember that they have a true servant in, Dear Sir, 
 
 your infinitely obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 The battle with Anderdon will be fought to-morrow. 
 1 make sure of losing the field ; my generals are un- 
 skilful. Direct Mrs. Piozzi, Bath. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Monday Morning, Blake's Hotel, 
 7th Aug. 1815. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR JAMES FELLOWES, When in the library 
 at Streatham Park yesterday, I just looked into an old 
 book of my writing, now completely out of print, and 
 found these long-forgotten lines. The date 1792. 
 
 Shall impious France, though frantic grown, 
 Drag her pale victims from the throne. 
 
 Shall royal blood be spilt : 
 Yet think neglectful-Heav'n will spare, 
 And by conniving seem to share 
 
 In such gigantic guilt? 
 
 No, tardy-footed vengeance stalks 
 Bound her depopulated walks, 
 
 Waiting the fateful hour ; 
 When human skill no more can save, 
 But hot contagion fills the grave, 
 
 And famine bids devour.
 
 LETTERS. Ill 
 
 Rise, warriors, rise ! with hostile sway 
 Accelerate that dreadful day, 
 
 Revenge the royal cause : 
 Exerting well-united force, 
 Tear all decrees that would divorce 
 
 True liberty from laws. 
 
 Is it not very odd I should so predict what is sure 
 enough likely now to befall them, and yet never predict 
 what has befallen myself? But I do not even now repent 
 my journey. The offer to my daughters was not only 
 made, but in person repeated ; so my conscience is clear 
 of blame if we sell, there are, however, those who 
 think nothing but an acre of land will in two or three 
 years be worth a guinea. 
 
 The funds do fall so strangely, and so fast. Should 
 these explainers of the prophecies prove the wise men 
 we take them for, and should the call of the Jews be at 
 hand their taking out such monstrous sums would 
 break us down at once ; but the Turkish empire must 
 give way before that hour approaches; and rapidly as 
 the wheel does run down the hill, increasing in velo- 
 city every circle it makes, I can't believe that things 
 are coming so very forward, but that poor H. L. P. 
 may, by the mercy of God, escape those scenes of tur- 
 bulence and confusion. 
 
 Your book*, however, helps to alarm me. I had no 
 
 * " Reports of the Pestilential Disorder of Andalusia, &c. &c. ; 
 with a Detailed Account of the Epidemic in Gibraltar, in 1804, 
 &c. &c." London : 1815,
 
 1 12 LETTERS. 
 
 * 
 
 notion that such pestilence had been so near, and you 
 can have but little notion how little we were impressed 
 by newspaper accounts of what you yourself not only 
 witnessed but endured. From all future ills that 
 Heaven may protect you, is the sincere wish and prayer 
 of yours and your charming family's 
 
 Truly obliged, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, August 24th, 1815. 
 
 I COULD not recollect poor dear Grarrick's verses yes- 
 terday, when we were talking on the subject : although 
 they were made in the library at Streatham Park and, 
 by Johnson's approbation and consent, substituted in- 
 stead of Murphy's, which he thought pedantic. 
 
 " Ye fair married dames who so often deplore 
 That a lover once blest, is a lover no more ; 
 Attend to my counsel, nor blush to be taught, 
 That prudence must cherish what beauty has caught. 
 
 " Use the man whom you wed like your fav'rite guitar. 
 Though there's music in both, they are both apt to jar ; 
 How tuneful and soft from a delicate touch ; 
 Not handled too roughly, nor played on too much. * 
 
 * " The soul of music slumbers in the shell, 
 
 'Till waked and kindled by the master's spell ; 
 And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour 
 A thousand melodies unheard before. " ROGEBS.
 
 LETTERS. 113 
 
 " The sparrow and linnet will feed from your hand, 
 Grow tame by caressing, and come at command ; 
 Exert with your husbands the same happy skill, 
 For hearts like your birds may be tamed to your will. 
 
 " Be gay and good-humoured, complying, and kind, 
 Turn the chief of your care from your face to your mind, 
 Attractions so pleasing, resistless will prove, 
 And Hymen shall rivet the fetters of Love." 
 
 Murphy's Song : 
 
 " Attend all ye fair, and I'll tell ye the art, 
 
 To bind every fancy with ease in your chains ; 
 To hold in soft fetters the conjugal heart, 
 
 And banish from Hymen his doubts and his pains. 
 
 " When Juno accepted the cestus of Love, 
 
 At first she was handsome, she charming became ; 
 It taught her with skill the soft passions to move, 
 To kindle at once, and to keep up the flame. 
 
 " Thence flows the gay chat more than reason that 
 
 charms, 
 
 The eloquent blush that can beauty improve ; 
 The fond sigh, the sweet look, the soft touch that 
 
 alarms ; 
 With the tender disdain that renewal of love. 
 
 " Ye fair ! take the cestus, and trust to its power, 
 
 The mind unaccomplished, mere features are vain ; 
 When wit and good humour enliven each hour, 
 The Loves, Joys, and Graces will walk in your train." 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Monday, 28 August, 1815. 
 
 RETROSPECTION, too much crowded with figures ; antici- 
 pation, in every sense, a blank I and thus it is, Dear Sir, 
 that the world runs away. Mrs. Flint and Dun (where 
 you bought the bitter horehound,) hard as one of her 
 names, and dreadful as the other, told me our lost for- 
 tune on Saturday night ; I send it you, enclosed to Miss 
 Fellowes, who will accompany it with pleasanter tydings 
 I hope. Do the friends, for whom you are sacrificing 
 health, make you large compensation by trying to be 
 happy themselves ? I hope they do. If more induce- 
 ments are wanting, they will surely think on that. 
 
 I have been plagued with a gumboil, a mouth abscess. 
 Punishment upon the peccant part for all that rattling 
 nonsense it poured out on Fryday morning, when you 
 met Miss Williams here; but we had been talking 
 gravely before, and my mother used to repeat a Spanish 
 refrain, which you know, I dare say, but I do not, ex- 
 pressing : from a companion that knows but one book, 
 . and can! relate but one story, Good Lord deliver me ; 
 and sure enough monotony will always tire, whether the 
 talk be of mutton or of metaphysics. 
 
 " One charm displayed, another strik e o ur view, 
 In quick variety for ever new/' 
 
 as some among our Streatham wits used to say, was 
 her forte. 
 
 Well ! but Leak thinks, I see, that necessity will com-
 
 LETTERS. 115 
 
 pel me to dispose for ever of that place, and Lady Wil- 
 liams invites me strongly to quit every place; and 
 purchase a beautiful cottage, near my own native sea, 
 with sublime mountain scenery, and good convenience 
 for bathing, twenty or thirty miles from Brynbella 
 (where, by the way, there is a baby born,) and two or 
 three hundred miles from London or from Bath, The 
 place is to be hired, or sold with its faery furniture, and 
 you would laugh to see little Bessy Jones's fear, lest I 
 should accept the offer, and as she says, bury myself 
 completely alive. She knows well enough what North 
 Wales is in winter. 
 
 Shall I try the book of names first, and without 
 further care concerning money, after the debts are paid, 
 venture on No. 8 Gray Street ? I should like that 
 better. This East Indian war, however, will keep the 
 Property Tax on most certainly, perhaps increase it, and 
 that will affect all our purses. 
 
 The Cambrian heiress passed an hour here this morn- 
 ing. She is really a very rational girl, and her father 
 says Cobbett's last performance is beyond all measure 
 inflammatory. 
 
 We shall surely have a stolen, literal or figurative, 
 and the first would do least harm ; but here's the bit of 
 paper quite exhausted, without a word of the portrait. 
 My letters give the truest portrait after all, and this is 
 a miniature of 
 
 Dear Sir James Fellowes's 
 
 exceedingly obliged servant, 
 H. L. P. 
 
 T Q
 
 116 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 27th September, 1815. 
 WHY Dear Sir James Fellowes ! Peter the Cruel was 
 surely your ancestor instead of mine. After the thou- 
 sand kindnesses of you and your charming family, 
 hombres y hembras, had heaped on your ever obliged 
 H. L. P., to run out of the town so, and never call to 
 say farewell. Ah ! never mind ; I shall pursue you with 
 letters, and they shall be more serious than you count 
 on. I took your Spanish Bible myself to Linton's (the 
 man in Hetling Court), on Monday morning; and 
 thither the "Wraxall shall follow, when I have finished 
 cramming it with literary gossip. Your name on the 
 first page secures it for the present. 
 
 Now do not wrong me by suspicion of low spirits. 
 All the absurdity consists in making you an offer of 
 such trifling remembrances ; but with regard to my life, 
 which has already past the portion of time allotted to 
 our species, forgetfulness of danger would be fatuity, 
 not courage. You would not think highly of a soldier, 
 who, hearing the enemy's trumpet though at a distance, 
 should compose himself to take another nap; but what, 
 would he deserve, who should be found sleeping on an 
 attack ? 
 
 I have lived to witness very great wonders, and am 
 told that Bramah the great mechanic is in expectation 
 of perfecting the guidance of an air balloon, so as to 
 exhibit in an almost miraculous manner upon Westmin- 
 ster Bridge next Spring. I saw one of the first, the very
 
 LETTERS. 117 
 
 first, Mongolfier, I believe, go up from the Luxembourg 
 Gardens at Paris ; and in about an hour after, express- 
 ing my anxiety whither Pilatre de Eosier and his friend 
 Charles were gone, meaning of course to what part of 
 France they would be carried, a grave man made 
 reply : " Je crois, Madame, qu'ils sont alles, ces Mes- 
 sieurs-la, pour voir le lieu ou les vents se forment." 
 
 What fellows Frenchmen are ! and always have been. 
 I long for your brother's new account of them, and if I 
 could turn the figures from seventy-four to forty-seven, 
 I would certainly go and see them myself: in a less 
 hazardous vehicle than an air balloon. 
 
 Abate Parini made a pretty impromptu on that we 
 saw go up at Paris, and I translated it, here it is : 
 
 "E LA MACCHINA CHE PAELA. 
 
 " Eccomi dal Mondo e Meraviglia e Gioco, 
 Farmi grande in un punto, e lieve io sento, 
 E col fumo nel grembo ed a piedi il fuoco, 
 Salgo per aria e mi confido al vento. 
 
 " E mentre aprir nuovo cammino io tento, 
 A 1'uom, cui 1'onda, e cui la terra 6 poco, 
 Fra incerti moti e 1'anco dubbio evento, 
 Alto gridando la natura invoco. 
 
 " Oh Madre delle cose ! arbitrio prenda 
 L'uomo per me de questo aereo regno ; 
 Se cio fia mai che piu beato il renda : 
 
 I 3
 
 118 LETTERS. 
 
 " Ma se nuocer poi dee, 1'audace ingegno 
 Perda 1'opra, e'l consiglio ; e fa ch'io splenda 
 D'una stolta impotenza eterno segno." 
 
 THE MACHINE SPEAKS. 
 
 In empty space behold me hurl'd, 
 The sport and wonder of the world : 
 Who eager gaze, whilst I aspire 
 Expanded with aerial fire. 
 
 And since man's selfish race demands 
 More empire than the seas and lands ; 
 For him my courage mounts the skies, 
 Invoking nature as I rise. 
 
 Mother of all ! if thus refin'd 
 My flights can benefit mankind, 
 Let them by me new realms prepare, 
 And take possession of the air. 
 
 But if to ills alone I lead, 
 Quickly, oh quick let me recede ; 
 Or blaze a splendid exhibition, 
 A beacon for their mad ambition. 
 
 And now after all this prattle, adieu ! 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS. 1 19 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Tuesday Night, 3rd Oct. 1815. 
 
 WITH regard to public matters, I think Maximilian, 
 the witty Emperor of Germany, was not far from right 
 when he said that he, like Agamemnon of old, was Rex 
 Regum ; the King of France, Rex Asinorum ; the King 
 of England, Rex Diabolorum (though he had not heard 
 of the Irish mutineers of our day) ; the King of Spain 
 Rex Hominum. I hope they will verify the appellation 
 and behave like men and gentlemen. Of dear Cer- 
 vantes' merit, you must know most, and those who do 
 so. must most value him. I believe there is no writer 
 in Europe as popular no not Shakespear himself, who 
 is justly the idol of his own country while the Spanish 
 hero is hero of every country no nation that does 
 not swarm with prints, and resound with stories of Don 
 Quixote and 'tis very likely I am quoting my own 
 book when I say so, but there is no remembering the 
 crowded figures clustered together in "Retrospection." 
 We will talk of the name book when I am grown rich ; 
 it will do nothing for me till I don't want it, and that 
 day I purpose to see on the 25th of next July, if not 
 hindered by Los Hatos, and cramped in my noble ex- 
 ertions. Nine months, is it not, to July ? Well ! I 
 have carried many a heavy burden for nine months, and 
 why not a load of debt ? 'tis a new sort of burthen, 
 but Leak writes me word that Gillow's bill has many 
 charges in it that cannot be supported, so if he can 
 heave off a hundred weight, things will run better, 
 
 I 4
 
 120 LETTERS. 
 
 and 'tis only following your example about the vexatious 
 tooth bearing, and forbearing, and wearing the misery 
 out. 
 
 Our theatre is open, and I saw the new opera dancers 
 from Mrs. Dimond's box. La Prima Donna is the 
 smallest creature I ever saw, that was not a dwarf; her 
 husband a Colossus of a fellow, and the waltze they 
 dance together, just the very oddest thing I ever saw 
 in my life. We were talking here one morning, if you 
 recollect, with Miss Williams, of these Baylerinas, and 
 the ideas they intended to excite. The present set ex- 
 cite no ideas except of dry admiration for the astonish- 
 ing difficulties they perform, and some serious fears lest 
 they should break their slender limbs in the perform- 
 ance. Holding out one leg and one arm in a parallel 
 line, is destructive of all grace ; and when, after spring- 
 ing up to a prodigious height, they come down on the 
 point of one toe nothing can exceed our wonder at 
 its possibility, except one's joy that they escape in 
 safety. Music and dancing are no longer what they 
 were, and I grow less pleased with both every hour 
 
 " Year chases year, decay pursues decay, 
 
 Still drops some joy from with'ring life away." 
 
 But do not let us teize dear Miss Fellowes to write ; 
 it only worries her, and whilst I am conscious of it, 
 cannot delight me. While secure of a friend's affec- 
 tionate regard, I abhor dunning them for letters ; when 
 my heart tells me that their kindness is growing cold, 
 and feels weary of keeping up an uninteresting corre-
 
 LETTEES. 121 
 
 spondence, 'tis then that silence is a mute that 
 strangles. 
 
 I am enchanted to think of your brother and sister's 
 felicity : they are the most amiable, and most deserving 
 of happiness, that can be found; and how wise they 
 were to discover the value of happiness in time, and 
 fling no more of it away ! 
 
 We have an old beauty come here to Bath you scarce 
 can remember her one of the very very much admired 
 women, Lady Stanley. Poor thing ! she went to France 
 and Italy early in life, learned les manieres and les 
 tournures, and how gay a thing it was to despise her hus- 
 band, who was completely even with her 
 
 " In youth she conquer' d with so wild a rage, 
 As left her scarce a subject in her age : 
 For foreign glories, foreign joys, to roam, 
 No thought of peace, or happiness at home." 
 
 Her fortune, however, as an independent heiress, she 
 held fast ; and her wit and pleasantry seem but little 
 impaired ; but the loss of health sent her here, and she 
 wonders to see mine so good, so indeed do I ; but we 
 were no puling family ; my father, both my grandfathers, 
 and three uncles, all died suddenly, which renders me 
 more watchful of course. Never mind; Pope says, 
 "Act well your part, there all the honour lies." 
 
 " Nos sumus in scena quin et mandante magistro 
 Quisque datas agiinus partes ; sit longa brevisve, 
 Fabula, nil refert." 
 
 I hope you will come to Bath soon, and give me 
 some good advice. I do hope you will : nobody will
 
 122 LETTERS. 
 
 be more observant of it, as nobody ever could esteem 
 it more than does dear Sir James Fellowes's ever obliged 
 
 and faithful 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 You have made all your friends my friends. Pray 
 tell them what a grateful heart that is, which they have 
 been so kind to. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 10th Oct. 1815. 
 
 SUCH letters would make anybody well. I will im- 
 plicitly follow the advice of my incomparable friend, 
 and I will not advertise Streatham Park till you ap- 
 prove the measure. Alas, dear Sir, my wish is to con- 
 ciliate, not provoke them. Lord North's maxim, ' ' Ami- 
 citise sempiterna3, inimicitise placabiles," * is the best 
 in the world ; and they will perhaps one day tell you 
 that I have always followed it. Meanwhile, I will not 
 swear that the cross winds of domestic life have for- 
 borne to injure my tackling, and if I can now get home 
 under jury masts, how thankful ought I to be ! Apro- 
 pos to jury masts, what can be the meaning of such 
 an awkward word? I have not a dictionary in the 
 room, but I dare say they mean mats de durer. Masts 
 that will just serve and last but for a short time. Now 
 if I am the worse for the musket shot of this warring 
 world, how reasonable is it to expect that you should 
 
 * Popularly rendered : " Enmities in dust ; friendships 
 marble."
 
 LETTERS. 123 
 
 have suffered, who have been so exposed to its heaviest 
 artillery ! Let us never have done rejoycing that you 
 are returned to the bosom of your family, and permitted 
 to enjoy their happiness which you have unremittingly 
 prefered to your own. 
 
 I was selfish, once, and but once in my life; and 
 though they lost nothing by my second marriage, my 
 friends (as one's relations are popularly called) never 
 could be persuaded to forgive it ; was not it always 
 so ? Your Spanish Bible, in the eighteenth chapter of 
 Saint Matthew's Gospel, shows us how to obtain pardon 
 by applying to the right place and person, not to our 
 cruel fellow servants. ..... 
 
 So here is reciprocation of confidence, and a con- 
 fession no one but your kind self could deserve or 
 indeed comprehend ...... 
 
 Where the mad warrior fights for fame, 
 
 And life beneath him lies ; 
 "Tis love of praise that bears the blame, 
 
 And those that blame are wise. 
 
 When female levity and youth 
 
 Run wild a thousand ways ; 
 Each stander by, with equal truth, 
 
 Arraigns the love of praise. 
 
 But praises when by virtue given, 
 
 To virtue are assign'd ; 
 They light like harbingers from Heav'n, 
 
 And cheer the trembling mind.
 
 124 LETTEES. 
 
 Tis then with pride resembling shame, 
 
 We bask beneath their rays ; 
 And virtue with an humbler name, 
 
 Becomes the love of praise. 
 
 Adieu then ! and retain for Mil Anos y mas your 
 
 kindness for poor 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 I remember an awkward Irish Miss once, when it 
 was the fashion to give sentimental toasts, making us 
 all look silly, because the men laughed so, who loved 
 rough merriment, when in reply to their request of a 
 sentiment, she made answer, " What we think on most, 
 Sir, and talk on least." Mrs. Hoare and I both would 
 feel that to be Streatham Park. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Tuesday Night, 24th Oct. 1815. 
 
 No anecdote, nor no verses, no, nor even your praises, 
 which so highly I value, can give equal pleasure to the 
 account you send me of your health. May Grod Al- 
 mighty, long, very long, preserve it for all our sakes ; 
 and inspire you with gratitude for its restoration, as he 
 has inspired you with skill to preserve it. 
 
 The day was so bright, and at one time so fine, I 
 was impelled to make the rhymes you will read en- 
 closed. Collins promises me the "Travel Book" on 
 Thursday, which I shall correct for you, and make as
 
 LETTERS. 125 
 
 clean, and as little unworthy of your acceptance, as I 
 can. 
 
 Doctor Fellowes is certainly right ; I took my account 
 of Katherine's cruelty, from Grovani's, whose "Memoirs 
 des Cours d'ltalie " I left in Wales. Are these verses in 
 your margin ? they should be there. 
 
 " Elle fit oublier, par un esprit sublime, 
 
 D'un pouvoir odieux les enormes abus ; 
 Et sur un trone acquis par le crime, 
 Elle se maintint par ses vertus." 
 
 Her dazzling reign so brightly shone, 
 Few sought to mark the crimes they courted ; 
 
 Whilst on her ill-acquired throne 
 She sate ; by virtue's self-supported. 
 
 The Anecdotes of Doctor Johnson were begun at 
 Milan, where we first heard of his death, and so written 
 on, from milestone to milestone, till arriving at Leg- 
 horn, we shipped them off to England. 
 
 Mr. Thrale had always advised me to treasure up 
 some of the valuable pearls that fell from his (Johnson's) 
 lips, in conversation ; and Mr. Piozzi was so indignant 
 at the treatment I met with from his executors, that he 
 spirited me up to give my own account of Doctor John- 
 son, in my own way ; and not send to them the detached 
 bits which they required with such assumed superiority 
 and distance of manner, although most of them were 
 intimates of the house till they thought it deserted for 
 ever. I think we must not tell your dear father that
 
 126 LETTERS. 
 
 his friend Bennet Langton was one of them. If we 
 do, he will not say as Dr. Johnson did, 
 
 f( Sit anima mea cum Langtono." 
 
 But my marriage had offended them all, beyond hope 
 of pardon. 
 
 Now judge my transport, and my husband's, when at 
 Home we received letters saying the book was bought 
 with such avidity, that Cadell had not one copy left, 
 when the King sent for it at ten o'clock at night, and 
 lie was forced to beg one from a friend, to supply his 
 Majesty's impatience, who sate up all night reading it. 
 Samuel Lysons, Esq., Keeper of the Records in the 
 Tower, then a law student in the Temple, made my 
 bargain with the bookseller, from whom, on my return, 
 I received 300?., a sum unexampled in those days for 
 so small a volume. 
 
 And here, my dear Sir, is a truly-told anecdote of 
 yours and your charming family's gratefully attached, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 Pray present them my verses. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Sunday, 15th October, 1815. 
 
 No, no ; it was Jael that killed Sisera, who was a 
 warrior, not a woman. The termination in a does not in 
 Hebrew feminize a name, any more than the termination 
 in o renders a name masculine in the Greek. mD^D, 
 Sisera, was the proper name of the general of a hostile
 
 LETTERS. 127 
 
 army sent to subdue Israel, and reduce them forcibly to 
 acknowledge as Deity the very same abominations they 
 are adoring even now, as our friend the general knows, 
 further to the eastward. Tabor is still an insulated mount; 
 it was called Itabyrius by the profane writers ; but indeed 
 to be a good bible scholar is better far, and ivill carry 
 further, than being the best Greek one ; and if the 
 Spanish version does justice to that magnificent piece of 
 lyric poetry for such it is which you read in the fifth 
 chapter of Judges, called the Song of Deborah and Barak, 
 you will be enchanted with it. Lowth's praise of it is 
 sublime indeed ; and Kurstness, or Pelicanus as they 
 call him, says boldly : " Now let jour Homer or Virgil 
 find a passage equal in eloquence and beauty to the last 
 eight verses of that incomparable ode." 
 
 I believe the challenge cannot be answered ; but if 
 you really do value my taste in literature and my opinion 
 in the choice of books, assure yourself I would give all 
 Lord Spencer's library for his best bible ; reflecting, with 
 Locke and Paley, that of that work Grod is the author, 
 Truth is the subject, and its tendency Eternal Life. 
 Should such at length become your preference, too ; it 
 might not, possibly, but it is too presumptuous to say 
 so ; yet it perhaps might not be in this world only, so 
 soon to be hid from our eyes that dear Sir James 
 Fellowes should have cause to recollect with compla- 
 cency his partial friendship for poor 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 The vulgar menace of I'll be after you with a sic-
 
 128 LETTERS. 
 
 surrarti means, as far as it means anything, Til follow 
 you up with a writ of certiorari *, to call up the records, 
 that justice may be done impartially. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, 19th Oct. 1815. 
 
 THE next best thing to shaking a friend by the hand 
 is seeing his fomcZwriting. .1 am happy to read yours, and 
 most earnestly hope you will keep close to the house 
 till better days. The ladies will have sad weather to 
 travel in. General Grarslin did me a great deal of 
 honour, and deserved some amusement in payment for 
 his trouble in finding the house. 
 
 If it were not for flattery, I should break my heart 
 yet, old bills not counted on coming against me so : but 
 I don't care, as the children say ; I shall out of my 
 plagues, and out of my prison too, next July. 
 
 Meanwhile, dear old Doctor Lort, the Greek pro- 
 fessor, was godfather to the gentleman you mention, 
 and his surname went to the bishop at the font as a 
 Christian name. You will find Doctor Lort mentioned 
 under the article Daphne, as I remember. 
 
 But I have had a nice dish of flattery dressed to my 
 taste this morning. That grave Mr. Lucas brought 
 his son here, that he might see the first woman 
 in England forsooth. So I am now grown one of 
 
 * She is substantially right. It is a -writ for the removal of the 
 proceedings, civil or criminal, from an inferior to a superior juris- 
 diction.
 
 LETTERS. 129 
 
 the curiosities of Bath, it seems, and one of the Anti- 
 quities. 
 
 This evening a chair will carry me to Mrs. Holroyd's, 
 to meet two other females, whom Richardson taught 
 the town to call old tabbies, attended, says he, by young 
 grimalkins. Now that's wrong ; because they are 
 young tabbies, and when grown grey are gi^is malkins, 
 I suppose. Is not this fine nonsense for the first woman ? 
 Prima Donna ! in good time ! 
 
 If I could detain your man to say one grave serious 
 word, it would express my content that your dear father 
 is arrived to take care of my inestimable friend, Sir 
 James Fellowes, whose health is of such consequence. 
 Mind what he says, and believe me, most sincerely 
 your obliged servant, H. L. P. 
 
 October 27, 1815, 
 
 " Mrs. Piozzi," remarks Sir J. Fellowes in a memo-, 
 randum on this letter, " dined with our family party 
 to-day. Speaking of Hogarth, she mentioned a clever 
 impromptu, addressed to Mr. Tighe, who was intent 
 upon some Greek book when dinner was ready : 
 
 " * Then come to dinner, do, my honest Tighe, 
 And leave thy Greek, and 77 ft TT. 
 
 eat a bit o' pie.' ' : 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 30 October^ 1815. 
 
 IF dear Sir James Fellowes still continues under dis- 
 cipline, this anecdote of Hogarth and of his little friend 
 VOL. n. K
 
 130 LETTERS. 
 
 may amuse him. My father and he were very intimate, 
 and he often dined with us. One day when he had 
 done so, my aunt and a groupe of young cousins came 
 in the afternoon, evenings were earlier things than 
 they are now, and 3 o'clock the common dinner-hour. 
 I had got a then new thing I suppose, which was called 
 Game of the Groose, and felt earnest that we children 
 might be allowed a round table to play at it, but was 
 half afraid of my uncle's and my father's grave looks. 
 Hogarth said, good-humouredly, "1 will come, my dears, 
 and play at it with you." Our joy was great, and the 
 sport began under my management and direction. The 
 pool rose to five shillings, a fortune to us monkeys, 
 and when I won it, I capered for delight. 
 
 But the next time we went to Leicester Fields, Mr. 
 Hogarth was painting, and bid me sit to him ; 
 " And now look here," said he, " I am doing this 
 for you. You are not fourteen years old yet, I 
 think, but you will be twenty-four, and this portrait 
 will then be like you. Tis the lady's last stake ; see 
 how she hesitates between her money and her honour. 
 Take you care ; I see an ardour for play in your eyes 
 and in your heart : don't indulge it. I shall give you 
 this picture as a warning, because I love you now, you 
 are so good a girl." In a fortnight's time after that 
 visit we went out of town. He died somewhat suddenly, 
 I believe, and I never saw my poor portrait again ; till, 
 going to Fonthill many, many years afterward, I met it 
 there, and Mr. Piozzi observed the likeness when I was 
 showing him the fine house, then deserted by Mr. Beck-
 
 LETTERS. 131 
 
 ford. The summer before last it was exhibited in Pall 
 Mall as the property of Lord Charlemont. I asked Mrs. 
 Hoare, who was admiring it, if she ever saw any person 
 it resembled. She said no, unless it might once have 
 been like me, and we turned away to look at something 
 else. 
 
 With regard to play, I have been always particular in 
 avoiding it, so that I scarce know whether the inclina- 
 tion ever subsisted or not. The scene he drew will 
 certainly remind any one of poor H. L. P., and no one 
 but yourself knows the story. 
 
 But I must tell you how well your dear father is, 
 and how heartily I made him laugh this morning at 
 one of my comical stories, true as the day, which I heard 
 a silly lady in my own country two or three years ago 
 ask me quite suddenly before a room full of company, to 
 tell her ; " for," says she, " you know Mrs. Piozzi does 
 understand everything ; what bone her son broke at the 
 battle of Talavera." This was too hard a question ; but 
 the lady went on: "No, no," continued she, "not hard 
 to Mrs. Piozzi. Louisa, you lost the letter very pro- 
 vokingly which had the fine word in it ; and now you 
 laugh, you ill-natured thing, because I can't recollect it, 
 but Mrs. Piozzi will know in a minute." Turning to 
 me : " It was one of your fine words, I say, and very 
 like fable-book." " I have," said I, " heard that Mr. 
 Morgan's horse fell upon him, and perhaps broke the 
 fibula, or small bone of his master's leg." "There, 
 there ! " cries out the lady ; " I told you Mrs. Piozzi 
 would know it at once." 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Sunday, 26th November, 1815. 
 
 WE all remembered you at the Lutwyches last 
 Thursday, where the galanterie of the master of the 
 house was quite the prettiest thing presented on the 
 occasion. With one dying marigold these lines : 
 
 " The gift of him whose heart can't vary, 
 How paradoxical ! Behold ! 
 Having no gold to give my Mary, 
 I here present this marygold," 
 
 They received my fleurs and fleurettes very obligingly, 
 and shewed my worked fly, finely mounted as a fire- 
 screen. Well ! all that is politeness, is it not ? a strong 
 polish, over which everything glides and rolls and 
 appears to make no impression, but if you look closely 
 you will discern afterwards a lasting stain. Time's 
 daughters (the days of the year) like the daughters of 
 man, are deceitful; while young and in their papa's 
 house, they flatter and promise the pleasures of next 
 July to one confiding lover, a prize in the lottery to 
 another : but see them come out, wrinkled and rough- 
 ened with what each of them calls unforeseen vexations ; 
 their votaries turn away, not as they should do, to 
 mansions beyond their control ; but looking back, make 
 love to a younger sister, and trust another day. 
 
 Yesterday did better ; Mrs. Holroyd's party : we were 
 a choice set indeed. But she had unluckily asked 
 talkers to play the part of hearers, while Mrs. Lysons
 
 LETTERS. 133 
 
 sung, and Mrs. Twiss * read. So one said the selection 
 of songs was a dull one ; another thought it was foolish 
 to be listening to " Macbeth " in a room, when we had 
 so lately seen i-t represented with every additional assist- 
 ance on a stage. I persuaded her to take up Milton, 
 and try what could be done with the second book ; her 
 sister read the fourth book, I remember, at Doctor 
 Whalley's, about five or six years ago, and Sir William 
 Weller Pepys made this impromptu while she was 
 speaking, repeating it the moment she had done : 
 
 " When Siddons reads from Milton's page, 
 
 Then sound and sense unite ; 
 Her varying tones our hearts engage 
 
 With exquisite delight : 
 So well those varying tones accord 
 
 With his seraphic strain ; 
 We hear, we feel, in every word, 
 
 His angels speak again." 
 
 A "' To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 1st December, 1815. 
 
 THE customary season of good wishes; which, like 
 your Spanish oranges, are in warm hearts a fruit of 
 every season, dear Sir James Fellowes has anticipated, 
 in expressing a kind hope that my next year may prove 
 more happy than the last. Recollect meanwhile that 
 
 * The wife of Francis Twiss, (author of the " Complete Verbal 
 Index to Shakspeare,") and mother of the late Horace Twiss. She 
 was the sister of Mrs. Siddons, and very like her. She read 
 beautifully, as I well remember, having been domesticated with 
 the family as a private pupil of Mr. Twiss for two years. 
 
 K 3
 
 134 LETTEKS. 
 
 my last year began with making your acquaintance, and 
 I hope ends with having gained your friendship. Will 
 a good house in Gay Street (should I ever live to enjoy 
 it) mark 1816 as agreeably? I say not. Accounts 
 from Streatham Park, however, are neither good nor 
 bad. The place is a mere drag upon my mind, a drain 
 upon my purse ; and no Marquis of Staffordjret appears, 
 nor do I feel as if anything were likely to be done 
 there, good or bad. 
 
 The best joke going here, and most like your hors de 
 combat, was made on the bustle with which Mr. Parish 
 presented Princess Talleyrand to a large company at his 
 house; where some wag observed that the lady had 
 gone through many adventures, and now was come to 
 the parish. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Now eighteen hundred and fifteen 
 Will quickly write herself has been. 
 For tho' success was never seen 
 Brilliant as ours in bright fifteen ; 
 Old Time will rear his lofty skreen, 
 To part us from the year fifteen. 
 If, then, this frail though nice machine 
 Can last till death of dear fifteen, 
 Let those few hours that lie between 
 Throw no disgrace on past fifteen ! 
 Free from reproaches, coarse or keen, 
 Be sung the dirge of dead fifteen !
 
 LETTERS. 135 
 
 While peace extends her olive green 
 O'er the pale wounds of poor fifteen. 
 Nor let th' enticing air and mien, 
 The promis'd freshness of sixteen, 
 Lead us to tempt, howe'er serene, 
 Eternity ! Offended queen. 
 
 Vineyards, Wednesday Night, 
 
 6 December, 1815. 
 
 I HAVE been dining with your dear family, as happily 
 as we could dine without our kind absentee. I think 
 you will find the effects of your father's fine Malaga in 
 
 the above impromptu from 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 For mercy's sake burn this stuff; it seems strange 
 even to myself, after tea. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, Monday Evening, 
 
 11 December, 1815. 
 
 VERY ill pleased with myself for sending such an 
 empty scrap when my heart was full, but it was because 
 your servant waited at the door for it ; and very ill 
 disposed to delight in your determination upon the 
 choice of life, as Doctor Johnson calls it in his "Kasselas." 
 I sit down now to write you as long a letter as I like, 
 and fairly send it to the post. My dear Sir James Fel- 
 lowes confesses that I have spoiled him for the frivolous 
 conversation of beaux and belles ; if I say all I think,, 
 I shall disgust you from the project of practising medi- 
 
 K 4
 
 136 LETTERS. 
 
 cine in a thronged metropolis, where those that employ 
 a physician pretend not to know how far his skill is 
 worthy of confidence, and those that reject him, have 
 no means of guessing wherein lies his deficience ; who 
 choose a doctor, as girls choose a husband, because some 
 other head, as empty as their own, was casually filled 
 with a fancy, that of his being fashionable. Is there 
 any other rudder used in present life but the mode ? 
 Is there any other book read but " Khoda?" * And is 
 not that admired because it shows every body what they 
 like best ? their own faces in the' glass. I beg par- 
 don, your brother's little work is well spoken of by every 
 body ; but Walter Scott has certainly fallen in the 
 plains of Waterloo : I was always half afraid that Arctic 
 Phoebus would set in a fog. 
 
 We had a pretty evening at the Lutwyches, where 
 I repeated your pretty speech and spoiled it from 
 complete nervousness, the word best calculated to dis- 
 guise ill-humour : and which induced a strangling or 
 choking at the dinner table, which politeness, how- 
 ever, smoothed down so well that nobody was aware 
 on't, but your dear sister, who called aloud for water. 
 Shall I put it in the " Biographical Memoires " that 
 both my husbands lived and died in the persuasion 
 that I should expire suddenly, or by accident? It is 
 true that they did think so, and that I think so too. Let 
 it serve as one among many inducements to live in a 
 
 * " Rhoda " a novel, in four volumes, published by Colburn. 
 Her remark on it resembles one made by Madame de Se'vigne' on 
 the play of Les Visionnaires.
 
 LETTERS. 137 
 
 state of preparation. Well ! if I die to-morrow, Gril- 
 lowes' people have now had 1700?. of the 23801. which 
 their bill came to : and Leak says we may cut the bill 
 down to 2070?. if we could pay it quick, and save the 
 interest : so I sent him 200?. now of the January divi- 
 dends, and must owe him 170?. instead of owing them 
 380?. I don't like the arrangement, though an advan- 
 tageous one ; but I like nothing else better, as in the 
 case of your London practice ; apropos to which I will 
 add one good thing : you will see women to more ad- 
 vantage than in a ball room ; attentive to a sick parent, 
 brother, or sister, and you will say : 
 
 " Oh woman ! in our hours of ease 
 Capricious, coy, and hard to please ; 
 When grief and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 Those are Walter Scott's lines, and very pretty sure. 
 While you accept my criticism, and quote my " Sy- 
 nonymes," I will not complain (though but just three 
 years behind your father) of the taedium vitae. By 
 the way, I am engaged to dine at the dear Vineyards on 
 the 14th of February, and you are engaged to be at the 
 Lutwyches on the 15th of this December. 
 
 I met your mamma in the street, and said, " Well ! 
 Ma'am ! Sir James Fellowes has not forgot me 
 though among so many charmers." " Forgot you ! ! " 
 replied Mrs. Fellowes, " I would not give a pin for him 
 if he forgot you" So you see I have a friend at court. 
 
 Poor old Dr. Harrington is going, and I now wish 
 him gone. When the bright visions painted by the
 
 138 LETTERS. 
 
 pencil of youth, or those no less dear to us formed by 
 the firmer hand of maturity, on the canvass of human 
 understanding, grow dull, and dirty, and dingey, like 
 those landschapes of Titian done when he was ninety 
 years old, 'tis more kind to let them drop quietly in 
 pieces, than sew them coarsely together, and bid for 
 them as a rarety. I wish he would pack up and be 
 gone. 
 
 Dr. Holland helped to lower my spirits too : all my 
 Venetian friends killed or beggared by this vile revolu- 
 tion. How melancholy ! 
 
 So Farewell ! and for a short time, dear Sir : come 
 soon and chase the gathering clouds away. 
 
 " Mon premier est le premier de son espece, 
 Mon second n'eut un premier jamais : 
 Mon tout, je n'aime guere le vous dire." 
 
 H. L. P. 
 But adieu ! 
 
 Dr. Myddelton had been troubled with cramps and 
 spasms, but shook them off, and used the slipper bath. 
 When in it one evening he cried, " Oh, my head," and 
 died without another word or groan. 
 
 "Nil mini rescribas, attamen ipse veni." 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 5 November, 1815. 
 
 I SEND my dear Sir James Fellowes the " Synonymes " 
 that he may finish with the best thing I ever wrote ; I 
 send likewise my defence of his favourite "Retrospec- 
 tion:" they were very civil to the Synonymy, and there
 
 LETTERS. 139 
 
 was a fine eulogium on the string of words, calling 
 over the meaning of crush, overwhelm, ruin, in the first 
 volume. I have marked very few passages, but hope 
 you will like many. 
 
 I have no other way of showing the regard with 
 which I shall for ever remain, 
 
 Your obliged friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 How kind you are and how partial ! and what an un- 
 speakable loss shall I have when you enter on a London 
 life and London practice. Dr. Holland, who writes 
 about the Ionian Islands, is going to London to practise, 
 and exchange the Cyclades for the sick ladies; he has 
 been a lyon here for three whole days. I caught the 
 Queue du Lion, and passed one evening in his company, 
 but a whole menagerie would make me no compensation 
 for exchange of sentiment in friendly converse. Oh ! 
 do make haste to Bath, and let me lament my fate to 
 you personally. Is that being grateful to Heaven, 
 though, when one year's valuable friendship has been 
 granted, at a time when so few years can be expected 
 
 by poor 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI, 
 
 " Let us leave the best example that we can." I 
 have, however, much to say to you about the Bio- 
 graphical Memoires, which are really in some degree of 
 forwardness. 
 
 Adieu ! Groing to dine with the Lutwyches, Sunday, 
 10th December, 1815.
 
 140 LETTERS. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 
 13th December, 1815. 
 
 MY dear Doctor Thackeray's kind partiality followed 
 me so long and so far upon my journey through life, 
 I think he has enough left even now not to be weary- 
 ing of hearing how I do, and what I do in a situation 
 very new to me indeed, but rendered supportable by 
 the countenance and conversation of pleasant friends 
 and agreeable acquaintance. The accounts I hear from 
 Wales, too, make me very happy and thankful, and 
 convince me that my tenderness was bestowed on 
 worthy creatures who seem to make themselves much 
 beloved in their neighbourhood. Oh how that neigh- 
 bourhood is changed ! Oh how many sighs shall I 
 have to leave on every house as I pass it, if it should 
 please Grod that I can come down next July, unen- 
 cumbered by debts and no longer haunted by vexations 
 which have tormented me for two long years ! But you 
 are country gentleman enough to know that a high 
 paling round a park of two miles extent, besides front- 
 ing a large house made by my exertions as if wholly 
 new *, -and then furnishing it in modern style su- 
 premely elegant, though I thought not costly, cannot 
 be done but by enormous expense, and, in fact, sur- 
 veyors, carpenters, and cabinet makers, have driven 
 poor Hester Lynch Piozzi into a little Bath lodging, 
 where Miss Letitia Barnston found her, two rooms and 
 
 * She is speaking of Streatham.
 
 LETTERS. 141 
 
 two maids her whole establishment; a drawing of 
 Brynbella, and by the fair hand of Mrs. Salusbury, her 
 greatest ornament. 
 
 Meanwhile our town, like yours, takes turn for the 
 fine dancers or fine actors when they have a week to 
 spare ; and as for private talent, there never were so 
 many young people so skilled in music as now. I 
 heard a child of ten years old, perform on the forte 
 piano last week like a professor. The winter seems as 
 if it would be a long one, it began early, and many old 
 people sink under the rapid changes. Doctor Har- 
 rington, however, kept his eighty-ninth birthday a 
 while ago, and listened with delight to his charming 
 compositions. The last catch and glee are said to be 
 the best he ever produced, and sure he lives a proof 
 that air and exercise are not the preservatives of life 
 which we account them, as he always visited his 
 patients in a chair half a century ago, as he now visits 
 his acquaintance, and always with his mouchoir at his 
 face to keep away every breath of wind ; when walking 
 in the abbey with his son-in-law last summer, " Come," 
 said he, " let us choose a spot for my old bones," and 
 recollecting himself suddenly 
 
 " These ancient walls, with many a mouldering bust, 
 But show how well Bath waters lay the dust." 
 
 If you have not heard that impromptu before, you will 
 like it. Adieu, dear Sir ! and make my best regards 
 to Mrs. Thackeray, with love to the lasses who were 
 nice babies. Do you remember Selina, she would be 
 Mrs. Piozzi herself ? Now write me a kind word, do,
 
 142 LETTERS. 
 
 and say you will be glad to see me next July, but how 
 unlikely is there should there be anything left of your 
 
 poor 
 
 HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR,- - Come to Laura Chapel next Sunday, 
 and listen to my favourite preacher, when he winds up 
 the whole year. 'Tis a hackneyed theme, but from 
 him I cannot help expecting somewhat new, at least 
 somewhat particularly impressive. My desire of your 
 happiness must end in steril good wishes, handed down 
 from generation to generation, dirtied and tarnished by 
 too much wear and tear. Is not it melancholy to have 
 fresh feelings, and none but worn-out words to express 
 them in ? 
 
 To experience every sentiment of the truest and most 
 disinterested friendship, and to say only that I am, 
 dear Sir, your most obliged servant, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Bath, 30th December, 1815. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 6th January, 1816. 
 
 GOOSEY LINTON is a good goosey, and deserves apple 
 sauce when apples are dearest. I see no mistakes at 
 all, and if you find any, I will rectify them. 
 
 The Travel Book and the anecdotes there will show 
 you perplexities of a new and untoward nature; for
 
 LETTERS. 143 
 
 though I had witnessed much theological talk, contro- 
 versy was wholly strange to me; and now dear Sir 
 James Fellowes will see, as he has often felt, what a 
 wretched thing the happiest human life would be, were 
 this all : but who, without pain's advice would e'er be 
 good ; and who, without death but would be good in 
 vain ? The old undertaker's motto, "Mors janua vitse," 
 is after all our best consolation. 
 
 That every comfort may attend your staying hither 
 and your going hence, after mil anos y mas, is the 
 unceasing wish of your much obliged, &c., 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 My jour de naissance is coming round in a few days, 
 now ; and as Pope says, 
 
 " With added years of life brings nothing new, 
 But like a sieve lets every blessing through : 
 Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er; 
 And all we gain, some sad reflection more. 
 Is this a birthday ! 'tis, alas, too clear 
 "Tis but the funeral of the former year." 
 
 Yet will I not (like Dr. Johnson) quarrel with my 
 birthday. To have been born into this world is our 
 only claim for some sort of place in a better ; and surely 
 to have gained attention and friendship from Doctor 
 Collier in my early days, the hour of female attention 
 being scarce arrived, and from Sir James Fellowes in my 
 latter scenes, when that bright hour was over, might 
 well compensate for those long, busy, intermediate acts, 
 even of a more tragic drama than I was engaged in, 
 through a fatiguing past indeed ; sometimes very sweetly
 
 144 LETTERS. 
 
 supported, many times very cruelly thwarted, by my 
 companions on the same stage ; and now, if all is to be 
 
 soon over, Valete et plaudite. 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Here is a dreadful storm ; the sea runs very high, no 
 doubt. I could not get out to-day. 
 
 Ask the young ladies if they can describe to you the 
 colour of the wind; if they can tell you the tint of 
 the storm ! 
 
 'Tis an enigma. Adieu. 
 
 11 January, 1816. 
 
 (Jour de Naissance, 27th January.) 
 
 Tuesday night, 16th January, 1816. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes will like a long inde- 
 pendent letter about a thousand other people and things. 
 When I am one of the family cluster we can think only 
 of you. Yet poor old Dr. Harrington must be thought 
 of; he will be seen no more. Was it not pretty and af- 
 fecting that they played his fine sacred music so lately, 
 and by dint of loud and reiterated applause called him 
 forward as he was retiring, to thank him for their enter- 
 tainment ? He returned, bowed ; went home, sickened, 
 and ! This was a classical conclusion of his life 
 
 indeed ; like the characters at the end of Terence's plays, 
 who cry Valete omnes et plaudite I But I would wish a 
 less public exit, and say Vale ! to my nearest friend, 
 Voi altri applaudite to the rest. 
 
 Apropos, did you ever read Spencer's long string of 
 verses, every stanza ending with Wife, Children, and
 
 LETTERS. 145 
 
 Friends ? I can neither find nor recollect them rightly ; 
 but too well does my then hurt mind retain my answer 
 to a lady (one of the Burneys) who quoted a line 
 expressive of contempt for general admiration, going 
 on to this passage, which I do remember : 
 
 " Away with the laurel, o'er me wave the willow, 
 Set up by the hand of wife, children, and friends." 
 
 My reply was " No ; for," said I, 
 
 " Should love domestic plant the tree, 
 
 Hope still would be defeated ; 
 Children and friends would crowd to see 
 The neighbouring cattle eat it. 
 
 " Deciduous plants will lose their leaves 
 
 With winter's provocation ; 
 And ev'ry sigh that sorrow heaves 
 Will sap the slight foundation. 
 
 " Till in a sea of follies tost, 
 
 Foes to each fine emotion ; 
 Our drooping willow 's driven and lost 
 On Life's tempestuous ocean. 
 
 " While true to time-worn worth, we view 
 
 The verdant laurel rising ; 
 Firm-fixed, and of unchangeful hue, 
 Each wintry blush despising. 
 
 YOL. II. L
 
 146 LETTERS. 
 
 " Around the late-reposing head 
 This faithful foliage hovers ; 
 Points out the merits of the dead, 
 And many a failing covers. 
 
 " And should the berries e'er invite 
 
 Some envious nibbling neighbour, 
 A blister'd tongue succeeds the bite, 
 And best repays their labour." 
 
 Did you believe I could ever have expressed myself 
 with so much bitterness ? but if people will break the 
 heart even of an apricot, sweetest and most insipid of 
 all fruits, the kernel will yield a harsh flavour. 
 
 Poor Doctor Harrington, like myself, has found the 
 kindness that sweetened his existence always from with- 
 out doors, never from within. 
 
 My cough is no longer a bad one, but the hoarseness 
 does not go off ; and when I tried to tell old stories last 
 night to amuse, I found the voice very odious ; so 
 Sir James Fellowes is best off now, that has me 
 for a correspondent. Don't you remember, in some 
 of my stuff, how Johnson sayd if he was married to 
 Lady Cotton, he would live a hundred miles away from 
 her, and make her write to him. " Once a week," 
 added he, " I could bear a letter from the creature, but 
 it is the poorest talker, sure, that ever opened lips." 
 
 Well, if you asked the pretty girls to tell you the 
 colour of the wind, and explain to you the tint of the 
 storm, they would say the storm rose, I imagine, and
 
 LETTERS. 147 
 
 the wind blew. We used to spell the colour so in very 
 old days. 
 
 Meanwhile, the geological maps of what is to be 
 discerned under ground, are fine things certainly ; but 
 I feel so completely expectant of going to make strata 
 myself, that the science does not much allure me, al- 
 though I am deeply concerned in it at seventy-five 
 years old. Dear me ! 'tis a silly thing to try to extract 
 sunbeams from cucumbers, like Swift's projector in 
 " Gulliver's Travels." 
 
 Princess Charlotte has at length made her choice, it 
 seems, of Le Prince de Saxe-Coburg, a handsome man, 
 and she thinks so. Without that power of making 
 impression, beauty in either sex is a complete nihility ; 
 find me a better word, and that shall be turned out by 
 her who wishes to keep the best in every sense for you. 
 
 Your faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 17 January, 1816. 
 
 I TOLD dear Sir James that his next letter should cost 
 him nothing, and sure nothing can equal the event it 
 tells. But Sevigne's pen alone could describe it ; could 
 excite your wonder so, and produce no disappointment. 
 
 A lady, then, well-born, well-looking too, my near 
 neighbour, marries a gentleman, an officer, a general 
 officer. Where, say you, is the wonder ? She is thirty- 
 six years old. She marries General Doukin, senior ; his 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LETTERS. 
 
 military cloak and old cocked hat have won her. 
 Needs any man despair ? He called her in to dinner 
 the very day his wife, thirty years younger than he, 
 was carried out a corpse. She told her son and daugh- 
 ters that it would be so, and so it will be. The bride- 
 groom in his ninety-first year. 
 
 Miss Wroughton is arrived. She says her mother is 
 ninety-seven years old. I bid her be careful of les es- 
 pouseurs, and told her of General Doukin. She says 
 her mother has the full use of her understanding, and 
 is of course out of any such danger. 
 
 Among all the afflictions which vex our human frame, 
 the most dreadful (says Dr. Johnson) is the uncertain 
 continuance of reason. 
 
 Grod preserve yours unclouded and serene for at least 
 half a century more. As no man ever employed it to 
 more benignant purposes, so no man ever merited longer 
 possession of felicity ; great as can be wished to her 
 best friend in her best moments by your faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Doctor Harrington kept his wits to the last minute, 
 and laughed when they told him the story I have told 
 you. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Sunday, 21 Jan. 1816. 
 
 MR. GREENFIELD preached a very fine Oraisonfunebre 
 upon poor old Harrington to-day, and used my very 
 expressions ; was not it odd enough ! Not odd at all,
 
 LETTERS. 149 
 
 say you, that Mrs. Piozzi should like his compositions, 
 if that is the case. 
 
 But I have something less pleasant bills following 
 me from - . Small shot, indeed, but mortifying in 
 the extreme. I told your ... I was like some 
 famous boxer that was knocked down by a farthing 
 candle artfully slung at his head, while yet bleeding 
 and bruised to death almost, from a victory newly won. 
 Dr. Goldsmith, whose feet "every path of vulgarity 
 trod," told us once of an ale-house wager. A man betted 
 that he would produce a person who should perform 
 this operation on some well-known hero of the fist ; who, 
 not being apprised of the frolic, and panting for breath 
 and refreshment, felt this sudden hit upon his temporal 
 artery, and dropped down, demolished by a farthing 
 candle. * 
 
 Now do not you believe me sensible to my own 
 anxieties, careless of yours. I hope you know me 
 better ; but a moment's variety will contribute to amuse 
 your mind and repay you some of the pleasure no, 
 not pleasure ; how can this stuff give any but a mo- 
 mentary recollection that you have a friend, and that 
 
 that friend is 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 25 January, 1816. 
 
 I HAVE suffered much from nervous irritation, but 
 your kind father is so good to me. I did not tell him 
 
 * This story of Goldsmith's is mentioned by Boswell. 
 
 L3
 
 150 LETTERS. 
 
 that I apprehended aphthae, but the lady who was afraid 
 of her own hearth-rug could not be more fanciful than 
 I have been. 
 
 " Strong and more strong her terrors rose, 
 
 Her shadow did the nymph appal ; 
 She trembled at her own long nose, 
 It looked so long against the wall. 
 
 Now for what the newspaper calls miscellaneous 
 articles. Your father bids me drink the Bath water, 
 and I did do so yesterday, and was more alive than . . . 
 and I tried the Bishop of Salisbury's party last night, 
 but made a poor figure, so hoarse. A mute Piozzi 
 is a miserable thing indeed, but health will mend. 
 
 The bishop is very agreeable ; and though he is a 
 nobleman now and a courtier, remembers old times and 
 old jokes, and how he and I sat down together on 
 a dirty bench in St. Mark's Place, Venice, to hear a 
 Dominican friar, while harlequin jumped about un- 
 heeded on the other side of the square. 
 
 Your .... must see the new book, though the best 
 thing in it is telling how the foreigner comes to an inn 
 at Dover, and finding a member of the Bang-up Club 
 loitering about the yard, cries, " Here, Ostler, hold my 
 horse." " Know your road work better, you . . . ." 
 replies the other, and challenges him. Escaped from 
 this misery, he meets a lady going to a party, her head 
 heaped in the fashionable way with flowers. " Sell me 
 some roses, pretty dear ! " cries the new-arrived foreigner, 
 laying hold of them. " Insulting fellow ! " cries the girl ; 
 I'll have you punished for an assault." A passer-by re-
 
 LETTERS. 151 
 
 lieves him from this difficulty, and they strike up a friend- 
 ship and go together to the inn. " Pray, Sir, who have I 
 the honour to be so much obliged to ? " says the stranger. 
 " I, Sir, am captain of the band of pensioners." The 
 Spaniard looks in his English dictionary (Johnson's) 
 for so hard a word ; and finds Pensioner, a man hired 
 for the destruction of his country. " Oh ! for pity leave 
 me directly," cries he ; "I am in company with a chief 
 of banditti. What will become of me ? Gret out of my 
 apartments." 
 
 Well ! now I will have done with all this buffooning 
 
 nonsense, and with the truest regard, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Saturday, 3 February, 1816. 
 
 I HAVE some very curious things at Streatham, more 
 curious than you think for ; one pair of frightful old 
 Etruscan jars, for example, given me by a monsignore, 
 Ennio Visconte, a Milanese nobleman then resident at 
 Rome, and a first-rate connoisseur. 
 
 " These," said I, " are indeed antiques." " Antiques ! " 
 replies the man ; " why they were antiques when in 
 Cicero's cabinet. Antiques ! why they were antiques in 
 Eomulus's time; they are coeval with the Babylonish 
 captivity." With proper blushes I accepted them, and 
 there they are. 
 
 I have a pair of old blue and white porcelain bottles, 
 too, which were brought into my family by an old Sa- 
 
 L 4 v
 
 152 LETTERS. 
 
 lusbury in the year 1400 ; and my grandmother, used 
 to frighten my father from improper matches, by 
 holding them in her hand, and protesting she would 
 break them ; " for," said she, " they came by the 
 Eed Sea before the passage round the Cape of Good 
 Hope was discovered, and do you think they shall ever 
 be possessed by Miss Such-a-one ? " When, however, she 
 learned that he had united himself with his cousin 
 Cotton of Combermere's daughter, she said : " Well, 
 then, now I will kiss my old bottles, and keep them for 
 John's eldest child." They are yet in her possession, 
 1816. 
 
 To-morrow I shall break quarantine, go to church 
 (in a chair), and give Grod thanks for all his mercies. 
 Your ever obliged and grateful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 29 February, 1816. 
 
 SUCH a kind letter as your dear father put in my 
 hand this day, and I, bankrupt even in acknowledg- 
 ment, can only curtsey and say, Thank you, Sir. In 
 return for your confidence, however, I shall tell you a 
 secret; and that is, that I am engaged to dine at No. 13 
 on Tuesday next, 5th March, and your mamma says 
 we are to drink sweet wine, I suppose till we see 
 double. 
 
 My heart has been so bruised of late ; it did promise 
 me to think all of the next world and no more of this ;
 
 LETTERS. 153 
 
 but Doctor Halley said, you know, that in the centre 
 of this globe there was a great spherical magnet pulling 
 and attracting us down to earth ; from which pieces, 
 which he calls Terrellse, broken off from the grand 
 loadstone but partaking its powers, are scattered up 
 and down in order to hold us fast. Your happiness is 
 one of these Terrellse to me, and I wish to remain here 
 till I see it completed, for which reason not a word will 
 I utter about provocations, only to say they had nothing 
 to do with the small shot. 
 
 My next letter from dear Sir James will be dated 
 Streatham Park. Thus will he 
 
 " Ope the hospitable gate, 
 Ope for friendship, not for state. 
 Friends well chosen enter there, 
 Confidence and truth sincere ; 
 Love, in mutual faith secure, 
 Transport generous and pure ; 
 Sparkling from the soul within, 
 Never boasted, always seen." 
 
 Is it not a shame to fancy you have time to read 
 a letter? yet vanity, that vile passion, says you will 
 read it. 
 
 And now let me finish with the most serious and 
 solemn wishes for every possible happiness to you and 
 yourself, and yourself's half. I like the expression, 'tis 
 sincere and new ; new I suppose because it is sincere. 
 So God bless you, my dear and highly-valued friend. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 154 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 1 March, 1816. 
 
 ON St. Taffy's day does 's little Welsh friend 
 
 renew her wishes of happiness. The th ought of its being 
 so near, and the delightful certainty of your going to 
 my house at Streatham Park to be happy, puts me 
 
 in the best good-humour possible. And since 
 
 has written again without insolence or peevishness, I 
 have contented myself, in reply to his inquiries after 
 my health, with saying that my cough is gone, and that 
 I hope he is recovered from his nettle-spring rash, 
 which seems to burst out annually, as I had an odd 
 letter from him in the same style ten or twelve months 
 ago. 
 
 We are raving mad here about the property tax. 
 Will it be abolished or no ? 
 
 General Doukin is married and Mrs. Wroughton dead, 
 characters well known in Bath. They are nearly of an 
 age, but the lady's is the more prudent step, sure, after 
 ninety. 
 
 Did Leak show you the bason I was baptized in so 
 many years ago ? it is in the china closet next the 
 drawing-room door, with a bit of dirty paper in it which 
 Mr. Piozzi made me write, I think but am not sure, 
 lest it should be confounded with the other things. 
 
 Did you never go to Hampton Palace, Hampton 
 Court I mean, and see a poor, half-starved, snuffy-nosed 
 old woman showing the now nearly empty rooms, and 
 saying in a shrill though sleepy tone : " And here's
 
 LETTERS. 155 
 
 Prince George of Denmark over the chimney." Then, 
 with a sigh : " Over the chimney Prince George of 
 Denmark," hoping her task near over. 
 
 Now don't you be thinking of her when I show my 
 little show, as Mrs. Siddons was caught recollecting 
 some of my silly jokes, and burst out o' laughing in the 
 most mournful part of Aspasia's character, to the amuse- 
 ment of Kemble and annoyance of all the actors at 
 rehearsal. 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, and burn this nonsense, for the sake 
 
 of your faithful, obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Give my truest regards to your brother, and tell the 
 lady you love best, how sincerely I am disposed to love 
 her ; and write to me from Streatham Park. Oh ! that 
 is the letter I long for. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 IS April, 1814 
 
 MY home for fifty years will I hope procure me, by 
 disposing of it, a temporary residence for the remainder 
 of my short term ; and what more ought to be wished 
 by one who will soon take up a narrower space ? I am 
 glad Squib * is so sanguine. Did you see real Squib, 
 the father ? he is a very good-looking man. 
 
 There is an old story of Balbus f, when QuaBstor at 
 
 * The well known auctioneer of Saville Row. 
 f The anecdote is recorded in a letter to Cicero from Apicius 
 Pollio.
 
 156 LETTERS. 
 
 Seville, throwing an auctioneer to the lyons in his me- 
 nagerie, because a female friend who was selling up her 
 possessions complained to him, that the auctioneer was 
 so ugly and deformed, he frighted all buyers away. 
 Our people will lose no bidders by that fault ; but is it 
 not odd that the world, with all its fluctuations, should 
 have undergone so little change ? Always vexations, 
 disappointments, and inadequate anger for what can 
 hardly be helped, though the mode of expressing that 
 anger is altered by the different situations of society. 
 
 Always a friend or two perhaps in the world like Sir 
 J F ; always luckless ladies enough, like your 
 
 faithful, obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Here is the 9th of May ; and now if S J 
 
 F renews his kind invitation very pressingly, I 
 
 will have the honour to wait on him and his lady in 
 the Whitsun Week, having a mind to break up, as 
 children say, for the holy days, and run to see the Water- 
 loo Bridge, the Western Exchange, and other London 
 wonders ; then return, shut my front windows, and pro- 
 test myself (with the strictest truth) in the country. 
 
 Hope, says Lord Bacon, is a good breakfast, but a bad 
 supper ; and with regard to this life, he is right ; no 
 other supper would sit easy, however, during the long 
 night of the grave. 
 
 Do you feel interested in Southey's or Canning's 
 Attack and Defence ? I am pleased to see them turn 
 with so much vigour on their enemies.
 
 LETTERS. 157 
 
 The prettiest new book, however, is " Chalmers on 
 Modern Astronomy," which he reconciles to Scripture in 
 a manner he seems to fancy unexampled, but it is not 
 so. The work is worth reading, nevertheless, and I 
 have a notion you would like it. 
 
 Let me hear that you are very busy. Business for 
 men of leisure, and leisure for men of business, in due 
 proportions I mean, would really add to mortals' happi- 
 ness here below more than mortal man can imagine. 
 
 Adieu ; and believe me, yours most faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Wednesday, 22 May, 1816. 
 
 MY dear Sir James has broken the Mum at last ; and 
 I will now tell him how we are hesitating between a 
 convenient house on the Queen's Parade, or pretty No. 8, 
 Gay Street, which is particularly inconvenient for the 
 servants below stairs. Either of them ought to con- 
 tent me well enough after how I have been living a 
 common expression, but infamous bad English. 
 
 Apropos, Charles Kemble has been here acting ; and 
 in some part of a comedy written by Murphy, said, 
 " We are like Cymon and Iphigenia in Dryden's Fables." 
 The ladies stared, but the scholars said he was right ; 
 and I said it were better be wrong than so pedantic, for 
 'tis always called Iphigenia in common use. Mr. 
 Lutwyche held with the wise men, and he, you know, is 
 a good prosodist. I quoted Pope's " Homer," 9th book, 
 
 11 Laodice and Iphigenia fair, 
 And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair."
 
 158 LETTERS. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Mangin, " Pope is no firm authority ; 
 he calls the wife of Pluto Proserpine, as in colloquial 
 chat, when writing his fine ode on St. Cecilia's Day. But 
 old Milton disdained such barbarism ; he calls her Pro- 
 serpina, as in the Greek." We all appealed to Falconer ; 
 dear Sir J - was too far away. I know not the 
 success of our appeal yet. 
 
 Well ! here are fine apple blossoms, pink and white, 
 as any lady can make herself, and here is peace, too, 
 and I think plenty. 
 
 When we were all looking at the fireworks in 1748 
 from temporary buildings, fragile enough I suppose, 
 Dr. Barton merrily exclaimed, " Do you call this a good 
 peace, which brings so many heads to the scaffold ? " 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, and believe me ever, yours faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 In reference to the intended sale of Streatham, my 
 health will be better when the whole business is decided. 
 At present I have neither taste nor smell ; and as Prior 
 
 says, 
 
 " No man would ask for my opinion 
 Between an oyster and an onion " (pronounce inion). 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, Saturday Night, 3rd August, 1816. 
 
 I AM so glad to leave this town, with the agreeable 
 
 taste of what was most agreeable to me in it, that I 
 
 shall never have done thanking you, dear Sir, for your 
 
 very kind letter, and shall direct this straight forward
 
 LETTERS. 159 
 
 to Adbury House. After church to-morrow the chaise 
 runs us to Eodborough, another two days more will 
 finish the journey, and I shall see Salusbury's babies. 
 
 The lady in the straw. Query, why do we say lying- 
 in-women are in the straw ? I think it was originally 
 an allusion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had no 
 other accommodation. 
 
 Lady F is very obliging, she will like Ofrims- 
 
 thorpe so much ; I am glad you are going, and shall be 
 most glad when you return. I pass some happy days 
 together in Gray Street : the plate is already on the door 
 with my name, and you will say, " I see she has bra- 
 soned it." * The old ebony chairs from Streatham Park 
 will meet you in the entry, and it will make the house 
 look like home, and if you advise me to, so I will 
 make it my home, buying the lease and furniture. If 
 I really should return from Wales, bright and brisk, and 
 if (to speak in earnest) it should please (rod that I 
 should, Oh how many shoulds! live this longest of 
 all long years through, and like to begin another in 
 the same place, why then I will purchase the whole 
 concern. Nor will Salusbury have reason to regret, as 
 1000Z. may be better by that time in stone than in stock, 
 &c. 
 
 * " Until to some conspicuous square they pass, 
 
 And blason on the door their names in brass." Don Juan. 
 
 When Lord Stowell married and set up house with the Marchioness 
 of Sligo, the brass plate with his name was placed under the brass 
 plate with hers. " So," said Jekyll, " I find you are already 
 obliged to knock under. " Lord Stowell reversed the position of 
 the plates. "Now," said Jekyll, "you are knocked up."
 
 160 LETTERS. 
 
 S is the wise man I always thought him, and 
 
 forbearing to make one among the shoal of self-im- 
 pelled fish, that rush to the opposite shore, they know 
 not why, is a new proof of it. 
 
 Madame D'Arblaye, cydevant my dear friend Miss 
 Burney, says there are 50,000 English at Paris now. 
 Suppose on an average each spent only a guinea a- 
 week, what a sum is quitting the country for a year ? 
 and they will not stay a shorter time if economy is 
 their point 2,600,OOOZ, 50,000 millions (an't it) and 
 600,OOOZ. 
 
 Should not some stop be put to the folly ? And we 
 the while making subscriptions which they avoid, and 
 you feeding the poor whom they neglect ! 
 
 How I shall delight in seeing Adbury House and en- 
 virons ! and hearing the cottagers blessing my worthy 
 friends. Assure yourself, dear Sir, such blessings are 
 your best purchases. Meanwhile, the workmen must 
 have their share, and what is very odd, one hates them 
 at first, and for a long time indeed ; but I remember 
 Piozzi and I felt a strange vacancy in our minds, when 
 they were all gone. 'Tis so in everything. We had an 
 oak tree in a little island no bigger than itself, and sur- 
 rounded with water, which an oak tree abhors. We 
 dried the pond up, and the tree pined away. 
 
 But here comes Miss Williams, loaded with presents 
 for me to carry to her family; and not another word 
 can I say, and not another moment have I to say it in.
 
 LETTERS. 161 
 
 To Miss Fellowes. 
 
 THIS letter to dear Miss F., begun at Blake's Hotel, 
 London, will be ended at Streatham Park. Your bro- 
 ther, and the kind General (Grarston), have called, and 
 will meet me at the old house. I hope he will be 
 there to receive . me, or how shall I present myself to 
 the lady ? 
 
 London looks very dull, very dull indeed ; I augur 
 ill of the times, and feel glad to be going where love 
 and happiness attend me. Saturday I saw one of my 
 daughters, who rejected all connexion with the place 
 for herself and Co. ; and now every true friend I have 
 
 in the world, dear Sir J first in command, must 
 
 and do approve of my putting everything to open sale. 
 I have surely suffered enough, and you and your good 
 father know I have suffered within less than what people 
 call, an inch of one's life. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Streatham Park, 2 April. 
 
 WELL ! I have presented myself, and the lady (who is 
 much nearer to a very pretty woman than I expected) 
 received me with great kindness. Lady Abdy and Miss 
 Abdy are here and charming. 
 
 We dine with them next Thursday, when Sir 
 
 goes to the Drawing Room, and we return here at night, 
 and leave them Saturday morning, to dine with business 
 people at London. 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 162 LETTERS. 
 
 The men are here making catalogues, and calling out 
 
 for my dear Miss 's ever faithful, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 This note was written in King Street, 6th Jan. 1816, 10 P.M. 
 
 THANKS, a thousand and a thousand more, my dear 
 Sir. Your kindness is without limitation, and your pity 
 very soothing to a mind, which once could fly so high, 
 but wounded as it has been, flutters now and beats the 
 ground, when trying to rise up and (like Floretta's gold- 
 finch) to sing in circles round your head, as gratitude 
 
 demands from your incessantly obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 Buenos noches, 
 Felicissima notte, 
 Bon soir, 
 Grute nacht, 
 Grood night, 
 Vale. 
 
 On her return from London she thus writes : 
 
 To Sir James Fdlowes. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 10 April, 1816. 
 
 MY dear S and Lady will like to hear that 
 
 I got safe through the thunder and lightning on Sun- 
 day evening by taking shelter at Salt Hill, from whence 
 I ran hither, over a road watered as if by a water-cart, 
 the next day, and arrived at my smoky hut on Monday 
 night, eighty-eight miles in twelve hours.
 
 LETTERS. 163 
 
 I found Lady Keith's card on my table at Blake's 
 Hotel on Saturday night, and returned the visit on 
 Sunday, leaving the kindest letter I knew how to write. 
 I did more, I left orders with Leak and Squibb, to take 
 their money if they offered, but if they did not offer, 
 to hurry on the sale of the pictures at Streatham, and 
 put me out of pain as soon as possible. 
 
 This morning I went into a public auction here in 
 Milsom Street, and saw sold a varnished-up performance 
 of Peter Neef, for thirty-four guineas ; this gave me 
 spirits, so did the story of these Bank restrictions, 
 which they say will operate immediately in making 
 money plenty. 
 
 I am a miserable financier, but you will understand 
 me, as Miss Streatfield's maid said I should, when 
 she asked me to lend her lady Milk and Asparagus 
 Lost. I did immediately comprehend her meanings 
 and sent her the " Milton's Paradise Lost" you saw in 
 Streatham Park Library. Perhaps my Bank restric- 
 tions may be as awkwardly worded. 
 
 Adieu ! this vile paper tears my worn out pens, and 
 my worn out patience quite to pieces, or I would send 
 
 inure, though kinder I could not send. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 30 May, 1816. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, .... I will be careful about 
 sea bathing. Dr. Gibbes bid me beware of the re-ac- 
 tion, but what can one do towards keeping such thing 
 
 M 2
 
 164 LETTERS. 
 
 at a distance ? Cowper says, you know, and truly and 
 
 sweetly : 
 
 " Fate steals along with silent tread, 
 Most dangerous when least we dread ; 
 Frowns in the storm with angry brow, 
 But in the sunshine strikes the blow." 
 
 Now, don't you believe me low spirited ; few people ever 
 had such uniformly good spirits. Did I tell you I had 
 saved Murphy* from the general wreck ? and that Mr. 
 Watson Taylor wrote after me to beg him for 1571. 10s. ; 
 but I am no longer poor, and when I was, there 
 ought surely to be some difference made between 
 
 fidelity and unkindness. When B s (Burneys) were 
 
 treacherous and Baretti boisterous against poor un- 
 offending H. L. P., dear Murphy was faithful found, 
 among the faithless faithful only he : 
 
 " He, like his muse, no mean retreating made, 
 But follow'd faithful to the silent shade." 
 
 Equally attached to both my husbands, he lived with us 
 till he could in a manner live no longer ; and his por- 
 trait is now on the easel, with that of Mr. Thrale, 
 coming to Bath; my mother, whom both of them 
 adored, keeping them company. 
 
 Let us, however, bid you farewell, assuring you how 
 much I am, yours, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 * Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted for the library at 
 Streatham.
 
 LETTERS. 165 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Tuesday, 9 July, 1816. 
 
 NOT yet forgotten by dear Sir James Fellowes, his 
 old friend hastens to inform him that she does mend, 
 slowly, and heavily; but yet she feels climbing up, 
 rather than sliding down, the hill. 
 
 So Sheridan is going, and Mrs. Jordan gone : in want 
 both of them, though perhaps not actually of want 
 either of them : shocking enough ! and Mary Mayhew 
 dying, and Miss Katherine Griffith dead. Equo pede 
 pulsat the old enemy Death: 
 
 Le Pauvre en sa cabane ou le chaume le couvre 
 
 Est sujet a ses Loix : 
 Et la garde qui veille a la porte du Louvre, 
 
 N'en defend pas nos Hois. 
 
 The Misses here are all reading " Glenarvon," * "a 
 monstrous tale of things impossible," at least one hopes 
 so. I have finished it at last, though not comprehended 
 it : and can only say with King Lear : 
 
 " An ounce of civet, good Apothecary, 
 To sweeten my imagination." 
 
 Your dear father and mother, meanwhile, are happier 
 than the very poets could dream for them ; if Miss 
 would but get quite well ; I think this world has no 
 more to give them. You, dear Sir, must present them 
 my truest regards, and accept every good wish from 
 
 yours ever, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 * A novel by Lady Caroline Lamb; the two principal characters 
 were supposed to be intended for Lord Byron and herself. 
 
 >l 3
 
 ICG LETTERS. 
 
 I feel sorry the Parliament is broken up ; for, laugh 
 as one may, in that House does reside the united wis- 
 dom of the nation. " Wisdom," says Solomon, " crieth 
 in the streets, but no man heareth." I think in London 
 streets the horn blowers and the flowers in blow con- 
 trive to drown his voice. 
 
 To Miss Fellou'es. 
 
 Bath, 18 July, 1810. 
 
 YOUR letter, dear Miss Fellowes, came to my hand 
 late last night. I do not, this morning, believe this the 
 last day of our foolish and wicked world, but I think it 
 the worst day I ever saw at this season of the year. 
 All are uneasy about the'ruin it is causing, and though 
 nothing impels English people into church but a famous 
 preacher, many feel alarm at the effect this extraordi- 
 nary weather will have on the hay and corn.* Mean- 
 while our friends here at pretty T i would be happy 
 
 but for the necessity of fires in July, and the oddity 
 of living enveloped with cold mist, unable to enjoy 
 their beautiful spot, or see fifty yards from it. 
 
 Death still holds a court for himself here in New 
 King Street ; whence poor old Colonel Erving will be 
 carried to Walcot in a day or two : I shook hands with 
 him on Monday morning, and passed him in a chair, 
 going out. On Wednesday morning, much earlier than 
 that hour, he was a corpse ; without any previous illness, 
 
 * On the 18th July, 1860, the weather and its apprehended 
 consequences were the same.
 
 LETTERS. 167 
 
 except mere old age. Dr. Fellowes remembers him in 
 America. 
 
 Have you read " Glenarvon," and its key ? I hope 
 some newer fooling has taken up the Londoners' atten- 
 tion by now. We Bath folks are content to admire 
 Lady Loudon and Moira's beautiful Asiatic, not having 
 Lady H 's atheist to stare at * ; but any thing will 
 do. But I am detaining you with questions concerning 
 people and things, by this time wholly forgotten among 
 your folks. 
 
 Distance between friends produces that certain vexa- 
 tion : one talks to them on worn-out subjects always, 
 and that is the grand cause of letters being generally 
 insipid, unless they tell of one's health : and I think 
 yours and mine have been long absent from their 
 owners ; yours only mislaid I hope ; but lost, and of no' 
 value to those who find it, is the once very strong and 
 active constitution of your truly faithful and obliged 
 
 friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 22 July, 1810. 
 
 HERE'S terrifying weather indeed. Such a thunder- 
 storm on the 18th as I have seldom seen in England. 
 B. J 's observed the fire ball in the street, and 
 
 * The late Mr. Allen, who lived with Lord and Lady Holland 
 as a member of the family, was called Lady Holland's pet 
 atheist. 
 
 M 4
 
 163 LETTERS. 
 
 report soon told us the frightful effects left behind it at 
 poor Windsor's here in James Street. You must re- 
 member to have copper, not iron, bell wires ; nothing 
 else saved the lives of those pretty children : I live to 
 the fields you know, and escaped all the wonders, nor 
 could quite believe till Mrs. Windsor shewed me her 
 floor, burned in places, her wall pushed in, and her 
 plate-warmer in the kitchen perforated very curiously 
 indeed ; and all this on a cold rainy day. 
 
 Worse storms tear the atmosphere to pieces in Italy 
 every summer evening, yet I never but once heard of 
 any life lost or endangered: but then they have no 
 newspapers, so much may happen without one's hearing 
 of it. 
 
 Miss W s showed me a letter from Lady e 
 
 that says, M - M w is getting quite well, by 
 
 taking the juice of red nettles ! ! I never heard of red 
 nettles before ; and make no doubt but a few pebble- 
 stones boyled in milk, would be just as efficacious. But 
 Hope is drawn with an anchor always, and common 
 sense is never strong enough to weigh it up. 
 
 The mischief is, we seldom drop or cast it in the 
 proper harbour ; it would then keep steady, and deserve 
 the name the Komans gave it, anchora sacra .... 
 I shall probably not live to see you in the happy char- 
 acter of father ; but remember my words, or rather 
 those of old Archbishop Leighton ; when speaking of 
 education, he said, "Fill you the bushel with good 
 wheat yourself; because then fools and foes will have 
 less room to cram in chaff."
 
 LETTERS. 169 
 
 Nothing better has ever been said upon the subject. 
 Adieu ! you well know how to get more such stuff when 
 you wish it, from dear Sir, your old and faithful friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 18 September, 181G. 
 . . . . The best scraps I could pick up, you will 
 read over leaf. They were written in imitation of the 
 Greek verses by Metrodorus, or Posidippus (which was 
 it ?) for " Life against Life." I read them long ago, 
 translated in the " Adventurer ;" but cannot recollect 
 what number they are in, besides that I possess not the 
 book. 
 
 FOR LONDON. 
 
 Can we through London streets be led 
 Without rejoycing as we tread? 
 The city's wealth our eye surveys, 
 The court attracts our lighter gaze ; 
 Whilst charity her arm extends, 
 And sick and poor find host of friends. 
 Wit sparkles round our rosy wine, 
 And beauty boasts her charms divine : 
 Musick prolongs our festive nights, 
 And morning calls to fresh delights ; 
 A London residence then give, 
 For here alone I seem to live.
 
 170 LETTERS. 
 
 AGAINST LONDON. 
 
 Can London streets by man be trod 
 Without repenting on the road ? 
 Where nobles, whelmed in shame or debt, 
 And bankrupts swell each sad gazette ; 
 All licensed death our frame attacks, 
 And to his aid calls hosts of quacks ; 
 False smiles on beauty's face appear, 
 And wit evaporates in a sneer. 
 Dangers impede our days' delights, 
 And vermin vex our sleepless nights ; 
 From London, then, let's quickly fly 
 In rural shades to live or die. 
 
 After a good dose of London, and then A y, I 
 
 think you will read these verses con amore. 
 
 Yours, dear Sir, ever, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 25 September, 1810. 
 THE promptness with which I answer dear Sir J 
 
 F is the surest proof of my rejoicing in his 
 
 letters We had a delightful day at F , 
 
 where Mr. H F and I had no little talk upon 
 
 the subject you recommended to my consideration, and 
 which is surely now the most interesting of all subjects. 
 My private opinion is, that the person who leads the 
 Hebrews on, against their old oppressor, the Sultan, is 
 one of the false, the Pseudo Christs, against whom our
 
 LETTERS. 1 7 1 
 
 Lord warns his disciples ; first, in the 24th chapter of 
 St. Matthew, 4th and 5tb verses ; then in the same 
 chapter, 23rd and 24th verses. The first of these im- 
 postors arose very soon after Christ's Ascension, Barcho- 
 chebas by name, and he vomited fire, and led astray 
 multitudes. Dositheus was another ; I think " Ketro- 
 spection " mentions one or two, and we had Joanna 
 Southcote within these two or three years in England. 
 She seems to have been one of those mentioned in the 
 26th verse of the same chapter, saying, " Behold he is 
 in the secret chambers," but, says our Saviour, "Go not 
 forth." The same injunctions are repeated in St. Mark, 
 the 13th chapter, 6th verse ; and the 8th chapter of St. 
 Luke gives a similar prohibition. This person, however, 
 may be the great Antichrist, or Antechrist, though I do 
 not believe it. The Protestants, you know, have attri- 
 buted that character uniformly to the Papal Power ; but 
 Romanists, following the opinion of Father Malvenda, 
 a Spanish Fryar, who flourished in 1600, and was an 
 admirable Hebraist, believe that Antichrist is to be a 
 Jew, of the tribe of Dan, that he will reign three years 
 and a half, and shew many miracles. When Jacob pro- 
 nounced his prophetic blessing on his sons, he says, 
 " Dan shall be a serpent in the way," and a dragon was 
 always painted on their standard. Jeremiah says, " the 
 armies of Dan shall devour the earth ;" and when St. 
 John, in his Apocalypse, saw the angel sealing the 
 twelve tribes of Israel, 'tis observable that Dan is 
 omitted. Conjectures concerning Antichrist arc, how- 
 ever, quite innumerable. There is a folio volume In
 
 172 LETTERS. 
 
 our Bodleian Library at Oxford, written to assert that 
 Oliver Cromwell was the person, and Mr. Faber, you 
 know, said it was Buonaparte, or gave us reason to 
 believe he thought so. St. Paul's description of him in 
 his 2nd chapter of his 2nd epistle to the Thessalonians 
 as preceding the general judgment, does always appear 
 to me as if designed to pourtray one single man, who- 
 ever he may be ; but Bishop Newton and all cool ex- 
 positors seem to think the Papacy was intended ; and 
 your brother, as an orthodox Protestant divine, is of 
 that opinion. 
 
 Meanwhile it does strike all reflecting people, that 
 great changes are about to take place ; things advance 
 with a velocity best compared to the rapidity of a wheel 
 down hill, increasing at every step. I own myself con- 
 vinced of the approach of 
 
 11 That great day for which all days were made ; 
 Great day of dread, decision and despair, 
 When nature struggling in the pangs of death 
 hows God in tenois arid the skies on fire." 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 Whether this catastrophe is to happen forty or fifty 
 years hence, is, however, of no consequence to me as an 
 individual. My last day must come long before. 
 
 The nonsense verses for and against London were 
 written when I was very sick of it, so the last were 
 best of course. You must read Gray's " Connections 
 between Sacred Writ and Classic Literature ;" it is a 
 very fine performance and much admired. 
 
 Yours while 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS 173 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 30 September, 1816. 
 
 . IN January 1817 such, will be my fortune ; 
 and who in their wits, circumstanced as I am, can wish 
 for more ? Your dear mother laughed when I told her 
 I was buying plate, linen, &c. to begin the world with, 
 like a boy just come of age. 
 
 But life is a strange thing, and has been often com- 
 pared to a river. " Labitur et labetur," &c. 
 
 Leave the lofty glacier's side, 
 Leave the mountain's solemn pride : 
 Down some gently sloping hill 
 Let's pursue this silent rill, 
 Noiseless as it seems to flow, 
 Wrapt in some poetic dream : 
 Watch the windings of the stream. 
 In such varied currents twisting, 
 Still escaping, still existing : 
 Let us find life's emblem here : 
 Haste away ! The lake is near. 
 
 "Wales inspired these verses, which, of course, Sir 
 
 J F never saw : but he can make life valuable 
 
 as delightful. God keep the lake far distant from liitn 
 for a thousand sakes 
 
 Dr. Robert Gray, who wrote the new book that every 
 one is reading, wrote the lines under our sun-dial at 
 Brymbella :
 
 174 LETTERS. 
 
 " Umbra tegit lapsas, praesentique imminet horse ; 
 Dum lux, dum lucis semita virtus agat. : ' 
 
 " Ere yet the threat'ning shade o'erspread the hour, 
 Hasten, bright Virtue, and assert thy power." 
 
 The well known George Henry Grlasae* said there was 
 a fault in the prosody, and wished to correct it, as thus : 
 
 * Tte Rev. George Henry Glasse, author of several volumes 
 of sermons, and some translations from the learned languages. 
 Amongst Mrs. Piozzi's papers, were found notes of the fol- 
 lowing anecdotes concerning him. On Miss Blaquieres bidding 
 him write some verses for her, he said, " he had nothing to write 
 upon." "Then," replied the lady, " write upon nothing" he im- 
 mediately obeyed : 
 
 " And wilt thou, Nymph, compel my lays, 
 And force me sing thy rival's praise ? 
 Why, then, in this thing let's agree, 
 That I love no thing more than thee." 
 
 On passing through a turnpike gate to officiate at a neighbouring 
 parish, he claimed exemption from paying the toll ; the turnpike- 
 man, who was intoxicated, insisted upon payment, making use 
 of abusive language and swearing many oaths ; upon which Mr. 
 Glasse paid the toll demanded, saying at the same time that he 
 should have it returned or the man should be fined for every oath he 
 had sworn ; this Glasse carried into effect. Shortly afterwards he 
 received a letter from the turnpike-man, fining him for not reading 
 the swearing list once a quarter in the Church, agreeably to the 
 Act of Parliament then in force. 
 
 His life terminated strangely and lamentably. He had been to 
 the city to raise a sum of money to pay his debts, or (some say) to 
 enable him to escape from his creditors to the Continent. On his 
 return in a hackney-coach, he left his pocket-book containing the 
 money in banknotes on the seat, and on discovering his loss, com- 
 mitted suicide. The day following, the pocket-book with its contents
 
 LETTERS. 175 
 
 " Umbra tegit lapsam, pisesentique imminet horse 
 Hospes, disce ex me vivere, disce mori." 
 
 " Ere yet the unreturning shadows fly, 
 Gro mortals ; learn to live, and learn to die." 
 
 Tell me which you prefer ; I like the English of the 
 last best, myself; but the first, of course, remains round 
 the little marble pillar set up by Mr. Piozzi, and very 
 much admired for its elegance. Oh ! what a beautiful 
 house and place it is ! Salusbury did make me the 
 compliment of not cutting down a weeping willow we 
 planted, because I had made verses on it. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 7 October, 1816. 
 
 I HAVE got no new books to read ; Mr. Whalley re- 
 commended me some verses, a long poem indeed, but 
 to me very unintelligible. Modern writers resemble the 
 cuttle-fish that hides himself from all pursuers in his 
 own ink. That is not Doctor Grray's case, however : I 
 think you will like his performance exceedingly. The 
 weather is as gloomy as November, and the poor gleaners 
 can get no corn out of the stubble ; it rots and grows, 
 and threatens ruin both to small and great. 
 
 was brought by the driver to the hotel at which he had stopped. 
 Neptune Smith was more fortunate. lie flung himself into the 
 sea after casting up his betting book, from a conviction that the 
 balance was against him ; was fished out, found that he had cast 
 up his book wrong, and lived many years to exult in his nickname.
 
 176 LETTERS. 
 
 Miss Hudson says a famine will bring us to our 
 senses : I say it will deprive us of the little wits we 
 have left. The delirium proceeding from hunger will 
 have fatal consequences, because vulgar minds will feel 
 sure that 'tis somebody's fault, and woe to the mortal 
 they pitch upon. 
 
 Send a consoling word, dear Sir, for my fancy sees 
 very bad visions. The world always does see most to 
 endure, when most blind, says old Fuller: perhaps that 
 is now the case with yours faithfully and gratefully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 11 October, 1816. 
 
 IN adversity, in prosperity, ever dear and kind friend, 
 my Wraxall opens well. What signifies knowledge 
 locked up, either in man or book ? I think if Lady 
 Keith has a fault besides her disregard of poor H. L. P., 
 that is hers. 
 
 Oh ! here is a new book come out, that I know not 
 how she will like, or how the public will like. Do you 
 remember my telling you, that in the year 1813, when 
 I was in London upon Salusbury's business, before his 
 marriage some months, a Mr. White sent to tell me, 
 through Doctor Myddleton, that he possessed a manu- 
 script of Johnson's, and wished me to ascertain that 
 the handwriting was his own. I invited both gentle- 
 men to dinner, we were at Blake's Hotel, and Dr. 
 Gray, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, met them, and 
 I saw that the MSS. was genuine. It was a diary
 
 LETTERS. 177 
 
 of the little journey that Mr. Thrale, and Mr. John- 
 son (such he was then), and Miss Thrale and myself 
 made into North Wales, in the year 1774. There 
 was nothing in it of consequence, that I saw, except a 
 pretty parallel * between Hawkestone, the country seat 
 of Sir Eichard Hill, and Ham, the country seat of Mr. 
 Port, in Derbyshire. But the gentleman who possessed 
 it, seemed shy of letting me read the whole, and did 
 not, as it appeared, like being asked how it came into 
 his hands, but repeatedly observed he would print it 
 only it was not sufficiently bulky for publication. He 
 said he could swell it out, &c. 
 
 We parted, however, and met no more ; but when I 
 came first into New King Street, here, Nov. 1814, a 
 poor widow woman, a Mrs. Parker, offering me seven- 
 teen genuine letters of Doctor Johnson, which I could 
 by no means think of purchasing for myself, in my 
 then present circumstances: I recommended her to 
 apply to Mr. White, and she came again in three weeks' 
 time, better dressed, and thanked me for the twenty- 
 five guineas he had given her ; from which hour I saw 
 her no more, nor ever heard of or from Mr. White 
 again. 
 
 Since you and I parted at Streatham Park, however, 
 a Mr. Duppa has written me many letters, chiefly in- 
 quiring after my family ; what relationship I have to 
 Lord Combermere, to Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, &c., 
 
 * This (< pretty parallel " is what I had in my mind when 
 speaking of Johnson's notice of Lord Kilmorey's place, Vol. I. 
 p. 78. 
 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 LETTERS. 
 
 n d comically enough asking who my aunt was, and if 
 she was such a fool as Doctor Johnson described her. 
 I replied she was my aunt only by marriage, though 
 related to my mother's brother, who she did marry; 
 that she was a Miss Cotton, heiress of Etwall and 
 Belleport, in Derbyshire. Her youngest sister was 
 Countess of Ferrers, and none of them particularly 
 bright, I believe, but as I expressed it, Johnson was 
 a good despiser. 
 
 So now here is Johnson's Diary, printed and pub- 
 lished with a facsimile of his handwriting. If Mr. 
 Duppa does not send me one, 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. 
 
 I am sadly afraid of Lady K.'s being displeased, and 
 fancying I promoted this publication. Could I have 
 caught her for a quarter-of-an-hour, I should have 
 proved my innocence, and might have shown her Dup- 
 pa's letter ; but she left neither note, card, nor message, 
 and when my servant ran to all the inns in chase of her, 
 he learned that she had left the White Hart at twelve 
 o'clock. Vexatious ! but it can't be helped. 
 
 I hope the pretty little girl my people saw with her, 
 will pay her more tender attention.
 
 LETTERS. 179 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 October 14, 1816. 
 
 YOUR brother Dorset has lent me Bubb Dodington's 
 Diary, and I have done nothing but read it ever since. 
 'Tis a retrospection of my young days, very amusing 
 certainly, but anecdote is all the rage, and John- 
 son's Diary is selling rapidly, though the contents are 
 bien maigre, I must confess. Apropos, Mr. Duppa has 
 sent me the book, and I perceive has politely suppressed 
 some sarcastic expressions about my family, the Cottons, 
 whom we visited at Combermere, and at Lleweney. I 
 was the last of the Salusburys, so they escaped. But I 
 remember his saying once, " It would be no loss if all 
 your relations were spitted like larks, and roasted for 
 the lap dog's supper." 
 
 It would certainly have been no loss to me, as they 
 have behaved themselves ; but one hates to see them 
 insulted. 
 
 This letter is written in the dark, you will hardly be 
 able to read it, but if words are wanting, supply the 
 chasm with the kindest. They will have best chance to 
 express the unalterable sentiments of 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Your brother Dorset and I disagree only in our opi- 
 nions concerning Buonaparte, of whom he thinks much 
 higher than I do ; although as Balzac says of the Eo- 
 mans : 
 
 " Le ciel benissoit toutes leurs fautes, 
 Le ciel couronnoit toutes leurs folies." 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LETTERS. 
 
 We must, however, watch the end ; for, till a man 
 dies, we can neither pronounce him very great or very 
 happy ; 30 said at least one of the sages of antiquity. 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Fryday, 1 Nov. 1816. 
 
 WHEN my heart first made election of Sir J. Fellowes, 
 not only as a present but as a future friend, I felt 
 rather than knew, that he would never forget or forsake 
 me. Everything I see and hear confirms my saucy 
 prejudice. 
 
 Such a Sunday evening I passed in Marlborough 
 Buildings *, where I used to meet friends, so beloved, 
 companions so cheerful, sent me home to Bessy Jones f 
 with a half-breaking heart ; and in every vein Johnson's 
 well-founded horror of the last. 
 
 The family left Bath next day, for Paris, where they 
 have taken a house for a year ! Poor Boisgeler is dead, 
 you know. One could not care in earnest for Boisge- 
 ler, but at my age, 'tis like losing the milestones in the 
 last stage of a long journey. 
 
 We shall, however, both of us, have a cruel loss in 
 the Lutwyches. How happy, how elegant is the epi- 
 taph on poor Mary. Beautiful, though not too shewy ; 
 just as it should be. I am afraid to trust myself with 
 translating or even praising it. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 * At the house of the Lutwyches. 
 t Her maidr
 
 LETTERS. 181 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Nov. 29, 1816. 
 
 ANOTHER letter you shall have, dear Sir, and that 
 directly. 
 
 Cobbett has been galvanizing the multitude finely, I 
 am told, in his last paper. " Be scum no longer," says 
 he, " be no longer called scum, I say." Did I ever tell 
 you a story of which this reminds me, concerning the 
 blind Lord North's father, old Gruildford ; who delighted 
 in affecting coarse expressions, and used to say to his 
 friends when he met them, " Oh, such a one, how does 
 the pot boil ? ' Some democrat, who probably disliked 
 the rough address, when Wilkes and liberty set Lon- 
 don maddening, called to Lord Guildford across a 
 circle of ladies round the tea-table, and cried exultingly, 
 " Well my good lord, how does the pot boil now ? " 
 
 "Troth, Sir," replied the peer, without hesitation, 
 "just as you gentlemen would wish it to do, scum 
 uppermost." 
 
 I am so afraid this tale is not new to you, any more 
 than baptizing the bells. We have two in England, 
 you know, that were christened Thomas. The Oxford 
 one I forget all account of ; but when the devil was sat 
 up to look over Lincoln Cathedral, the wise folk found 
 baptizing the bell was an efficacious method of sending 
 him off. Some of their conclave, however, being in- 
 credulous, " Let us," said they, " baptize the bell by 
 name .of the doubting apostle, and that will do," so he 
 is Tom o' Lincoln. 
 
 N 3
 
 ] 82 LETTERS. 
 
 I fancy the phenomenon you allude to at Valencia, 
 where they are, I trust, not much improved in philo- 
 sophy, was a real meteor. The atmosphere is loaded 
 with vapour, certainly, in a way not wholly natural ; 
 and has been all the summer, if summer it may be 
 called. Adieu! 
 
 This letter has been written all by scraps and 
 snatches ; people coming in without ceasing, and steal- 
 ing the wits from my head, the pen from my fingers, 
 every moment. Let it at least do its duty in present- 
 ing my best regards and compliments to 's accept- 
 ance. 
 
 Paper therefore fly with speed, 
 
 Let thy friend make haste to read, 
 To be read, is all thy meed, 
 
 Hark ! the bell is ringing ! 
 
 Can such stuff come from any creature but 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 27 Dec. 1816. 
 
 THANK you, my dear Sir, for the kind wishes that I 
 restore you from my heart a hundred fold. 
 
 It was odd enough, and pretty enough, that the hap- 
 piest day of the year should have been the finest ; but 
 indeed I never saw such a 25th of December, and what 
 blowing weather followed ! But we must expect it now 
 to be slippy, drippy, nippy ; after which, showery, 
 bowery, flowery ; then hoppy, croppy, poppy ; oh ! and 
 autumn wheezy, sneezy, freezy ; as good, sure, as Fabre
 
 LETTERS. 183 
 
 d'Eglan tine's Mvose, Pluviose, Ventose, &c. I wonder 
 if any of that nonsense will be remembered ! 
 
 There is a good French joke now at Paris, concerning 
 the King's illness ; for say the Jacobins, 
 
 " Si Louis s'en allait, 
 Charles dix paraitrait." 
 
 Meaning that 
 
 " Charles tfts-parai trait." 
 
 'Tis well they are so merrily disposed. 
 
 Mrs. Lutwyche writes in capital spirits, but your own 
 dear father's heart is as light as a Frenchman's, though 
 solid like John Bull. We had a world of chat to-day 
 when he brought me your letter about Lord and Lady 
 Mount Edgecombe, being parted like Mr. Sullen and 
 his wife in the comedy ; east, west, north, south ; far as 
 the Poles asunder. They have been married just nine 
 months. She wedded twice before, and now they cry, 
 " terque quaterque beati ! " I suppose. 
 
 Mrs. Dimond offers me a place in her box to-night, 
 whence will be seen Massinger's horrible " Sir Giles 
 Overreach," played by Mr. Kean. If he can stretch 
 that hideous character as he does others, quite beyond 
 all the authors meant or wished, it will shock us too 
 much for endurance, though in these days people do 
 require mustard to everything. Actors, preachers, who- 
 ever keeps within the bounds of decency, may not we 
 add patriots ? are all censured for tameness, and con- 
 sidered as cold-hearted animals, scarce worthy to crawl 
 on the earth. 
 
 N 4
 
 184 LETTERS. 
 
 Meanwhile, the thoughts of your Ad bury establish- 
 ment charm me, and I feel sure that my dear friend 
 will never fall into tfiis new and fatal whimsey, of fat- 
 ting beasts, while men are wanting food. It is a sense- 
 less thing to see calves, and sheep, crammed till they 
 cannot walk, but are driven into the town for show, in 
 their carriage, like Daniel Lambert in his easy chair, 
 when the mutton and veal so managed is not eatable, 
 and the very fat useless to tallow-chandlers for want of 
 solidity. I really wonder nobody takes the matter up 
 as seriously censurable.* 
 
 We are subscribing here at a great rate, to imitate 
 the Londoners. I told Hammersley, that the donation 
 of 50,0001. to 50,000 poor, put me in mind of Merlin, 
 the German mechanick, who, when people were terrify- 
 ing each other about the invasion, some five and thirty 
 years ago, proposed to let them come, and then meet 
 them with a guinea each, and beg of them to go home 
 never reflecting, till heartily laughed at, that they 
 would come again next week for another guinea a- 
 piece. Surely these are senseless methods of preserving 
 tranquillity.f The people want nothing but employment 
 
 * It was remarked by Lord Macaulay that prize oxen were 
 only fit to make candles, and prize poems to light them. 
 
 t They are not much unlike what were proposed by sundry 
 opponents of the Volunteer Movement at its commencement. 
 Some years ago, during a popular rising in Yorkshire, a well- 
 known banker wrote to the Home Office, that if the malcontents 
 did not receive a cheque (meaning check) he would not answer 
 for the consequences. The obvious answer was, that he was the 
 best man to apply the proposed remedy.
 
 LETTERS. 185 
 
 and pay, and then they will love the hand that helps 
 them, while feeding them by subscription leaves them 
 not a whit obliged, but in some sort, and scarce un- 
 justly, offended ; while the donors are impoverishing 
 themselves. 
 
 Well ! all this you know better than I do, but Doc- 
 tor Fellowes charged me to give you some tydings of 
 my own health, because I confessed to him that I had 
 been taking dear No. 1, and he probably thought that 
 if the sails would not turn with a common wind, it was 
 a proof somewhat was the matter with the mill ; but 
 with all my comforts it would be graceless to complain. 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir ; may your next year be happy ! all 
 spring, showery, bowery, flowery. I really do believe 
 it will be the happiest year of your life, it will make 
 of the most dutyful and affectionate son upon earth, 
 the wisest and- tenderest father. Do not, however, for- 
 get, that in 1815, you promised long and faithful friend- 
 ship to her who knows the value of all your good 
 qualities, and who will be, while life lasts, perhaps still 
 longer, your sincere, as obliged, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, 4th January, 1817. 
 
 'Tis well for me, dear Sir, that my letters meet so 
 kindly partial a reader ; for I have a notion they often 
 repeat themselves. Doctor Johnson, and men less wise 
 than he, say we forget everything but what passes in 
 our own mind. Those ideas are among the most fleeting 
 of mine.
 
 186 - LETTERS. 
 
 That I had not seen the great actor (Kean) in Sir Giles 
 Overreach when last writing to Adbury, is however per- 
 fect in my remembrance ; he did it very finely indeed. 
 A clear voice and dignified manner are not necessary 
 to the character, and personal beauty would take off too 
 much from one's aversion. I was well entertained, and 
 caught no cold at all. 
 
 My New Year's Day party went off to everybody's 
 satisfaction. Next morning brought verses with " Attic 
 wit " and " graceful Piozzi " in them, and praises of the 
 music, which I praised myself for enduring. With 
 good manoeuvring, however, I kept them from singing 
 Italian, and everybody was the better pleased ; but I 
 had rather talk of your trees. 
 
 Miss Williams says you must make the children of 
 your cottagers bring in the Hawthorn berries at so 
 much the lapful, and put them in a large tub 
 or pot, and place them in sand, a layer of berries 
 and a layer of sand, to be put out at the proper 
 season. Acorns, too, might be gathered, she says, 
 every autumn, and save you buying dwarfish and 
 ricketty things from imposing nursery and seedsmen. 
 Her care for your pocket is very comical indeed, but 
 those fine plantations at her brother's country seat 
 haunt the poor dear soul's fancy everlastingly ; and she 
 remembers and knows that 51. would have paid the 
 whole cost ; for in old Judge Williams' time there were 
 not, as now, things of every kind to be bought. They 
 planted their own beech mast and fir apples ; and cer- 
 tainly the trees are worth ten times as much to posterity.
 
 LETTERS. 187 
 
 Miller, the great botanist of fifty years ago, told me that 
 an acorn grounded, as he expressed it, on the same day 
 with a seven year's old oak, would be taller and stronger 
 than his competitor in seven years time. I told Mr. 
 Thrale so, but he was in haste to be happy ; and now 
 the trees he bought, younglings, are nothing, as you 
 saw, while Bodylwyddan Woods are quite in a thriving 
 state. 
 
 So here's a wise letter, and that always resembles a 
 dull one ; but let dullness have its due : and remember 
 that if life and conversation are happily compared to a 
 bowl of punch, there must be more water in it than 
 spirit, acid, or sugar. Besides that, I am convinced 'tis 
 variety alone can delight us either in a book or a com- 
 panion.* " Eather than always wit, let none be there," 
 says Cowley, who had himself enough for two people, 
 and I know not why, but my heart feels heavy somehow. 
 
 Dear ! dear ! what a fragile thing life is ! A young 
 man was riding full gallop down this street f yesterday ; 
 and fell down dash at the very spot where Miss Shuttle- 
 worth was killed. He is not dead this morning, poor 
 fellow ! but in a sad way, I fear. This street always 
 was like Virgil's Tartarus, and now 'tis like the high 
 road to it. Coal carts scrattling up the hill often used 
 to make me think 
 
 " Ilinc ex audiri gemitus, et sseva sonaro 
 Verbera ; turn stridor ferri, tractseque catenre." 
 
 * " On lie plait pas longtemps si Ton n'a qu'une sorte d'esprit." 
 -Rochefoucauld. 
 f Gay Street, Bath.
 
 188 LETTERS. 
 
 Well! no matter; our exits and entrances are ap- 
 parently innumerable, and no two alike. Here comes 
 
 Miss W daggled like a duck-shooting spaniel on a 
 
 dirty November day, and catching her very death with 
 
 cold, to tell me that S J F must not put 
 
 the seeds of his pine cones, that I call fir apples, into 
 sand. They must be dried in napkins, &c. &c. 
 
 So now adieu, my dear Sir. I have got a member 
 of parliament by happy fortune to free my nonsense, 
 and cover with his frank my compliments to . 
 
 I asked my servant how your letter was brought me, 
 for it came in the midst of my little bustle on the 1st of 
 January. " Indeed, Ma'am," replied the man, " I can't 
 tell, but it seemed to arrive promiscuously." 
 
 Once more farewell, and believe me ever yours, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Sunday, 4 January, 1817. 
 
 AH ! he was a wise man who said Hope is a good 
 breakfast but a bad dinner. It shall be my supper, 
 however, when all 's said and done, and the epilogue 
 spoken upon poor H. L. P. 
 
 This snow will do infinite service, but I want some- 
 thing to string my spirits up to concert pitch. The 
 parties are going forward through frost and snow, but 
 I come home from them, when I d& go, a little duller 
 than at setting out. One reason is they will sing to
 
 LETTERS. 139 
 
 me, the men will ; and oh ! how much rather would I 
 hear a dog howl ! 
 
 Your friend was very kind, sate and chatted 
 
 with me very good-naturedly, and did not sing. 
 
 Here is a thin quarto book come out concerning Miss 
 McEvoy ; you should see it. The Shropshire boy was 
 not a better deceiver, if the wise men who attest these 
 wonders do indeed give credit to them. For my own 
 part, I think the world is superannuating apace, and I 
 suppose sees double like drunken people, and horses 
 that are going to lose their eye-sight. Such an age of 
 imposture was sure never known. Joanna Southcote, the 
 Fortunate Youth, and Miss McEvoy, all in four years ! 
 
 With stories of the of that put belief out 
 
 of all possibility. Poor Wales, too, a principality with- 
 out a prince, whenever the king dies. 
 
 Mrs. Lutwyche has written from Rome ; says her hus- 
 band can walk now seven miles o' day. They spend their 
 time in seeing sights under the direction of far-famed 
 Cornelia Knight*, and rejoycing in the society of the first 
 society of the first city in Europe never mentioning 
 the famine and distressful state of the inhabitants, 
 which Sir Thomas and Lady Liddel protest is beyond 
 endurance, Capua alone having lost 12,000 human 
 creatures from hunger and consequent disease within 
 the last two years, and this corresponds with Dr. Whal- 
 ley's account of Northern Italy. 
 
 What is one to believe ? Now dispose of my com- 
 pliments, loves, and respects, and Addio ! 
 
 * Author of " Marcus Flaminius " and other works.
 
 190 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fdlowes. 
 
 Bath, 16 January, 1817. 
 
 ON the seventy-sixth anniversary of my life, according 
 to your good father's reckoning, the first thing I do after 
 returning Grod thanks, is to write to dear Sir James. 
 
 Kemble is here, and has called on me ; I was shocked 
 at the alteration in his face and person. Poor fellow ! 
 But the public were, or rather was, very contented, and 
 huzzaed his Coriolanus gallantly. I was glad for twenty 
 reasons ; Brutus and Sicinius being precisely the Hunt 
 and Cobbett of 2000 years ago, it was delightful to hear 
 how they were hissed. 
 
 Our hills exhibit a heavy snow, but it does not lie in 
 this warm town. 
 
 These are days when nothing can be deemed impos- 
 sible. I think the people in Thibet are right for my 
 part, who kneel down when a female baby is born, and 
 pray that she may have a physician for her husband. 
 He would at least keep her from such exploits, as 
 
 Mrs. M , who frighted me so by going out to dinner 
 
 into the country the llth day after delivery ; the very 
 hearing of it half killed me, who was then in Wales. 
 Miss W - walks about this horrid weather with a 
 weight of clothes which would kill any one whose an- 
 cestors had not worn armour, and then strips for the 
 evening party, covered (if covered) only by trinkets just 
 fit for the eldest Miss - . Such is the world, and such 
 are its inhabitants. Do not suffer yourself to be too
 
 LETTERS. 191 
 
 sorry that I am so near out of it. If my setting sun 
 leaves one long red streak behind, to lengthen the twi- 
 light and keep back dark oblivion, shall I not be happy 
 and thankful ? whilst I am recollected as your true and 
 trusty old friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Verses on the 16th of January, 1817, the seventy- 
 sixth anniversary of her life. 
 
 Whilst all on Piozzi's natal day 
 Their tributary offerings pay, 
 
 Of due congratulation ; 
 Let not my faithful muse forget 
 To pay her just, her willing debt, 
 
 Upon the glad occasion. 
 
 Nor, lady ! deem she here presents 
 Those cold unmeaning compliments 
 
 Made only for the ear ; 
 Hers is true tribute of the heart, 
 Expressed, indeed, with little art, 
 
 But honest and sincere. 
 
 Then deign t' accept the votive lay, 
 Incited by this festal day 
 
 We hail with such delight. 
 To friendship sacred, and to song, 
 Let joy the happy hour prolong, 
 
 And stay their rapid flight.
 
 192 LETTERS. 
 
 Nor shall my interested prayer 
 Invoke for you one added year 
 
 Than every way may please ; 
 I wish their number limited 
 To those which come accompanied 
 
 With happiness and ease. 
 
 Yet frequent may the Day return, 
 And distant that which we shall mourn 
 
 Keturns no more for you ; 
 With silent pain the mental eye 
 Pierces thro' deep futurity, 
 
 And turns her from the view. 
 
 At length, by years alone opprest, 
 When summon'd hence to join the blest 
 
 In their celestial sphere ; 
 Resign'd you'll quit us at the last, 
 Viewing without regret the past, 
 
 The future without fear. 
 
 But friendship whispers to the heart, 
 That tho' condemn'd on earth to part 
 
 From those it lov'd before : 
 Its ties unbroken still remain, 
 And former friends shall meet again, 
 
 To separate no more.
 
 LETTERS. 193 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 23 January, 1817. 
 
 DOES ever read novels ? The second and third 
 
 volumes of a strange book, entitled " Tales of my Land- 
 lord " [" Old Mortality "] are very fine in their way. 
 
 People say 'tis like reading Shakespear ! I say 'tis 
 as like Shakespear as a glass of peppermint water is to 
 a bottle of the finest French brandy ; but the third I 
 think it is the third volume, is very impressive for the 
 moment, without spectres or any trick played, except the 
 sensations of Morton when going to be executed, and the 
 gay conversation of Claverhouse immediately following, 
 which is a happy contrast indeed. 
 
 I will, however, detain you no longer than to say 
 not how much, for it would not be said in an hour 
 but how very sincerely I remain, your obliged and faith- 
 ful friend, whilst 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Saturday night, 8 February, 1817. 
 I HAVE disengaged myself from the party this evening 
 was to have been lost in, for the pleasure of thanking 
 dear Sir James for the very friendly letter brought me 
 to-day by his happy father, who was going down the town 
 to sign his name among the honest men who promise to 
 rally round our excellent Constitution. All this looks 
 well, as you say ; but I so hate to recollect the times * 
 when England was divided between factions much re- 
 
 * 1680. See Macaulay'a History, vol. i. p. 256. 
 VOL. II.
 
 194 LETTERS. 
 
 sembling ours, and calling one set petitioners, and the 
 other set abhorrers of the petitions, I suppose. 
 
 France is no happier, no richer than Great Britain ; 
 all Europe is enveloped in these frightful fogs. 
 
 Your friend and I had a very nice conversation about 
 political economy. The people certainly feel offended at 
 seeing one man receive 12,000., another 20,000. o' year 
 in return for no apparent service done ; but I am not 
 sure they are injured at all, unless the possessor carries his 
 wealth and spends it in a foreign country. Were we to 
 roast all the race-horses, and give the corn which feeds 
 them to the poor, making "Hambletonian" into soup, 
 &c., what would become of the grooms and the jockies 
 and their helpers and h^3gers-on ? They would know 
 how to till the ground no better than their masters; and 
 we should have so many more thieves, professed, that are 
 now merely amateurs and dillettanti. Servants out of 
 place are among the worst members of society ; and a 
 gentleman once told me that none of the wretches sent 
 to Botany Bay were so truly untractable as that class. 
 " They can do nothing," said he, " but wait at table 
 where there is no one to sit down at it, or stand behind 
 a carriage and cry Go on with an air, when no lady 
 listens and no carriage can be found, 
 
 " ' "Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, 
 Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea.' " 
 
 Mr. Eobertson has received his money by now. If 
 everybody was really and bona fide to use their fortunes 
 with economy, what would become of his 120 pipes of 
 wine and of his correspondence abroad ? But he hopes 
 to sell some to the sinecurists, I doubt not, while their
 
 LETTERS. 195 
 
 valets and livery servants drink an inferior sort. Ah 
 me ! Government is a long and sometimes a tangled 
 chain, but tearing but one rusty link will rather weaken 
 than brighten it. 
 
 Veniamo ad altro, as Baretti used to say. Boswell 
 and he were both of them treacherous inmates, but 
 their books are very pretty, very interesting, and very 
 well written. 
 
 The best writers are not the best friends, and the 
 last character is more to be valued than the first by 
 contemporaries; after fifty years, indeed, the others 
 carry away all the applause. 
 
 Apropos, Madame D'Arblay is said to be writing a 
 new work ; and the " Pastor's Fireside," by Miss Porter, 
 comes in for a large share of praise, after the " Tales of 
 my Landlord." But my paper comes to an end, my 
 candles burn down to the socket, my fire is gone almost 
 out, and I have not yet said, though I hope you have felt, 
 that everything will diminish before either absence or 
 silence can lessen the regard of your obliged and sincere 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, 5 March, 1817. 
 
 WELL, my dear Sir, Salusbury came to his time, but 
 is obliged to run away so, we have hardly had a moment 
 for necessary chat. I rely on you to tell him what 
 clothes he must wear, what fees he must pay, and to 
 whom. As a prudent mortal, he would willingly have 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LETTERS. 
 
 escaped such costly titles : but I really do not think it 
 right to refuse honours from a sovereign when offered 
 them ; I am not yet so much a modern democrate. 
 " Stick to the crown, though it hang upon a thornbush," 
 was old Sir William Wyndham's precept, and we have 
 heard none better. Mr. Dorset Fellowes is Mr. Salus- 
 bury ready-made friend ; he will kindly in intro- 
 ducing him to you assist, dear Sir, 
 
 Your ever obliged and faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Sunday, March 9th, 1817. 
 
 YOUR melancholy letter, my dear Sir, reminded me 
 of an autograph I once saw of Alexander Pope, saying 
 to Martha Blount: "My poor father died in my arms 
 this morning. If at such a moment I did not forget 
 you ; assure yourself I never can. A. P." 
 
 I felt something like the same consolation as she 
 must have done. 
 
 M is deeply affected . . . loses sleep. I have 
 
 not seen the D P ; everybody makes too sure ; 
 
 we are all such hopers. Get well, and away for 
 
 Adbury, where pleasure, and fair weather, and what is 
 well worth both, agreeable entertainments, await you. 
 
 This season requires attention in you farmers, and 
 the times require attention from you as an English gen- 
 tleman, the character perhaps most to be respected of 
 any that Europe has in it.
 
 LETTERS. 197 
 
 Stocks rise every hour, but let us not for that reason 
 over-hope ourselves; there are heavy clouds hanging 
 about, and every nation has a right to expect storms : 
 we have not yet had our share. 
 
 Farewell, my dear friend, and shew your superiority 
 to disappointment as you have shewn it in a thousand 
 instances to ill-fortune in other forms and shapes 
 acquiring every one's esteem, and the ever unrivalled 
 
 regard and value of your obliged servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Sunday, 20 March, 1817. 
 
 AT present we are close on Passion Week, a period 
 forgotten in town, I believe, where a gay man once asked 
 me whether Christmas Day was always on a Fryday ? 
 " because," said he, " they call it Good Fryday, don't 
 they ? and they neither dance nor play at cards." Such 
 a question could not be asked in Spain or Italy. This 
 
 moment Miss calls for my letter and expresses 
 
 uneasiness about the dear D r. I hope her affection 
 
 magnifies the distress ; but at our age we must break : 
 and if the last tickets do linger in the wheel, why people 
 will give more than their value for them, though often 
 blanks at last. 
 
 These reflexions are forced on me by a visit from poor 
 dear Mr. Chappelow, a friend of thirty years' standing, 
 who comes here to take a last leave of poor 
 
 H. L. P. ! 
 
 o 3
 
 198 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir Jaines Fellowes. 
 
 Begun Sunday, March 20, 1817. 
 
 I WAS going to write you a letter this morning, but 
 
 Miss called, and I sent it away half written. My 
 
 spirits have been much lowered by poor Mr. Chap- 
 pelow's visit, but this is a season for mortification, and 
 a stronger memento mom, saw I never. 
 
 Your dear father has sons and daughters round him, 
 but my wretched old friend, a batchelor ecclesiastic, 
 with nobody to tell him that he is getting superan- 
 nuated, affords indeed a melancholy spectacle. 
 
 Mrs. Broadhead, too, dying in the Crescent *, plump 
 and gay three months ago, now pale and wrinkled like 
 one's white handkerchief after Mrs. Siddons' benefit ; 
 mondo f mondanio ! as Baretti used to say. 
 
 Well ! here's Monday, the first of Passion week, and 
 I do hope the people's hunger for amusement will be 
 suspended here till Easter holidays. 
 
 Pretty little Mrs. GK, . the doctor's wife, must go 
 abroad, or die at home of weakness and atrophy. 
 Parry's colossal form (tenacious of life) permits not his 
 departure, but detains him here, helpless, hopeless, 
 senseless, except to agonising pain ; gout, stone, and 
 palsey, upon one man. Dreadful ! and suspended so 
 (like Mahomet's tomb) between life and death. 
 
 No matter, those whose lives are longest forget what 
 past in their maturer years, remembering best the early 
 
 * This lady is, I believe, living still.
 
 LETTERS. 139 
 
 days of youth. Mr. Chappelow, my superannuated 
 visitant, recollects marrying Doctor Parry when he first 
 took orders. Those whose date is shorter, laugh at the 
 parts that are past. The boy despises the baby ; the 
 man contemns the boy ; a philosopher scorns the man, 
 and a Christian pities them all. When we approach 
 the confines of immortality, however, the best is to 
 look forward ; for retrospection is but a blotted page to 
 wiser and better folks than dear Sir James Fellowes's 
 ever obliged and faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 14 April, 1817. 
 
 I THANK you, my dear Sir, for your kind letter. You 
 are very good-natured to think about my health, who 
 am, as it appears, neither racked with pain, like our 
 poor friend at T., nor panting with an asthma, like the 
 
 dear Doctor, about whom I observe Miss to be 
 
 visibly uneasy, though by no means well herself. 
 
 That we must either outlive those who are most valued 
 by us, or go ourselves, and quit the stage to them, seems 
 hard to remember, though the first lesson that we 
 learn : what we fear to lose rises in value. Distance has 
 such an effect, that even the apprehension produces 
 consequences. " When you were near me," says Pope, 
 " I only thought of you as a good neighbour ; at a hun- 
 dred miles from me, my fancy formed you beautiful ; 
 and now ! (they had crossed the seas remember) you 
 
 o 4
 
 200 LETTERS. 
 
 are a goddess, and your little sister approaching to di- 
 vinity."* 
 
 This was said in sport, but there is truth in most 
 jests. We look on those approaching the banks of a 
 river all must cross, with ten times the interest they 
 excited when dancing in the meadow. Yet let them 
 cross it once, and get fairly out of sight, how soon are 
 they out of mind ! 
 
 My proximity to the river's brink, all overcast with 
 fog, and now and then disturbed by fume and vapour, 
 shews me very imperfectly the schemes and monstrous 
 projects of our time, and shews me them in dispropor- 
 tions too. They are not regularly formed gyants, like 
 Polypheme, but one-eyed as he was ; and weak, although 
 gigantick, from being so badly put together. 
 
 The rise of our friends is unnatural, and " nothing 
 now is, but what is not," according to Macbeth's opi- 
 nion. 
 
 A gentleman far from here, who has large concern 
 in the iron-works of a neighbouring county, called 
 fifteen of his principal people together the other day, 
 and told them he was no longer able to give them 
 piece-work such is the phrase because his rents were 
 so ill-paid ; but he would present them with a pound 
 note each every Monday morning, till they were to 
 resume their old employment, as he wished might soon 
 be the case for all their sakes. God bless your honour, 
 was the immediate reply : with thanks and expressions 
 
 * " 'Tia distance lends enchantment to the view." CAMPBELL.
 
 LETTERS. 201 
 
 of (as he believes) sincere attachment. They said, 
 however, that the bargain could not be formally acceded 
 to, till letters arrived from Manchester, but that they 
 would wait on his honour the following Wednesday, and 
 settle matters. Wednesday came, and so did the fifteen 
 workmen, but with altered countenances. Friends had 
 taught them not to be bamboozled, was their word ; so 
 their employer might keep his money, and they would 
 throw themselves upon the parish. A measure instantly 
 adopted, to the distress of the parish, and triumph of 
 their Manchester acquaintance ! 
 
 So dry a season after a long season of wet, is good 
 for the ground, I dare say ; but we shall be all pulver- 
 ized by and by, if no rain falls. I am already weary 
 on 't, and feel apprehensive lest the haymaking should 
 be hurt by an abundance of what we are now sighing 
 for, &c. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Fryday night, 16 May, 1817. 
 
 WELL, well ! 'tis fine saying We will do this and we 
 will do that when death is so near, saying, " No, you 
 shall not," to us all. Poor Callan the upholsterer, my 
 landlady in Westgate Street, went perfectly well to bed, 
 called up her daughter at 4 o'clock, Mrs. Booth, told 
 her she should die in half an hour, and kept her word 
 to a second. 
 
 The corporation yesterday, all well and merry, marched 
 down the South Parade in some silly procession, I know
 
 202 LETTERS. 
 
 not what, endeavoured to cross the river in the ferry- 
 boat, upset the machine, and sixteen of them were 
 drowned, at noonday, in sight of the walkers up and 
 down. Mr. Marshall, curate of the abbey, 'scaped by 
 miracle, resolving to walk round and meet them, in spite 
 of their entreaties to make one of the frolickers. 
 
 A stranger thing never befell, because the river is so 
 shrunk by our long series of dry weather, I am sure 
 your brother Thomas could cross it on foot ; and you 
 know there is a rope, too, which by some marvellous 
 fatality none of them clung to. 
 
 So there is no need of ice-islands to drown, or of 
 dreadful diseases to kill us, when it pleases Grod to call 
 either the great Alexander, or your little friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Wednesday, 28 May, 1817. 
 
 Miss tells me, dear Sir, that she has room in 
 
 her letter to squeeze in a note from me ; but what is to 
 be said in the note, who can tell ? We talk here of 
 the insurrection at Brazil, or of the girl that drowned 
 herself yesterday morning, or the ten times more won- 
 derful tale of the Welsh girl, who returned by her own 
 good will to the house of a man who was proved seven 
 years before to have beaten and starved her almost to 
 death. Oh ! that beats all the stories that I ever heard 
 
 or told. 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI.
 
 LETTERS. 203 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 31 May, 1817. 
 
 IT is very fine, my dear Sir, and I am well persuaded 
 on 't, that your kindness for poor H. L. P. is not to be 
 damped by climate, nor I hope diminished by distance. 
 Yet there is no harm in the journeys being put off, 
 though I should really like to hear what Dr. Whalley 
 does mean by these improbable tales of starvation upon 
 iiie continent. 
 
 I fancy his servants shut him up, and told him only 
 what they wished him to hear. 
 
 The story of Eliza Davies is, however, most dis- 
 graceful to this land of liberty and opulence. If such 
 atrocities can be committed in London, what may not 
 happen in Eussia or even in Portugal ? 
 
 We have been all engaged in care for a girl who 
 drowned herself in our canal here, but whose only cause 
 of concern was her inability to squeeze some rich friend 
 out of 5001. ; he sent her 50L, but that she scorned. 
 What is come to the people ? Lunacy ? One would 
 think so, to hear these wonders. 
 
 The Dean of Winchester's account of Bennet Lang- 
 ton coming to town some few years after the death of 
 Dr. Johnson, and finding no house where he was even 
 asked to dinner, was exceedingly comical. Mr. Wilber- 
 force dismissed him with a cold " Adieu, dear Sir, I 
 hope we shall meet in heaven ! " How capricious is 
 the public taste ! I remember when to have Langton
 
 204 LETTERS. 
 
 at a man's house stamped him at once a literary cha- 
 racter.* 
 
 Johnson's fame, meanwhile, lives even in the lightest 
 and slightest shreds of his wit and learning. 
 
 We have a caricature print here now of Sir John 
 Lade going through all the stages of profligate folly, and 
 drowning himself at last, with Dr. Johnson's verses be- 
 ginning 
 
 " Long expected one-and-twenty, 
 
 Lingering year, at length is flown," 
 
 written under, exactly as I printed them in his letters 
 to me, only I omitted the name, as a civility to the 
 family which showed me nothing but spite after Mr. 
 Thrale's death. 
 
 Well ! I will be prudent, and recover the bruises my 
 purse has suffered by sitting still as a mouse. Was I 
 once at Adbury, temptations to go further would be 
 irresistible, so I will take good advice instead of kind 
 invitation, and keep quiet. 
 
 A glass of Bath water before dinner, or half a glass of 
 Mr. Divie afterf, will keep my inside tolerably good- 
 humoured, I hope, though dining from home is still 
 unpleasant to me, and la bile is my utter aversion, 
 
 " For that is bitter with a witness, 
 And kinder souls delight in sweetness, &c. v 
 
 Your good mother is recovering gradually but cer- 
 
 * The Earl of Norwich, who ranked as the wit of Charles the 
 First's court, was voted a bore at the court of Charles the Second. 
 f Divie Robertson was a wine merchant at Bath.
 
 LETTERS. 205 
 
 tainly. The dear Doctor is, as he terms himself, true 
 heart of oak. 
 
 They are always the same true and partial friends 
 to dear Sir James's ever obliged and faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Thursday, 26 June, 1817. 
 
 I CANNOT sufficiently rejoyce, my dear Sir, or be half 
 thankful enough for the intelligence your kind charm- 
 ing sister has this moment given me, of your resolution 
 to run no further in chase of hot weather than the 
 Queen's Drawing Boom of this day. Poor Salusbury ! 
 I think if he escapes fever it is sufficient felicity. Such 
 a journey in such a June ! and the thermometer stand- 
 ing at 82 in my cool marble hall. I have the head- 
 ache myself, caught perhaps by reading Mrs. Carter's 
 letters, which tell of nothing else, and yet all our pale 
 blue ladies here, are saying how fine they are. Come, 
 there is one good thing in them : she says to Mrs. Mon- 
 tague : 
 
 " Your scheme of omitting the house, and improving 
 the plantations, is founded on a motive equally good 
 and wise. Time would sink the proudest palace you 
 could raise, into ruins ; but eternity will secure to you 
 the wealth which is applied in the encouragement of 
 honest industry and relief of distress." 
 
 I like the intention of the sentence here quoted, ex- 
 cessively ; but 'tis awkwardly expressed, because masons
 
 206 LETTERS. 
 
 and bricklayers want money and encouragement as 
 much as gardeners and planters, no doubt; yet am I 
 all of her mind, to prefer improvements on land, rather 
 than sink sums which may be wanted, in building 
 houses and stables, which never repay the owner and 
 too often remain for ages 
 
 " Remnants of things that have pass'd away, 
 Fragments of stone rear'd by creatures of clay." 
 
 Poor old Lleweney Hall ! pulled down after standing 
 1000 years in possession of the Salusburys, made over 
 to Lord Kirkwall's father in the last century, and now 
 demolished by fine Mr. Hughes, of the Parys Moun- 
 tain, would cure any one of pride in houses, or in an- 
 cestry. 
 
 Land is the only thing'which can pretend to duration, 
 though you see our funds keep up very finely, 'spite 
 of ill-willers ; and what a piece of work has been made 
 with these housebreakers, and street ruffians, to convert 
 them into gentlemen, and try them for high treason ! * 
 The Dean of Winchester says, one of the jury was penny 
 collector to Lord C. 
 
 Here is heavenly weather, however, and if anything 
 can put or keep people in good humour with those above 
 them, a copious harvest is of all most likely. 
 
 You will see my fair daughters at the Drawing Eoom, 
 of course. They hurried home for it I fancy, for S. 
 has written to me, expressing her regrets at leaving 
 
 * The Thistlewood conspirators.
 
 LETTERS. 207 
 
 Paris, " where ladies have nothing to do with menage 
 de famille, and can entertain themselves their own 
 way." Yet I believe she has, of all women, least to 
 regret on that side her head. 
 
 " Like a City wife or a beauty, 
 She has flutter'd life away ; 
 She has known no other duty, 
 
 But to dress, eat, drink, and play." 
 
 This for your privacy as Grloster says. 
 
 Ah dear Sir ! what a loss I should have had by your 
 journey to the Continent. I shall now not care a straw 
 about missing Adbury this year, for there Adbury stands, 
 and there resides its master ; and like the Irish lover, 
 who says, "Arrah^my dear Sheelah, (or Shalah) ! If I 
 was once within forty miles of you, I would never desire 
 to be nearer you, in all my life, and still in the same 
 little island," when he was transported to Botany Bay. 
 
 Your dear father and mother are so well and so happy 
 at Sidmouth, they half persuade me to go and see them 
 there ; and when all debts are paid, the 5001. bought in 
 again, which I sold out in March, and a certain sum 
 dans la poche, who knows what may be done by dear 
 Sir James Fellowes's ever obliged and grateful 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Miss Fellowes assures me this stuff shall cost you 
 nothing, or you should have had more on't at least, by 
 way of making out the bargain ; did you care about 
 Caraboo ?
 
 208 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 1 July, 1817. 
 
 No, my dear Sir, I will not stir from home till after 
 the 25th of July, which day made me happy thirty- 
 three years ago, after the suffering so many sorrows, 
 and here will I keep its beloved anniversary, always 
 remembering 
 
 " St. James's Church and St. James's Day, 
 And good Mr. James that gave me away." 
 
 Adbury will be beautiful the last week of my fa- 
 vourite month, and London will be empty the first 
 week of August, so that will just suit me ; for the small 
 shot, as we used to call trifling debts, will be all dis- 
 charged by then ; my 500L brought back again into the 
 three per cent, consols, and myself at liberty to come 
 and thank Sir James for his kindly repeated invitations. 
 
 The bustle we made about Caraboo * was very comical 
 indeed. Those who thought her an impostor dared not 
 say so. Such was the persuasion of the people to be- 
 lieve her a decided Oriental, though she never had the 
 skill to write her odd characters in the Eastern manner, 
 but beginning from the left hand clearly proved herself a 
 novice, though she had made up a good alphabet enough, 
 composed of Persic, Arabic, and Hebrew letters. I put 
 my opinion of her into bad verses, as you shall see, 
 more spiteful to Murray, who refused my book than 
 worth your reading for any other merit ; but if you 
 
 * A woman of bad character, who passed herself off at Bath and 
 Bristol as Caraboo, Princess of Jarasu.
 
 LETTERS. 209 
 
 have not seen the new poem, you will not laugh as I 
 wish you to do : 
 
 Our bright maid of Bristol by all men admired, 
 Till ev'n admiration itself grows half tired ; 
 While praying, or swearing, or swimming, or fencing, 
 All merits in one happy female condensing ; 
 The more I examine his wonderful book, 
 The more I'm persuaded she's Moore's Lallah Eookh. 
 In her black cotton shawl which no heart can resist, 
 While the morn, like her character, melts into mist, 
 Addressing old Titan with tender devotion,* 
 Or shrinking averse from the treacherous ocean ; 
 The ship which produced her, the swain who forsook, 
 All bring to my memory Moore's Lallah Rookh. 
 Should Murray once wind her, no pelf would he spare, 
 Indulging her taste in each Turkish bazaar ; 
 The Mukratoo rabble f oh how he would scare 'em ! 
 And long live the lady, the light of his haram ! 
 The rich feast of roses he knows how to cook, 
 Who gave three thousand pounds for Moore's fam'd 
 Lallah Rookh." 
 
 My dear Sir James will perceive that his old friend 
 has not forgotten her old follies, 
 
 " Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires," 
 
 as Gray says, and we go on to the last, jogging in the 
 same dusty road. 
 
 * Caraboo pretended to worship the sun. 
 f If a man offered to touch her she cried out, Muckratoo. 
 VOL. II. P
 
 210 LETTERS. 
 
 Apropos, I don't believe London will be empty 
 enough for me till September. I will not go to en- 
 counter invitations and parties on the one hand, slights 
 and cold looks on the other. Everybody shall be away 
 when I present myself at Blake's Hotel, unless, per- 
 haps, poor Lady Kirkwall ; and if she can get her an- 
 nuity paid, she will put herself in some cool place, I 
 hope, after such heating work of both body and mind. 
 
 After all, you and your family are safe in Hampshire, 
 and summer is before us. This hay weather is bad 
 indeed ; and I did think we waited too long for the 
 rain ; we shall now have more than we want. S'intende 
 acqua, says the Italian gardener, who had been praying 
 for rain, ma non tempesta. 
 
 We hear that the lady, whose good-nature the little 
 gipsey imposed upon, is so struck with her ingenuity, 
 that she protests they shall never part again. By the 
 same rule, Rundell and Bridge ought to make the 
 swindler, who cheated them of 24,000. the other day, 
 head clerk of their house, if they can catch him. 
 
 Would you laugh to see me in a white hat and rib- 
 bands ! The black * was wholly insupportable during 
 the violent heats, and thunder always gives me a sullen 
 headache. 
 
 Con mille rispetti. Addio. 
 
 Yours ever truly attached, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 * She never left off her black silk dress after the death of 
 Piozzi.
 
 LETTERS. 211 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Blake's Hotel, 23rd Aug. 1817. 
 
 LONDON is most embellished since I saw it last, but 
 the Regent's Park disappoints me : had it been as I 
 fancied, a place appropriated to the Regent, with ran- 
 gers, &c., the boundaries of London northward would 
 have been ascertained, and a beautiful spot, like Hyde 
 Park, have contributed to the health and ornament of 
 the metropolis ; but buildings there are, it seems, hourly 
 increasing, and it will end in an irregular square at 
 last, of which there are enough already. The bridges 
 are very fine, and will make my old habitation, South- 
 wark, a gay place in due time, I dare say. 
 
 Here is a little sunshine after the rain, and the pale 
 white-faced wheat will be got in somehow. But no 
 golden ears, no rich coloured grain imbrowned the 
 views in Berkshire, as I came along. The " cold un- 
 ripened beauties of the North " must have a melancholy 
 appearance to foreigners from warm climates, to whom 
 the verdure of fields and snugness of comfortable cot- 
 tages would make this year but broken amends, I am 
 confident. 
 
 Can you tell what's good for the bite of a dead viper's 
 tooth.* Oyl, I trust, and emollients ; yet 'tis a slow 
 remedy. I feel ashamed to think how much the post- 
 humous poyson has disturbed me. "Write a word of 
 consolation, and Adieu. 
 
 # Alluding to Beloe. 
 P 2
 
 212 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Blake's Hotel, 29 August, 1817. 
 
 I HAVE been living with poor dear Lady K and 
 
 her mother ; up to their very eyes in love and law, dis- 
 tressed as nothing human ever was distressed, and will 
 I suppose (in Dr. Johnson's phrase) be at last delivered 
 as nothing human ever was delivered. Siddons and 
 they are the only people I have seen, but the things 
 are charming, and the places so improved that, without 
 hyperbole, I actually passed through South wark the 
 borough I canvassed three times, and inhabited thirteen 
 years without knowing where they had carried me 
 any more than if I had been found in Ispahan. 
 
 The gas-lights, and steam-boats, and new bridges are 
 all incomparable, and will serve us for chat at the castle, 
 when your Honour has counted your money, the grand 
 pacifier of all quarrels, although the fountain whence 
 spring so many disputes. But adieu ! I must dress to 
 dine what I call out of town, the top-house in Baker 
 Street.* Make my best regards and sincerest good 
 
 wishes acceptable to Lady F , and believe me 
 
 hers and yours while 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 3 September, 1817. 
 
 JOT to my dear Sir James Fellowes. Mil anos y 
 mas, and through the whole thousand, friends to value 
 him no less than I do. 
 
 The cock and hens will be beforehand with me, how- 
 * At Mrs. Siddons'.
 
 LETTERS. 213 
 
 ever, in my congratulations ; Smith assures me they are 
 beautiful and healthy ; and were to be on their journey 
 yesterday ; when I concluded mine. We had lovely 
 weather ; a negative day as I call it, no sun, no rain, no 
 wind, no dust. Driving through the Devizes, I recol- 
 lected an old epigram which I wrote there, some cen- 
 turies ago, when Sir Fletcher Norton was Oh, but I 
 
 dare say 'tis in a blank leaf of your " Wraxall ;" if it is 
 not, you shall have it another day.* Meanwhile, as sub- 
 lime effusions are the fashion, what think you of my 
 verses lamenting the fate of my own sisterhood ? when 
 Bagshot, Hownslow, &c. were first taken into cultiva- 
 tion, and beginning : 
 
 Goosey ! goosey ! gander ! 
 Whither will you wander 
 When your commons all are gone, 
 That you plum'd yourselves upon ? 
 Sure I think they'll leave no places 
 Where to wash our feathery faces, 
 All the world's become our foes 
 From this hurry to enclose. 
 Could a ray of hope spring from one's 
 Interest in the House of Commons, 
 I'd exhaust my last poor quill 
 To avert th' impending ill. 
 But the troop of Foxites there 
 Make the mournful goose despair : 
 And for t' others there's no chance, 
 While they rate their geese as swans. 
 
 * See Vol. I. p. 339. 
 p 3
 
 214 LETTERS. 
 
 But yon are tired of this stuff, or at least I am : the 
 harvest is worth talking about, and a very good harvest 
 I now believe it will be. But to see haymaking, wheat 
 carrying, and barley full ripe, all at once, is new ; so far 
 as I have looked on life, and the staff of life. One 
 newly-turned up field exhibited shocks of corn on one 
 side of it, manure on the other, the plough at work in 
 the middle. A curious combination ! 
 
 The Mount at Marlborough was too dewy in the 
 morning, and it was quite dark when I got in over 
 night, we had chatted so long, and so comfortably : it 
 would have been a famous thing to have run up a hill 
 which I ran up in the year 1750, the maid calling after 
 me, "Miss! don't you jump over the hedges." Car- 
 dinal du Perron, you know, did purchase an estate for 
 double the money another man would have given, be- 
 cause he leaped a famous leap on those grounds seventy 
 years before : I did not, however, understand that he 
 could have leaped it again. * 
 
 Miss Williams is in trouble; her beau very ill indeed, 
 and keeps bed ; Mr. Cam attending him : by her 
 odd account it seems Haemorrhoids, Haemorrhage, or 
 some undescribable mischief. She is zealous, however, 
 about your dairy, &c. My description of it set all her 
 head to work. I have friends here going to Ireland : it 
 would make your very ducks and drakes laugh to see 
 her diligence (ill-employed) in persuading me to instruct 
 
 * The Archbishop of Armagh/meeting the Earl of Carhampton, 
 boasted that his legs carried him as well as ever, "Ay, my 
 Lord, but not to the same places."
 
 LETTERS. 215 
 
 them which way they should go ; for cheapest, best, &c. 
 How can she multiply her cares so ! ! But she would 
 think us no less absurd, for making enquiries now, A. D. 
 1817, concerning the ^Egyptian Mary, who died in the 
 desart beyond Jordan in the year 430 : having never 
 seen a human face for forty-seven years, living on raw 
 roots and herbage, with no change of clothing from the 
 dress she wore at the moment her conversion took place. 
 She was then a notorious profligate, yet wished to attend 
 the festival of Fete Dieu, but felt herself supernaturally 
 repelled by the pressure of an unseen hand, and a voice 
 crying Unworthy Mary. She retired, so warned, from 
 the cathedral, resolved to break off all connection with 
 a world she had behaved so ill in, and after making 
 solemn vows of penitence, tried the church door again, 
 which opened to her of its own accord. This apparent 
 approval of Heaven sent Mary to perpetual solitude and 
 sorrow : to alleviate which in her last moments, Zosi- 
 mus the hermit was sent to administer the last conso- 
 lation a Christian can receive. She took the eucharist 
 though speechless from exhaustion, and when the hermit 
 came next day, he found only a lifeless corpse, with the 
 pathetic words " Poor Mary " traced in the burning 
 sand. Has not Murillo done the story justice? Better, 
 oh, better far, than the poor quill of yours and Lady 
 Fellowes's ever, 
 
 H. L. P.* 
 
 * Mrs. Piozzi, on her return to Bath from Adbury, where she 
 had paid us a visit, having admired my fine picture by Murillo, sent 
 me the above account, taken from the Popish legend. J. F, 
 
 P 4
 
 216 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, September 8, 1817. 
 
 WHAT an unreasonable friend is dear Sir James Fel- 
 lowes ! as unreasonable as partial, I think ; and that is 
 enough. On the same day that we obtain attestations 
 of all the Tales told in the " Grolden Legend," and that 
 will not be soon, he may expect another strange letter, 
 just like the last, from his much obliged H. L. P. My 
 story is abridged from a French abridgment of the old 
 book. Authority enough, as it is not only to be found 
 in "L'Advocat's Biography," but in Danet's "Account 
 of Christian Antiquities." I would not, however, swear 
 to the truth of any tale told in the dark ages. The 
 world sees most visions (says Fuller) when she is most 
 blind, and the ophthalmia of those days, inflamed by 
 persecution on the one hand, and hope of immediate 
 beatitude on the other, presented objects of strange 
 distortion doubtless ; while the difficulty of committing 
 anything to paper, multiplied and magnified every de- 
 viation into a miracle. Such are the accounts reli- 
 giously believed by Romanists of St. Francis retiring to 
 the desart, making himself a wife of snow, &c. and 
 while under these dreadful mortifications, receiving in 
 vision from our crucified Saviour's own immediate touch 
 a separate mark or stigma, is it not ? upon each hand 
 and foot. Your picture seems as if stretching round 
 to touch the side of the saint as I remember, and 'tis 
 related how his wounds dropt blood, though later than 
 ^Egyptian Mary's legend by nearly seven centuries.
 
 LETTERS. 217 
 
 Alas ! the while : that such delusions were thought 
 necessary to prop our faith, or propagate Christianity 
 brought down from heaven by the God of Truth him- 
 self. Romanism, however, cannot, even now, divest 
 itself of love for pious frauds, and hatred to all sects 
 except their own. See how they are working themselves 
 into power ! reminding one of the old fable in our 
 babies' books : where the poor axe lies helpless in the 
 wood, lamenting his incapacity to serve his friends or 
 get his own living, for want of a handle, and you (says 
 he) cruel creatures ! wont give me even a twig. After 
 a long time spent in such intreaties, one of the young 
 ash, a sapling, takes compassion, "and here, my lad," 
 he cries, " thou shalt have this branch of mine, make 
 thee a handle;" he does so, says the fable, and cuts 
 down the whole grove. What else did he want it for ? 
 
 Ah ! old Sir Fletcher Norton, that I wrote the epi- 
 gram upon, was no sapling ; no truly, he was made of 
 sterner stuff. But the present state of things has 
 spoiled my epigram, like that which was drowned (as 
 Boswell said) when the grand piece of water was made 
 at Blenheim, and 
 
 " The arch, the height of his ambition shows, 
 The stream, an emblem of hia bounty flows," 
 
 was no longer a joke. 
 
 And now here is just such a letter as the last ; and 
 in yours a confirmation of my own just surprize at your 
 talk of partridge shooting, when such loads of corn were 
 yet unhoused. Soon, however,
 
 218 LETTERS. 
 
 " Shall the staunch pointer brave the sultry heat, 
 And tread the stubble with unfeeling feet. " 
 
 And till then you must carefully preserve your album 
 of fowls immaculate. The ginger wing will not I hope 
 be hereditary : if it is, I shall get somebody to thrust 
 Mr. Kenrick down the throat of his own alligator, as 
 they do infants in China. The weather is truly de- 
 lightful, and good for workmen at home, as for harvest 
 men abroad. Enjoy it, dear Sir, and never forget Lady 
 
 Fellowes's and your own true servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Do you recollect the little Simon Paap, a dwarf whom 
 you and I went to see, and he said he would have the 
 honour to drink a bottle with Sir James Fellowes, comi- 
 cally enough? and produced a tiny vial out of his 
 pocket that he called his pocket pistol ? He is here 
 now, and the people go to see him. Bessy Bell was 
 glad to shake hands with her handsome husband, I 
 doubt not: but as I flatter myself she has still some 
 regard for her poor mistress, I shall beg you will not 
 withdraw yours from her. 
 
 Farewell ! and present me properly to Lady Fellowes. 
 I am glad she likes my notion of the fine Murillo. She 
 will be much amused with Caraboo. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, September 25, 1817. 
 
 How kind the have been ! never forgetting their 
 
 little friend at No. 8, but sending me crouted cream, &c.
 
 LETTEES. 219 
 
 They thought a little soothing would do me good, 1 
 suppose, after Mr. Beloe's venomous attack. 
 
 No matter ; here is a copious and beautiful harvest, 
 and many happy hearts in consequence, Salusbury's 
 beyond all. I don't know when I can recollect the 
 barley in Wales housed by the last week in September, 
 and we are painting, and repairing, and emulating Lon- 
 don, all we can, nothing doubtful but that the second 
 and third cities of England will soon follow the first, 
 being paved with iron and lighted with air. 
 
 Mrs. Mostyn, for whom I was, as you know, anxious, 
 is said to be well, and disposed for a journey to Italy. 
 Those who return from thence say the English are in 
 high favour, owing chiefly to Lord Exmouth, whose 
 liberation of Catholic slaves at Algiers struck the Eoman 
 people as an act worthy Christians, and scarce to be 
 credited of British heretics. 
 
 Mr. Wanzey tells me a thing scarcely to be credited 
 of Komish bigots; no less than that the Protestants 
 have hired an apartment near the Colonna Trajana ; 
 where our English liturgy is read every Sunday by some 
 of the numerous clergymen belonging to our Church, 
 who are loitering about that city unprohibited, unno- 
 ticed, unoffended.* Such connivance who could have 
 hoped for in 1785? Mr. W says that our country- 
 
 * James Smith used to "tell a story, on the authority of Sir 
 George Beaumont, that the English applied to the Pope to bless 
 a cemetery so that they might lie in consecrated ground, and 
 that his Holiness replied, all he coidd do for them was to curse 
 any spot they might select for the purpose, so that they might lie 
 in desecrated ground.
 
 220 LETTERS. 
 
 men spend 1000Z. per diem in Italy ; in Eome only, 
 if I am not mistaken. 
 
 How good and wise, meanwhile, is , staying at 
 
 his own beautiful house, and embellishing it every 
 hour. 
 
 I have seen the lyons old and young, but was surprised 
 to witness the oddity of a female setting-dog suckling 
 her young enemies. The whelp is not half as tame as 
 some cubs shown at Bath last year, that played with 
 the children of the town and with one another just like 
 kittens. I pulled those about myself, but this little 
 rascal was surly. 
 
 Waterloo Panorama, however, and the learned Italian 
 dog Manito, must be visited. I think next week will 
 have exhibited all the wonders London can produce at 
 this time of year, and then my horses' heads will turn 
 homewards on the 1st day of the new month, Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 8 October, 1817. 
 
 DON'T buy the book, dear Sir.* That method only 
 propagates the mischief. You know me too well not 
 to believe me completely callous to literary abuse. But 
 this man (who I never saw but once in my life, eighteen 
 years ago) tells the public that Mr. Piozzi pulled down 
 
 * The Sexagenarian, by Beloe. His statement, false in every 
 particular, more, than quadruples her Welsh rent-roll.
 
 LETTERS. 221 
 
 my old family seat at Bachygraig, and that when he 
 was dead I searched the Alps for a young mountaineer 
 to inherit my estate of 40001. per annum. Now, in the 
 first place, Mr. Piozzi paid off a mortgage that was on 
 the Welsh estate with 70001. of his own money, not 
 mine. He then repaired and beautified old Bachygraig 
 at a great expense, rebuilt and pewed the church, made 
 a fine vault for my ancestors, and built Brynbella to 
 live in, because the family mansion lay down low by 
 the river side. 
 
 He begged my name for his brother's son, and when 
 the French invaded Italy, sent for him hither, an infant 
 unable to walk or talk ; lived till the lad was fourteen 
 years old, and died, never naming him in his will, but 
 leaving all to me. Why, I must have been worse 
 than Mr. Beloe himself, to do any otherwise than I 
 have done. 
 
 Yes, yes, when people will talk of what they know 
 nothing about, see what nonsense follows. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 6 November, 1817. 
 
 THE Queen has driven us all completely distracted ; 
 such a bustle Bath never witnessed before. She drinks 
 at the pump-room, purposes going to say her prayers 
 at the Abbey Church, and a box is making up for her 
 at the theatre. 
 
 Your S 1 W 's life appears to affect the D r 
 
 more than I hoped it would. Women bear crosses
 
 222 LETTERS. 
 
 better than men do, but they bear surprises worse. 
 Give me time, and I'll go gravely up to the guillotine ; 
 but set me down suddenly within view of a battle, I 
 shall be a corpse before the first fire is over through 
 fear, whilst my footman shall feel animation from the 
 scene, and long to make one in the sport. 
 
 " Heres, si scires unum tua tempera mensem ; 
 Ut rides dum sit forsitan una dies," 
 
 was said to men who always count upon an escape; 
 
 women provide for certainties as well as they know how. 
 
 But here's my translation, which probably I have 
 
 shewn you long ago, yet I somehow think not either : 
 
 If you thought you should live but a month, how you'd cry, 
 Yet you laugh though you know you to-morrow may die. 
 
 Here are worse pens, and papers, and handwriting 
 than those I am always most happy to see, but the post 
 shall not pass my door with his bell whilst I go can- 
 vassing for franks ; no, indeed, and my health is quite, 
 in the matron phrase, as well as can be expected. So 
 adieu, and believe me yours faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Fryday, 28 November, 1817. 
 
 MR. brought me so kind a message begging a 
 
 letter, that I can't help complying. 
 
 Everybody's spirits are mending on our Queen's re- 
 turn. The people are running up and down again ; and
 
 LETTERS. 223 
 
 those who have any names many, too, of those who 
 have none leave them at her Majesty's door. 
 
 To a mere spectator the appearance of things is 
 dismal. The burst of grief * is, however, pretty well 
 gone by ; but if it was a proof of our virtue, as Mr. 
 Grinfield said it was, why so let it be accounted. 
 
 His assertion, indeed, that no profligate country ever 
 regrets a prince or princess for their moral qualities, is 
 more pleasing than strictly true. When was ancient 
 Kome more sunk in vice than when all its inhabitants 
 poured forth to meet and lament over the ashes of 
 Britannicus ! Their theatres about that time, too, did 
 certainly exhibit ballets enactions equal to our own ; 
 and by the accounts I hear of Covent Garden and its 
 gay salon, we are even trying to go beyond them if 
 possible. 
 
 The description brought me by a friend was so elo- 
 quent it reminded me of Milton's devils building and 
 lighting up with gas their pandemonium : 
 
 " Nigh on the plain in many cells prepar'd 
 That underneath had veins of liquid fire 
 Sluic'd from the lake ; mechanic multitudes 
 With wondrous art founded the massy ore, 
 Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross. 
 Others as soon had formed within the ground 
 A various mould, and from the boiling cells 
 By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook. 
 Till sudden from the soil a fabric huge 
 Rose like an exhalation. From the roof 
 
 * Occasioned by the death of the Princess Charlotte.
 
 224 LETTERS. 
 
 Pendent by subtle magic many a row 
 Of starry lamps and blazing cussets, fed 
 With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light 
 As from a sky."* 
 
 When I repeated the lines, he swore that Milton had 
 invented the gas-lights, and given the first draught of 
 our grand theatres in London. 
 
 This letter I shall take to , so that they may 
 
 put it in their pockets with a heavy load of compliments 
 and offers of service from Sir James's oldest friend, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fdlowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 15 December, 1817. 
 
 DR. GRAY, whose name and character you know, 
 laments the loss of his mother, because, says he, she 
 died so unexpectedly, at ninety-one years old ! He 
 had left her in high health and spirits but three weeks 
 before. Such is this world, its inhabitants, and their 
 ideas. He has sent me his Connexions, and two sermons 
 on the princess's death, protesting that he will or will 
 not publish them as I approve or condemn. The subject 
 is not treated in a commonplace manner, you may be 
 sure, when touched by his hand. Poor princess ! she 
 has really stood like an Academy figure to be viewed in 
 various lights. The shadows in his sketch are eminently 
 deep and broad, an impressive Kembrandt. 
 
 Veniamo ad altro. That one friend should send me 
 
 * Paradise Lost, book i. The quotation is singularly happy, 
 and is one among many instances of her knowledge and readiness.
 
 LETTERS. 225 
 
 sermons to criticise, while the theatrical folks try to 
 court me out of an epilogue, does look as if they 
 thought I was not quite superannuated. 
 
 Of the clusters in the Pump-Room, who swarm 
 round Queen Caroline as if she were actually the queen 
 bee, courtiers must give you an account : of the eccle- 
 siastical history you will soon hear a great deal, but I'm 
 not sure whether it will interest you. Everybody writ- 
 ing at the same time on the same subject does no harm. 
 The same ideas may be delivered out with attractions 
 that may lure minds of a different make ; and you will 
 kindly rejoyce that I came out alive from the Octagon 
 Chapel, where Ryder, Bishop of (jlo'ster, preached in 
 behalf of the missionaries to a crowd such as my long 
 life never witnessed ; we were packed like seeds in a 
 sun-flower. 
 
 At the Guildhall two days after, when pious con- 
 tributors were expected to come and applaud, Archdeacon 
 Thomas suddenly appeared, and protested against the 
 meeting as schismatical. So he was hissed home by 
 the serious Christians, Evangelicals as they sometimes 
 call themselves, half the population of Bath at any 
 rate, and his friends felt uneasy ; till yesterday the 
 Duke of Clarence, some say the Queen, some say both, 
 consoled him by their particular notice. All which you 
 
 will learn better from Colonel C , who, for ought I 
 
 know, presides at the presentations. 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, with assurances of my being ever 
 gratefully and faithfully your obliged 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 23 January, 1818. 
 
 WHEN and in what year will the women find out 
 that company makes one gay only as it brings out that 
 gayety which was in the heart before ? A great coat 
 makes a man warm, I suppose, not by virtue of any 
 warmth in the coat, but as it keeps the natural heat of 
 the body from flying away. Yet parties are all the 
 rage, and I shall have one next week, and put my 
 wisdom to sleep the while. 
 
 Doctor Gribbes has been very good to me, very kind 
 and attentive. Illness commonly catches me by the 
 throat, you know, and makes a mute of me for a while, 
 punishing the peccant part. In a few years those 
 things will be made easy : Miss McEvoy sees with her 
 finger tips, and Miss Somebody* embroiders with her 
 shoulder and elbow ; no need of hands and arms for the 
 old purposes, say the improvers of the world. Have 
 you read " Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus ?" 
 I have never seen such an audacious, and I might add, 
 such an ingenious, piece of impiety. But Faber says, 
 you know, that the world is to end in 1866 ; so the old 
 gentleman below stairs must work double tides for 
 these next fifty years, and he has a good assistant in 
 Mr. Hone, who is surely well paid for his work. 
 
 Meanwhile the virtuous few, as it is the fashion to 
 call them, are instructing the poor, and keeping schools 
 for young people in the country. Lady Williams writes 
 me word that one of her sisters, a managing woman, 
 
 * Miss Biffin.
 
 LETTERS. 227 
 
 who is in the habit of looking into her own affairs, 
 took one of these instructed maidens for her cook three 
 weeks ago. The dinners did well enough, and she went 
 into her kitchen to say so one morning; when the 
 whole family seemed collected round and expressing 
 such attention in their gaping countenances, the door 
 opened unawares to them all ; and " enter the King and 
 Laertes," cried the cook, in an attitude of recitation, her 
 back towards the lady, whose only difficulty was to say, 
 who was most astonished ? Well, dear Sir ! here is a 
 world of nonsensical babble such as you used to like, 
 and when you go to London (if you do go) you must 
 make me amends, and tell me all about the succession, 
 after it has been well contested in the House of Par- 
 liament. But we shall meet before then at dear No. 13, 
 and I shall see Lady Fellowes in her new character of 
 nurse-a-baby, and we shall have a full table and a merry 
 day ; fine weather of course this year, in which even 
 the North Pole is become passable, and everything 
 cheerful may be expected, when such mountains of ice 
 have been thawed I think. So adieu ! and continue to 
 be the kind and partial friend, though you will not be 
 the correspondent, of your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloices. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 2 March, 1818. 
 
 THE best joke going here is about the man who 
 killed his wife the other day : they printed his name 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LETTERS. 
 
 Haitch, if you remember, but after he had cut his own 
 throat, they wrote him down Mr. Aitch : no wonder, for 
 when the windpipe was divided, you know, how could 
 he retain his Aspirate ? 
 
 St. David's Day has been a rough one, and your 
 brother Dorset forces me on the reflection that it was 
 a Saturday's moon. But what reflections or what con- 
 jectures can they form who shall lose time and space 
 at least the old-fashioned methods of reckoning them 
 by being under the pole, seeing the sun always at the 
 same altitude, finding neither east nor west, neither lati- 
 tude nor longitude, contemplating their own figures 
 represented as in a mirror on the opposing cloud, and 
 viewing their old acquaintance the rainbow no longer 
 an arch but a circle ? 
 
 Will they come home pretending not to have shud- 
 dered at such appearances? and will they feel more 
 terror of being titter'd at for speaking of such things as 
 extraordinary ? Oh yes, I dare say they will, than 
 wonder at the strange phenomena ! There was a time 
 in my life when I would have been happy to have gone 
 and come back safe as a cabbin boy rather than not 
 make one in such an expedition ; and am now actually 
 eager to hear of their setting out, that I may have 
 some chance of hailing their happy return. Mean- 
 while my health is not to be complained of; but when- 
 ever I catch cold, my eyes suffer somewhat unusually. 
 
 This stuff is written with one candle and a green 
 shade over it, which makes me incline to be sullen,
 
 LETTERS. 229 
 
 and say what vile pens these [are, when, perhaps, 'tis 
 one of the well deserved warnings knocking at the door 
 of dear Sir ,T. F.'s faithful and grateful servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloiues. 
 
 Bath, 17 March, 1818. 
 
 I AM much flattered, my dear Sir, by the fault you 
 find with my letter being too short. Yet I'm disposed 
 not to lengthen this unreasonably, for fear your mind 
 should be engaged when it arrives. May that engage- 
 ment prove prosperous ! and let me make haste to tell 
 you what happened to me the other day, lest you should 
 not have leisure to laugh at it. Our Regent having 
 sent for specimens of curious marbles to the north coast 
 of Africa, Mr. Smith has discovered not the marbles 
 (one never finds what one is looking for), but a better 
 thing, the possibility of getting at the long sought 
 for city, on the Zaire or Congo River, which they have 
 tried so vainly to bring to light. 
 
 I who heard of this discovery in the morning, said 
 hastily to Captain Digby, who sate next me, " So 
 Tombuctoo is found at last ! " " Ah, ah ! " says a man 
 on the other side me, " what was that fellow hiding 
 for ? Forgery, I suppose ; and what names those 
 scoundrels give one another with their slang Tom 
 Buckle to ! " 
 
 Well ! and there is a ship disinterred (to use a 
 fashionable phrase and not a bad one) ; for the ship 
 has been buried in the earth many centuries no doubt, 
 
 i 3
 
 230 LETTERS. 
 
 forty miles from the nearest sea, somewhere in Caff- 
 raria. Ton jours VAfrique (say Frenchmen), nous 
 aurons done de la fricassee, (VAfrique assez] ; but 
 those who are not in jest are of opinion that the Cape 
 of Good Hope was once detatched from the continent, 
 an island like Terra del Fuego at Cape Horn. 
 
 " Thus do men run to and fro, and knowledge is 
 much increased," as, says the Prophet Daniel, it will be, 
 when this world is near its conclusion. I know not 
 how far distant that event may be, but every thing is 
 doing, and everything is happening, that we are told 
 will happen, and that we are sure will be done, in the 
 concluding centuries of terrestrial existence. Yet people 
 are in such haste to accelerate their own perdition, 
 that a clergyman has hanged himself at the Castle 
 and Ball this morning, I don't know his name ; and 
 if I did, your brother D. knows that " The Wonder, or 
 A Woman keeps a Secret," has been performed with 
 success at No. 8, Gay Street, within this last fortnight. 
 So adieu, dear Sir, and write oftener, if the letter 
 only contains the words Steady and all well. 
 
 The foreigners say we English ruin the uniformity of 
 our handwriting by taking a new pen every tenth line. 
 I say, the not doing it every time you turn the paper, 
 makes one's letter look like a masqued figure of day and 
 night. This is written in the dark. Farewell and be 
 happy as is wished you by your ever, &c., 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS, 231 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 21 March, 1818. 
 
 Tho' my muse is grown old, 
 And her life blood all cold, 
 
 Still trembling from any surprise a ; 
 Warm congratulation, 
 With true admiration, 
 
 Must welcome our pretty Eliza. 
 
 Excuse this nonsense : my head is full of the lauda- 
 num I took last night, more perhaps from fear than 
 from feel of the same nephritic affection that made me 
 miserable this time last year. The poppy, however, 
 which nature sows amongst the corn to show us that 
 sleep is as necessary as bread, did its duty, and here 
 
 am I, better than when E saw me lying on the 
 
 couch yesterday evening pretty late, when he brought 
 me the happy news Adieu,' dear Sir. (rod bless you 
 and yours, prays most fervently, Your 
 
 H. L. P 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, April, 1818. 
 
 WHILST I was trying to reconcile myself to the un- 
 easy state of being wholly forgotten by dear Sir J. F., 
 I met his excellent father in Collins's Library, looking 
 wonderfully well; but saying you had toothache and 
 faceache, and I don't know what beside. So I resolved 
 to write you a long letter as the only opiate which can- 
 not injure the nerves. 
 
 Q -i
 
 232 LETTERS. 
 
 And now shall it be books or people that we talk 
 about ? Of books, let us both begin and end with Gis- 
 borne's new publication upon Natural Theology, a 
 tiny work, but replete with good sense, sound learning, 
 and pious reflections. I shall buy and perhaps inter- 
 leave it, apropos to poor me and my quondam pos- 
 sessions. You see Doctor Burney, who purchased his 
 father's portrait and dear Grarrick's at my sale, now 
 drops down dead, and the library, pictures, &c. are 
 purchased (if my information is correct) by the British 
 Museum ! 
 
 When will the ladies be more or less strict in their 
 manner of dressing ? A genteel young clergyman in our 
 Upper Crescent told his mamma, about ten days ago, 
 that he had lost his heart to pretty Miss Prideaux, and 
 that he must absolutely marry her or die ! La chere 
 mere of course replied gravely, " My dear, you have 
 not been acquainted with the lady above a fortnight, 
 let me recommend it to you to see more of her." 
 " More of her ! " exclaims the lad ; " why, T have seen 
 down to the fifth rib on each side already." 
 
 Will this story help to cure the toothache ? It will 
 serve to convince Captain J. F. and yourself, that as 
 you have always acknowledged the British belles to 
 exceed those of every other nation, you may now say, 
 with truth, that they outstrip them. 
 
 I am very sorry to see the death of Sir Eichard Mus- 
 grave in the papers. He was much my admirer forty 
 years ago, and what was more to his credit by half, he 
 wrote the History of the Irish Rebellion and all its
 
 LETTERS. 233 
 
 horrors, a work one word of which has never yet been 
 contradicted.* It will now obtain its due celebrity I 
 hope, and, indeed, it ought to grace the library of your 
 lovely country seat. Shall you go thither soon ? The 
 swallows and cuckoos will meet you in May, and I 
 really expect a hot baking summer after all this soak- 
 ing rain. Warm weather would give us a famous 
 harvest, and your children will be delighted with the 
 butterflies before they leave our land. 
 
 Salusbury says I must come to Brynbella and see his 
 young plantations animal and vegetable next July ; 
 and if health goes no worse than it has been, I shall 
 just hope to be no nuisance,-- -a difficult matter, the dif- 
 ference in his lady's age from mine considered. The 
 babies will be interesting at any rate. We have a nest 
 of babies here, females all, I think, to whom our 
 old friend Matilda Hook was a complete nothing : the 
 eldest, a small creature, taking off Mr. Kean in Shy- 
 lock and King Eichard, convulses every audience with 
 delight. I am going this evening, Saturday, 25th, and 
 shall give you an account when I come home, and then 
 you will have a long letter instead of a good one. 
 
 Well, dear Sir ! here am I come home, after being 
 more astonished than delighted. Clara (Fisher), who 
 played Richard III., did it extremely well. She is just 
 such a little thing as Simon Paap, the dwarf, that you 
 and I went to see, and I daresay is a dwarf; but 'tis an 
 amusing exhibition upon the whole. If you have seen 
 
 * On the contrary, it is considered a very one-sided production.
 
 234 LETTERS. 
 
 the children in London, however, where the size of the 
 house and the actors are so contrasted, the effect must 
 be twice as powerful, and nothing remains to be said 
 on the subject by your tedious correspondent and 
 affectionate, &c. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 6 May, 1818. 
 
 I SHALL be glad when the modish world permits you 
 to exchange the sight of emerald trinkets for that of 
 green fields, and lapis lazuli tables for a clear blue 
 sky. 
 
 I grieve for Bullock, however, who first found out the 
 quarry of Verd antique marble in our county of An- 
 glesea. Apropos, that little island has no little to 
 boast : three times has she ruled over the three king- 
 doms of nature. Once when Druidic superstition swelled 
 every sea breeze with her howlings, and Mona's thickly- 
 planted woods covered her cromlechs from the sight of 
 Agricola. Once again, when destruction had laid her 
 plains bare of timber ; herds of black cattle feeding on 
 the mountains, supplied the London markets for more 
 than five centuries ; and are mentioned in some of the 
 coronation feasts. The present day, by this dear Bul- 
 lock's ingenuity, discovered treasures of marble in her 
 rocky bosom, and exhibits specimens of ./Egyptian green 
 not to be surpassed by anything which antiquity has 
 bequeathed us.
 
 LETTERS. 235 
 
 I was ranting on in the same strain before Miss 
 
 W when she exclaimed : " Ah ! roast him ; is that 
 
 odious Bullock dead at last, that cheated my brother, 
 Sir John, giving him 5001. for a bit of land, that to be 
 sure we thought not worth 501. but which that fellow 
 knew contained these blocks of green stone, dyed by 
 the copper, nothing else in the world." Well ! if it was 
 so, Anglesea is still the queen of mineral nature, in 
 right of her mines. Venus, too, is she not ? Sprung 
 from the sea, and showing her brazen face in every part 
 of the world. 
 
 Sir Joseph Banks will consider Bullock as a loss to 
 all students in natural history. I am glad you attend 
 his Sunday nights : they used to be delightful ; and I 
 hope he does not grow too much enfeebled by age, but 
 makes them still worth your care. 
 
 You used to say how I preached the end of the world, 
 but here was a learned Dr. Hales stood up in our pulpit 
 at Lama, last Sunday, and said sixty-two years more 
 would complete its duration. This was, in the modern 
 phrase, committing himself, and the laughers all stuffed 
 their handkerchiefs into their mouths, and the man 
 went on explaining his calculation and minding them 
 ne'er a whit. 
 
 The actors are more easily abashed ; Mr. Young 
 looked full of distress when he saw Lady St tit- 
 tering in the stage box at his well played Zanga, and 
 the beautiful girls, her daughters, counterfeiting sleep. 
 But derision is a thing no powers, except those of piety, 
 can endure. At her approach, wit darkens, and, as
 
 236 LETTERS. 
 
 Milton says of Eve, in her presence, Wisdom's self loses 
 discountenanced, and like Folly shews. 
 
 Those large fields of ice starve the people's hearts, 
 and they think insensibility a merit, I suppose. Dis- 
 tinction it is not, for they all do it. 
 
 I did not English, or rather Anglicise, any of the 
 mottoes, but have been long of your mind, that Gr. H. 
 Grlasse's is the best. He was an extraordinary man, " le 
 galant le plus pedant, et le pedant le plus galant, qu'on 
 puisse voir." Science, which acted as a sceptre in the 
 hand of Johnson, and was used as a club by Dr. Parr, 
 became a lady's fan when played with by George Henry 
 Grlasse. I wish you had known them all three that you 
 might applaud the fancy. You often do approve the 
 odd fancies of your truly attached 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 20 May, 1818. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes's last letter was so long 
 and so kind, that I could wish for another chat with 
 him ; did not the idea intrude of his being all engaged 
 with these quality weddings, and that he would wish 
 my large sheet of paper, perhaps, back in my own 
 writing-box. Well ! no matter ; there are some people 
 one never can get quit of, say the great folks, and you 
 perceive I am one of them. Meanwhile we were making 
 impromptu charades and nonsensical trifles the other 
 day, when one of the company said suddenly :
 
 LETTERS. 237 
 
 " Why is Mrs. Piozzi like a kaleidoscope ? " 
 
 REPLY. 
 
 The brilliant colours that appear 
 Shine, like her wit, distinct and clear ; 
 While Fancy's fleeting magic power 
 Combines to charm each varying hour : 
 Giving to trifles light as wind 
 The lustre of her fertile mind, 
 Imparting pleasure and surprize, 
 Delighting still our hearts and eyes. 
 
 Grood-natured at least, was not it ? But we have not 
 the fine thing here, constructed by Brewster *, uniting 
 camera obscura with the other catoptric devices. Oh ! 
 how I should like to see that, and the exhibition, in 
 your company. You really should write me some ac- 
 count of it. This weather will bring wealth to the 
 farmers, and felicity to the apple vats. A Devonshire 
 lady, Sir Stafford Northcote's wife, who knows your 
 brother Henry, says there is promise of more cyder this 
 year than has been known for many summers, and as to 
 hay and wheat there can surely be no want. 
 
 The Queen's approaching death gives no concern but 
 to the tradesmen, who want to sell their pinks and 
 yellows I suppose ; though something should be settled 
 concerning the guardianship of her poor old husband's 
 person. Our Demagogues are to make a grand push 
 for triennial parliaments, they say. People are in such 
 haste to be happy ; they play short whist, short com- 
 
 * Sir David Brewster, Principal of the University of Edin- 
 burgh, &c.
 
 238 LETTERS. 
 
 ruerce, &c. but after all these complaints of bad har- 
 vests, I did not expect them to cry for short commons ; 
 so that's one of my silly jokes. Is it a joke that Buo- 
 naparte is dying dropsical ? Ay, ay : sweetly sung the 
 old French poet who said of such folks : 
 
 " Tant que la Fortune vous seconde, 
 Vous etes les maitres du monde, 
 
 Votre gloire nous eblouit : 
 Mais au grand revers funeste 
 Le masque tombe, 1'homme reste, 
 
 Et le heros s'evanouit." 
 
 Bright with fortune's dazzling favour 
 Seconding each bold endeavour, 
 
 Warriors tame our souls to fear ; 
 But reverses spoil their feigning, 
 Down drops mask ; the man remaining, 
 
 While the heroes disappear. 
 
 Well ! 'tis no great matter whether they are turned 
 off the kaleidoscope or no, if we listen to Dr. Hales, 
 the great theologian, under whose quarto volumes on 
 Chronology, poor Upham's shelves are bending. He 
 stood up in Mr. Grinfield's pulpit last Sunday fortnight 
 (as, perhaps, I told you), and said confidently that the 
 world would end that day sixty-two years. It was the 
 anniversary of our Lord's Ascension ; and perhaps it may 
 be so. You will find innumerable reflections on that 
 event, in King's " Morsels of Criticism," which I have 
 loaded, if not deformed, by numberless notes manu- 
 script, but legible enough, for I looked them over
 
 LETTERS. 239 
 
 since Hales's sermon, as I thought they would amuse 
 you. 'Tis almost a pity you should suffer them to be 
 sold after my death. 
 
 Sir Joseph Banks's evenings must this year be more 
 interesting than ever, though I do fear the North Pole 
 expedition will be a long time in finishing, and the 
 people here are so desirous always to put extinguishers 
 on their own entertainment. The ice field attached to 
 our Ultima Thule, Fulda or Fulah, is now said to be a 
 
 mere newspaper story. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Adbury must be in high beauty just now when do 
 you go thither ? I hear much of an exploding mineral 
 in Derbyshire, that is to supply our deficiency in vol- 
 canic matter ; and my curiosity is all alive about it : 
 what mineral can they mean ? 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, June 1. 1818. 
 
 MY shamefacedness, and my desire of talking about 
 twenty other things, kept me from showing you the 
 verses I sent - in answer to her exaggerated compli- 
 ments, and kept me too from reading you some which 
 she made impromptu on my complaining of the loss of 
 youth and its accompaniments, beauty, admiration, &c. 
 
 " Oh talk not to me of the days that are flown ; 
 
 Tho' Youth's cheerful blossoms decline, 
 Even Autumn and Winter their treasures can boast, 
 While Virtue's pure sunshine is thine.
 
 240 LETTERS. 
 
 " In each season of life there are blessings in store ; 
 
 Then still, my dear friend, be it ours, 
 To rejoice in the fruit our life's harvest may give, 
 Nor repine at the loss of its flowers." 
 
 To this I replied : 
 
 Where Winter chills the leafless grove, 
 Silent to mirth and dead to love, 
 Should robin from some slippery spray 
 Tune up his long-remembered lay, 
 Each passenger would cheer the bird, 
 In Summer's concert scarcely heard. 
 
 When Jura's icy mountains rise, 
 
 Let one green spot salute our eyesj 
 
 Amid the lofty glaciers lost 
 
 As if forgotten by the frost ; 
 
 Each Briton smiles, extends the hand, 
 
 And cries, Oh charming Switzerland ! 
 
 My talents thus your eyes allure, 
 And please, reduced to miniature ; 
 'Tis thus you sooth my fond regret, 
 For times I never can forget ; 
 And thus your praises, partial friend, 
 Excite the spirits they commend. 
 
 Miss O'Neill will be visible here with the naked eye, 
 as men say of a new star or comet, on the 13th June 
 next, Saturday se'nnight. I shall make her panegyric 
 an excuse for another letter. The first debut on these 
 boards is Belvidera, which I have seen Siddons 'play to
 
 LETTEKS. 241 
 
 Dimond's, Brereton's, and to Kemble s Jaffier, well re- 
 collecting how she spake and acted every passage, 
 particularly her soft but striking " Farewell ! remember 
 Twelve ! " which was sure to electrify the house ; but I 
 must say " Farewell ! remember five ! " which when 
 the clock has struck, the postman will wait for no 
 more from yours ever faithfully, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Miss Willoughby. 
 
 Monday, 15th June, 1818. 
 
 MY dear Miss Willoughby was very kind in writing so 
 soon, but do not call me unkind in writing so late ; I 
 waited to see Miss O'Neill. She is a charming crea- 
 ture without doubt, and charms, as it should seem, with- 
 out intending it, calling in no aid from dress, or air, or 
 studied elegance, such as in old days one expected to 
 find in a public professor or dramatic recitation ; but 
 like Dryden's Cleopatra, 
 
 " She casts a look so languishingly sweet, 
 As if, secure of all beholders' hearts, 
 Neglecting, she can take them." 
 
 Comparing such an actress with Mrs. Siddons, is like 
 holding up a pearl of nice purity, and asking you if it 
 is not superior to a brilliant of the first weight and 
 water. You are fortunate in finding a cool place during 
 these unlooked-for heats of a summer season long for- 
 gotten in our country. My house is, as you know, on 
 the hill's side; but down in Green Park Buildings, 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 242 LETTERS. 
 
 one can't help thinking how a fairy would feel if held 
 down at the bottom of a bowl, from which the hot punch 
 had just been poured away. 
 
 But I am going to Wales, if these elections will have 
 left me any untired horses. Meanwhile, our pretty 
 friend, Mrs. Webbe, had a very nice party some time 
 ago, and her brother presided so kindly. I fancy he is 
 a good sort of man, but loves a wonder ; and told me 
 the other day of a gentleman who expected to sit in the 
 House of Peers as Earl of Huntingdon. A gay dream, 
 I suppose ; but Mrs. Fox will know if there is any truth 
 in the tale. 
 
 Well ! I do hope your favourites, the Wards, will rise 
 in the profession. He is indefatigable ; and though I 
 felt him feeble and sinking in some parts, some scenes 
 I mean, of that never-ending Jaffier, he sustained many 
 scenes admirably; the one with Kenault was inimi- 
 table, and 'tis long, indeed, since I have seen such a 
 beautiful Pierre as Conway. Mr. Ward is so correct, 
 too, so never-wrong. The poet has always justice done 
 him by a scholar-like speaker; on the whole, I was 
 very well entertained. 
 
 Miss Stratton, one of them, is really very pretty: 
 she went in hysterics at Belvidera's distress, so did 
 Miss Grlover. I said we should all melt into tears, 
 but the joke was good for nothing, the house was no 
 hotter (where I sate) than any other house entered of 
 late by dear Miss Willoughby's ever faithful, humble 
 servant, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI.
 
 LETTERS. 243 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Thursday, June 18th, 1818. 
 
 IT was sweetly done of you, indeed, dear Sir, to put 
 the little warm bottle, and the warm kind invitation 
 into your brother's pocket so. God forbid that I should 
 outlive that quantity of Cayenne pepper, and want 
 more ! ! An old Welsh squire did certainly keep on 
 breathing till brandy was not sufficiently exciting for 
 him without Cayenne pepper, but I think he was turned 
 of ninety. 
 
 Well ! Miss O'Neill might have moved him even 
 then. Our ladies are all in hysterics, our gentlemen's 
 hands quite blistered with clapping, and her stage com- 
 panions worn to a thread with standing up like chairs 
 in a children's country dance, while she alone commands 
 the attention of such audiences, as Bath never witnessed 
 till now. The box-keepers said last night that the num- 
 bers Kean drew after him were nothing to it. She per- 
 forms every evening for seven days together : but Clifton 
 is near, if she does break a blood-vessel or two. 
 
 A Dublin bookseller expects to end his days Earl 
 of Upper Ossory, 'tis said ; and a young lieutenant of a 
 man of war hopes to sit in the Upper House with the old, 
 and to me dear, title of Huntingdon. Oh, the last earl 
 was one of my truly partial friends ! but Count Flahaut's* 
 
 * Count Flahaut married the only daughter of Viscount Keith 
 by his first wife. Miss Thrale was his second, by whom he left 
 an only daughter, the Hon. Mrs. A. J. Villiers. 
 
 B 2
 
 244 LETTERS. 
 
 claim has proved of more importance than them all, by 
 digging out this obsolete law. 
 
 Formerly, as I have read, whenever a Scotch gentle- 
 man meditated a journey southward, he used to have 
 the crier's bell rung up and down Edinburgh for many 
 weeks beforehand, to ascertain the parcels and packages 
 he considered himself as bound to carry for his neigh- 
 bours, and to settle the expences, &c., but tempora mu- 
 tantur; and Mr. Scrase told me once that he had made 
 gentlemen's wills when they left the county of Sussex 
 about Brighthelmstone : describing the leave-takings, 
 &c., as if the people had been setting out for a discovery 
 of the North Pole. Mr. Scrase was eighty-six years 
 old when I first knew him in 1765: a man of great 
 abilities then, and of delightful conversation. But what 
 he most delighted to converse about, was the famous 
 Farinelli. Indeed, of all public performers, I believe 
 Farinelli was the only one whom no successor ever pre- 
 tended to equal.
 
 LETTERS. 245 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 1st July, 1818. 
 
 THE heat has certainly exhaled my faculties, and I 
 have but just life enough left to laugh at the fourteen 
 taylors who, united under a flag with Liberty and In- 
 dependence on it, went to vote for some of these gay 
 fellows, I forget which ; " but the motto is ill chosen," said 
 I ; " they should have written up Measures not Men ! " 
 
 Sir Thomas Lethbridge, however, gave in last night ; 
 oh how unlikely, how impossible, was it for him to 
 hope for a seat, who had sent the popular favourite, Sir 
 Francis Burdett, to the Tower*, I wonder he would try ! 
 
 Doctor Gray says in his last kind letter, that we 
 quarrel with no time but the present. Hope still anti- 
 cipates pleasure for a future day ; and those that are 
 past, delight us by recollection. He longs to see me 
 and Mrs. Mostyn, he says, to talk about old Streatham 
 Park. His sisters and nieces, two old ladies and two 
 youngish ones, are come to settle here at Bath, and he 
 begs me to introduce them into society ; but 'tis the 
 wrong time of year : I tried to make them a party for 
 to-morrow, but cannot muster twenty faces, everybody 
 has left town ; in a week more, I shall leave it too. 
 
 * He moved the committal of Sir Francis, whose language, he 
 said, " made his hair stand on end." Excited by an ironical 
 cheer, he added, "it really had that effect." In allusion to this 
 unlucky declaration, he was saluted with cries of porcupine and 
 encountered by pictures of that animal wherever he went during 
 the election. 
 
 B 3
 
 246 LETTERS. 
 
 Wales will be quiet at least, and people expect health 
 and pleasure from change of air, which having once de- 
 lighted us, we talk of its enjoyments when no longer 
 capable of enjoying them. 
 
 No matter ! the farce must go on till the curtain 
 drops, and if everybody left off their disguisings as they 
 grew old, why age would appear with still more de- 
 formity than at present. Have you interested yourself 
 concerning the discovery of Ossian's originality, so long 
 doubted, so strenuously denied ? The concatenation 
 arose in my mind from his expressive words : " Age 
 is dark and unlovely, it is like the glimmering light of 
 the moon when it shines through the broken clouds ; 
 the blast of the north is on the desolate plain, and the 
 traveller shrinks on his journey." 
 
 I feel sometimes ready to shrink from mine to North 
 Wales ; and your good-natured brother said, he wished 
 I should change my destination, and go no further than 
 Sidmouth. I told him this was my last long frolic ; 
 and that next year (if I am to see A. D. 1819) I would 
 try to spend the summer of it in Devonshire ; and so 
 I will. 
 
 Meanwhile you will have a stormy Session of Par- 
 liament, made still more so by the Catholic Question 
 being brought forward. Forcing religion into the dispute, 
 will set all in a state of effervescence ; for although, poor 
 thing, she is disregarded in common moments, and left 
 like a football covered with mould and dust, give that 
 football but a kick, and set the sport going, all the 
 youth of the village will mix in the game, and some
 
 LETTEBS. 247 
 
 eyes will be beat out and some blows exchanged, be- 
 fore they lay the poor football to sleep under the old 
 wall again, little as they really care for it. 
 
 Well ! but you must not pay ninepence for this let- 
 ter without my insertion of a joke you will like, perhaps, 
 because it is mine; of the man who comes into a 
 coffeehouse at Ilchester during the heat of our election 
 contest, and asks for the news. " Ah, Lord, Sir ! " re- 
 plies the waiter, " we are badly off for papers. The 
 popular candidate has got the day ; the poor old 'Times' 
 has been torn to pieces in the scuffle, a sea captain has 
 catched up . our only ' Pilot,' because he could see 
 neither 'Sun' nor 'Star'; and no 'Courier' can be 
 got for love or money. They are all on the road to 
 Bath." Adieu ! and don't wholly forget yours ever, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 I have lost a day as well as my wits I find. This is 
 the 2nd not the 1st of July. Bessy and I set out for 
 our own country on Friday, 10th ; so if you will not 
 write soon, the direction must be Brynbella, near Den- 
 bigh, N. Wales. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 No. 8, Gay Street, Tuesday Night, 
 15th September, 1818. 
 
 WHEN I was about seven years older than your Tommy, 
 we had a permitted holyday : and two of my uncle, Sir 
 L. S. Cotton's, children, with poor Miss Owen and her 
 
 B 4
 
 248 LETTERS. 
 
 brother, came, and one of our gambols was to dance 
 round him or her who sat in the middle, and teize them 
 till they quitted their post, when another took it, and 
 underwent the same worry. 
 
 When George Cotton however (afterwards Dean of 
 Chester) was seated, no arts, no tricks, no force could 
 make him move ; so that Jack Owen came and whis- 
 pered me : "If you'll help, we will make him jump up, 
 stout as he is. Let you and I set fire to Mrs. Salus- 
 bury's papers here in the closet, and make a noise. 
 George will run away I warrant you, and look foolish 
 enough." I took the hint, and cried fire at the very 
 top of my voice. Out ran my mother and her com- 
 pany from their tea or cards, in the next room, frighted 
 beyond all telling, ..." and Dear Mama, don't be 
 angry," cried I, " it was only to get Greorge out of his 
 place." 
 
 Query, is Cobbet any wiser ? You have finished his 
 nonsense by now. 
 
 I have got a sort of French Thraliana : fragments 
 of letters written by Madame , Louis XIV.'s bro- 
 ther's wife, to our Queen Caroline, grandmother to 
 George III. of England. I can hardly unpack my 
 trunks for the avidity I feel to read this (to many) un- 
 interesting stuff: to me more than delightful. 
 
 Madame's account of her visit to a Female Benedictine 
 Convent, where she saw a nun of the royal family amuse 
 herself by shooting at a target and firing pistols at a 
 mark, is very curious ; and shows one how difficult it is
 
 LETTERS. 249 
 
 to dispose of leisure hours ; for this lady had very few 
 hours indeed that by the rules of the convent she could 
 call her own ; and this was her way of getting rid of 
 them : the most extraordinary method that ever met 
 my eye in reading through seventy years, Time's short 
 preface to the " Volume of Eternity." 
 
 I can add no more but that, I am, Dear Sir, 
 
 Yours and Lady Fellowes's ever obliged 
 and grateful and faithful, 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Michaelmas Day, 1818, 
 like the 1st of May. 
 
 NOTHING kills the Queen, however. It is really a 
 great misfortune to be kept panting for breath so, and 
 screaming with pain by medical skill : were she a sub- 
 ject, I suppose, they would have released her long ago ; 
 but diseases and distresses of the human frame must 
 lead to death at length, as the smallest brooks of the 
 most inland country will sink in the sea at last. Sleep 
 gave me up to his brother, says some old writer, and 
 then 
 
 " Soles occidere et redire possunt; 
 Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, 
 Nox est perpetua una dormienda." Catullus. 
 
 Pretty lines certainly for a heathen poet. Will these 
 do in imitation?
 
 250 LETTERS. 
 
 The sun that sets, with light refin'd 
 
 Eeturns to gild the plains ; 
 When man's short day has once declin'd, 
 
 Perpetual night remains. 
 
 And recollecting that some old bishop who cured 
 himself of the dropsy by reading " Quintus Curtius," 
 pointed out a pleasant remedy, I sent to Upham for 
 Coxe's newly written "Life of John Duke of Marl- 
 borough," in hopes Blenheim would do as well as the 
 Battle of Arbela, and so it did ; I am very well again, 
 now. 
 
 The glance I gave into " Thraliana " showed me these 
 verses, better adapted to my present age than to that in 
 which they were written. In hope of amusing you I 
 write them out, and pray read them to pretty Lady 
 Fellowes 
 
 " J'aurai bientot quatre-vingt ans ; 
 Je crois qu'a cette heure il est temps 
 
 De dedaigner la vie ; 
 Aussi je la perds sans regret, 
 Et je fais gai'ement mon paquet, 
 
 Bon soir la compagnie. 
 
 " Lorsque d'icy je partirai, 
 Je ne scais pas trop ou j'irai, 
 
 Mais en Dieu je me fie : 
 II ne me peut mener que bien, 
 Aussi je n'apprehends rien : 
 
 Bon soir la compagnie.
 
 LETTERS. 251 
 
 " J'ai goute de tous les plaisirs, 
 J'ai perdu jusqu'aux desirs, 
 
 A present je m'ennuye : 
 Lorsqu'on n'est plus bon a rien 
 On se retire, et on fait bien, 
 
 Eon soir la compagnie." 
 
 And now, after a thousand repetitions of a thousand 
 kind compliments to Lady F., and kisses to her darling 
 babies, I shall take a thin pen, and write out my ver- 
 sion of President Lamoignon's lines not much am- 
 plified 
 
 Arriv'd at grave and grey fourscore, 
 "Tis time to think on life no more ; 
 Time to be gone ; and therefore I 
 Can quit this world without a sigh : 
 Without or sorrow, care, or fright 
 Can bid the company good night. 
 
 When hence we part, 'tis hard to say 
 Whither we rove, or which the way ; 
 But He who sent me here can show 
 My doubtful footsteps where to go ; 
 So trusting to His truth and might, 
 I'll bid the company good night. 
 
 I've tasted here of every joy, 
 But time can taste itself destroy ; 
 It teizes me to see how soon 
 Quite good for nothing I am grown ;
 
 252 LETTERS. 
 
 When such the case, 'tis surely right 
 To bid the company good night. 
 
 Adieu ! and accept this Michaelmas goosery with 
 your accustomed kindness for 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Thursday, 15th October, 1818. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes, like his own western 
 sun, delights to warm and gild the evening of a stormy 
 day; but I have no commissions that I remember. 
 Divic Robinson has sent the wine, and I have sent him 
 the money, so that's all over. When you feel your own 
 purse too heavy, take it to Mortlocks, 290, in Oxford 
 Street : and carry Lady Fellowes a beautiful specimen 
 of South Wales china, and tell him how I am panting 
 for my ice pails and -large dishes to use this day sen- 
 night. 
 
 The horrid story of Mr. Bowles shooting his own 
 favourite nephew, heir to his estate, I believe, will make 
 me shudder at a partridge all this autumn. 'Tis a sad 
 thing one cannot buy these birds like ducks and geese. 
 But the thoughts of meeting at Mr. and Mrs. Greatheed's 
 again, and meeting at Adbury ! Oh I must not indulge 
 such extravagant fancies, and Lady Fellowes must not 
 encourage them. She is too good to us all. Was the 
 young Lady of Grey's Cliffe with the Greatheeds ? No 
 girl that ever I saw could compare with your brother's
 
 LETTERS. 253 
 
 daughter for beauty and apparent intelligence at her 
 age, but I suppose she will not maintain her superiority 
 for twenty years ; if she does, the poets will weary all 
 readers with verses written in her praise. Apropos to 
 poets, I think Lord Byron's " Pegasus " is moulting his 
 wings ; one hears nothing of him or his muse. Madame 
 D'Arblay writes and comes, and cries, and goes to live 
 at London with her son. She is very charming : she 
 always was ; but I will never trust her more. The first 
 time one is betrayed by semblance of friendship, may 
 be the fault of another ; the second time, 'tis one's own 
 fault ; and to be twice made April fool by the same trick 
 after ten years old, is too late. 
 
 Did you like the last volume of the " Tales of my 
 Landlord " ? I prefer a pretty novel little spoken of, 
 called " Civilisation." If I did not recommend it to Lady 
 Fellowes, I ought to have recommended it. Dr. Whal- 
 ley says 'tis written by Hannah More, and the girls call 
 it a preaching novel, and resolve not to look at a page 
 of it. The British Museum is the thing worth seeing 
 in London, and I missed it. English people make every 
 curiosity so difficult of access, that you may live among 
 us half a century, and see nothing. Foreigners throw 
 the doors open, and take no present going in or out. 
 Our fees at palaces, and our card money under the 
 candlesticks, are certainly a remainder of old ill man- 
 ners ; nor can I reconcile to myself, or to my notions 
 about good breeding, the trick of prescribing to our 
 visitants the stake they shall play for in our house. I 
 feel as well disposed to say what cap they should wear,
 
 254 LETTERS. 
 
 or what ribbonds they should buy. Let them buy and 
 wear what they will. 
 
 All seem disposed to liberate Buonaparte. The dash- 
 ing people, because he will make a dash ; and they 
 will like to see the old firework, after a pause, burst 
 out in a new wheel, or throw up a showy serpent 
 for us to stare at. The grave folks expect him to 
 fulfil Faber's new prediction of great things yet to be 
 accomplished by the Francic Emperor, and all consider 
 the sovereigns as very fruitlessly employed in en- 
 deavouring to shut the Temple of Janus. Meanwhile 
 there is an old metaphysical work, which I cannot take 
 pleasure in reading, published by Hartley, ancestor 
 to David Hartley, in the year 1749. Eighty-first pro- 
 position says : " It is probable that all civil govern- 
 ments will soon be overturned." His eighty-second pro- 
 position has these words : " It is highly probable, and 
 to be expected, that all Church government will in 
 course of less than a century be completely dissolved." 
 Nobody minded him at the moment, I suppose, except 
 a few pens which were preparing to answer him, but 
 his calculation must now be allowed to have been a 
 good one. France led the fashion, and all the world 
 is following it. Did I tell you of the conquest I made 
 in Wales of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Luxmore ? He 
 says now : " What is become of that little Mrs. Piozzi ? 
 who shone here among us like a meteor for a month or 
 two, and then away; when will she return, do you 
 know? we are very dull without her." And so they 
 are sure enough ; no music, no cards, nor no conversa-
 
 LETTERS. 255 
 
 tion, except the petty quarrels which infest all coun- 
 ties distant from the metropolis, round whose central 
 globe we roll at different distances, and Denbighshire 
 is Saturnian in every sense of the word : their sorrows, 
 as well as their joys, are so stupid. One would think 
 Doctor Young had passed his life among them, when 
 he says : 
 
 " Without misfortunes, what calamity ! 
 And what hostility without a foe ! " 
 
 Adieu ! and do not make it long, Dear Sir, before 
 you come and cheer the hearts of Kussell Street and 
 Gay Street : and don't run away with your brother 
 Dorset. I shall try to borrow him of his good-natured 
 lady for my flash next Thursday, 20th, being ever- 
 more 
 
 Yours and all your family's 
 
 obliged and faithful, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, October 29th and 30th, 1818. 
 
 THE ravens of my dear Sir James Fellowes are phea- 
 sants : brilliant in colour and tasteful to perfection. 
 Your letter made me recollect the verses. The planting 
 scheme enchants me. Kobert shall give you account of 
 my diligence : 
 
 " And as the crescent acorns swell, 
 These oaks to future time shall tell, 
 How friendship like themselves can shoot 
 To Heaven its height, through Earth its root."
 
 256 LETTERS. 
 
 My mind has yet some youth in it, as you say, who 
 know it best. The battered case, however, has had 
 some blows lately. 
 
 I am perpetually stopped in these last stages of my 
 long journey for want of horses, and shall be late home 
 of course ; so like all travellers, I read the tombstones in 
 the next churchyard, and without further allegory, how 
 the deaths do increase round one ! 
 
 Miss Fellowes called on me this morning. She is 
 in high looks, and does not perhaps entertain those 
 apprehensions about poor dear Mamma, which you can- 
 not avoid being sensible of : but do not be too selfish. 
 People of her age cannot long be detained here: no, 
 nor of mine either. Cowley says : 
 
 " It grieves me when I see what fate 
 Does on the best of mortals wait, 
 Poets or lovers let them be, 
 'Tis neither love nor poesy 
 Can arm against Death's weakest dart 
 The fertile head, or honest heart. 
 For when our life in the decline 
 Touches th' inevitable line, 
 In Death's strong hand a grape-stone proves 
 Fatal as thunder is in Jove's." 
 
 Meanwhile let us die but once, and not double the 
 pang by cowardice, or poyson the dart by wilful sin, but 
 meet the hour with at least as much deference to God's 
 will, as every Turk shows to that of the Orran Signer. 
 " It is the Sultan's pleasure," says he, " and so ends the 
 matter, here's my head." 
 
 I have set my acorns. 'Tis the oddest thing in the 
 world that the wind blew me an ash and a sycamore
 
 LETTERS. 057 
 
 key into this little garden a year ago, and George put 
 them in the ground, and they prospered. 
 
 So you will have a Piozzi forest some day, but take 
 care and claim them, and let nobody but yourself get a 
 twig; and if I live till they are old enough, they shall 
 be marked and ticketted. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 1st December, 1818. 
 
 WELL ! now I will not wait for a letter from Adbury, 
 though I do desire it above all things in the world ; for 
 you will like to hear how the Persians * behaved at an 
 English family dinner, and I am dying to tell dear Sir 
 James Fellowes how much I was entertained. 
 
 It is truly astonishing to see how they have mastered 
 our language, and caught up our European manners. 
 Men who have sate on carpets for thirty years, and eat 
 with chopsticks, are really a little better bred than the 
 rest of the company, manage knives, forks and chairs, 
 with grace and propriety, and what they ought not to 
 do (for they are Mussulmen) take their glass like an 
 
 * Meerza Saefar and Meerza Saulih (the two Persians mentioned 
 in these letters), two of the most distinguished personages sent 
 into this country three years ago by Abbas Meerza, the reigning 
 Prince of Persia. They speak English fluently, and are quite 
 familiar with our manners and customs, and are at no loss to defend 
 ablv their opinions. They are dressed in the costume of their 
 country. I saw them at Bath, Nov. 29, one in a scarlet and gold 
 pelisse, the other blue. J. F. 1818. 
 VOL. II. S
 
 258 LETTERS. 
 
 English country squire, and flirt with the girls famously. 
 I told them, however, that 
 
 " The glowing dames of Persia's royal court 
 Have faces flush'd with more exalted charms ; 
 The Sun that rolls his chariot o'er their heads, 
 Works up more fire and colour in their cheeks : 
 Arriv'd 'mong these, the prince will soon forget 
 Our pale unripen'd beauties of the North." 
 
 Well ! I really was very ill bred myself; studied these 
 men all day, and turned them over like the leaves of 
 a book, to get what information could be obtained. 
 What pleased me best was the confirmation of my own 
 conjecture concerning the names of Cyrus and Darius. 
 The last means sovereign, as I always believed, and 
 the first is synonymous with Cosroe. My fear of being 
 mistaken ever since I gave you my " Eetrospection," has 
 haunted me night and day. Error is such an insinu- 
 ating thing, it works through every book like water 
 through a filtering stone. Let us go, and say with 
 Horace : Satis lusistis, satis bibistis, &c. We must go, 
 that's certain, and 'tis the only thing that is certain. 
 Kat a TTsOavs ends all the cases Dr. James quotes from 
 your old friend Hippocrates. 
 
 Meanwhile ladies leave cards, and starving females 
 write romances. The novel called " Marriage " * is the 
 newest and merriest. How marriage should be a new 
 thing, that is at least as old .as Adam, the author 
 
 * By Miss Ferrier. It received a high compliment from Sir 
 Walter Scott in the preface to one of his novels. It was followed 
 by the "Inheritance " by the same writer.
 
 LETTERS. 259 
 
 may tell : but 'tis a very comical thing, and would 
 make Lady Fellowes laugh on a long evening. 
 
 Here is the first frost on the first day of winter: 
 quite right. The next three months, of w T hich this is 
 one, ought to be drippy, slippy, nippy. 
 
 Pluviose, Nivose, Ventose : all that stuff is very pret- 
 tily put together in the " Clavis Calendarise." I wonder 
 you never looked at mine, crowded with notes I would 
 say deformed : but you would only answer Pish ! The 
 author, an Irishman, has borrowed most liberally from 
 " Ketrospection," and never said thank you, Mrs. Piozzi: 
 but no matter, 'tis a very useful book, and not unenter- 
 taining. But I must write to Doctor Gray, and thank 
 him for his very, very kind letter. One would think I 
 was like Sir Epicure Mammon in Ben Jonson's "Alche- 
 mist," who fancying he had found the philosopher's 
 stone, was enumerating the felicities it would purchase, 
 and cried out in a rapture : 
 
 " I will have grave divines to flatter me, 
 Poets I will not heed." 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, and assure yourself that although no 
 poet, nor grave divine, your friendship is the most 
 valued possession of 
 
 Yours and your family's ever obliged and faithful, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 a 2
 
 260 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Jan. 6, 1819. 
 
 . MR. MANGIN is come from Paris, and says my " Syno- 
 nymes" are all the rage there ; and they have got a print 
 of me, and asked him if it was like cette dame celebre. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 12 Jan. 1819. 
 
 So although dear Sir James Fellowes is screwed up, 
 as in a vice, by bad verse and worse prosing, poor H. 
 L. P. cannot squeeze a letter out of him. Well ! so it 
 is with Salusbury not a word from him either. The 
 ladies are better correspondents by half; they will at 
 least tell one, poor souls, how sick they are. 
 
 Meanwhile, here is my annual foolery at hand al- 
 most ; it really seems but the other day since our last 
 celebration. But 
 
 11 Thus perish years, as moments from our view. 
 Some mourned, some loved, all lost ; too many, yet too few." 
 
 I have, however, added to my stock of ideas, since 
 1819 came in, the sight of a man flying on the slack 
 rope, and of another man professedly fire proof. I 
 have likewise seen red snow brought from within the 
 Polar circle, and have seen the man who witnessed a 
 phenomenon often read of with wonder, a circular rain- 
 bow. Curiosity is supposed exclusively to belong to 
 youth ; but 'tis foolish to leave this world without
 
 LETTERS. 261 
 
 knowing what's done in it, especially as eternity will be 
 past in that which is to come. 
 
 Doctor Charles Parry, who shewed me the Arctic 
 rareties, and traced his brother's track for me on the 
 enormous map we looked over, is very indignant at 
 their needless haste to return home without doing their 
 errand in any wise ; though these two or three occur- 
 rences render their voyage interesting. They will cer- 
 tainly go again next summer, and make another visit 
 to the new nation, who never saw ship, or even canoe, 
 like the people predicted to Ulysses in Homer. They 
 indeed called an oar when they saw one, a corn-van ; 
 but these poor creatures never saw corn, or encountered 
 an enemy. 
 
 They contemplated the " Alexander " and " Isabella " 
 long before they could believe them inanimate and 
 worked to motion by mortals like themselves ; and 
 when, embracing the masts, they found them dead wood, 
 they burst into a horse laugh and continued holding their 
 sides our people guessed not why, but I think it was 
 at the mistake of their reporters, who had miscalled 
 them male and female gyants and probably added 
 some false wonders of their own ; for truth is native of 
 no clime hitherto discovered but by Grulliver. 
 
 And now do, dear Sir James Fellowes, come home to 
 us and see good mamma who pined after you last 
 time, sadly. You said you had two old women at Ad- 
 bury weeder women I believe, who wanted you there. 
 I am sure you have two old women here who want you 
 as much, or more. The weeds of conversation weary 
 
 K 3
 
 262 LETTEES. 
 
 me to death with " Dear Maam, I hope you caught 
 no cold at the last party ; Lord bless me ! how hot the 
 rooms were ! Well ! I do hate hot rooms above all 
 living things, &c., &c." 
 
 Oh come back for very pity reddes dulce loqui and 
 do not make me force my partner's hand incessantly 
 thus, for a fragment of comfortable chat. The Bishop 
 of Meath is your best substitute : he is very good-hu- 
 moured, and writes verses, and shews me what he has 
 written. Apropos, poor Lady Crewe is dead an object 
 of deformity ! The greatest beauty of her time : at 
 least, the most admired woman ; " Whose mind kept 
 the promise was made by her face;" as Charles Fox 
 said and sung. But palsy shook her frame, and cancer 
 gnawed it. Oh may such a death never reach yours and 
 your dear family's ever, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Farewell! remember, not 12, but 26. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Jan. 17, 1819. 
 
 INDEED, my dear Sir, it is very comical in you to 
 fancy my letters so superior ; but as a mountebank said, 
 who I heard haranguing the crowd upon Berwick-upon- 
 Tweed : " People of a good taste likes my deceptions, 
 and so says I, despitur ; " meaning decipiatur of course, 
 wherever he had gained his classic knowledge. 
 
 Our fire-eaters continue their tricks, and are said to 
 get a great deal of money. That they do really and
 
 LETTERS. 263 
 
 bond fide swallow boyling oyl into their stomachs and 
 arsenic, eating a good supper and sleeping sound after- 
 wards who can believe? There must be a quick sub- 
 stitution effected by legerdemain of a glass without 
 poyson, for the glass we see ^vith poyson ; just at the 
 moment Ma'amselle prepares in appearance to receive 
 its contents down her throat. 
 
 As new a thing, though not as strange perhaps, was 
 exhibited the other day by and before Lords and 
 Commons, themselves convened in Parliament, without 
 either King or Chancellor, but, substitution again. And 
 now for the Catholick Question justly so called, for its 
 consequences will be universal, and you will find the 
 most difficult question possible decided by mere pre- 
 judice not investigation. The Eomanists, I see, expect 
 a very favourable issue to their cause, which will come 
 on, we are told, soon as the petitions are decided. 
 But you would rather hear about the red snow, and I 
 would rather tell about it. 
 
 What Doctor Charles Parry showed me was preserved 
 in very large transparent phials, hermetically sealed. 
 It was blood red, and I saw a little sediment. Did it? 
 Oh, no ! did it fall red from the clouds ? said I. " We 
 cannot tell," was the reply. " My brother saw no snow 
 fall while he was in that district, but he gathered what 
 he gave me not from the surface but at two feet deep 
 in the drifts. It lay at least four or five feet on the 
 earth, and was of the same colour down at the very 
 bottom." They saw white snow in plenty upon the 
 distant flaciers. The wise men in the ships attributed 
 
 O * 
 
 s 4
 
 264 LETTERS. 
 
 the sanguinary hue to aerolite stones which fall in large 
 quantities ; and the new discovered Esquimaux (for Es- 
 quimaux they are) make knives and saws such as they 
 do make, poor creatures, of this sky-dropt iron, having 
 no other metal of any sort or kind. I was talking to 
 your brother Dorset concerning the astonishment of 
 our late-found northern friends, at seeing the "Isabella" 
 and " Alexander " with their attendant boats ; and ob- 
 served how well Dryden must have studied human 
 nature, when he gave his beautiful description of Cortez's 
 first arrival in Mexico. " Oh," said he, " write to James 
 and remind him of the excellent adaptation you have 
 made ; the lines are little known." Here 'tis then : 
 
 " ' We went obedient, Sir, to your command, 
 To view the utmost limits of the land ; 
 To that sea shore, where no more world is found, 
 But foaming billows breaking on the ground j 
 There for a while my eyes no objects met 
 But distant skies that in the ocean set, 
 Or low-hung clouds that dipt themselves in rain 
 To shake their fleeces on the earth again. 
 At last, as far as I could cast my eyes 
 Upon the sea, somewhat methought did rise, 
 Like bluish mists, which still appearing more, 
 Took dreadful shapes, and mov'd towards the shore.' 
 
 ' What shapes did these new wonders represent ? ' 
 
 ' More strange than all your wonder can invent : 
 The object I could first distinctly view, 
 Were tall straight trees that o'er the waters flew : 
 Wings on their sides instead of leaves did grow, 
 Which gather'd all the breath the winds could blow : 
 And while their bodies cut the yielding seas, 
 Low at their feet lay floating palaces.' 
 
 ' Came they alive, or dead upon our shore ? '
 
 LETTERS. 265 
 
 'Alas ! they liv'd too sure ; I heard them roar. 
 They tiirn'd their sides, and to each other spoke ; 
 I saw their words hreak forth in fire and smoke, 
 Sure 'tis their voice that thunders from on high, 
 Or these the younger brothers of the sky. 
 Deaf with the noise, I took my hasty flight, 
 No mortal courage could endure the sight.' " 
 
 It is, as your brother observed, very remarkable, that 
 the idea of a savage should thus have possessed a 
 court poet ; but besides the exquisite beauty of Dryden's 
 Virgilian diction, there is a truth as to the sentiment, 
 that fills one's soul with wonder at the comprehensive- 
 ness of such a mind. Ay, ay, when pyramids crumble 
 to dust like the bodies of kings they were meant to 
 cover good poetry and power of language will re- 
 main : till well written inscriptions shall outlast their 
 monuments. But I am growing enthusiastic, and feel 
 glad the paper is so near full, that I may be forced to 
 leave off. Whenever dearPiozzi caught me ranting in 
 this manner, he used to say " Ah, ha, vien Vestro 
 adesso" So adieu ! 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 9 Feb. 1819. 
 
 IF any thing could give astringency to my ink, 
 and make me write a constrained letter to dear Sir 
 James Fellowes, it would be the feel of my mind with 
 regard to your late situation, and the feel of my own 
 mouth, which has been so uneasy to me, that fears of 
 carcinoma haunted me three days and nights at least, 
 while the silence I was obliged to use became no cha-
 
 2&6 LETTERS. 
 
 racter but that of your Algerine mutes, that strangle 
 and say nothing. 
 
 Common sense at length suggested that it was only 
 relaxation so I used your white stuff, and honey of 
 roses ; and now 
 
 "My mouth praises God with joyful lips." 
 
 Oh anything, sweet heaven! but a cancer. I should 
 then indeed have to follow my angelic mother eheu ! 
 nonpassibus equis down the last dark and slippery hill. 
 
 If, however, the passage was unpleasant to your 
 mamma and mine, what will become of these strange 
 creatures whose indefinable sins pollute the page of 
 every newspaper ? . . 
 
 What a universal styptic is gold, if a bold hemor- 
 rhage of truth does chance to burst out ! Oh, well and 
 wisely said Sir Kobert Walpole, that everything had its 
 price.* Why this colonel is like Sir Edward Mortimer 
 in the " Iron Chest." . . . 
 
 But here is a pamphlet come out, I guess not by 
 whom written f, called " Historic Doubts concerning 
 Buonaparte : n you must give it a reading. It has at 
 least the grace of novelty to recommend it, and will, I 
 dare say, rim rapidly through many editions 'tis so 
 cheap. . . . 
 
 So here is a real commonplace letter like every- 
 
 * What Sir Robert Walpole is commonly reported to have said 
 was, " All men have their price." What he really said was, " All 
 these men have their price ; " alluding to the so-called patriots of 
 the Opposition. 
 
 f By Dr. Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin.
 
 LETTERS. 267 
 
 body's letter, written among perpetual knocks at the 
 door by people who know not how to dispose of the 
 hours between breakfast and the moments when they 
 may without self-condemnation pretend impatience for 
 dinner, better than by throwing a few of them away 
 upon dear Sir James Fellowes's ever obliged and 
 faithful H. L. P. 
 
 In the midst of all this I find my paper full, and 
 wonder when I found time to fill it ; but my pen, like a 
 horse at Newmarket, moves most swiftly when it carries 
 least weight 'tis plain. Adieu then, and remember 
 me to kind Lady Fellowes and lovely Mariuccia, for so 
 we should call her in Italy. 
 
 To Sir James Felloiues. 
 
 Bath, 25 Feb. 1819. 
 
 THE languor you describe as possessing your mind, 
 my dear Sir, while it urges you to restless activity of 
 body, no one can better understand than myself, who 
 used to walk incessantly, squeezing the flag-stones of 
 our South Parade here, with my feet, in order to obtain 
 relief for my head when struggling against " Thick 
 coming fancies that robbed me of my rest." Well ! 
 'tis a foolish thing ever to be uneasy at all. 
 
 Our longest life is but a little short parenthesis in the 
 broad page of time, which is itself a mere preface or 
 prologue to eternity. Let us, however, write the brief 
 period neatly, and leave our visiting ticket to the world, 
 such as may not disgrace us.
 
 S<38 LETTERS. 
 
 I have asked for St. David's Day, and we will have a 
 good dinner and a Welch harp. 
 
 Mrs. Stratton says she would give us authors, actors, 
 &c., a merry day at her house, but that if she did, it 
 must be " un table fort libre mais peu de couverts," 
 as she keeps no professed cook. Never mind, replied 
 H. L. P., we care only for the salt. 
 
 When all is over, I will tell you how it ended : mean- 
 while, the best Bath news is that good old General 
 Leighton is now become Sir Baldwin, with three or four 
 additional thousands a year. You remember old General 
 Leighton : he stooped excessively from a cold caught 
 bivouacking somewhere in our service. He is a true 
 Salopian, who, though well acquainted with both hemi- 
 spheres, delights in talking only of Shrewsbury.' He 
 will now end his life where it began, nine miles from 
 his favourite spot a pretty spot enough, but its power 
 over a soldier of fortune like General Leighton, or a 
 full minded man like my friend the first Dr. Burney, is 
 really to its credit. 
 
 When the last-named friend had occasion to kiss his 
 Majesty's hand two or three times within two or three 
 years, I remember the wags saying, " Why Burney 
 takes the King's hand, sure, for Shrewsbury brawn ; he 
 puts it so often to his lips." 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, March 13, 1819. 
 
 THE salt you get, dear Sir, must be all out of the old 
 salt cellar, with the cypher of H. L. P. upon it. Our
 
 LETTERS. 263 
 
 gay dinner is not to be held till the 19th of this month, 
 next Fryday, at Mrs. Stratton's. I shall then invite the 
 company to my own house on some day, when Warde 
 and Conway are disengaged. 
 
 Your dinner shall be a good one : for you remember 
 Boileau's epigram on just such a feast : 
 
 " Damis ! vous donnez la famine, 
 Votre table a trop peu de plats ; 
 Peu content de votre repas, 
 Enseignez moi done ou on dine." 
 
 Too few good dishes is a fault, 
 Bad too many without salt ; 
 Among your other bons mots, pray 
 Tell me where we dine to-day. 
 
 But here we are chatting and laughing, and in comes 
 your brother Dorset to tell me . . . and he wished 
 me to take charge of his Ariadne, but my room will not 
 hold her. It came into my head as he was talking, that 
 the deserted ladies, who cannot get their lovers to marry 
 them after promises, &c., all follow her classical example, 
 and make alliance with Bacchus as soon as their Theseus 
 is gone : at least, I see some who are doing so here at 
 Bath, and I suppose Divie Robertson, the wine-mer- 
 chant, would be glad they were still more in number. 
 
 Dear me ! how sick, how thrice sick, am I of these 
 parties! so falsely called society : for one idea in common 
 with them I possess not. Yet one must live among
 
 270 LETTERS. 
 
 people one cannot care about, in order to serve those 
 who really amuse and delight one. 
 
 Mr. Warde will, through Miss Willoughby's interest 
 and mine, produce a gallant show of hands to-night, to 
 use an election phrase. Did I ever tell you an old joke 
 of Grarrick's, when I sat in his lap at the celebration of 
 our peace with France, signed at Aix-la-Chapelle ? in 
 the year what was it? 1748, I think. "A bad peace 
 surely," said our favourite actor, " that brings so many 
 heads to the scaffold." He did not like my reminding 
 him of his saying so, because it made him look old. 
 But here comes company and here come beggars. I 
 hate not five minutes nor five guineas left, they plague 
 me so : 
 
 All considering me as their prey 
 All assisting tow'rds my decay. 
 
 I was near escaping them yesterday by choking my- 
 self at dinner, but only a very little soreness remains ; 
 and with what wits I have left in my head let me protect 
 myself. 
 
 Yours, &c., 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Day of the Vernal Equinox, 1819. 
 
 I CAN now tell you that Mrs. Stratton's dinner went 
 off delightfully ; the salt shining and spar-like, un- 
 bruised, unbasketted, very good indeed. I wish mine
 
 LETTERS. 271 
 
 may be as good and brilliant next Fryday, the 26th, 
 when my very best dependence will be on you, my ever 
 best friend. We must sit down, though, as near to five 
 o'clock as possible, because of Sir Walter James, who 
 hates to dine later, and who has begged himself in with 
 a condescendance I little expected. 
 
 You and he will find Warde most of a scholar, Conway 
 the man of high polish, general knowledge, and best 
 natural abilities. If you don't like them, it will vex 
 me. 
 
 Apropos to authors, actors, &c., I have had an offer 
 since I wrote last, not of marriage as Ninon de FEnclos 
 boasted when touching her eightieth year, but of a 
 better thing, money for Murphy's portrait. The rich Mr. 
 Taylor, George Watson Taylor, who bought Johnson's 
 picture and Baretti's at the sale, solicits it with beg and 
 pray. He once offered me, if you remember, 1571. for 
 it, so I can't, in honour or conscience, ask him more ; 
 but if he would take my Cypriani Magdalen, who is 
 eating her head off at old Wilson's European Museum, 
 along with Mr. Murphy's head by Reynolds, and give 
 me 200/. for both together, the bargain would be very 
 good for both of us, and I should take a good wide step 
 towards buying the 6000^. which dear Piozzi left to his 
 relations in Italy, and which I always have promised 
 Salusbury to make up for him in the Consols three per 
 cent., after which transaction my money is my own ; and 
 whatever I may feel disposed to give or spend, it shall 
 be without self-reproach. There are 5000/. in now, you 
 know.
 
 272 LETTERS. 
 
 Your friends, the Greatheeds, have had a famous 
 acquisition made to their fortune by death of this Mr. 
 Collyear. I wish it might drive them to Bath ; for if I 
 recollect rightly, you said they were once more restored 
 to chearful endurance of that life their son's death made 
 a scourge to them. 
 
 My friends the Mangins, who were kind to me when 
 you were, and in. whose welfare I take the tenderest 
 concern, have suffered from the danger of their 
 little boy as much almost as could be inflicted ; and 
 though my life has been so drawn into length, and 
 so many scenes of sorrow have crossed my path, I am 
 yet to learn whether the death of a young man like 
 Bertie Greatheed, or that of a promising baby, strikes 
 deepest ; bursting a bubble with all its colours varying 
 each to a tint more lovely than the last, does certainly 
 require religious fortitude to support. 
 
 Yet what is infant life but a bubble ? * 
 
 Poor Salusbury and his wife are hanging over the 
 couch of their second son, I understand, and the thought 
 throws a gloom over your 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Come on Fry day 26th, next Fry day, and disperse my 
 cares away. 
 
 Do you remember Milton's solemn invitation to a 
 man to be merry with him ? 
 
 * " Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, 
 
 Death came with timely care, 
 The op'ning bud to heaven convey'd, 
 And bade it blossom there." Lowth.
 
 LETTERS. 273 
 
 (< This day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench 
 In mirth, that after no repenting draws ; 
 Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, 
 And what the Swede intends, and what the French. 
 To measure life learn we betimes, and know 
 Tow'rd solid good what leads the nearest way, 
 For other things mild heav'n a time ordains, 
 And disapproves that care, tho' wise in show, 
 That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
 And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains." 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, March 28th, 1819. 
 
 MY dear Sir J. F. sometimes says, when he has a 
 mind to make me very happy, Your last letter was the 
 best I ever received from you, Mrs. Piozzi. Tis my 
 turn now. 
 
 Your last letter is the very best I ever read from the 
 hand I have long looked to for substantial friendship. 
 It assures me of your remaining at hand, not, as many 
 would say, to save my worne out frame from death, but 
 to protect my remains the poor remains of the Piozzi ; 
 her never forfeited honour, and secondly, at unmeasura- 
 ble distance, her literary fame: to ascertain the pos- 
 sibility likewise of passionate love, subsisting with 
 uncontaminated conduct, and enthusiastic friendship 
 without prospect of interested gratification. Veniamo 
 ad altro. 
 
 The last series of those half novels, half romance 
 things, called " Tales of My Landlord," are dying off a 
 pace ; but if their author gets money, he will not care 
 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274 LETTERS. 
 
 about the rest*; having never owned his work, no 
 celebrity can be lost, nor no venture can injure him. Tis 
 thus Joanna Baillie might have done. I well remember 
 when her plays upon the " Passions " first came out, 
 with a metaphysical preface. All the world wondered 
 and stared at me, who pronounced them the work of 
 a woman, although the remark was made every day 
 and everywhere that it was a masculine performance. 
 No sooner, however, did an unknown girl own the work, 
 than the value so fell, her booksellers complained they 
 could not get themselves paid for what they did, nor 
 did their merits ever again swell the throat of public 
 applause. So fares it with nous autres, who expose our- 
 selves to the shifts of malice or the breath of caprice. 
 
 My justly admired Conway meanwhile drives all 
 before him at Birmingham, after ill usage enough here 
 at Bath ; and now I tell him, he must beware the tryals 
 of prosperity. May no others ever assail you, dear 
 Sir! 
 
 Doctor Gribbes was here five minutes ago, laughing 
 at these liver cases f> so everything is called now : 
 
 " Whence this distress of head ? 
 Whence comes my nose so red ? 
 Our doctors all have said, 
 
 From liver. 
 
 * This was not the first time the same reproach was gratuitously 
 levelled at the author 
 
 " Let others rack their meagre brains for hire, 
 Enough for Genius if itself inspire." 
 
 t It was the fashion to call all doubtful or undefinable complaints 
 liver, as it is now the fashion to attribute them to suppressed gout.
 
 LETTERS. 275 
 
 " Why all this heat of skin ? 
 Why so much pain within ? 
 What makes me get so thin ? 
 
 My liver. 
 
 " Why gout in feet and toes ? 
 Carbuncles on my nose, 
 When all this only shows 
 
 'Tis liver. 
 
 " Miss Kosa has a pimple 
 Where once she had a dimple, 
 And she believes, Oh, simple ! 
 
 'Tis liver. 
 
 " Why, my torn frame to tease, 
 Bites of bugs, gnats, and fleas ? 
 All these excrescences 
 
 Come from my liver." 
 
 These are not my verses Dieu m'en garde ; but 
 they are very comical, and would, as Mr. Piozzi used to 
 say, make the very chickens laugh. If they amuse 
 Lady F. in her present state for five minutes, they are 
 five good stanzas. So adieu ! and believe me ever her's 
 
 and your's, while . 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Doctor Glbbes's mother, seven years younger than me, 
 is struck with palsy, which has taken away much of her 
 articulation. Friends, companions, contemporaries. Ah 
 poor Floretta ! 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, 30th March, 1819. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes will kindly rejoyce to 
 hear that Mr. Watson Taylor has already paid in the 
 2001. to Hammersley's : a letter from Pall Mall informs 
 me so this moment. I must pack Murphy's portrait up 
 very nicely to send off. 
 
 How you did laugh at my funny story of original 
 painting ! * But the conversation between you and Mr. . 
 Wickens concerning your school days, led me to it ; and 
 my bag of tales, alias bagatelles, never seems exhausted 
 when in pleasant company. The string ties tight round 
 the neck of the sack, if I don't like my companions, 
 and that of its own accord, and the people are left won- 
 dering why any one should fancy that Mrs. Piozzi is 
 agreeable. 
 
 It is astonishing how soon irony or allegory may be 
 mistaken for truth ; I mean in how few years. Epsom 
 Wells were fashionable early in the last century ; but 
 some people there disobliging Doctor Radcliffe, " Oh ! " 
 
 * Sir James Fellowes' note on this letter is : "I had met Mr. 
 Wickens a few days before at Mrs. Piozzi's. As we were brother 
 Rugbeeans, the conversation took place about the mode of punish- 
 ing the boys in Dr. James's time, when Mrs. P. related the story of 
 Vandyke, who, when a boy, first evinced his genius in a remarkable 
 manner by painting the exact likeness of the master upon the 
 person of a schoolfellow about to be flogged, which so astonished 
 and amused the pedagogue that he burst out a laughing, and 
 excused the boy the punishment that awaited him. Mrs. Piozzi's 
 manner and humour in relating this anecdote of Vandyke was 
 remarkably comical."
 
 LETTERS. 277 
 
 said he, " I will put a toad in their well presently," 
 meaning he would bring the water into disrepute, I 
 trust ; but going to Epsom a few summers ago, a lady 
 told me very seriously, that Doctor Radcliffe had ruined 
 that fine well by putting a toad in it. 
 
 Did I ever tell you that Sir Walter James was the 
 person who first suggested to me the idea of making 
 a Lyford Redivivus, and teaching all the people what 
 their Christian names meant? It certainly was so, and 
 he recollected our conversation on the subject, when 
 reminded of it the other day at No. 8. I shall show 
 him the manuscript some morning. 
 
 The celebrated Dr. Farmer as a man particularly 
 well informed on the subject of old English literature 
 and as a man of learning, was master of Emanuel 
 College at Cambridge when I became acquainted with 
 him as an undergraduate of Peter House ; at a dinner 
 party toasts were called for, and most of the men pre- 
 sent gave the names of ladies whose names chanced to 
 begin with the letter B. Dr. Farmer made the follow- 
 ing impromptu : 
 
 " Is it not strange that Cupid should decree 
 That all our favourites should begin with B ? 
 How shall we solve this paradox of ours ? 
 The bee flies always to the sweetest flowers." 
 
 Once more adieu, and twenty times more adieu ! 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 T 3
 
 278 LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 5 April, 1819. 
 
 Mr. Taylor wrote me a fine coaxing letter, 
 
 sent by a man who came to pack and carry, and to 
 bring me a request that I would authorise Wilson to 
 give him up my beautiful Magdalene. I sent him 
 the annexed, unsealed, and enclosed it in this billet to 
 Taylor : 
 
 " Mrs. Piozzi despatches her writ of authority to the 
 European Museum, with many compliments to Mr. 
 Taylor, and wishes him joy of his pictures. A sort of 
 low-spirited feel hinders her saying any more now, but 
 she really means on some future day to pay her per- 
 sonal respects in Harley Street. 
 
 " Mrs. Piozzi sends compliments to her old friend, Mr. 
 Wilson, begs he will put her fine portrait of Mrs. Kains- 
 ford in the character of a Magdalen safely into the 
 hands of George Watson Taylor, Esq., who has at length 
 courted her out of it, and of what she parts from with 
 more reluctance, her famous portrait of Arthur Murphy 
 by Sir Joshua. They will, however, be where they 
 ought to be. Mrs. Piozzi thought Mr. Taylor would 
 have left Murphy till she too was where she ought to 
 be, but he was not willing to wait till the last of the old 
 coterie dropt into the grave which has devoured so 
 many of them. Mr. Wilson is to consider this note as 
 authority to deliver the Cipriani Magdalen into his 
 hands, from his faithful servant, &c., 
 
 " H. L. PIOZZI."
 
 LETTERS. 279 
 
 Now do not you, my dear Sir James Fellowes, fancy 
 me superannuated, because I do not write neatly as 
 usual. The paper is, I think, actual blotting-paper, 
 such as " Retrospection " is printed on exactly, and so 
 thin. Your idea of Pan among the bacchanals (Devil 
 among a bag of nails) is incomparable. "Tis the only 
 solution of so strange a sign ; and- Scaliger says that his 
 Satanic Majesty, when visible to his adorers, commonly 
 does assume the port and person of Azazel, Hebrew for 
 the goat. 
 
 You must not suffer my Scaligerana to go into any 
 hands but your own ; 'tis covered with marginal notes, 
 a single small 8vo. or rather 12mo. volume. He 
 wrote his thoughts in French and Latin, but ever 
 classically, ever acutely exprest. What he says of the 
 God Pan is confirmed every day now we are so well 
 acquainted with the Hindoo superstition. They cer- 
 tainly worship the scapegoat of Hebrew ritual ; and 
 Milton, who was ignorant of nothing that could be 
 known in his day, alludes to him under the name of 
 Azazel, who unfurls the standard of Lucifer in the first 
 book of " Paradise Lost." Pan is employed too, but 
 I cannot find him ; his comprehensive appellation is a 
 Greek word for all I know. The Orientals we are living 
 amongst consider him merely as generative power : the 
 conservative and destructive intelligences form their 
 triad of Brahma, Vistnou, and Mahadeva, in unison 
 with the Hebrew Azazel; and I think the Eabbins 
 believe the seducer of Eve was either Azazel or Sam- 
 mael ; the latter, probably, as he combined best with 
 
 T 4
 
 280 LETTERS. 
 
 the serpent-nature ; and he too is worshipt, you know, 
 under the name of Cneph; and there were Ophites 
 among the Greeks, for Homer's Menelaus has a serpent 
 on his shield, probably because he was devoted to the 
 demon Deity adored under that form ; and the creatures 
 that destroyed Laocoon were superhuman we remember. 
 I used to be fond of mythological studies, but have 
 neglected them of late, unless casually reminded. Da- 
 mascius, however, says Ztcovot, meant the serpent which 
 girds the globe ; the Zodiac, I trust, or ecliptic line 
 denoting the sun's path. Sun worshippers were serpent 
 worshippers, Ophites; and this being a serpentine line, 
 the line of beauty and perfection, confirms the fancy. 
 Zone is a girdle still. The Globe, Wing, and Serpent 
 are now become common ornaments ; and when I saw 
 a fine mirror once so adorned at the house of a rich 
 clergyman, and explained them to him, he stared like 
 a thing astonished ; but you will be tired, and so am I, 
 the implements are so bad with which I profess myself 
 ever faithfully and gratefully yours, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Make my proper that means my best regards to 
 dear Lady Fellowes. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, April 10, 1819. 
 
 BUT a strange thing, and not much less comical, is the 
 solicitude Lady Burdett and her family have evinced,
 
 LETTERS. 281 
 
 of making acquaintance with me. I guess not where 
 the inducement can lie, for of me they know nothing 
 but my avowed aversion to their principles. It would, 
 however, be ridiculous to refuse, so I shall dine with 
 them on Thursday next. The rest of the week will be 
 past at the theatre, where Shakespeare's most agreeable 
 characters are exhibited ; Fauconbridge and Marc An- 
 tony, for which my favourite Conway seems to have been 
 born. 
 
 Did I ever shew you a horrible story of my own wri- 
 ting (ante, p. 32) done upon the spur of a moment, for a 
 wager, at Florence ? Lord bless me ! that hideous tale 
 of the Modern Prometheus was done, it seems, by Miss 
 Grodwin, in some spirit of competition between her and 
 some physician * nobody says who and Lord Byron. 
 His " Vampyre " is a filthy and a fearful thing, but her 
 " Frankenstein " carries away the palm of horror and im- 
 piety. What times are these ! The growth of crime is 
 beyond all telling ; " It lames report to follow it," as 
 Shakespear says, " and undoes description to do it." I 
 suppose the warm weather, and our prosperous state of 
 finance, are in fault. Indigence does certainly check 
 many vices, which opulence brings out. The snake of 
 man's plant, like that of the dung-hill, lies torpid 
 during winter, a hot summer day unwreaths his folds, 
 till frost fixes him once more in a torpid state. Koss's 
 account of the crimson cliffs would have been very en- 
 
 * Polidori, the author of the popular story of "The Vampire/' 
 which is based on Lord Byron's.
 
 282 LETTERS. 
 
 tertaining had we not anticipated the whole in conver- 
 sation at Charles Parry's, who permitted me to see his 
 bottle of red snow, and the Grreen lander's jacket, with 
 drawings of those wild creatures the new found nation 
 teems with. They are much below the people that 
 Drake found ; who were so seized with wonder at the 
 music made by a scraper from on board the ship, that 
 one man thrust an arrow in his leg, not doubting but 
 that melody could cure it. These half-starved animals 
 minded no fidler, but sought to break the instrument, 
 like babies. I fear the new adventurers will miss them. 
 They certainly do lie out of the proper track. 
 
 Adieu ! to-morrow's post may bring me news from 
 Adbury: till then, and ever, farewell. 
 
 Mr. Watson Taylor was in such a hurry*, and my de- 
 sire of 200L was so impetuous ! Well ! as the old pro- 
 logue written by Prior says, " 'Tis best repenting in a 
 coach and six." So I shall die rich, if that is any com- 
 fort, and I shall die the sooner, too (which is a good 
 thing), if I get neither the dear Pellegrins, or the dear 
 
 No. 1. Adieu, then, once more, and make , like 
 
 young Edward Mangin, acknowledge a true friend in the 
 portrait of 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 * To buy her portrait of Murphy, hy Reynolds.
 
 LETTERS. 283 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes, 
 
 Sunday Night, 18 April, 1819. 
 
 WHAT a world ! or rather what inhabitants of a beau- 
 tiful place in which our study is to make deep ruts for 
 each other to stumble in. And you not enraged at 
 these sedition-mongers that we read of? What would 
 the foolish creatures have ? Let government be con- 
 structed how it will we must be governed ; or the 
 strong will press down the weak. Make up your mess 
 like Venice treacle, a dram of this, a scruple of that 
 but government must govern when it is made up ; for 
 after all you only take from one department, kings, 
 lords, commons, and the mob, to give a little more, or 
 a little less, to the others. Limited monarchy, limited 
 aristocracy, we understand, but limited government is a 
 contradiction in terms. 
 
 Ah me ! we shall have a grand inundation of worse 
 than nonsense, I see plainly. After the Nile's overflow, 
 you remember, the old ^Egyptians turned in droves of 
 swine, to root, and trample, and wallow in the mud ; 
 nor till the ensuing year was it observed, that their en- 
 deavours had fertilized the soil they sought to ruin.* 
 
 I shall not live to see the end of all ; and if after a 
 powerful fermentation, some pure spirit does at length 
 come over the helm, it will be for you, not me, to 
 praise its purity. Meanwhile, I do not in any wise re- 
 semble the old Cavalier, who predicted return of royalty, 
 
 * Burke overlooked this when he denounced the " swinish 
 multitude."
 
 284 LETTERS. 
 
 when Cromwell had just destroyed it ; and a republican 
 friend reproached him with, " Ah, Sir ! you Tories are 
 always building castles in the air." " Why where the 
 plague should we build them ? " said the other, " when 
 you Whigs have got all our land from us." 
 
 But here's enough for to-night : my spirits were run- 
 ning over with joy about my picture, or I could not 
 have gone so far. I waked very early, far from well 
 this morning, and forbore to go to church ; but as all 
 my droppers in agreed that I looked beautifully well, 
 't were pity to contradict them ; and since the stocks are 
 falling, for me to complete my purchase, when Newton 
 and when Elliott pay their money, I will make matters 
 up with myself, though your friend Bertie Grreatheed 
 used to say, when we lived in habits of intimacy, " Dear 
 Mrs. Piozzi 's never so agreeable as when she is heartily 
 vexed." And I trust you found it so too, since the 
 fancy that you took for my conversation on the first day 
 of the year 1815, was certainly kindled in a most rag- 
 ged and tindery state of my poor worne-out soul. Well ! 
 all 's over, and if I wait longer than to-morrow morn- 
 ing before I claim my prize, let me lose it ! 
 
 Adieu, and keep sweetest Maria from wit and learn- 
 ing, as long as ever you can ; for though Floretta did 
 resolve to hold fast both to the end, you may recollect that 
 one had been a burden, the other a plague, to her through 
 long protracted life. Mine has been rendered really 
 very comfortable by your continued kindness and par- 
 tiality to your much obliged 
 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS. 285 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Tuesday, April 27, 1819. 
 
 Mr DEAR SIR, I am in possession of nothing ; no- 
 thing, at least, that I value, except Tudor's opinion of 
 our good Dr. Fellowes's case, which will perhaps bring 
 him to Bath three or four days sooner. His proud 
 Salopian tenants have no taste to parting with the last 
 ornament of their drawing room ; so I will keep posses- 
 sion of my temper, and wait sullenly, but civilly, till 
 the 3rd of May. 
 
 Dr. Gibbes says he is hurried to death, the people are 
 so ill; he saw me half in hysterics at Young's King 
 Lear, and he came the next morning to feel my pulse, 
 kind creature ! " But you profess to like my chat," 
 said I, " and never come to make me a nice long visit." 
 " Just for the same reason," replied he, " that I never 
 drink claret, I have not time to sit down to it." Did I 
 tell you what a flattering letter I received the other day 
 from Mr. Comber, who wrote the pretty verses Miss 
 Williams did so rave about ? 
 
 " Tell me no more of Ninon's wondrous charms, 
 Which on life's verge, set kings and courts in arms ; 
 Piozzi's sparkling wit and brilliant fire 
 All hearts can charm, and dulness self inspire : 
 Long may the spirit animate the clay ! 
 When sever'd from it, rise to endless day." 
 
 I do not, however, mean to tell only what verses I re- 
 ceive, here are some, no better than these, which I have
 
 286 LETTERS. 
 
 written : expressive of the indignation I feel to see our 
 theatrical managers here, sacrificing my favourite actor 
 to Mr. Warde's ill-humour. You remember Martial's 
 epigram : 
 
 " Rumpitur invidia quidam, carissime Juli, 
 
 Quod me Roma legit, rumpitur invidia. 
 Rumpitur invidia quod turba semper in omni 
 
 Monstramur digito, rumpitur invidia. 
 Rumpitur invidia quod sum jucundus amicis, 
 
 Quod conviva frequens, rumpitur invidia. 
 Rumpitur invidia quod amamur, quodque probamur 
 
 Rumpitur quisquis rumpitur invidia." 
 
 The word swelling is more elegant in English, how- 
 ever, than bursting, ain't it ? so I turned the whole, as 
 follows, alluding to their orations ; for both of which, 
 see Shakspeare's Julius Caesar, which they plaid (sic) so 
 admirably : 
 
 Swelling with envy, Brutus now appears, 
 Because the town lends Anthony their ears. 
 Swelling with envy views his pers'nal graces 
 When girls point handsome Conway as he passes. 
 Swelling with envy, sees him in retreat 
 At gay thirteen perhaps ; or number eight. 
 Such as so swell, would sting too, if they durst, 
 But since they swell with envy let them burst. 
 
 Well! envy is a vice, say the "Synonymes," and 
 theft is a crime. The increase in both is marvellous ; 
 ay, and portentous too, if we speak seriously ; but no 
 wonder, while the words " Office for the Deist," stare
 
 LETTERS. 287 
 
 boldly in each passenger's face who treads the Strand ; 
 and books against the Trinity are publicly advertized, 
 even by those we call ministerial papers. Yes, yes, you 
 may do as you please with people at Quarter Sessions, 
 &c., but it is only medicating the stream, while an enemy 
 has already poysoned the source and that won't do. 
 We may as well expect fine grapes from the Upaz tree. 
 My dear Sir James Fellowes asks me for commands. 
 I have none : his talk, his shadow, and his medicine, 
 comprise all that is wanted by his much obliged servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 Make my best compliments to all the dear coterie. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Tuesday, May 4th, 1819. 
 
 CONGRATULATE me, dear Sir ; I have got my picture, 
 and every visitant that has dropt in to-day has seen me 
 jumping round it for joy ; Miss Williams most delighted 
 among them. The likeness strikes every one. Oh ! I 
 stewed the Shropshire leeks down to nice Welsh pottage 
 at last, and they were wondrous kind. The master of 
 the house, poor fellow ! screaming with gout. Tell the 
 young ladies they must find out this French enigma : 
 
 Enfant de 1'art, enfant de la nature, 
 Sans prolonger la vie j'empeche de mourir ; 
 
 Plus je suis vrai, plus je suis imposteur, 
 Et je deviens plus jeune a force de vieillir.
 
 288 LETTERS. 
 
 Art's offspring, whom nature delights here to foster, 
 Can death's dart defy, tho' not lengthen life's stage ; 
 
 Most correct at the moment when most an impostor, 
 Still fresh'ning in youth, as advancing in age. 
 
 I have got a new book lent me, not new either, but 
 very interesting. The " Letters of Lady Hartford and 
 Lady Pomfret," written at the beginning of last cen- 
 tury. They are very pretty, so pretty that I think I 
 must burn them, lest you should prefer them to mine, 
 as Cleopatra drowned Mariamna's picture, lest Mark 
 Anthony should think it handsomer than her. The 
 best of the collection are signed H. L. P. however, 
 Henrietta Louisa Pomfret, so that must be my conso- 
 lation. 
 
 Kind Conway has promised me a proof mezzo tinto of 
 his likeness in the character of Jaffier by Harlowe ; he 
 says yours by Pellegrini is alive with resemblance. 
 What will Salusbury say when he comes first to dinner 
 at aunt's house? who he considers as a superannuated 
 old goose, while she is petted and flattered, and fed 
 with soft dedication, all day long. 
 
 The Catholick question is too serious a subject for 
 light correspondents like me, so I shall say nothing 
 about it, this year ; and if I were to see another year, 
 it would be too late. 
 
 My fete for the end of January, 1820, will be splen- 
 did indeed : I have asked people from all parts of the 
 world, and some have promised from the farthest Thule. 
 
 I daresay Parry's Arctic Expedition will be more
 
 LETTERS. 289 
 
 entertaining than that of Captain Eoss ; but my heart 
 bleeds for the loss of Jack Sacheuse the Eskimaux. It 
 was so foolish to let the poor creature burn up his 
 inside with spirits, and that was all that destroyed him. 
 Adieu. . . . 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Miss Fellowes. 
 
 13 June, 1819. 
 
 MY dear Miss Fellowes, when she reads that beautiful 
 panegyrick on Mrs. Siddons, will readily acquiesce in 
 her old friend H. L. Piozzi's decision ; that she is indeed 
 the brilliant diamond of that interesting profession, of 
 which Miss O'Neill is the elegant and pleasing pearl. 
 Conway asks me if we are all here seized with the 
 O'Neill fever? My reply was that he need not fear 
 what a sprig of jessamine could do towards turning our 
 brains, while under the dominion of himself, the tower- 
 ing tulip : this, in allusion to a sale of those flowers in 
 the beginning of last century, when the root of one, 
 called Semper Augustus (his own name) sold for 700^.* 
 
 Meanwhile Siddons must stand for the moss Provence 
 rose; which when her colours are confessedly faded, 
 and her bloom gone by, still yields a sweet perfume, and 
 
 * See a note to " Retrospection," 2nd vol., 8th chapter. Iii 
 this note she states that the collection sold for 9000/. ; and in the 
 margin she has written : " When the folly revived again, it was 
 cured by a painter's daughter producing her tulip at the Florists' 
 Feast, with the long-desired vainly (till that day) hoped-for streak. 
 She won the prize and told the secret : she had painted it. Tho 
 flowers were exhibited under glasses." 
 
 VOL. II. U
 
 290 LETTERS. 
 
 her dried leaves are sought for to give scent to royal 
 cabinets. 
 
 I'm going to the Marquis . Good night, dearest 
 
 Madam ! 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Bath, Fiyday, 18 June, 1819. 
 
 No need to try distant countries now for a sight of les 
 beaux Eestes de 1' Antiquite. We have them in Russell 
 Street, and in such numbers that I am informed they 
 actually incommode each other. Before my desired 
 visit to dear Adbury, they shall display their beauties 
 to my sight, for 'tis a dull thing not to know what lies 
 so near one. 
 
 The thought of your going abroad in search of 
 novelty lowers my spirits when I think of it, yet I 
 believe you will go too ; and it will not be a right thing 
 to do, because the departure of every wise and re- 
 flecting mind will be a national loss when vice and 
 folly make their final stand, as soon they will do. Let 
 the sun shine and the harvest come in copiously ; that 
 hour may be deferred, but it is not distant; and you 
 have a post to maintain. While you read this you say, 
 Ay, ay, she would have a loss, and so she wants to make 
 me believe I should be missed at Court. Not so. 
 
 My literary character, to-day perhaps of some small 
 trifling import to the shallow stream of prattle, would 
 then be driven down by the torrent of talk ; and poor 
 H. L. P. wrecked in the storm's first fury
 
 LETTERS. 291 
 
 What a letter ! but if one ever should prove the 
 unworthy subject of conversation, 'tis better be told 
 truth of, than lyes. Dear Mr. Mangin said to me 
 last week, that his mother saw me once at the theatre 
 sparkling in diamonds, the winter of 1764. " She 
 wrote it down," said he, "when she came home, ob- 
 serving how beautiful you were." " I never possessed 
 a diamond in my life," was my reply, " never was in a 
 theatre from my first wedding day, till my daughter 
 born in 1764 went with me; and never was considered 
 through the early periods of my life as even tolerably 
 pretty." 
 
 Adieu, and continue your kind partiality, disregarding 
 the fabulous history of yours ever, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 The person Mrs. Mangin saw was Polly Hart, Mr. 
 Thrale's mistress, whose picture he wore on his box, &c. 
 
 To Sir James Felloiues. 
 
 Bath, Tuesday, 6th July, 1819. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, The Doctor and Miss Fellowes, who 
 I met yesterday dining at the Lutwyches, told me I 
 might send a letter to you by him, and my heart feels 
 glad of the opportunity. Samuel Lysons' death a 
 famous antiquarian, and keeper of the records in the 
 Tower lowers my spirits a little; not from tender- 
 ness, though 'tis shocking to me that a young man 
 should die so suddenly, but because he had an odd 
 
 D 2
 
 292 LETTERS. 
 
 humour of collecting things other people would wish 
 annihilated; and I remember his making a breakfast 
 for the Grreatheeds, Kembles, and Mr. Piozzi and me 
 once, many years ago, when he oddly pointed to some 
 shelf in his chambers, crying, " There, there they are ; I 
 gathered up every paper, every nonsense that was 
 written against you at the time of your marriage ; 
 every thing to ridicule either of you that could be 
 found, and there they are." " Thank you," said I, and 
 the conversation changed. 
 
 As we went home, I recollect John Kemble saying, 
 " Lysons made it his business to come and tell him every 
 disagreeable thing he could think on concerning him- 
 self; every ballad, every satirical criticism he could hear 
 of." What a taste ! and now he is dead, one cannot 
 help feeling feels about it. 
 
 But his brother Daniel is a cool-headed man and has 
 children, and will not like making enemies will he ?* 
 
 I am half and but half uneasy pacify my nerves, 
 'dear Sir, with assurances of your care, that no harm 
 shall come to your ever obliged and faithful 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 Love to the dear ladies, and good wishes for a young 
 and beautiful beau. 
 
 * I have examined the collections in question, and ani con- 
 vinced that Mrs. Piozzi was mistaken when she wrote this letter, 
 which is quite irreconcilable with her frequently expressed esteem 
 for both of the brothers.
 
 LETTERS. 293 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, Wednesday, 7th July, 1819. 
 
 THE valorous fellows in the North are very noisy 
 indeed, and exhibit Milton's meeting of rebellious 
 spirits with too much exactness ; but all this gas, literal 
 and figurative, is as likely to do mischief as good, and 
 will take fire with a spark in an instant. 
 
 Mr. John Dimond told me just now that Covent 
 Garden Theatre had escaped blazing almost by miracle. 
 The head of the retort flying off, the whole space 
 under the stage was rendered suddenly combustible ; 
 and had not the man who approached with a light, had 
 the wit to throw that light behind him, the whole 
 would have consumed directly.* 
 
 Grala on my eightieth birthday. 
 
 When I return home I shall calculate whether I can 
 get to dear Adbury, and thence to London. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Weston-super-Mare, 27 August, 1819. 
 
 I FEEL delighted, dear Sir, that you have not for- 
 gotten me. Some ladies that I met upon the sands 
 last night said Sir James Fellowes had mentioned my 
 name at gay and fashionable Bognor. This little place 
 is neither gay nor fashionable, yet full as an egg, in- 
 
 * It was on this occasion that the stage manager came forward 
 to beg the audience not to be afraid of fire, as he could drown the 
 pit in five minutes. 
 
 U 3
 
 294 LETTERS. 
 
 sipid as the white on't, and dear as an egg o' penny. I 
 inquired for books ; there were but two in the town 
 was the reply, a Bible and a Paradise Lost. They 
 were the best, however. No market ; but I don't care 
 about that. When Miss Burney asked Omiah, the 
 savage, if he should like to go back to Otaheite, " Yes, 
 Miss," said he ; " no mutton there, no coach, no 
 dish of tea, no pretty Miss Horneck ; good air, good sea, 
 and very good dog. I happy at Otaheite." My taste 
 and his are similar. 
 
 The breezes here are most salubrious ; no land nearer 
 than North America, when we look down the channel ; 
 and 'tis said that Sebastian Cabot used to stand where 
 I sit now, and meditate his future discoveries of New- 
 foundland. Who would be living at Bath now ? the 
 bottom of the town a stew-pot, the top a gridiron, and 
 London in a state of defence or preparation for attack, 
 or some strange situation, while poor little Weston is 
 free from alarms, on Juvenal's principle, Cantabit va- 
 cuus coram latrone viator. I offered a cheque on 
 Hammersley at the hotel here. " Yes, Madam, by all 
 means," says the landlady ; " but pray who is the gentle- 
 man ? does he reside in Bath ? or is he a Bristol mer- 
 chant ? " Our banker little dream'd that such questions 
 could be asked concerning him ; and indeed it reminded 
 me of the character in Congreve, who when spoken 
 to of Epictetus, inquired whether he was really a 
 French cook, or only one who wrote out particular re- 
 ceipts. 
 
 Miss W , everybody tells me, is breaking up very
 
 LETTERS. 295 
 
 
 
 fast, but some must come into the world, and some 
 must go out on't, while it lasts. The comet is gone by 
 without hurting anybody, and when Mr. Hunt's voice is 
 stopt by a rope, there are those who believe we shall 
 be quiet and so we may, perhaps, at Manchester. 
 
 We have swarms of babies here, and some bathe good- 
 humouredly enough, while others scream and shriek as 
 if they were going to execution. Bessy's boy is among 
 them, completely hydrophobous. 
 
 I am going on a water-party next Monday with a 
 very agreeable young man, Mr. Kogers. There are 
 few people here that I know ; one lady, however, 
 challenged me as an acquaintance of her brother's just 
 seventy years ago, when he was a little boy at Western's 
 school, and used to come home for holidays with Sir 
 Eobert Salusbury Cotton, father of this Lord Comber- 
 mere, to our house in Jermyn Street, now part of Blake's 
 Hotel. 
 
 Adieu, dear Sir, portez vous bien. Present me to 
 Lady Fellowes, and tell your children they have an 
 humble and an attached servant in 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Weston-super-Mare, 
 Tuesday, 21 September, 1819. ' 
 
 I OWE you a long letter, and my dear Sir James Fel- 
 lowes knows that I am always desirous to balance my 
 
 u 4
 
 296 LETTERS. 
 
 accounts, how much more when the sun is in Libra ! It 
 is indeed an especial mercy that I should be above 
 ground cracking jokes, and making quibbles at fourscore 
 years old ; and the people do make such a wonder of 
 me, that by and by they will deceive me into a mar- 
 vellous good opinion of myself. 
 
 My fearlessness in the water attracts the women to 
 the rocks, where it seems such fine sport to see Mrs. 
 Piozzi swim. Poor H. L. P. ! she will certainly end in 
 a fish, an odd fish ; but 'tis long since any could have 
 said of her, Mulier formosa superne. 
 
 Mr. Thrale used to teach Lady Keith with a frog in 
 a large bason, and be so rough with her if she alleged 
 terror, that we swam in our own defence, for he swore 
 he would follow with a horsewhip if we dug a hole in 
 the water, as he justly called it. Dear will follow 
 us without any threatenings. She can scarcely fail 
 of being a beautiful woman. Shall we wish her to be a 
 wit, after reading the story of Floretta and the epitaph 
 on my mother ? When I said, " Why did you name her 
 person before her mind, Doctor Johnson?" "Just 
 because everybody can judge of the one, and hardly any- 
 body can judge of the other," was the truly wise reply. 
 
 Hayley and I were never friends, you know ; Lady 
 Sophronia's character and that of Dr. Bumble in some 
 of his never-read writings, only lost our good will, and 
 got no admiration from any one. The epigram on him 
 and Miss Seward were among the things Sammy Lysons 
 used to read with a world of humour. I much wonder 
 what became of that man's literary gleanings. Dear
 
 LETTERS. 297 
 
 Conway's kind offer of buying them instantly for me, 
 should they be set for sale, would have won my heart if 
 he had not gained it before; but I hope the danger 
 is over now. 
 
 Meanwhile I was right in saying that such small 
 knaveries or follies will merge in the grand knavery of 
 these Russells * and Burdetts, who really should be more 
 careful than they are of their own interest ; and when 
 they are galvanising the otherwise inert populace, should 
 mind and not exert too strong a power, as the modern 
 phraseology terms it. The monstrous engine they are 
 by steam and vapour raising against Government will 
 fall upon and crush us all under its weight. Sin in 
 Milton acted as they do precisely, for 
 
 " She opened ; but to shut 
 
 Excell'd her power : the gates wide open stood, 
 
 That with expanded wings a banner'd host 
 
 Under spread ensigns marching, might pass thro' 
 
 With horse and chariots rank'd in loose array : 
 
 So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth 
 
 Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. 
 
 Before their eyes in sudden view appear 
 
 The secrets of the hoary deep a dark 
 
 Illimitable ocean without bound, 
 
 Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
 
 And time, and place are lost." 
 
 Fools ! teaching, as you say, English boys to sing Qa 
 ira ! when they don't know nor can guess what it means. 
 They do know, however, what it means to deny their 
 
 * Alluding to Lord John Russell's and Sir Francis Burdett's 
 advocacy of Reform in Parliament.
 
 298 LETTERS. 
 
 Redeemer's divinity, and find out how Jesus Christ was 
 only an honest man ; yet some of them, of these horrid 
 Unitarians, do believe that he will come to judge the 
 world too. I guess not why, but suppose they settle it 
 on the old classic system of Minos, who put his chan- 
 cellor's seal in commission, did not he ? and called 
 Rhadamanthus and .^Eacus to his assistance on great 
 occasions. Oh ! they are a precious set, certainly. 
 
 We had a gentleman here yesterday who attracted 
 much notice. He was young and handsome, had ten 
 lovely children, most of them females, by a beautiful lady, 
 who, being of this new persuasion, seduced her husband 
 to own her opinions, and half break the heart of his 
 good father, the learned and pious Sir Abraham Elton, 
 eighty-six years old. Well, a Mr. Rogers was telling 
 me all this yester-morning, and added that young Elton 
 was a fine actor once in private theatricals, but that he 
 w r as a serious man now, forbore to play at cards, or 
 dance, or see a play ; and was supposed to write Hunt's 
 speeches for him, and send essays to the office in London 
 where Deism and French philosophy are taught, under 
 direction of Mr. Carlisle : but oh ! what was my sense 
 of horror at 5 o'clock the same dreadful yesterday, to 
 hear that this man was raving round the town in fruit- 
 less pursuit of his two sons one fourteen, the other 
 sixteen years of age, both good swimmers both cer- 
 tainly and irrecoverably drowned ; the mother saved 
 from suicide only by the immediate intervention of 
 a medical man, a Welshman, a Mr. Price. To-day 
 they have left the place.
 
 LETTERS. 299 
 
 My plan is to walk and bathe, and enjoy the salutary 
 breezes of poor little Weston, and then home to my 
 nest at No. 8, Gray Street ; no London or Adbury this 
 year. When returned home, I shall call on your Divie 
 Robertson for a double portion of his fine wine, because 
 the Salusburys of Brynbella will come to me at Christ- 
 mas. 
 
 Adieu ! I have scarce room to say how faithful a 
 servant you and your fair lady and dear babies possess 
 in their and your ever obliged and grateful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 No. 8, Gay St., Batli, 
 
 Sunday, 24 Oct. 1819. 
 
 CONGRATULATE me, dear Sir James Fellowes, on my 
 return from a place where, as I told you, the name of 
 Hammersley was unknown. They said if he was a 
 Bath shopkeeper or Bristol merchant, they would take 
 his drafts, not else : so far behind Denbigh or St. 
 Asaph. They had, however, heard of Mr. Carlisle *, and 
 were not sure but he was right, for there were many 
 opinions. Mine is, that Lord Byron's book (Cain) will 
 do more mischief than his ; and you see there is a cheap 
 edition advertised, in order to disseminate the poyson. 
 Why, the yellow fever is not half as mischievous. You 
 are sadly wanted ID Spain just now. A lady told me 
 
 * The publisher of Paine's " Age of Reason " and other infidel 
 works.
 
 300 LETTERS. 
 
 since I came home, that the plague was wanted here to 
 thin our numbers and correct our vices. Were ever 
 such opinions broached before ? were ever such ideas of 
 right and wrong entertained in this country till now ? I 
 certainly have lived long and never heard them. Lord 
 Fitz william's dismissal * fills every mouth. 
 
 Why, we shall be divided soon, like the Hebrew al- 
 phabet, into radicals and serviles. But here come Sir 
 Henry and Lady Baynton, and a boy that was just born 
 when I saw him last, now an elegant lad bien maniere 
 and so like his pretty mamma, I quite admired him. 
 Mercy on me ! how the generations of mortal man do 
 spring up ! to dance the dance of life from top to 
 bottom of the long room. 
 
 " The three black Graces, Law, Physick, and Divinity, 
 Walk hand in hand along the Strand and dance La Poide ; 
 Trade leaves her counter, Alma her latinity, 
 Proud and vain with Mr. Paine to go to school. 
 Should you want advice at law, you'll little gain by asking it : 
 Your lawyer's not at Westminster, he is busy Pas de Sasquing it. 
 Should you wish a tooth to lose and run to Wayte for drawing it, 
 He can't possibly attend he's demi Queue de Chafing it : 
 Run neighbour, run ; all London is quadrilling it, 
 While order and sobriety dance Dos-a-dos.' 1 
 
 These are clever Mr. Smith's clever verses, the man 
 who wrote the Kejected Addresses, and were sent me 
 by one of the fashionables. 
 
 They are making bonfires of Bibles in the North, I'm 
 * From the lord-lieutenancy of Yorkshire.
 
 LETTERS. 301 
 
 told, but your great folio in three monstrous volumes 
 will escape I hope. The Eeformers shall burn me be- 
 fore they fall upon that ; there is no talk of their dis- 
 turbing Bath with their Reformation. 
 
 I hear wondrous tales of Doctor and Mrs. Whalley ; 
 half the town saying he is the party aggrieved, and the 
 other half lamenting the lady's fate. Two wiseacres 
 sure, old acquaintances of forty years' standing, and both 
 past seventy years old ! . . . 
 
 The Salusburys come to me on the 20th of December : 
 we will set about quadrilling it the last week in January, 
 when you and your lady will surely do honour and 
 give grace to the eightieth birthday of dear Sir James 
 Fellowes's ever obliged friend and true servant, 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Felloives. 
 
 Bath, Monday, 17 Jan. 1820. 
 
 YOUR wonderful friend, my dear Sir James Fellowes, 
 will be most wonderfully disappointed if she cannot 
 boast your appearance at her last concert, &c. ; her last 
 foolery ! such a foolery ! but you will come, and so will 
 Lady Fellowes, and your sister is sure of it, and so is 
 your H. L. P. The frost breaks gently, and I hope 
 when spring returns, we shall have compensation for 
 this cruel Siberian winter. It has killed the poor half 
 crazy lady that our friend Miss Williams lived with ; 
 she died last night suddenly of the cramp in her 
 stomach, and I know not how the brother and Miss
 
 302 LETTERS. - 
 
 Williams will manage, either to part or live together : 
 because the sister was a sunk fence you know, and if 
 they do not marry or separate, why the people will cry 
 ha ! ha ! Well, 'tis a blest thing to be fourscore, and I 
 would not be younger for the world I am going to quit. 
 My health and spirits are good, and my friends are very 
 good to me, and I can be as kind to them as I please, 
 defying scandal and the " Morning Post." 
 
 These verses were brought me to-day. Mr. Mant, 
 who wrote them, heard some uninvited lady exclaim, 
 " Lord ! will this Mrs. Piozzi never have done singing 
 and dancing ! " he instantly replied: 
 
 " Sweet Puritans ! don't frown severe 
 On dear Piozzi's dance and cheer ; 
 Groaning beneath your loads of sin, 
 She does not bid you enter in ; 
 But mindful of youth's happy day, 
 When innocence was glad and gay 
 (Now well assur'd that joy alone 
 Can to the pure of heart be known), 
 She bids the ignorant of wrong 
 Her dance attend a jovial throng ; 
 And friends long-lov'd she calls to see 
 The scenes of liveliness and glee. 
 Nor least will they that gladness prize 
 Who only come to sympathise : 
 Induced by arguments so weighty, 
 She dares to give a ball at eighty." 
 
 Well, verses are fine things, and
 
 LETTERS. 303 
 
 Praises are pretty things, 'tis true : 
 Yet, to a well turned mind, the pain 
 
 Of making them, indeed, our due, 
 Is the best pleasure we can gain. 
 
 And I would rather see how my book stands at 
 Hammersleys than any poetry of my own or my 
 neighbours. People of letters are never people of 
 figures, it is said ; yet I have always been taught that 
 two and two make four ; and when it appears that they 
 make only three, I feel very nervous and very cross. 
 We have got a new actress to supply the loss of Miss 
 O'Neill I like her best in a room though. Adieu ! and 
 hasten to Bath as Mr. Piozzi used to say non c'e 
 tempo da perdere if you would wish to see untorn to 
 pieces for cards of admission, yours and your dear 
 family's ever grateful and faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Tuesday Evening, April 4th, 1820. 
 
 . The fete was a long promised foolery, and can 
 never happen again, and did do exactly what I meant it 
 should ; it procured me the power of making Conway's 
 benefit equal to Warde's, notwithstanding Miss Wrough- 
 ton's party, &c. He has left our town and our stage 
 now, and I shall trouble my head no more with theatri- 
 cal affairs, except to remunerate charming Mr. Loder's 
 loyalty, who would not be seduced from my orchestra to
 
 304 LETTERS. 
 
 that of Mr. Ashe : let ladies, and beauties, and pecuniary 
 inducements go which way they would. Au reste, your 
 sister says she is bilious, and must go to Cheltenham. 
 I feel very sorry, but the dear doctor's constitution 
 seconds him through all acts of heroism. He was 
 screaming with gout to-day : gout in his foot, the 
 roughest and most regular fit he has experienced these 
 seven years. The torture of all those horrid operations, 
 he swears, was nothing of pain to what he now suffers : 
 so true is it that Grod Almighty does not trust the rod 
 of reproof out of his own hand, nor suffer mortals to 
 inflict upon each other, what natural illnesses, gout, 
 stone, and the pangs of parturition impose on us all 
 every day in the course of nature. I am glad it is so ; 
 for our new masters, le peuple souverain, would, I fear, 
 prove rough dispensers of punishment, and kind beha- 
 viour does not seem to excite the courtesy, expected by 
 those who so willingly make that Eow-Tow to Messrs. 
 Hunt, Gobbet and Co., which they scorned to bestow on 
 the Emperor of China. 
 
 Well ! kings are out of fashion certainly, but queens 
 are in. The Hymenoptera of Linnaeus included all 
 animals that possessed stings, I am told ; and if George 
 IV. delights in study of reptiles and insects, he may 
 soon be master of the subject. A popular government 
 suits best where there is thin population. Spain will do 
 well enough under an oligarchy of the great nobles, 
 besides that your old friends the Castilians will wish to 
 be under the rule and sway of Hidalgos, whether King 
 or Cortes ; indeed, I wish them success, and think Fer-
 
 LETTERS. 305 
 
 dinand will have more leisure to embroider trimmings 
 for the Blessed Virgin's petticoat, when relieved from 
 the cares of state. 
 
 What did they do with Grodoy ? did they strip him of 
 his ill-gotten wealth? I either never heard, or have 
 forgotten. A young lad, nephew to Miss Williams, who 
 has been some years abroad for his health, says the 
 whole Continent is even yet warm in its passion for 
 Buonaparte, whose return they still hope to hail in due 
 time : 
 
 Thyrsis when he left me swore 
 
 In the spring he would return ; 
 What then means that violet flow'r? 
 
 Or the bud that decks the thorn ? 
 'Twas the lark that upward sprung, 
 'Twas the nightingale that sung. 
 Idle notes untimely green, 
 
 Why such unavailing haste ? 
 Summer suns and skies serene 
 
 Prove not always winter past. 
 Ease my fears, my doubt remove, 
 Spare the honour of my love. 
 
 EEPLT. 
 
 Thyrsis will return no more, 
 Simple maid, expect him not ; 
 
 Ere the autumn well was o'er 
 Were his summer vows forgot : 
 
 But since wintry snows and rain 
 
 Not a trace of them remain. 
 
 VOL. II. X
 
 306 LETTERS. 
 
 Cease repining, simple maid ! 
 
 Thorns may blossom, birds may sing 
 Love's a flow'r when once decay'd 
 
 Knows of no returning spring. 
 Haste, and seek another swain, 
 Trust ; and be deceiv'd again. 
 
 You have heard how the Duke of Marlborough was 
 received here with hoots and hisses, and the arrest of 
 his carriage and horses. Lord Charles Churchill who 
 attended scarcely could protect him, and he ran for 
 refuge to a rich half-crazy lady in the Crescent, from 
 whence he came to a poor half-superannuated lady, 
 No. 8, Gray Street, who he called his earliest friend, 
 said how kind I had been to him when a sick little boy 
 at Streatham, fifty years ago : how I had given him a 
 little Shetland pony to ride, and so I did sure enough, 
 but had forgotten it. Poor wretched man ! We dine 
 together to-day. The weather is not amiss, as it ap- 
 pears, only a want of rain. Adieu ! make my best at- 
 tentions acceptable to Lady Fellowes and Mrs. Dorset 
 and Mrs. J. Fellowes . . . from, dear Sir, your ever 
 obliged and grateful and faithful 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 This moment brings me an agreeable letter from 
 Mrs. Mostyn. She and her youngest son are very gay 
 at Florence, acting English plays, &c. . . .all among 
 lord and lady performers of course.
 
 LETTERS. 307 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 13 April, 1820. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes is but too partial to me, 
 and to my letters : the verses are not mine, but certainly 
 very pretty. Mr. Eckersall amazed me with the assur- 
 ance of our Court's having been solicited by that of 
 Austria to give the violet more room to grow ; better 
 say at once, Let the man out, a vigorous bag fox for 
 Europe to hunt down another day. Rebellion, not ill- 
 organised within our island, and growing discontents 
 about the queen, &c., are too cold for our present taste 
 of horrors. We long for lawful bloodshed; war and 
 property tax, a battle in every newspaper, an enriched 
 commissary in every fashionable street, like a country 
 squire we once knew, who could not taste his brandy 
 latterly, without it was warmed, he said, by Cayenne 
 pepper. 
 
 Miss Fellowes is not well, and fancies Cheltenham will 
 mend her. The Lapland winter we have endured has 
 chilled the vital principle in many. My Oxfordshire 
 tenant, wishes, no doubt, it had effected the same pur- 
 pose in me. I can never get my money from that fellow 
 without help of an attorney, which I dislike as expen- 
 sive, or a quickening letter from Lord Keith, which I 
 detest as offensive, because he once, if you remember, 
 contested the property, and I hate making Chinese 
 Row-Tow to the man for what is no favour. 
 
 Are not the Radicals in Scotland gay fellows to attack 
 the military sabre a la main ? Dear me ! when a rebel- 
 
 x 2
 
 308 LETTERS. 
 
 lion not better organised, or very, very little better, 
 made head against the reigning family in the year 1745, 
 people laid down knife and fork, and began to pray, or 
 to run, or to fight on one side or other. We are now so 
 improved in philosophy that we do not even lay down 
 our cards, or make the hanging up nineteen prison ers of 
 war within 300 miles of the Capital any part of 
 our conversation. 
 
 I am glad meanwhile that you intend to act as magis- 
 trate in these strange times. It were to be wished that 
 the clergy might be exempted from that duty. They 
 are enough hated as it is, and some one told me that 
 the bishops were hooted and hissed going to a fine 
 
 London dinner, I forget at whose house. 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fettowes. 
 
 No. 36, Royal Crescent, Clifton, near Bristol, 
 Tuesday, 27 June, 1820. 
 
 LORD, Sir ! what heats are these ? natural, civil, poli- 
 tical : a conflagration of men's minds will make them 
 tindery as your ship two hours before it took fire, and 
 make all ready for a general burning. This place and 
 weather are really very like Naples, and my face now 
 is tanned like one of their biscuits. I recollect no such 
 season since I spent mine at Exmouth. Dear Piozzi left 
 me there a fortnight, while he went to London, and 
 lived with Archdeacon Hamilton. My employment was 
 to make up my " Journey Book " for the press ; my
 
 LETTERS. 309 
 
 amusements, to send him love-letters and verses, among 
 which these come most readily to my mind : 
 
 I think I Ve work'd exceeding hard 
 
 To finish five score pages ; 
 I send you this upon a card 
 
 In hopes you '11 pay my wages. 
 The servants all get drunk and mad, 
 
 This heat their blood enrages ; 
 But your return will make us glad 
 
 That hope our care assuages. 
 To feel more fondness we defy 
 
 All nations and all ages ; 
 And quite prefer your company 
 
 To all the seven sages. 
 Then pr'ythee come, Oh, haste away 
 
 And lengthen not your stages ; 
 We then will sing and dance and play 
 
 And quit awhile our cages. 
 
 The plural number was used because Mrs. Mostyn, 
 then a child, was with me. 
 
 The heat was intense, I remember, and when he re- 
 turned, we ran to see the lyons of the neighbourhood, 
 Plymouth, Powderham, Castle and Mount Edgecumbe. 
 I think 'tis exactly thirty years ago, when I was amused 
 by the ill-timed eulogium pronounced by a vulgar fellow 
 on Shenstone's Leasowes. We were going over the 
 Terrace with a heap of wonder-seers, just such a hot 
 day as this is at Lord Edgecumbe's : a man showing off 
 the prospect, &c. "Ay, Sir," says a rich looking in- 
 
 X 3
 
 310 LETTERS. 
 
 habitant of Highgate or Hampstead ; t( it is very fine, 
 sure, considering how far we are from London, but my 
 wife likes a tower, and we always does go somewhere, 
 seeing our pockets is pretty warm, ha, ha, ha ! and so 
 last year we goes to her relations at Hales Owen, and 
 there I saw a sweet place did not us, lovey ? with 
 an inland prospect, such as I can see with my eyes, not 
 a good sight either and river fish." 
 
 "Why," says dear Sir James Fellowes, "you are just 
 like the man you laugh at, Mrs. Piozzi. To be tell- 
 ing old stories now, when every body is thinking, at 
 least talking, of the Queen." Perhaps so, but I am ill- 
 provided with argument pour ou contre, and feel to- 
 wards a general topic, as a pretty woman feels towards 
 a general mourning if black does not become her com- 
 plexion. So here I sit crying 
 
 " All conquering heat, oh, intermit thy wrath, 
 And on my throbbing temples, potent thus, 
 Beam not so fierce." 
 
 But, at eighty-one years old, pride should be burned 
 out, and shall be. I will set in the West, and find some 
 sea-beaten shore to forget the fallacious world in. Three 
 weeks more in this lovely spot will, I trust, suffice ; and 
 then, as the Irish lady said, I may take lave of the com- 
 pany without an apology. 
 
 Wherever I am, you, dear Sir, will be sure to hear of 
 yours and your family's 
 
 Faithful as obliged, 
 H. L. P.
 
 LETTERS. 31 1 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 No. 36, Royal Crescent, Clifton, 
 
 Sunday, 16 July, 1820. 
 
 " NOTHING so dull as a consolatory letter," says some 
 pert wit of the last age. True ; but this need not be 
 dull for that reason, as it will not try to obtrude in- 
 sipid consolation. Lord Grwydir is dead, and I am 
 very sorry ; happiest that we were no better acquainted, 
 for then I should have been more sorry at his loss. 
 
 I saw expected the stroke, though shrinking from 
 
 it : and yet, without death, toils, virtues, hopes would 
 make but one chimera. I will go wait for mine at the 
 Land's End, a proper place enough, if bordering on the 
 ocean of eternity. This place adds to the small but 
 strong threads that fasten one to life ; . . it is so beau- 
 tiful. The situation so like Naples ; the view so like 
 that from Brynbella, but too expensive. 
 
 I will go feed on fish and chickens at Penzance, and 
 if I ever should come back to the living world again, 
 will hasten through dear Adbury to see if she who is 
 now a queen regnant, despotic over the minds of multi- 
 tudes, will have used her arbitrary power mildly, or set 
 your metropolis o' fire, as she doubtless could to-morrow, 
 if she chose it. " There is a tide, however, in the affairs 
 of men," as Shakespear says, and if she misses it, must 
 lake the consequences. Thais carried a brand to Perse- 
 polis on less provocation, and Phryne delighted in build- 
 ing up the walls of Thebes, which Alexander destroyed. 
 We must learn the lady's disposition before we pro- 
 
 X 4
 
 212 LETTERS. 
 
 nounce on the future. The present is tremendous to 
 be sure. Salusbury talked of visiting me in Cornewall, 
 but will, I fancy, let that alone, as he will not find the 
 derivation an exact one : Corno Wallia, horn of abun- 
 dance to Wales. If I save any money, I will spend it 
 on myself, doing my own way. 
 
 Mrs. Pennington lives here, and is most hospitably 
 kind to me. What a proof of the mutability of taste 
 does this little district exhibit ! When she married 
 from Streatham Park, where we passed much time 
 together, Mr. Pennington was master of ceremonies at 
 the Hot Wells, and considered his post as worth 4.001. o' 
 year. The place is now deserted, a spot for hospitals or 
 national schools, and their house, with five elegant rooms 
 on a floor, a perfect and positive incumbrance, such 
 as they can neither let nor sell. Sidmouth, too, where 
 I remember she ran with her mother one summer, 
 afforded quite incomparable lodging and boarding for 
 them and their maid : one guinea only o' week. A 
 gentleman told me just now, he paid seven pounds o' 
 week for a house there. 
 
 Let me find a letter directed to Post office, Penzance, 
 and tell me dear Maria is never sick like Salusbury's chil- 
 dren ; which, however, do not die, thank God ! but battle 
 their way, as it appears, through dreadful illnesses or 
 they dream so. Oh, if we knew what babies coming 
 into the world were born to see and suffer, with what 
 different looks should we contemplate their growing 
 beauties ! but the distant hills always look soft and fair, 
 not rough and rocky as on nearer approach. May your
 
 LETTERS. 313 
 
 younglings be happy, and yourself, dear Sir, as happy 
 as is wished you by her, who will ever retain a grateful 
 sense of that partial good opinion which is the boast of 
 poor 
 
 H. L. P. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Penzance, 12 August, 1820. 
 
 " How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 
 The world forgetting, by the world forgot ! " 
 
 says old H. L. Piozzi at eighty-one, and dear Sir James 
 Fellowes, as he well may, laughing at her; but any 
 antiquated joke is better than too long and too seriously 
 to lament, as I fear our dear-loved Doctor does, the 
 common fate of humanity in poor Lord Grwydir. What- 
 ever we lose in this world we cannot very long be 
 sorrowing for. My life, and that of your excellent 
 father, though drawn out to such uncommon length, 
 are but as points imperceptible as this, in the folio- 
 page of eternity, to which we are approaching like the 
 second-hand upon a stop-watch, that moves round 
 while we look off and on again. 
 
 " Yea, but all this did I know before," say you ; " it 
 would be better tell about Penzance." 
 
 The only place I know but little of. Why then Pen- 
 zance, if I'm to live another fourscore years and 
 rival old Harry Jenkins, will be to me what Minorca is 
 
 to Dr. F , a place of recollection for cheap living, 
 
 and the best eating possible. Red mullets large and
 
 314 LETTERS. 
 
 beautiful, 4c?. o' piece ; pipers and dories, herrings, 
 almost for carrying home. Kid, as in the Tyrolese 
 Alps, where we ate it, you know, stuck with rosemary ; 
 and mutton exactly like that in North Wales, small, 
 fat, and tender. Now for the negative catalogue. No 
 conversation, no circulating library, no rooms for pur- 
 pose of assembling to dance, chat, or play at cards ; no 
 theatre, no music meeting, no pictures, and what is 
 stranger far, no picturesque, the bay alone excepted. 
 For the country Churchill might have looked south as 
 well as north when he exclaimed, 
 
 " Far as the eye can reach no tree was seen, 
 Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the living green." 
 
 Oh ! 'tis a melancholy place for talking folks. Botanists, 
 however, may justly delight in it. Every wretched 
 habitation has a garden, perfumed by carnations and 
 redolent of sweets from many a foreign shrub whose name 
 I know not ; for the whole place is in itself a sun-trap ; 
 and if they cultivated vines here, here they would grow. 
 They are, however, occupied, and skilled too, I believe, 
 in underground acquisitions. Mining is both the busi- 
 ness and pleasure of people here ; and while it does 
 seem as if earth's surface at this time teemed with 
 events capable of arresting attention, our Cornish neigh- 
 bours set up a geological school, and spend what intellect 
 they have on feltzspar and quartz ; little heeding whether 
 Paris is burned by incendiaries, or Spain torn in pieces 
 by a civil war ; whether condemnation or acquittal of a 
 conspicuous princess endangers the safety of our own
 
 LETTERS. 315 
 
 metropolis, or whether old Eome is to be destroyed at 
 last by her own hands, avoiding threatened ills from 
 foreign power, and expiring, as her scorpions do, by 
 suicide. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Siddons, when I lived much with her and 
 with the Kembles, used to say my principal charac- 
 teristic was candour, giving the good and bad in every 
 description of people and of things. I hope ill-fortune, 
 ill-health, or ill-humour have not yet spoiled me for 
 " an honest chronicler " like my countryman, Griffith, 
 who in Shakespear's Henry VIII. gives an account of 
 Cardinal Wolsey's death and conduct, balancing the 
 good and evil. 
 
 "Tis really no bad thing now to possess my much- 
 praised memory, for books here are none, and I left mine 
 (" Thraliana " with them) in the good ship "Happy 
 Return," bound for Penzance, in the Cumberland Bason, 
 Bristol, with our cook, plate, linen, clothes, tea, wine, 
 every earthly thing on board, three long weeks ago ; 
 nay, four, by the time my friends at Adbury receive 
 this letter from a distant region. 
 
 Write to me, dear Sir James, oh pray write for pity 
 on a poor creature starving for intellectual food, in 
 danger of repletion from too much corporeal. Bessy 
 has made herself sick with crab, a downright cholera, 
 and Lord! how I was frighted; but we have a good 
 physician, Dr. Forbes, and the danger is all over. 
 
 Adieu. Did we not once, in the little room, New 
 King Street, agree that nothing but the consciousness 
 of having done right could comfort solitary moments ?
 
 316 LETTERS. 
 
 But alas ! your honour's fine Bible, in three vols. folio, 
 is even now tossing on the ocean. I would it were come 
 to console yours and your father's, and your brothers', 
 and deai 1 , dear Fellie's everlastingly obliged 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To Miss Willoughby. 
 
 Penzance, Fryday, 25 August, 1820. 
 
 FRANK or no frank, I rejoyce to see the handwriting 
 of dear Miss Willoughby in this distant region to which 
 I have condemned myself for a long portion of my short 
 life. As I have lived, however, eighty-one years next 
 January, I may exist on to April and May, if it should so 
 please Grod ; and then no fear but of my too great haste 
 to join the living world again in a quiet way, for over- 
 grown society is as great a burden nay, greater to me 
 than solitude. At your age, however, it is not only 
 pleasant but proper that somewhat of life should be 
 learned, and you were fortunate in finding London gay 
 and communicative. Doctor Johnson said that after 
 the full flow of London conversation, every place was 
 a blank ; I wonder what he would have thought of dull 
 Penzance? We had a Spenceiana in our hands at 
 Streatham Park while he was writing the Poets' Lives ; 
 and when I borrowed the Anecdotes at Bath, there was 
 little quite new, but it seemed to me that Spence was 
 partial. 
 
 My paper, the "Morning Post," about three days
 
 LETTERS. 317 
 
 back mentions a case in point to the present upon 
 tryal.* What can he mean? I have" cudgelled my 
 brains, and turned over Wraxall's " Memoirs " in vain, 
 Chough the event was in 1780, the editor says, a year I 
 remember but too well. Ask Mrs. Fox if she can guess 
 what story he alludes to, and tell me what wonders 
 Lord Byron is come home to do, for I see his arrival in 
 the paper. His grandmother was my intimate friend, a 
 Cornish lady, Sophia Trevanion, wife to the Admiral, 
 pour ses peches, and we called her Mrs. B^ron always, 
 after the French manner. The friends you live among 
 are more likely to know facts concerning Atterbury's 
 tryal than I am, and where to find the letter, for such 
 a letter there is, sure enough. Pope's letter to the 
 Bishop at parting is pretty, and tender, and touchant ; 
 but I have not a good edition of Swift here,- and the 
 reading people of this town study only what is under 
 ground, neglectful of the superfices. We have a geo- 
 logical school here, and professors ; better than Weston- 
 super-Mare, you'll say, where two books only were to 
 be found in the place, a Bible and a Paradise Lost. 
 I bought them both. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Penzance, 23rd Sept, 1820. 
 
 MY dear Sir James Fellowes should not have been 
 followed up in this shameless manner, but that a letter 
 
 * The Queen's Trial.
 
 318 LETTERS. 
 
 from his brother Dorset, to whom I owe so much of 
 kindness and obedience, charged me to write imme- 
 diately to Adbury, and say he was well and happy (as 
 it appears) at Paris. It made me so to understand how. 
 quiet all is there ; and but that I believe the calm pre- 
 cedes bourrasque, my heart might be easy as to poor 
 Louis Dix-huit, who I must love both as a king and in- 
 dividual. When he shall be removed, much misery 
 will befall that devoted nation, which having set fire to 
 all Europe, will herself perish first in the flame. You 
 know I cried proximus ardet long ago ; but no one lis- 
 tened. 
 
 Meanwhile, here am I at Penzance. " Ay," says the 
 fool, hi Shakespear's "As You Like It," "here am I 
 in the Forest of Ardennes, thou fool I." But 'tis plain 
 my fancy was not guided by his, who admonishes mortal 
 man not to dwell either in a ditch, or on a terrace ; 
 you have always found me either in the one, or on the 
 other 
 
 Meanwhile, Charles Shephard has written to me 
 from Santa Lucia, where he is Attorney-General, and 
 where, from the public newspapers, he heard of my 
 octogenary fete, and wished me joy with unabated good 
 humour. 
 
 Prosperity does make, or keep people good-humoured, 
 and if I can live to the 10th of July, 1821, I will be 
 good humoured too ; unless the radicals break up our 
 funds entirely. For love of the Queen and the country, 
 Cobbett did say in some of his papers three years ago, 
 what a pleasure it would be to see 300,000 people starv-
 
 LETTERS. 319 
 
 ing ; for then we should get rid of six individuals to 
 him very obnoxious. A cheerful calculation ! For my 
 own part, however, I hope to come out next year with 
 the swallows, if possible : they, and the sun, and your 
 most humble servant, are all half torpid, or retired at 
 least during winter ; and they tell me there is no winter 
 at Penzance. A lady said here the other day, that she 
 went to Taunton last year, to see skaiting a diversion 
 she had often heard of, and that she was gratified du- 
 ring her absence from home with a heavy fall of snow. 
 I rather fancy there is some truth in all this, because 
 of the shrubs in every little garden plot : rhododen- 
 dron now in beauty ; myrtles covered with bloom, like 
 Italy ; and the arbutus high as an apple-tree, very hand- 
 some indeed, sed non omnes arbusta juvant, humiles- 
 que myricce ; and if I am doomed to six months' exile, 
 the finding myself in Botany Bay, will afford small 
 consolation. Old friends in leather jackets, the books, 
 do not desert me, and new friends are civil, send me 
 figs and peaches, and invite me to their little parties, 
 where we play sixpenny whist comfortably enough. 
 Apropos to whist, you see the Duke of Grafton's papers 
 explained nothing concerning who wrote Junius. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 Penzance ; Wednesday, 4 Jan. 1821. 
 
 MIL Auos y mas, viva V. M., my dear Sir James Fel- 
 lowes, whom I hasten to make again my debtor, as dili-
 
 320 LETTERS. 
 
 gently as Tully* would hasten to make me so. I owe 
 him but Wl. now, however, and dividend day is coming. 
 Apropos, my tenant, and your honour's not very 
 near neighbour but neighbour compared to the dis- 
 tance I live at from all the world is in arrears 91?. 
 he did squeeze out 1091. of the October money just 
 before Christmas, and promised the rest ; but those 
 promises, like Tully's pie-crust, are made to be broken ; 
 a pdt& vol au vent, I suppose. 
 
 I, and Miss Willoughby, who followed me unin- 
 vited ; came hither professedly to avoid winter ; and 
 never in my sight did winter assume so terrific, so 
 formidable a form: the sea rising to a tremendous 
 height ; fogs and snow thickening all around ; and 
 when any one is able to stand the storm, and call at 
 the house, tales of shipwreck in every mouth. I will 
 come to Penzance no more. 
 
 Meanwhile, poor Bath has, as you say, been suffer- 
 ing by the other destructive element ; what a mercy 
 that I was able to discharge Upham's long bill, before 
 he was burned out of the premises I have often felt 
 happy in. The fire-eaters would have been perhaps no 
 better, they could not have been more active or friendly 
 assistants than that charming Loder, the violin-player ; 
 who volunteered his services, and resigned the ruining 
 those delicate fingers, by which alone he lives, to save 
 the property of a man whose prejudices all militate 
 against stage and orchestra. But virtue and genius 
 should go together, and they commonly do. 
 
 * The Bath confectioner.
 
 LETTERS. 321 
 
 The Bath newspaper tells of a clergyman at New- 
 bury, who has prayed for the Queen ever since Greorge 
 4th's accession, but who is now forbidden to do so by 
 his Bishop. 
 
 Old Bead on, Bishop of Bath and Wells, is in articulo 
 mortis, I understand, and probably Dr. Hall, if he is 
 the bold man who stept forward with the prohibition, 
 will succeed him. Llandaff was treated very roughly 
 on less provocation by half. 
 
 Fine times 1 are they not. The retrospect may be 
 entertaining to the century ; but this, young as it is, 
 will smart, I think, before the year 1850. 
 
 Pourriture avant maturite, as the great Frederick 
 of Prussia used to deprecate for his own government. I 
 have never had courage to look in " Thraliana " since 
 my arrival; so little does looking backward delight 
 me. 
 
 At eighty-one years old 'tis time to begin reconnoi- 
 tring, when we know that retreat is impossible. Twenty 
 years, y mas, have elapsed, since my two quartos were 
 sent out, like Hamblet's father, with all their imperfec- 
 tions on their head. Well ! no matter. 
 
 Do you remember the Name Book ? it ended with Ze- 
 nobia, and I must tell a story of a Cornish gentlewoman 
 hard by here, Zenobia Stevens, who held a lease under 
 the Duke of Bolton by her own life only ninety-nine 
 years and going at the term's end ten miles to give 
 it up. She obtained kind permission to continue in the 
 house as long as she lived, and was asked, of course, to 
 drink a glass of wine. She did take one, but declined 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 322 LETTERS. 
 
 the second, saying, she had to ride home in the twilight 
 upon a young colt, and was afraid to make herself giddy 
 headed. 
 
 Don't I hear you cry, bravo Zenobia ? 
 
 's pretty wife is screaming, I believe : she has 
 
 outlived two accoucheurs. No wonder : I do think a 
 country practitioner (meaning a medical man of all 
 work) should have an iron constitution.* Our agreeable 
 Dr. Forbes seems so endowed : a Scotchman, a com- 
 petent scholar, full of country anecdote, and he told 
 me the true tale of Zenobia, whose daughter died 
 the other day, aged ninety-eight only. Those who 
 said no snow was ever seen at Penzance, dealt in 
 fiction and fable : here is a heavy snow this moment, 
 and but that the sea is open enough, Grod knows, I 
 should call it a polar winter. Dr. Parry's son will 
 go again, it seems, for another 50001. ; other induce- 
 ment there can be none, and the most curious cir- 
 cumstance of the voyage is an account given by one of 
 the officers, how his Irish setter, a tall smooth spaniel, 
 attracted the attentions of a she wolf on Melville Is- 
 land, who made love to the handsome dandy, and seduced 
 him at length to end his days with her and her rough- 
 haired family, refusing every invitation of return to the 
 ship ; a certain proof that dog, fox, jackall, &c. are only 
 accidental varieties ; while lupo is head of the house, 
 penkennedil, as Welsh and Cornish people call it. 
 
 * In one of her marginal notes she quotes the saying of a dis- 
 tinguished lawyer, that a judge should have a face of brass, a con- 
 stitution of iron, and a bottom of lead.
 
 LETTERS. 323 
 
 Adieu ! I am going to eat a cod's-head, which you 
 would be happy to give two guineas for, when Lord 
 Carnarvon dines with you. My servants have the rest 
 for their dinner to-day and to-morrow. The whole fish 
 cost half-a-crown. But there is a mermaid coming to 
 England I hear. That she ends in piscem, I partly 
 believe, but mulier foi^mosa I doubt. No room for 
 more nonsense, scarce enough to say how many wishes 
 for yours and your family's happiness are breathed in 
 this distant region by, dear Sir, yours and their most 
 obliged and grateful and faithful servant, 
 
 H. L. PIOZZI. 
 
 To William Dorset Felloives, Esq. 
 
 Penzance, 14 February, 1821. 
 WELL, my dear Sir, 
 
 This day, whate'er the fates decree, 
 Shall still be kept with joy by me. 
 
 Sir James had a long letter from me some weeks ago, 
 but I believe his tooth ache was so bad he never minded 
 it. There has been a new attack made on my property, 
 of which I gave him an account ; but it will end in 
 smoke before I can have time to tell you the tale, which 
 relates to dividends left standing, unclaimed, an im- 
 mense while, in the names of Thrale and Gifford. 
 
 Some Mr. K , I know not who, flies at me to ask 
 
 what I did with them ? (rod knows I did nothing with 
 them, nor ever heard a breath concerning the matter, 
 
 y 2
 
 324 LETTERS. 
 
 till his letter put me upon inquiry, and having written 
 to Mrs. Merick Hoare, she consoles me by bearing testi- 
 mony to my innocence of having ever touched this GOOl. 
 which this gentleman believes himself heir to. 
 
 But this comes of too long life. My coadjutors and 
 brethren in the executorship were, it seems (but I knew 
 it not), every one dead, when this stock was sold ; and 
 the name of poor H. L. Piozzi answers for all at the 
 
 distance of fifteen years. If Mr. K ever crosses 
 
 your way, do tell him I am an honest creature, incapa- 
 ble of wronging even a fly. My husband's illness, and 
 my attendance on him who took up my whole heart and 
 thought, did I suppose obliterate the transaction from 
 my mind ; which certainly does retain no trace of it. 
 
 Your duty as Secretary to the Lord Great Chamber- 
 lain of England * will now become less irksome, I hope, 
 and friendship may have her share of your active bene- 
 ficence ; your dear sister is silent, but I am willing to 
 believe pleasure helps detain her from her pen. 
 
 Conway is in high favour at Bath, the papers say ; so 
 indeed do private letters. That young man's value will 
 be one day properly appreciated ; and then you and I 
 will be found to have been quite right all along. 
 
 Tell me about Miss Wilson meanwhile, and whether 
 'tis somewhat in the Billington style, that she is excel- 
 ling all the world so. My heart tells me 'tis a long 
 continued warble like hers which ever fascinates both 
 skilful and unskilful critics ; and which is more the gift 
 of nature than of art. 
 
 * Lord Gwydir.
 
 LETTERS. 325 
 
 But I hate reasoning down our own enjoyments ; 'tis 
 like burning down rubies in a concave glass : the French 
 never do it, and you will soon visit them, I dare say. 
 En attendant je vous souhaite, Monsieur it was a 
 bishop's wish you know Paris en ce monde, Paradis 
 en Vautre. 
 
 To Miss Willoughby. 
 
 No. 10, Sion Row, Clifton, 
 
 16 March, 1821. 
 
 SOMETHING tells me vanity I suppose that dear 
 Miss Willoughby will be glad to hear I am where I wish 
 to be, on the sweet Gloucestershire Downs, numberless 
 old acquaintance, and some new, kindly expressing 
 pleasure at my return. Poor Mrs. Yorke, 10,000/. 
 richer than when we parted ; ten years older, and all in 
 ten months' time ; Mrs. Lambart's death, Sir Philip 
 Jennings' sister, caused the alteration. Our friend Con- 
 way is not younger ; he won't play Master Slender now ; 
 his enquiries after you were very kind indeed, and he 
 rejoyced for my sake that Penzance was your chosen 
 retreat. Oh, how he regrets his Lesserillo ! But Mr. 
 Green has secured 5001. per annum, with an agreeable 
 woman, and must not, for shame, lament the profession, 
 which will not soon cease to lament him. The benefits 
 are thin I hear, but that for which we are interested 
 gives good hope. Monday, 26th, will be the day, and 
 Mirandola, with the Chevalier de Moranges, the night's 
 entertainment. I have seen the future footman ; he will 
 
 Y 3
 
 326 LETTERS. 
 
 at worst be better than poor James, I suppose : who is 
 gone to Bath now on a frolic : Bessy tearing her hair, 
 and Mrs. Pennington exhausting all her eloquence in 
 expressions of wrath and anger. 
 
 It is almost time to tell you what a providence 
 watched over your old friend at Exeter, after my letter 
 was written , at three o'clock, Sunday morning. The 
 bed was very high, and getting into it, I set my foot on 
 a light chair, which flew from the pressure, and re- 
 venged it on my leg in a terrible manner. 
 
 The wonder is, no bones were broken ; only a cruel 
 bruise and slight tear, and we trotted on hither, after 
 cathedral service, at which I hardly could kneel to thank 
 God for my escape. So Sir John may look to my de- 
 mise now at his leisure, and my legacy [leg I see]. 
 
 "Not a mouse stirring," the French translators of 
 Hamlet rendered, " Je n'ai pas entendu un souris 
 trotter." Our mouse could not trot without your assist- 
 ance ; with it, he performed his journey beautiffully ; 
 though I did feel a horrid pang about my own impru- 
 dence, running into a dirty cottage on the road, full of 
 the small-pox. Long live vaccination, however, and 
 Dr. Jenner who first devised it. 
 
 Sunday, 18. 
 
 Here is a storm worthy of Mount's Bay ; your billows 
 must roar finely this morning. Bessy would not trust 
 me to church,! should have been blown down the hill, she 
 says. So since Mr. Le Grris's blessing has helped bring 
 me safe hither, I must not press it further, but sit pretty
 
 LETTERS. 327 
 
 and put my leg upon a chair, instead of my foot. Was 
 not it a horrid accident ? and in the dead of the night 
 so ! Dr. Forbes will be very sorry, for poor H. L. P., 
 always a blue, now a black and blue, lady, bruised, say 
 you, from top to toe ? " My Lord, from head to foot." 
 The pet books, sent by waggon from Penzance (Pas- 
 coe's cart carried them), are not arrived yet. The ship 
 things all came safe. 
 
 To Sir James Fellowes. 
 
 24 March, 1821, Sunday Morning. 
 
 YOUR letter only came last night. 
 
 My dear Sir James Fellowes, though a tardy corre- 
 spondent is always a kind one. True it is, that your 
 sister has seduced me to dine with her on Tuesday 
 next ; and rejoyce in our friend Conway's success, which 
 I hope to witness on Monday evening. 
 
 True it is, that I arrived at Clifton on the 12th 
 March, escaping the stormy equinox, which must have 
 shaken poor Penzance to the foundation. It is built 
 upon the sand, so no wonder. True it is, that I hope 
 to shew myself to you unimpaired, as to appearance ; 
 but my value will be lessened because I have broken my 
 shin. Is not that the case now and then with a quick 
 goer ? Sleeping in Russel Street, however, would not 
 do. I have asked Miss "Williams to dine with Mrs. 
 Pennington and me at the Elephant and Castle, where 
 I will set up my repose, and keep my 1. e. g my elegy 
 in good repair. Mrs. Pennington is quite poetical, 
 y 4
 
 328 LETTERS. 
 
 always eloquent on that, and every subject. Since my 
 arrival at Sion Hill, for there I occupy a lodging till 
 my house in the Crescent is ready, two parcels 
 directed by tying friends, have given me a mournful 
 sensation : they are letters written by me to them in 
 distant days, I know not how happy. You will have to 
 look them over after my death, and I dare say they are 
 better than those I write now. My intention, however, 
 is not to be in haste : though Salusbury seemed to 
 apprehend his journey would be long and expensive if 
 I died at Penzance. So here is poor aunt at the em- 
 bouchure of his favourite River Severn, and here he 
 may come after (the 10th of July) to look after the 
 demise and the legacy [leg I see] ; but he must stay 
 away till I have put my house in order. 
 
 * " On the day following the date of this letter, which was the 
 last I received from Mrs. Piozzi, I called at the Castle and 
 Elephant at Bath, and found her and Mrs. Pennington. She was 
 in high spirits, joking ab'out the I. e.g. She dined with my 
 father and sister, at No. 7, Russell Street, and was throughout the 
 evening the admiration of the company, amongst whom were Mrs. 
 Pemiington, the lady so often mentioned in Anna Seward's cor- 
 respondence as the beautiful and agreeable Sophia Weston ; 
 Admiral Sir Henry Bayntun, G.C.B., a distinguished naval officer 
 at the battle of Trafalgar ; Mr. Lutwyche (Mr. Lutwyche's house 
 in Marlborough-buildings was celebrated for its hospitality, and as 
 the resort of all the most agreeable society at Bath. Mrs. L. was 
 the daughter of Sir Noah Thomas, a baronet and distinguished 
 physician) ; and Mr. Conway, the actor, who was held in high 
 estimation for his excellent private character. He fell overboard 
 and was drowned on his passage from New York/' Sir J. 
 Fettowes.
 
 329 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS EXTEACTS FROM 
 " THRALIANA."* 
 
 Miss Streatfield. I have since heard that Dr. Collier 
 picked up a more useful friend, a Mrs. Streatfield, a 
 widow, higli in fortune and rather eminent both for 
 the beauties of person and mind ; her children, I find, 
 he has been educating ; and her eldest daughter is just 
 now coming out into the world with a great character 
 for elegance and literature. 20 November, 1776. 
 
 19 May, 1778. The person who wrote the title of 
 this book at the top of the page, on the other side 
 left hand in the black letter, was the identical Miss 
 Sophia Streatfield, mentioned in " Thraliana, " as 
 pupil to poor dear Doctor Collier, after he and I 
 had parted. By the chance meeting of some of the 
 currents which keep this ocean of human life from 
 stagnating, this lady and myself were driven together 
 nine months ago at Brighthelmstone ; we soon grew 
 intimate from having often heard of each other, and I 
 have now the honour and happiness of calling her my 
 friend. Her face is eminently pretty; her carriage 
 
 * These extracts reached me after the preceding sheets were 
 printed off.
 
 330 THRALIANA. 
 
 elegant; her heart affectionate, and her mind culti- 
 vated. There is above all this an attractive sweetness 
 in her manner, which claims and promises to repay 
 one's confidence, and which drew from me the secret of 
 my keeping a " Thraliana," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 Jan. 1779. Mr. Thrale is fallen in love really and 
 seriously with Sophy Streatfield ; but there is no wonder 
 in that : she is very pretty, very gentle, soft, and insinu- 
 ating ; 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. A man must 
 not be a man but an it, to resist such artillery. Mar- 
 riott said very well, 
 
 " Man flatt'ring man, not always can prevail, 
 But woman flatt'ring man, can never fail." 
 
 Murphy did not use, I think, to have a good opinion 
 of me, but he seems to have changed his mind this 
 Christmas, and to believe better of me. I am glad 
 on't to be sure : the suffrage of such a man is well worth 
 having : he sees Thrale's love of the fair S. S. I sup- 
 pose : approves my silent and patient endurance of what 
 I could not prevent by more rough and sincere be- 
 haviour. 
 
 " And Merlin look'd and half believed her true, 
 So tender was her voice, so fair her face, 
 So sweetly gleam'd her eyes behind her tears, 
 Like sunlight on the plain, behind a shower." 
 
 Idylls of The King Vivien.
 
 MISS STEEATFIELD. 331 
 
 20 January, 1780. Sophy Streatfield is come 
 to town, she is in the " Morning Post " too, I see 
 (to be in the " Morning Post " is no good thing). She 
 has won Wedderburne's heart from his wife, I be- 
 lieve, and few married women will bear that patiently 
 if I do ; they will some of them wound her reputation, 
 so that I question whether it can recover. Lady 
 Erskine made many odd enquiries about her to me 
 yesterday, and winked and looked wise at her sister. 
 The dear S. S. must be a little on her guard ; nothing- 
 is so spiteful as a woman robbed of a heart she thinks 
 she has a claim upon. She will not lose that with 
 temper, which she has taken perhaps no pains at all to 
 preserve : and I do not observe with any pleasure, I 
 fear, that my husband prefers Miss Streatfield to me, 
 though I must acknowledge her younger, handsomer, 
 and a better scholar. Of her chastity, however, I never 
 had a doubt : she was bred by Dr. Collier in the strictest 
 principles of piety and virtue ; she not only knows she 
 will be always chaste, but she knows why she will be 
 so. Mr. Thrale is now by dint of disease quite out of 
 the question, so I am a disinterested spectator ; but her 
 coquetry is very dangerous indeed, and I wish she were 
 married that there might be an end on't. Mr. Thrale 
 loves her, however, sick or well, better by a thousand 
 degrees than he does me or any one else, and even now 
 desires nothing on earth half so much as the sight of 
 his Sophia. 
 
 " E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries ! 
 E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires ! ' '
 
 332 THRALIANA. 
 
 The Saturday before Mr. Thrale was taken ill 
 Saturday, 1 9th February he was struck Monday, 
 21st February we had a large party to tea, cards, and 
 supper ; Miss Streatfield was one, and as Mr. Thrale 
 sate by her, he pressed her hand to his heart (as she 
 told me herself), and said " Sophy, we shall not enjoy 
 this long, and to-night I will not be cheated of my only 
 comfort." Poor soul ! how shockingly tender ! on the 
 first Fryday that he spoke after his stupor, she came to 
 see him, and as she sate by the bedside pitying him, 
 " Oh," says he, " who would not suffer even all that I 
 have endured to be pitied by you ! " This I heard 
 myself. 
 
 Here is Sophy Streatfield again, handsomer than 
 ever, and flushed with new conquests: the Bishop of 
 Chester feels her power, I am sure ; she showed me a 
 letter from him that was as tender and had all the 
 tokens upon it as strong as ever I remember to have 
 seen 'em ; I repeated to her out of Pope's Homer 
 " Very well, Sophy," says I : 
 
 " Range undisturb'd among the hostile crew, 
 But touch not Hinchliffe * } Hinchliffe is my due." 
 
 Miss Streatfield (says my master) could have quoted 
 these lines in the Greek ; his saying so piqued me, and 
 piqued me because it was true. I wish I understood 
 Greek ! Mr. Thrale's preference of her to me never 
 vexed me so much as my consciousness or fear at 
 least that he has reason for his preference. She has 
 
 * For Hector.
 
 MISS STREATFIELD. 333 
 
 ten times my beauty, and five times my scholarship 
 wit and knowledge has she none. 
 
 May, 1781. Sophy Streatfield is an incomprehensible 
 girl ; here has she been telling me such tender passages 
 of what passed between her and Mr. Thrale, that she 
 half frights me somehow, at the same time declaring her 
 attachment to Vyse yet her willingness to marry Lord 
 Loughborough. Good Grod ! what an uncommon girl ! 
 and handsome almost to perfection, I think : delicate in 
 her manners, soft in her voice, and strict in her prin- 
 ciples : I never saw such a character, she is wholly out 
 of my reach ; and I can only say that the man who 
 runs mad for Sophy Streatfield has no reason to be 
 ashamed of his passion; few people, however, seem 
 disposed to take her for life everybody's admiration, 
 as Mrs. Byron says, and nobody's choice. 
 
 Streatham, 1st January, 1782. Sophy Streatfield 
 has begun the new year nicely with a new conquest. 
 Poor dear Doctor Burney ! lie is now the reigning 
 favourite, and she spares neither pains nor caresses to 
 turn that good man's head, much to the vexation of his 
 family ; particularly my Fanny, who is naturally pro- 
 voked to see sport made of her father in his last stage 
 of life by a young coquet, whose sole employment in 
 this world seems to have been winning men's hearts on 
 purpose to fling them away. How she contrives to 
 keep bishops, and brewers, and doctors, and directors of 
 the East India Company, all in chains so, and almost 
 all at the same time, would amaze a wiser person than 
 me ; I can only say let us mark the end ! Hester will
 
 334 THRALIANA. 
 
 perhaps see her out and pronounce, like Solon, on her 
 wisdom and conduct. 
 
 Miss Nicholson. After stating that she went to 
 London, early in June, 1784, to procure a suitable 
 companion for her daughters, after her marriage with 
 Piozzi should have taken place, and mentioning several 
 disappointments, Mrs. Piozzi goes on to say : 
 
 " Providence, however, directed a Miss Nicholson to 
 my door, and her peculiarly pleasing manners attracted 
 me strongly. She referred me to Mr. Evans of South- 
 wark for her character ; and to every exterior accom- 
 plishment no objection could be made. Correct though 
 sprightly, and steady though cheerful in her manner : 
 the elegance of her form, the maturity of her age, and 
 the soft expression of her countenance fixed my elec- 
 tion, and I brought home to my daughters a woman of 
 fashion fit for them to reside or converse or consult 
 with. This sweet Miss Nicholson will make all still 
 more smooth to me ; she is a well-wisher to the cause, 
 and will, when the girls are parted from me, keep them 
 from hating or trampling on the memory of a mother 
 who adores them : she professes to like me excessively, 
 and if she does, oh, how happy may this connection, so 
 accidental and so extraordinary, make my poor suffering 
 heart ! (rod bless her ! " 
 
 Baretti. Baretti had a comical aversion to Mrs. Ma- 
 caulay, and his aversions are numerous and strong. If I 
 had not once written his character in verse, I would now 
 write it in prose, for few people know him better : he was 
 Dieu me pardonne, as the French say my inmate
 
 BARETTI. 335 
 
 for very near three years ; and though I really liked the 
 man once for his talents, and at last was weary of him 
 for the use he made of them, I never altered my sen- 
 timents concerning him ; for his character is easily seen, 
 and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and 
 breathing defiance against all mankind ; while his 
 powers of mind exceed most people's, and his powers of 
 purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all. 
 Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream dammed up : 
 if he could once get loose, he would bear down all 
 before him. 
 
 Every soul that visited at our house while he was 
 master of it, went away abhorring it ; and Mrs. Mon- 
 tagu, grieved to see my meekness so imposed upon, 
 had thoughts of writing me on the subject an anony- 
 mous letter, advising me to break with him. Seward, 
 who tried at last to reconcile us, confessed his wonder 
 that we had lived together so long. Johnson used to 
 oppose and battle him, but never with his own consent : 
 the moment he was cool, he would always condemn him- 
 self for exerting his superiority over a man who was his 
 friend, a foreigner, and poor : yet I have been told by 
 Mrs. Montagu that he attributed his loss of our family 
 to Johnson : ungrateful and ridiculous ! if it had not 
 been for his mediation, I would not so long have borne 
 trampling on, as I did for the last two years of our 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Not a servant, not a child, did he leave me any autho- 
 rity over ; if I would attempt to correct or dismiss 
 them, there was instant appeal to Mr. Baretti, who was
 
 336 THRALIANA. 
 
 sure always to be against me in every dispute. With 
 Mr. Thrale I was ever cautious of contending, conscious 
 that a misunderstanding there could never answer, as I 
 have no friend or relation in the world to protect me 
 from the rough treatment of a husband, should he 
 chuse to exert his prerogatives ; but when 1 saw Baretti 
 openly urging Mr. Thrale to cut down some little fruit 
 trees my mother had planted and I had begged might 
 stand, I confess I did take an aversion to the creature, 
 and secretly resolved his stay should not be prolonged 
 by my intreaties whenever his greatness chose to take 
 huff and be gone. As to my eldest daughter, his beha- 
 viour was most ungenerous ; he was perpetually spur- 
 ring her to independence, telling her she had more 
 sense and would have a better fortune than her mother, 
 whose admonitions she ought therefore to despise ; that 
 she ought to write and receive her own letters now, 
 and not submit to an authority I could not keep up if 
 she once had the spirit to challenge it ; that, if I died 
 in a lying-in which happened while he lived here, he 
 hoped Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who 
 would be a pretty companion for Hester, and not tyran- 
 nical and overbearing like me. Was I not fortunate to 
 see myself once quit of a man like this ? who thought 
 his dignity was concerned to set me at defiance, and who 
 was incessantly telling lies to my prejudice in the ears 
 of my husband and children ? When he walked out of 
 the house on the 6th day of July, 1776, I wrote down 
 what follows in my table book. 
 
 6 July, 1776. This day is made remarkable by the
 
 BARETTI. 337 
 
 departure of Mr. Baretti, who has, since October, 1773, 
 been our almost constant inmate, companion, and, I 
 vainly hoped, our friend. On the llth of November, 
 1773, Mr. Thrale let him have 50., and at our return 
 from France 501. more, besides his clothes and pocket 
 money : in return to all this, he instructed our eldest 
 daughter or thought he did and puffed her about 
 the town for a wit, a genius, a linguist, &c. At the 
 beginning of the year 1776, we purposed visiting Italy 
 under his conduct, but were prevented by an unfore- 
 seen and heavy calamity : that Baretti, however, might 
 not be disappointed of money as well as of plea- 
 sure, Mr. Thrale presented him with 100 guineas, 
 which at first calmed his wrath a little, but did not, 
 perhaps, make amends for his vexation ; this I am 
 the more willing to believe, as Dr. Johnson not being 
 angry too, seemed to grieve him no little, after all our 
 preparations made. 
 
 Now Johnson's virtue was engaged ; and he, I 
 doubt not, made it a point of conscience not to in- 
 crease the distresses of a family already oppressed with 
 affliction. Baretti, however, from this time grew 
 sullen and captious; he went on as usual notwith- 
 standing, 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 particu- 
 larly disagreeable to me, whom he has now not liked a 
 long while, if ever he did. He, professed, ..however, a 
 
 VOL. II. Z
 
 333 TIIEALIANA. 
 
 violent attachment to our eldest daughter ; said if she 
 had died instead of her poor brother, he should have 
 destroyed himself, with many as wild expressions of 
 fondness. Within these few days, when my back was 
 turned, he would often be telling her that he would 
 go away and stay a month, with other threats of 
 the same nature ; and she, not being of a caressing or 
 obliging disposition, never, I suppose, soothed his anger 
 or requested his stay. 
 
 Of all this, however, I can know nothing but from 
 her, who is very reserved, and whose kindness I can not 
 so confide in as to be sure she would tell me all that 
 passed between them ; and her attachment is probably 
 greater to him than me, whom he has always en- 
 deavoured to lessen as much as possible, both in her 
 eyes and what was worse her father's, by telling 
 him how my parts had been over-praised by Johnson, 
 and over-rated by the world ; that my daughter's skill 
 in languages, even at the age of fourteen, would vastly 
 exceed mine, and such other idle stuff; which Mr. 
 Thrale had very little care about, but which Hetty 
 doubtless thought of great importance. Be this as it 
 may, no angry words ever passed between him and me, 
 except perhaps now and then a little spar or so when 
 company was by, in the way of raillery merely. 
 
 Yesterday, when Sir Joshua and Fitzmaurice dined 
 here, I addressed myself to him with great particularity 
 of attention, begging his company for Saturday, as 
 I expected ladies, and said he must come and flirt 
 with them, &c. My daughter in the meantime kept
 
 BARETTT. 339 
 
 on telling me that Mr. Baretti was grown very old 
 and very cross, would not look at her exercises, but 
 said he would leave this house soon, for it was no better 
 than Pandasmonium. Accordingly, the next day he 
 packed up his cloke-bag, which he had not done for 
 three years, and sent it to town ; and while we were 
 wondering what he would say about it at breakfast, he 
 was walking to London himself, without taking leave 
 of any one person, except it may be the girl, who owns 
 they had much talk, in the course of which he expressed 
 great aversion to me and even to her, who, he said, he 
 once thought well of. 
 
 Now whether she had ever told the man things 
 that I might have said of him in his absence, by 
 way of provoking him to go, and so rid herself of 
 his tuition ; whether he was puffed up with the last 
 100 guineas and longed to be spending it aW Italiano ; 
 whether he thought Mr. Thrale would call him back, 
 and he should be better established here than ever ; 
 or whether he really was idiot enough to be angry 
 at my threatening to whip Susan and Sophy for going 
 out of bounds, although he had given them leave, for 
 Hetty said that was the first offence he took huff at, 
 I never now shall know, for he never expressed himself 
 as an offended man to me, except one day when he was 
 not shaved at the proper hour forsooth, and then I 
 would not quarrel with him, because nobody was by, 
 and I knew him be so vile a lyar that I durst not trust 
 his tongue with a dispute. He is gone, however, 
 loaded with little presents from me, and with a large 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THRALIANA. 
 
 share too of my good opinion, though I most sincerely 
 rejoice in his departure, and hope we shall never meet 
 more but by chance. 
 
 Since our quarrel I had occasion to talk of him with 
 Tom Davies, who spoke with horror of his ferocious 
 temper ; " and yet," says I, " there is great sensibility 
 about Baretti: I have seen tears often stand in his eyes." 
 " Indeed," replies Davies, " I should like to have seen 
 that sight vastly, when even butchers weep." 
 
 The Burney s. August, 1779. Fanny Burney has 
 been a long time from me ; I was glad to see her again ; 
 yet she makes me miserable too in many respects, so 
 restlessly and apparently anxious, lest I should give my- 
 self airs of patronage or load her with the shackles of 
 dependance. I live with her always in a degree of pain 
 that precludes friendship dare not ask her to buy me 
 a ribbon dare not desire her to touch the bell, lest she 
 should think herself injured lest she should forsooth 
 appear in the character of Miss Neville, and I in that 
 of the widow Bromley. See Murphy's " Know Your 
 Own Mind." 
 
 Fanny Burney has kept her room here in my house 
 seven days, with a fever or something that she called a 
 fever ; I gave her every medicine and every slop with 
 my own hand ; took away her dirty cups, spoons, &c. ; 
 moved her tables : in short, was doctor and nurse and 
 maid for I did not like the servants should have addi- 
 tional trouble lest they should hate her for it. And 
 now, with the true gratitude of a wit, she tells me, 
 that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities 
 to her. It does ? does it ?
 
 MISS BUENEY. 311 
 
 Miss Burney was much admired at Bath (1780) ; the 
 puppy-men said, " She had such a drooping air and 
 such a timid intelligence ; " or, " a timid air," I think 
 it was, " and a drooping intelligence ; " never sure was 
 such a collection of pedantry and affection as filled Bath 
 when we were on that spot. How everything else and 
 everybody set off my gallant bishop. " Quantum Centa 
 solent inter viburna Cupressi." Of all the people I 
 ever heard read verse in my whole life, the best, the 
 most perfect reader, is the Bishop of Peterboro'. 
 
 1st July, 1780. Mrs. Byron, who really loves me, 
 was disgusted at Miss Burney's carriage to me, who 
 have been such a friend and benefactress to her : not 
 an article of dress, not a ticket for public places, not a 
 thing in the world that she could not command from 
 me : yet always insolent, always pining for home, 
 always preferring the mode of life in St. Martin's 
 Street to all I could do for her. She is a saucy-spirited 
 little puss to be sure, but I love her dearly for all that ; 
 and I fancy she has a real regard for me, if she did not 
 think it beneath the dignity of a wit, or of what she 
 values more the dignity of Dr. Burney's daughter to 
 indulge it. Such dignity ! the Lady Louisa of Leicester 
 Square ! In good time ! 
 
 1781. What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be 
 always sending for his daughter home so ! what a 
 monkey ! is not she better and happier with me than 
 she can be anywhere else ? Johnson is enraged at 
 the silliness of their family conduct, and Mrs. Byron 
 disgusted ; I confess myself provoked excessively, but 
 
 Z 3
 
 342 TIIRALIANA. 
 
 I love the girl so dearly and the Doctor, too, for 
 that matter, only that he has such odd notions of 
 superiority in his own house, and will have his children 
 under his feet forsooth, rather than let 'em live in 
 peace, plenty, and comfort anywhere from home. If 
 I did not provide Fanny with every weareable every 
 wishable, indeed, it would not vex me to be served 
 so ; but to see the impossibility of compensating for the 
 pleasures of St. Martin's Street makes one at once 
 merry and mortified. 
 
 Dr. Burney did not like his daughter should learn 
 Latin even of Johnson, who offered to teach her for 
 friendship, because then she would have been as wise 
 as himself forsooth, and Latin was too masculine for 
 Misses. A narrow-souled goose-cap the man must be 
 at last, agreeable and amiable all the while too, be} ond 
 almost any other human creature. Well, mortal man 
 is but a paltry animal ! the best of us have such draw- 
 backs both upon virtue, wisdom, and knowledge. 
 
 September, 1781. My five fair daughters too! I 
 have so good a pretence to wish for long life to see 
 them settled. Like the old fellow in " Lucian," one is 
 never at a loss for an excuse. They are five lovely 
 creatures to be sure, but they love not me. Is it my 
 fault or theirs ? 
 
 August 28th, 1782. He (Piozzi) thinks still more 
 than he says, that I shall give him up ; and if Queeney 
 made herself more amiable to me, and took the proper 
 methods I suppose I should. 
 
 1st October, 1782. After analysing the state of her
 
 DAUGHTERS. 343 
 
 heart and feelings towards Piozzi, and balancing the 
 pros and cons, she adds These objections would 
 increase in strength too, if my present state was a happy 
 one : but it really is not. I live a quiet life but not a 
 pleasant one. My children govern without loving me. 
 My friends caress and censure me. My money wastes 
 in expenses I do not enjoy, and my time in trifles I do 
 not approve ; every one is made insolent and no one 
 comfortable. My reputation unprotected, my heart un- 
 satisfied, my health unsettled. I will, however, resolve 
 on nothing. 
 
 April, 1783. I will go to Bath: nor health, nor 
 strength, nor my children's affections, have I. My 
 daughter does not, I suppose, much delight in this 
 scheme [viz. retrenchment of expenses and removal to 
 Bath], but why should I lead a life of delighting her, 
 who would not lose a shilling of interest or an ounce of 
 pleasure to save my live from perishing ? 
 
 Piozzi was ill. . . A sore throat, Pepys said it was, 
 with four ulcers in it : the people about me said it had 
 been lanced, and I mentioned it slightly before the girls. 
 " Has he cut his own throat ? " says Miss Thrale in her 
 quiet manner. This was less inexcusable because she 
 hated him, and the other was her sister : though, had 
 she exerted the good sense I thought her possessed of, 
 she would not have treated him so : had she adored, 
 and fondled, and respected him as he deserved from her 
 hands, from the heroic conduct he shewed in January 
 when he gave into her hands, that dismal day, all my 
 letters containing promises of marriage, protestations 
 
 z 4
 
 344 TIIRALIANA. 
 
 of love, &c., who knows but she might have kept us 
 separated ? But never did she once caress or thank me, 
 never treat him with common civility, except on the 
 very day which gave her hopes of our final parting. 
 Worth while to be sure it was, to break one's heart for 
 her ! The other two are, however, neither wiser nor 
 kinder; all swear by her I believe, and follow her 
 footsteps exactly. Mr. Thrale had not much heart, but 
 his fair daughters have none at all.* 
 
 June, 1783. Most sincerely do I regret the sacrifice 
 I have made of health, happiness, and the society of a 
 worthy and amiable companion, to the pride and pre- 
 judice of three insensible girls, who would see nature 
 perish without concern . . . were their gratification 
 the cause. 
 
 The two youngest have, for ought I see, hearts as 
 impenetrable as their sister. They will all starve a 
 favourite animal all see with unconcern the afflictions 
 of a friend ; and when the anguish I suffered on their 
 account last winter, in Argyll Street, nearly took away 
 my life and reason, the younger ridiculed as a jest 
 those agonies which the eldest despised as a philosopher. 
 When all is said, they are exceeding valuable girls 
 beautiful in person, cultivated in understanding, and 
 well-principled in religion : high in their notions, lofty 
 in their carriage, and of intents equal to their expecta- 
 tions ; wishing to raise their own family by connections 
 with some more noble . . and superior to any feel- 
 
 * This is the very accusation the)' all brought against her.
 
 CHARACTER OF JOHNSOX. 345 
 
 ing of tenderness which might clog the wheels of 
 ambition. What, however, is my state ? who am con- 
 demned to live with girls of this disposition ? to teach 
 without authority ; to be heard without esteem ; to be 
 considered by them as their superior in fortune, while I 
 live by the money borrowed from them ; and in good 
 sense, when they have seen me submit my judgment to 
 theirs at the hazard of my life and wits. Oh, 'tis a 
 pleasant situation ! and whoever would wish, as the 
 Greek lady phrased it, to teize himself and repent of 
 his sins, let him borrow his children's money, be in love 
 against their interest and prejudice, forbear to marry 
 by their advice, and then shut himself up and live with 
 them.* 
 
 Character of Johnson. One evening as I was giving 
 my tongue liberty to praise Mr. Johnson to his face, a 
 favour he would not often allow me, he said, in high 
 good humour, " Come, you shall draw up my character 
 your own way, and shew it me, that I may see what 
 you will say of me when I am gone." At night I wrote 
 as follows. -(Here followed the character which forms 
 the conclusion of the Anecdotes.'] At the end she 
 writes : " When I shewed him his Character next day, 
 for he would see it, he said, ' It was a very fine piece of 
 writing, and that I had improved upon Young,'' who he 
 saw was my model, he said, " for my flattery was still 
 
 * After Buckingham had been some time married to Fairfax's 
 daughter, he said it was like marrying the devil's daughter, and 
 keeping house with your father-in-law.
 
 346 THRALIANA. 
 
 stronger than his, and yet, somehow or other, less 
 hyperbolical.' " 
 
 Baretti. Will. Burke was tart upon Mr. Baretti for 
 being too dogmatical in his talk about politics. " You 
 have," says he, "no business to be investigating the 
 characters of Lord Falkland or Mr. Hampden. . . . 
 You cannot judge of their merits, they are no country- 
 men of yours." " True," replied Baretti, " and you 
 should learn by the same rule to speak very cautiously 
 about Brutus and Mark Antony ; they are my country- 
 men, and I must have their characters tenderly treated 
 by foreigners." 
 
 Baretti could not endure to be called, or scarcely 
 thought, a foreigner, and indeed it did not often occur 
 to his company that he was one : for his accent was 
 wonderfully proper, and his language always copious, 
 always nervous, always full of various allusions, flowing 
 too, with a rapidity worthy of admiration, and far be- 
 yond the power of nineteen in twenty natives. Pie had 
 also a knowledge of the solemn language and the gay, 
 could be sublime with Johnson, or blackguard with the 
 groom ; could dispute, could rally, could quibble, in our 
 language. Baretti has, besides, some skill in music, 
 with a bass voice very agreeable, besides a falsetto which 
 he can manage so as to mimic any singer he hears. I 
 would also trust his knowledge of painting a long way. 
 These accomplishments, with his extensive power over 
 every modern language, make him a most pleasing 
 companion while he is in good-humour ; and his lofty 
 consciousness of his own superiority, which made him
 
 BARETTI. 347 
 
 tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thou- 
 sand distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, 
 till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve 
 to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of 
 it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, is never 
 despicable, but vanity, which he possessed too, in an 
 eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty 
 ridiculous. 
 
 France displayed all Mr. Baretti's useful powers 
 he bustled for us, he catered for us, he took care 
 of the child, he secured an apartment for the maid, 
 he provided for our safety, our amusement, our repose ; 
 without him the pleasure of that journey would never 
 have balanced the pain. And great was his disgust, 
 to be sure, when he caught us, as he often did, ridi- 
 culing French manners, French sentiments, &c. I 
 think he half cryed to Mrs. Payne, the landlady at 
 Dover, on our return, because we laughed at French 
 cookery, and French accommodations. Oh how he would 
 court the maids at the inns abroad, abuse the men 
 perhaps ! and that with a facility not to be exceeded, as 
 they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he 
 could in Spain, I find, and so 'tis plain he could here. 
 I will give one instance of his skill in our low street 
 language. Walking in a field near Chelsea, he met a 
 fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to 
 be a foreigner, said sneeringly, " Come, Sir, will you 
 show me the way to France ? " " No, Sir," says Baretti, 
 instantly, " but I will show you the way to Tyburn.' 
 Such, however, was his ignorance in a certain line, that
 
 348 THEALIANA. 
 
 he once asked Johnson for information who it was com- 
 posed 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. 
 Evans owned to me that he thought the man drunk, 
 whereas poor Baretti was, both in eating and drinking, 
 a model of temperance. Had he guessed Evans's 
 thoughts, the parson's gown would scarcely have saved 
 him a knouting from the ferocious Italian. 
 
 When Johnson and Burke went to see Baretti in 
 Newgate, they had small comfort to give him, and bid 
 him not hope too strongly. " Why what can he fear," 
 says Baretti, placing himself between 'em, " that holds 
 two such hands as I do ? " 
 
 An Italian came one day to Baretti, when he was 
 in Newgate for murder, to desire a letter of recom- 
 mendation for the teaching his scholars, when he 
 (Baretti) should be hanged. " You rascal," replies 
 Baretti, in a rage, " if I were not in my own apartment, 
 I would kick you down stairs directly." 
 
 Piozzi. Brighton, July, 1780. I have picked up 
 Piozzi here, the great Italian singer. He is amazingly 
 like my father: he shall teach Hester. 
 
 13 August, 1780. Piozzi is become a prodigious 
 favourite with me, he is so intelligent a creature, so 
 discerning, one can't help wishing for his good opinion ; 
 his singing surpasses everybody's for taste, tenderness, 
 
 * Evans -was a clergyman and (I believe) rector of Southwark.
 
 PIOZZI. GOSSIP. 349 
 
 and true elegance ; his hand on the forte piano too is so 
 soft, so sweet, so delicate, every tone goes to the heart, 
 I think, and fills the mind with emotions one would not 
 be without, though inconvenient enough sometimes. 
 He wants nothing from us : he comes for his health he 
 says : I see nothing ail the man but pride. The news- 
 papers yesterday told what all the musical folks gained, 
 and set Piozzi down 1200/. o' year. 
 
 14 January, 1782, Harley Street. 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 en- 
 quiring what Mrs. Thrale is to do this winter, what 
 friends she is to see, what men are in her confidence, 
 how soon she will be married, &c. : the brother doctor, 
 the medico as we call him, lays wagers about me, I find. 
 God forgive me, but they'll make me hate them both, 
 and they are no better than two fools for their pains, 
 for I was willing to have taken them to my heart. 
 
 Harley Street, 13 April, 1782. When I took off my 
 mourning, the watchers watched me very exactly, "but 
 they whose hands were mightiest have found nothing :" 
 so I shall leave the town, I hope, in a good disposition 
 towards me, though I am sullen enough with the town 
 for fancying me such an amorous idiot that I am dying 
 to take up with every filthy fellow. God knows how dis- 
 tant such dispositions are from the heart and constitution
 
 350 THRALIANA. 
 
 of H. L. T. Lord Loughboro', Sir Kichard Jebb, Mr. 
 Piozzi, Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Johnson, every man that comes 
 to the house, is put in the papers for me to marry. In 
 good time I wrote to day to beg the " Morning Herald " 
 would say no more about me, good or bad. 
 
 Streatham, 17 April, 1782. I am returned to Strea- 
 tham, pretty well in health and very sound in heart, 
 notwithstanding the watchers and the wager-layers, who 
 think more of the charms of their sex by half than I 
 who know them better. Love and friendship are distinct 
 things, and I would go through fire to serve many a 
 man whom nothing less than fire would force me to go 
 to bed to. Somebody mentioned my going to be mar- 
 ried 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, an- 
 cient family, respectable character, uncommon talents, 
 and three thousand a year, has a right to think herself 
 any man's equal, and has nothing to seek but return of 
 affection from whatever partner she pitches on. To 
 marry for love would therefore be rational in me, who 
 want no advancement of birth or fortune, and till I am 
 in love, I will not marry, nor perhaps then. 
 
 October, 1782. There is no mercy for me in this 
 island. I am more and more disposed to try the con- 
 tinent. One day the paper rings with my marriage to
 
 SCANDAL AND GOSSIP. 351 
 
 Johnson, one day to Crutchley*, one day to Seward. I 
 give no reason for such impertinence, but cannot deliver 
 myself from it. Whitbred, the rich brewer, is in love 
 with me too : oh, I would rather, as Ann Page says, 
 be set breast deep in the earth and bowled to death with 
 turnips. 
 
 Mr. Crutchley bid me make a curtsey to my daugh- 
 ters for keeping me out of a goal (sic), and the news- 
 papers insolent as he ! How shall I get through ? How 
 shall I get through ? I have not deserved it of any of 
 them, as Grod knows. 
 
 Philip Thicknesse put it about Bath that I was a poor 
 girl, a mantua maker, when Mr. Thrale married me. 
 It is an odd thing, but Miss Thrales like, I see, to have 
 it believed. 
 
 3 November, 1784. Yesterday I received a letter 
 from Mr. Baretti, full of the most flagrant and bitter 
 insults concerning my late marriage with Mr. Piozzi, 
 against whom, however, he can bring no heavier charge 
 than that he disputed on the road with an innkeeper 
 concerning the bill in his last journey to Italy ; while 
 he accuses me of murder and fornication in the grossest 
 terms, such as I believe have scarcely ever been used 
 even to his old companions in Newgate, whence he was 
 released to scourge the families which cherished, and 
 bite the hands that have since relieved him. Could I 
 recollect any provocation I ever gave the man, I should 
 be less amazed, but he heard, perhaps, that Johnson 
 
 * She suspected Crutchley to be the natural son of Thrale.
 
 352 THKALIANA. 
 
 had written me a rough letter, and thought he would 
 write me a brutal one : like the Jewish king, who, trying 
 to imitate Solomon without his understanding, said, 
 " My father whipped you with whips, but I will whip 
 you with scorpions." 
 
 January, 1785. I see the English newspapers are 
 full of gross insolence to me : all burst out, as I guessed 
 it would, upon the death of Dr. Johnson. But Mr. 
 Boswell (who I plainly see is the authour) should let 
 the dead escape from his malice at least. I feel more 
 shocked at the insults offered to Mr. Thrale's memory 
 than at those cast on Mr. Piozzi's person. My present 
 husband, thank God ! is well and happy, and able to 
 defend himself: but dear Mr. Thrale, that had fostered 
 these cursed wits so long ! to be stung by their malice 
 even in the grave, is too cruel : 
 
 "Nor church, nor church-yards, from such fops are free." POPE. 
 
 1 786. It has always been my maxim never to influence 
 the inclination of another : Mr. Thrale, in consequence, 
 lived with me seventeen and a half years, during which 
 time I tried but twice to persuade him to do anything, 
 and but once, and that in vain, to let anything alone. 
 Even my daughters, as soon as they could reason, were 
 always allowed, and even encouraged, by me to reason 
 their own way, and not suffer their respect or affection 
 for me to mislead their judgment. Let us keep the 
 mind clear if we can from prejudices, or truth will never 
 be found at all.* The worst part of this disinterested 
 
 * " Clear your mind of cant.'' Jonxsoir.
 
 SELF-EXAMINATION. 353 
 
 scheme is, that other people are not of my mind, and 
 if I resolve not to use my lawful influence to make my 
 children love me, the lookers-on will soon use their 
 unlawful influence to make them hate me : if I scrupu- 
 lously avoid persuading my husband to become a Lu- 
 theran or be of the English church, the Romanists will 
 be diligent to teach him all the narrowness and bitter- 
 ness of their own unfeeling sect, and soon persuade him 
 that it is not delicacy but weakness makes me desist 
 from the combat. Well ! let me do right, and leave 
 the consequences in His hand who alone sees every 
 action's motive and the true cause of every effect : let 
 me endeavour to please God, and to have only my 
 own faults and follies, not those of another, to answer 
 for. 
 
 YOL. II. A A
 
 354 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM " BRITISH SYNONYMY." 
 
 AFFECTION, PASSION, TENDEKNESS, FONDNESS, LOVE. 
 
 THE first four of these words, then, so commonly, so 
 constantly in use, are, although similar, certainly not 
 synonymous ; and the last, which always ought and I 
 hope often does comprehend them all, is not seldom 
 substituted in place of its own component parts, for 
 such are all those that precede it. Foreigners, how- 
 ever, will recollect, that the first of these words is 
 usually adapted to that regard which is consequent on 
 ties of blood ; that the second naturally and necessarily 
 presupposes and implies difference of sex ; while the 
 rest, without impropriety, may be attributed to friend- 
 ship, or bestowed on babes. I have before me the de- 
 finition of FONDNESS, given into my hands many years 
 ago by a most eminent logician, though Dr. Johnson 
 never did acquiesce in it. 
 
 "FONDNESS," says the definer, "is the hasty and in- 
 judicious determination of the will towards promoting 
 the present gratification of some particular object." 
 
 * JBritish Synonymy, or, An Attempt at Regulating the Choice 
 of Words in Familiar Conversation. By Hester Lynch Piozzi. 
 In Two Volumes. London > 1794. This book has been long out 
 of print, and contains much curious matter. Sir James Fellowes 
 meditated a new edition of it.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 355 
 
 " FONDNESS," said Dr. Johnson, " is rather the hasty 
 and injudicious attribution of excellence, somewhat 
 beyond the power of attainment, to the object of our 
 affection." 
 
 Both these definitions may possibly be included in 
 FONDNESS ; my own idea of the whole may be found in 
 the following example : 
 
 Amintor and Aspasia are models of true LOVE : 'tis 
 now seven years since their mutual PASSION was sanc- 
 tified by marriage; and so little is the lady's AFFEC- 
 TION diminished, that she sate up nine nights suc- 
 cessively last winter by her husband's bed-side, when 
 he had on him a malignant fever that frighted relations, 
 friends, servants, all away. Nor can any one allege 
 that her TENDERNESS is ill repaid, while we see him gaze 
 upon her features with that FONDNESS which is capable 
 of creating charms for itself to admire, and listen to 
 her talk with a fervour of admiration scarce due to the 
 most brilliant genius. 
 
 For the rest, 'tis my opinion that men love for the 
 most part with warmer PASSION than women do at 
 least than English women, and with more transitory 
 FONDNESS mingled with that passion : while 'tis natural 
 for females to feel a softer TENDERNESS ; and when their 
 AFFECTIONS are completely gained, they are found to be 
 more durable. 
 
 AMIABLE, LOVELY, CHARMING, FASCINATING. 
 
 These elegant attributives so the learned James 
 Harris terms adjectives denoting properties of mind or
 
 356 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 body appear at first more likely to turn out syno- 
 nymes, than upon a closer inspection we shall be able to 
 observe : while daily experience evinces that there is 
 an almost regular appropriation of the words ; as thus 
 an AMIABLE character, a LOVELY complexion, a CHARM- 
 ING singer, a FASCINATING converser ; the first of these 
 appearing to deserve our love, the next to claim it, the 
 third to steal it from us as by magic ; the last of all to 
 draw, and to detain it, by a half invisible, yet wholly 
 resistless power. Nor does the epithet ever come so 
 properly into play, as when tacked to an unseen method 
 of attracting : for positive beauty needs not fascination 
 to assist her conquests ; and positive wit seeks rather to 
 dazzle and distress, than wind herself round the hearts 
 of her admirers ; while there is a mode of conversing 
 that seduces attention, and enchains the faculties. 
 
 " When Foote told a story at dinner-time," said Dr. 
 Johnson, "I resolved to disregard what I expected 
 would be frivolous ; yet as the plot thickened, my desire 
 of hearing the catastrophe quickened at every word, 
 and grew keener as we seemed approaching towards its 
 conclusion. The fellow fascinated me, Sir ; I listened 
 and laughed, and laid down my knife and fork, and 
 thought of nothing but Foote's conversation." 
 
 Some Italian lines set by Piccini, with expressive 
 dexterity, represent this power beyond all I have read 
 as descriptive of female fascination * ; and every man 
 
 * Her own description of Miss Streatfield's fascinations (antt, 
 p. 300) is a better example.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 357 
 
 who has been in love with a woman, not confessedly 
 beautiful, feels his heart beat responsive to the verses 
 and the music, when sung with the good taste they de- 
 serve. Will the lines be much out of place here ? I 
 hope not. 
 
 In quel viso furbarello 
 V'e" un incognita magia ; 
 Non si sa che diavol sia . 
 
 Ma fa I'uomo delirar. 
 
 Quegli occhietti cosi vaghi 
 Ve lo giuro son due maghi, 
 E un sospiro languidetto, 
 Che fatica uscir dal petto 
 
 Vi fa subito cascar. 
 
 Vengon per ultimo i cari accenti, 
 Le lagrimuccie, li svenimenti, 
 Ch'opprimer devono 
 
 Perforza un cuor : 
 
 Innumerabile 
 Son 1'incantesimi, 
 Son 1'arti magichi 
 
 Del dio d'amor. 
 
 The following imitation misses its effect, because the 
 measure is unfavourable, yet may serve to convey the 
 idea : 
 
 In that roguish face one sees 
 All her sex's witcheries ; 
 
 A A 3
 
 358 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 Playful sweetness, cold disdain, 
 Every thing to turn one's brain. 
 
 Sparkling from expressive eyes, 
 Heaving in affected sighs, 
 Sure destruction still we find, 
 Still we lose our peace of mind. 
 
 Touch'd by her half-trembling hand, 
 Can the coldest heart withstand ? 
 While we dread the starting tear, 
 And the tender accents hear. 
 
 Numberless are sure the ways 
 That she fascinates our gaze ; 
 Magic arts her pow'r improve, 
 Witcheries that wait on love. 
 
 ANTIPATHY, AVERSION, DISGUST. 
 
 The first of these disagreeable sensations we find chiefly 
 excited I believe by inanimate things, or brutes. One 
 man alleges his unconquerable ANTIPATHY to a cat ; ano- 
 ther encourages his AVERSION to a Cheshire cheese ; and 
 while English ladies think it delicate to faint at touch 
 or even sight of a frog, or toad Koman ladies, accus- 
 tomed to noisome animals from the natural heat of 
 their climate, fall into convulsions at a nosegay of 
 flowers, or the scent of a little lavender water.* To 
 
 * So one hunting man complained that the violets spoilt the 
 scent, and another that the singing birds prevented him from dis- 
 tinguishing the voices of his hounds.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 359 
 
 such fastidious companions it would not be perhaps 
 wholly unreasonable to feel a certain degree of DISGUST ; 
 and Arnold of Leicestershire tells us from experience, 
 that increasing ANTIPATHIES should be particularly 
 dreaded, as an almost certain indication of incipient 
 madness.* 
 
 AT7EFUL, REVERENTIAL, SOLEMN. 
 
 The last of these epithets begins the climax A 
 Grothick cathedral (say we) is a SOLEMN place ; its 
 gloomy greatness disposes one to REVERENTIAL behaviour, 
 inspiring sentiments more sublime, and meditations 
 much more AWEFUL, than does a structure on the 
 Grecian model, though built for the same purposes of 
 piety.f 
 
 The word aweful should however be used with cau- 
 tion, and a due sense of its importance : I have heard 
 even well-bred ladies now and then attribute that term 
 
 * Shakespeare has put a plausible defence of antipathies into 
 the mouth of Shylock, Merchant of Venice, act iv. scene 1 ; and 
 Coleridge, in Zapolya, treats an instinctive dislike as a providential 
 warning : 
 
 " Oh ; surer than suspicion's hundred eyes, 
 Is that fine sense which to the pure in heart, 
 By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness, 
 Reveals th' approach of evil." 
 
 f See the description of the temple in The Mourning Bride, act 
 ii. scene 3. Johnson, to tease Garrick, used to say that it was finer 
 than any passage of equal length in Shakespeare. Mrs. Piozzi, in 
 a marginal note, questions its originality, but says she has for- 
 gotten from whence it was borrowed. 
 
 A A 4
 
 360 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 too lightly in their common conversation connecting 
 it with substances beneath its dignity such mesal- 
 liances offend the sense of high birth natural to a 
 Saxon.* 
 
 AY and YES. 
 
 The first of these affirmatives, derived from the Latin 
 aio, is of the higher antiquity in our language, and still 
 keeps some privileges of superiority, enforcing that 
 which the other less decidedly asserts. It used to be 
 represented in Shakespear's time by the single vowel 
 I ; see the long scene between the Nurse and Juliet, 
 when told of Tybalt's death ; but I recollect no later 
 author who so corrupts it. We say in familiar talk, 
 that Diana counsel'd her sister Flora against such a 
 match ; did she not, Sir ? Yes, I believe she did. 
 CounseVd her ! exclaims a stand er-by Ay, and con- 
 trouled her too, or she had been his wife now.f 
 
 BEAUTIFUL, HANDSOME, GRACEFUL, ELEGANT, PLEASING, 
 PRETTY, FINE, 
 
 Are, however desirable epithets, by no means strictly 
 synonymous ; and though, upon a cursory view, the six 
 
 * The word " mighty " was common in the last century as, 
 "mighty tiresome." 
 
 f When Queen Caroline first came- to England knowing not a 
 word of English, a discussion arose what one word would be most 
 useful or least dangerous for her to know. Lady Charlotte Lind- 
 say suggested No, because it might be pronounced so as to mean 
 Yes. A very pretty song of Lover's is called Yes and No.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 361 
 
 last appear included in their principal, which takes the 
 lead, conversation will soon inform us to the contrary, 
 while, talking of a GRACEFUL dancer now upon the 
 stage, we shall find in her person, if not put into mo- 
 tion, no claim at all upon our first attributive: nor 
 does that first necessarily comprehend the other excel- 
 lencies for though the situation of Mount Edgcumbe 
 be confessedly more BEAUTIFUL than Shenstone's Lea- 
 sowes, taste would lead many men to prefer the latter, 
 as more PLEASING : and at the time when true perfection 
 of female beauty appeared among us in the form of 
 Maria Gunning, I well remember hearing men say that 
 other women might justly be preferred to her as PLEAS- 
 ING, and perhaps GRACEFUL too, in a far more eminent 
 degree ; and so true was the observation, that her in- 
 feriors made it their amusement to steal "away lovers 
 from her, who commanded admiration they had no 
 chance to attain. 
 
 The word ELEGANT can scarcely be used with more 
 propriety than on such occasions, when people elect as 
 PLEASING what produces a train of ideas most congenial 
 to our own particular fancy. Pearls are, on this prin- 
 ciple, accounted by many people to be more ELEGANT 
 than diamonds ; which we all allow to be FINER, HAND- 
 SOMER, and infinitely more BEAUTIFUL. And one says 
 popularly, that Pope's Eape of the Lock is an ELEGANT 
 poem, and Milton's Paradise Lost a FINE one. Gre- 
 ville's Stanzas to Indifference are however exquisitely 
 PRETTY, and some parts of Mr. Whalley's Ode to Mont 
 Blanc, uncommonly BEAUTIFUL. Burke whose own
 
 362 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 compositions include every species of excellence says, 
 that BEAUTIFUL objects are comparatively small, but to 
 minute perfection I should give the adjective PRETTY. 
 Insects of various colours, and delicate formation, but- 
 terflies above all, are justly termed PRETTY. Some 
 shells too, slight in their texture, and of tints as tender, 
 claim this epithet, and can claim nq more ; for, while 
 the apple and peach bloom have among vegetables the 
 same pretension an orange-tree richly furnished, grow- 
 ing in the natural ground as I have seen them on the 
 Borromaean Islands to a considerable height, and rose- 
 trees in the Duke of Buccleugh's pleasure-grounds, or 
 those of Hopeton-House, are decidedly BEAUTIFUL. One 
 large and wide-spreading beech-tree, or full-bodied oak, 
 single in a verdant meadow, I should select for a FINE 
 object* to repose the eye upon, in autumnal seasons 
 when the tint begins to shew more richness than mere 
 maturity produces, and excites a train of reflections full 
 of pensive dignity: while the old-fashioned avenue of 
 limetrees long-drawn and feathering down so as to hide 
 all stem, makes a HANDSOME appearance in July, when 
 filled with fragrance and redolent with bloom. 
 
 Were we speaking of architecture, I should direct 
 foreigners to call the Pantheon at Eome a FINE building, 
 Saint Peter's a BEAUTIFUL one, our own in London dedi- 
 cated to St. Paul a very HANDSOME edifice, the Eedentore 
 
 * Fine (from./fw) must have implied delicacy ; but its original 
 sense has been reversed. A fine face is one with a bold and 
 strongly marked outline ; a fine child, a stout healthy one ; a 
 fine woman, a well-formed one on a large scale.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 363 
 
 at Venice, planned by Palladio and our own sweet 
 Doric, done by Inigo Jones I reckon ELEGANT fabrics ; 
 while King's College, Cambridge, elaborately PRETTY, 
 gives delight to every beholder. The word HANDSOME 
 certainly annexes fewer ideas of pleasure than the rest, 
 because we have appropriated it now and then somewhat 
 meanly. We say a HANDSOME kitchen certainly in 
 English, and a HANDSOME piece of roast beef* ; nor do 
 we give higher appellatives to a large woman painted 
 by Rubens with more strength of colour than dignity 
 or grace. When we speak of a HANDSOME house and 
 gardens, our hearers turn not, I believe, their imagina- 
 tions to recollect Villa Albani or even Castle Howard, 
 while a drive round London realizes the idea at less 
 expence of trouble nearer home. But, after all, the 
 words 
 
 BEAUTY, GRACE, EXPRESSION; CARRIAGE, ELEGANCE, AND 
 SYMMETRY ; 
 
 Are substantives on which so many volumes have been 
 written, that one would think it impossible it should 
 
 * " Handsome elocution " occurs in Addison. Archbishop 
 Whately says that " Handsome implies not exactly an artificial 
 beauty, but the beauty of some person or thing which is trained 
 or cultivated." Thus he says we should not speak of a handsome 
 wild animal, or a handsome prospect, although the Irish and 
 Americans frequently do. The non-commissioned officer who gave 
 evidence on the prosecution of Frost, said that when the order 
 was given for returning the fire of the mob, the mayor (Sir 
 Thomas Phillips) " handsomely " threw open the shutters of the 
 room in which the soldiers were placed. In the performance of 
 this handsome and gallant action he received a severe wound.
 
 364 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 be still agreeable to read about them ; yet is every 
 writer tempted to extend on such a subject every 
 student attracted to continue a page where those names 
 begin the leaf. And it is perhaps not wholly tedious 
 or uninteresting to observe, that more, much more, is 
 required to describe BEAUTY, than is comprehended in 
 the common acceptation of the adjective beautiful : for, 
 while SYMMETRY suffices to constitute a perfect form 
 in many works of nature, and some of art as 
 the mountain at the head of Loch Lomond in Scot- 
 land, and the Antonine column at Eome far more is 
 demanded by connoisseurs who deal in animated ex- 
 cellence. A horse, for example, is scarcely allowed to 
 possess true BEAUTY, till his owner can boast for him a 
 brilliancy of coat, whatever the colour may be a de- 
 cided ELEGANCE as well as SYMMETRICAL proportion in 
 his shape GRACE presiding in every motion, with eyes 
 and ears expressive of a long-traced lineage, and even 
 of apparent sensibility to his own praise and value. 
 Haughty CARRIAGE is indispensable to brute perfection. 
 The peacock is handsomer than the Chinese pheasant, 
 because he is prouder ; and the feline race take much 
 from their own BEAUTY, by substituting the EXPRESSION 
 of insidiousness instead of pride. 
 
 Indeed we are not correct when we require only 
 EXPRESSION in a human face, for there are EXPRESSIONS 
 which disgrace humanity. Among our own species we 
 must meantime confess that we love a lofty conscious- 
 ness of superiority, j ust stopping short of a vain-glorious 
 ostentation. Os HOMINI SUBLIME DEBIT, &c. The late
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 365 
 
 Earl of Errol, dressed in his robes at the coronation of 
 King George the Third, and Mrs. Siddons in the cha- 
 racter of Murphy's Euphrasia, were the noblest spe- 
 cimens of the human race I ever saw ; while he, 
 looking like Jove's own son Sarpedon, as described by 
 Homer, and she, looking like radiant Truth led by 
 the withered hand of hoary Time seemed alone fit to 
 be sent out into some distant planet, for the purpose 
 of shewing its inhabitants to what a race of exalted 
 creatures God had been pleased to give this earth as a 
 possession. 
 
 With regard to mere GRACE, I am not sure which 
 produces most pleasing sensations in the beholder 
 which, in a word, gives most delight well varied and 
 nicely studied ELEGANCE, carried to perfection, though 
 by an inferior form, as in the younger Vestris or that 
 pure natural charm resulting from a SYMMETRIC figure 
 put into easy motion by pleasure or surprise, as I have 
 seen in the late Lady Coventry. To both attesting 
 spectators have often manifested their just admiration, 
 by repeated bursts of applause particularly to the 
 countess, who, calling for her carriage one night at 
 the theatre I saw her stretched out her arm with 
 such peculiar, such inimitable manner, as forced a loud 
 and sudden clap from all the pit and galleries ; which 
 she, conscious of her charms, delighted to increase and 
 prolong, by turning round with a familiar smile to 
 reward the enraptured company. 
 
 For she was fair beyond their brightest bloom, 
 This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled ;
 
 366 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 Fair as the forms which, wove in Fancy's loom, 
 
 Float in light vision o'er the poet's head. 
 Whene'er with sweet serenity she smil'd, 
 
 Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise, 
 How sweetly mutable ! how brightly wild 
 
 The living lustre darted from her eyes ! 
 Each look, each motion wak'd a new-born grace, 
 
 That o'er her form its transient glory cast ; 
 Some lovelier wonder soon usurp'd the place, 
 
 Chas'd by a charm still lovelier than the last. 
 
 In her description alone might then all our synonymy 
 be happily engaged ; and truly might we say that her 
 unrivalled, her consummate BEAUTY was the effect of 
 perfect SYMMETRY, spontaneously producing GRACE in- 
 vincible, although her MIEN and CARRIAGE had less of 
 dignity and sweetness in it ; and the EXPRESSION of her 
 countenance, illuminated by the brightest tints, although 
 lovelily mutable, as Mason says, in verses alone worthy 
 the original was always the EXPRESSION of pleasure 
 felt or pleasure given. Her dress was seldom chosen 
 with ELEGANCE, as I remember; and I recollect no 
 splendour except of general BEAUTY about her.* 
 
 * The best portraits of Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, 
 confirm Mrs. Piozzi's theory of the enthusiastic admiration la- 
 vished on her. It must have been principally elicited by grace 
 and expression. Her sister, Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess of 
 Hamilton and (by a second marriage) of Argyll, was equally 
 beautiful, and her beauty has been inherited by her descendants in 
 three generations. The sisters set off each other, and their ap- 
 pearance together added to the charms of both. A corresponding
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY 367 
 
 It is distressing enough to foreigners when they find us 
 arbitrarily calling the young domestic fowl which follow 
 a turkey a fine BROOD, when we talked but two minutes 
 before of a CLUTCH of chickens, and perhaps cry out in 
 the next breath, Here's a -flock of young geese on this 
 water ! The first of these words however must be their 
 decided choice ; as in saying that they cannot be wrong : 
 the last word does not strictly allude to the goslings, but 
 means the number all together ; and the second word is 
 only used from the trick a hen has to herself almost, of 
 calling her little ones so closely rourid her in times of 
 danger, that you may CLUTCH or make a handful of them, 
 as we say. Mr. Addison, who was more an elegant 
 author than good naturalist, teaches them in his Spec- 
 tators to say a BROOD of ducks, when he expresses his 
 admiration of the providence by which all the works of 
 
 effect may hare been seen in our time, when three celebrated 
 sisters were grouped together, or when the two Northumbrian 
 beauties were the rage, or when more than one lovely mother, 
 who shall be nameless, came forth attended by a fresher and 
 lovelier self, matre pukhrd filia pulchrior. 
 
 At a crowded London party, I was asked by a very distinguished 
 Frenchman to point out the beauties in vogue. Those nearest to 
 us happened to be no longer in the first flush of youth ; they had 
 not that beaut^ du diable which Frenchmen deem indispensable, 
 and he exclaimed : " You English are as odd in this as in other 
 matters : you cling to your established beauties as you stand by 
 your old institutions." Among those he gazed upon was one 
 who, after being for sylph-like loveliness the beau ideal of the 
 poet's and artist's dream, had arrived at the perfection of ripened 
 and developed beauty.
 
 368 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 heaven are governed ; and he is the best language 
 master : though that very paper betrays the little skill 
 with which he looked on such matters in a thousand 
 instances.* 
 
 BROOK, RIVULET, STREAM, RIVER, 
 
 Are much in the same manner synonymous, so far as 
 relates to poetical use, &c., but Mr. Locke shews us how 
 to separate them in conversation, and how they really 
 separate by nature, when he tells us that "SPRINGS 
 make little RIVULETS, and these united form BROOKS ; 
 which coming forward in STREAMS, compose great RIVERS 
 that run into the sea." Doctor Johnson, whose ideas of 
 any thing not positively large were ever mingled with 
 contempt, asked of one of our sharp currents in Xorth 
 Wales " Has this BROOK e'er a name?" and received 
 for answer " Why, dear Sir, this is the RIVER Ustrad." 
 " Let us," said he, turning to his friend, " jump over it 
 directly, and shew them how an Englishman should 
 treat a Welsh RIYER." 
 
 CLEVER, DEXTROUS, SKILFUL; 
 
 To which might be added another pretty word well 
 taken into our language without alteration of spelling, 
 and called adroit. This adjective should not have been 
 
 * The language of the sporting world is capricious and arbitrary ; 
 and to use brace or couple irregularly, is as fatal to a young man's 
 reputation as a false quantity was once. The cant phrase now is, 
 I got (not I killed or shot) so many brace, &c.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 369 
 
 omitted on the list, as it will be very suitable to 
 foreigners, and less approaching to vulgarity than 
 CLEVER, which, if applied to things high or serious, 
 frights one. We say, The minister managed ADROITLY 
 in procuring men eminently SKILFUL in the art of 
 engineering, and equally DEXTROUS in the manual use of 
 such machines ; for let a fellow be as CLEVER as he 
 can, without practice no person will arrive at being 
 neat-handed and DEXTROUS about any thing, least of all 
 in matters where complicated machinery is in question : 
 I have therefore little opinion of those contrivances and 
 modern inventions to prevent fire or thieves ; particu- 
 larly a piece of workmanship once shewn me of a ladder 
 and fire engine combined, which alternately prevented 
 the operation of each other. Few things indeed are 
 more offensive than those futile, and half impracticable 
 devices to snuff a candle after some new method ; by 
 which tricks CLEVER fellows however are SKILFUL enough 
 to get money from neighbours more rich than wise, who, 
 like the lady in Young's Satires, 
 
 "To eat their breakfasts will pi-oject a scheme, 
 Nor take their tea without a stratagem ; " 
 
 to the contriving of which we will leave them.* 
 
 * te Cleverness (from the verb to cleave) is correctly applied to 
 a certain quickness and readiness in the operations of the mind, 
 and especially in the art of acquiring knowledge. But the loose 
 way in which ideas are expressed in ordinary conversation has led 
 to a considerable abuse of this word, which is not seldom applied 
 to eveiy kind of talent." English Synonyms, by the Archbishop 
 of Dublin. 
 
 VOL. II. B B
 
 370 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 TO CRY, TO EXCLAIM, 
 
 Are pretty near synonymous in some senses cer- 
 tainly ; but if a foreigner speaking of the London CRIES 
 called them the EXCLAMATIONS of the city, all would 
 laugh. 'Tis very strange meantime, and to me very 
 unaccountable, that the streets' cries should resemble 
 each other in all great towns but sure I am that 
 Spaz-camin, with a canting drawl at the end, sounds at 
 Milan like our Sweep sweep exactly ; and the Gar$on 
 Limonadier at Paris makes a pert noise like our 
 orange-girls in the Pit of Covent Garden, that sounds 
 precisely similar. I was walking one day with my own 
 maid in an Italian capital, and turned short on hearing 
 sounds like those uttered by a London tinker the man 
 who followed us cried Cafferol, Caffero\ d'accommodar 
 to the tune of his own brass kettle just as ours do : 
 and I believe that in a little time, many cities will be 
 more famous for the musick and frequency of their 
 cries than London ; because shops there, increasing 
 daily, nay hourly, take all necessity of hawkers quite 
 away excepting perhaps just about the suburbs and 
 new-built houses, where likewise shops are everlastingly 
 breaking forth, and afford people better appearance of 
 choice than can be easily carried about by those who 
 CRY them. 
 
 TO CRY, TO WEEP, 
 
 Are really and I think completely synonymous, only 
 that the last verb being always appropriated to serious
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 371 
 
 purposes, we never scarcely use it in colloquial and 
 familiar discourse, unless ironically for 'tis as we say a 
 tragedy word and Do not CRY so, is the phrase to 
 children or friends we are desirous of comforting. Tears 
 have a very powerful effect on young people, and in- 
 deed on all those who are new in the world : but 
 veterans have seen them too often to be much affected ; 
 and since the years 1779 and 80, when I lived a great 
 deal with a lady* who could call them up for her own 
 pleasure, and often did call them at my request, the 
 seeing one WEEP has been no proof to me that anything 
 sad or sorrowful had befallen : and perhaps some of the 
 sincerest tears are shed when reading Richardson's 
 Clarissa, or seeing Siddons in the character of Mrs. 
 Beverley. With regard to real anguish of the heart, 
 an old sufferer 'WEEPS but little. 
 
 " Slow-pac'd and sourer as the storms increase, 
 He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift ; 
 And scorning the complainings of distress, 
 Hardens his heart against assailing want " 
 
 like Thomson's Bear, so beautifully described by a poet 
 equally skilled in the knowledge of life and of nature. 
 Such reflections however will lead my readers naturally 
 enough on to the next synonymes, which are 
 
 DEFORMED, UGLY, HIDEOUS, FRIGHTFUL. 
 
 Dyer derives the second of these unlucky adjectives 
 from ough or ouph, or goblin, not without reason, as it 
 
 * The charming S. S. 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 was long written ougly in our language. FRIGHTFUL 
 bears much the same bad sense, I think. Goblins are 
 still called frightening in the provinces of Lancaster 
 and Westmorland ; and the third word upon the list, 
 from hideux French, is but little softer, if at all so. 
 DEFORMED has a more positive signification than the 
 rest ; for we know not how easily delicate people may 
 be FRIGHTED, nor how small a portion of UGLINESS will 
 suffice to call forth from affectation the cry of HIDEOUS ! 
 while hyperbolical talkers have a way of giving these 
 rough epithets to many hapless persons, who are in 
 earnest neither more nor less than plain ; by which I 
 mean to express a form wholly divested of grace, a 
 countenance of coarse colour and vacant look, with a 
 mien possessing no comeliness ; which quality would 
 alone protect them from deserving even that title, be- 
 cause they would be then ornamented. Those however 
 who most loudly profess being always scared when they 
 are not allured, will in another humour be easily enough 
 led to confess that many an UGLY man or woman are 
 very agreeable, and display sometimes powers of pleas- 
 ing unbestowed even on the beautiful; which could 
 scarcely happen sure, were their unfortunate figures and 
 faces ouph like, or terrifying : it were well then if the 
 English, who hate hyperbole in general, would forbear 
 to use it so constantly just where 'tis most offensive, in 
 magnifying their neighbours' defects. 
 
 Lord Bacon says the deformed people are good to em- 
 ploy in business, because they have a constant spur to 
 great actions, that by some noble deed they may rescue
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 373 
 
 their persons from contempt : and experience does in 
 some sort prove his assertion ; many men famous in his- 
 tory having been of this class the great warriors, above 
 all, as it should seem in very contradiction to nature 
 when Agesilaus, King William the Third, and Ladislaus 
 surnamed Cubitalis, that pigmy King of Poland, reigned, 
 and fought more victorious battles, as Alexander Gragui- 
 nus relates, than all his longer-legged predecessors had 
 done.* CORPORE PARVUS ERAM, exclaims he CUBITO vix 
 
 ALTIOR, SED TAMEN IN PARYO CORPORE MAGNUS ERAM. Nor 
 
 is even Sanctity's self free from some obligations to de- 
 formity while Ignatius Loyola losing a limb at the siege 
 of Pampelona, and conceiving himself no longer fit for 
 wars or attendance on the court, betook himself to a 
 mode of living more profitable to his soul in the next 
 world, and to his celebrity in this, than that would have 
 been which, had his beauty remained, he might have 
 been led to adopt. 
 
 That DEFORMED persons are usually revengeful all 
 will grant -j- ; and the Empress Sophia had cause to 
 
 * " It is probable that among the 120,000 soldiers who were 
 marshalled round Xeerwinden under all the standards of Western 
 Europe, the two feeblest in body were the hunch-backed dwarf 
 (Luxemburg) who urged forward the fiery onset of France, and 
 the asthmatic skeleton (William) who covered the slow retreat of 
 England." (Macattlay's Hist. vol. iv. p. 410.) All readers of 
 Shakespeare will remember the Countess of Auvergne's speech to 
 Talbot : 
 
 " It cannot be this weak and writled shrimp 
 Should strike such terror to his enemies." 
 
 f Shakespeare puts their justification into the mouth of Richard 
 the Third. 
 
 B B 3
 
 374 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 repent her insulting letter to old Narses, when she 
 advising him to return and spin with her maids he 
 replied, " that he would spin such a thread as her 
 Majesty and all her allies would never be able to un- 
 twist." Nor did he in the least fail of fulfilling the 
 menace ; which reminds one of Henry the Fifth's answer, 
 when the Dauphin of France, despising his youth and 
 spirit of frolicking, sent over tennis balls as a fit present 
 for a prince addicted more to play than war. Our young 
 hero's reply being much in the spirit of that sent by 
 Narses to the Empress, one might have thought it bor- 
 rowed, had not eight centuries elapsed between the two 
 events. These matters may for aught I know be all 
 mentioned in a pretty book I once read when newly 
 published, and have never seen since : it came out three 
 or four and thirty years ago, and gained to its author 
 the appellation of DEFORMITY Hay. He likewise trans- 
 lated some epigrams of Martial, but for his Essay on 
 Deformity I have enquired in vain ; and if I am guilty 
 of plagiarism it is a mon insfu, as the French express 
 it. Meantime UGLINESS in common conversation relates 
 merely to the face, whilst DEFORMITY implies a faulty 
 shape or figure. FRIGHTFUL and HIDEOUS may be well 
 appropriated to delirious dreams ; to the sight of 
 mangled bodies, or human heads streaming with blood, 
 such as France has lately exhibited for the savage 
 amusement of a worse than brutal populace : but the 
 words plain or homely are sufficient to express that 
 total deficiency of beauty too often termed UGLINESS in 
 our friends and neighbours. That such is not the pro-
 
 BKITISH SYNONYMY. 375 
 
 per expression is proved by that power of pleasing, 
 universally allowed to the late Lord Chesterfield, who 
 had nothing in his person which at first sight could 
 raise expectation of any delight in his society : and per- 
 haps to overcome prejudice in private life, and make an 
 accomplished companion out of an ill-cut figure and 
 homely countenance, may be more difficult than by war- 
 like prowess and acts of heroic valour to gain and keep 
 celebrity in the field of battle. 
 
 Where there is a talent to please however, pleasure 
 will reside; and one of the best and most applauded 
 minuets I ever saw, was danced at Bath many years ago 
 by a lady of quality, pale, thin, crooked, and of low 
 stature : my not wishing to name her is notwithstand- 
 ing a kind of proof that her elegance would not (in her 
 absence) compensate for her DEFORMITY : so surely do 
 readers in general take up and willingly cherish a dis- 
 advantageous idea, rather than a kind one. Pope, who 
 was DEFORMED enough to have felt the truth of this 
 position, and ingenious enough to have found it out had 
 he not felt it, disobliged his patron Mr. Allen so much 
 by these lines, 
 
 " See low-born Allen, with an awkward shame, 
 Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame j" 
 
 that he was forced to learn by experience how one of 
 the best and humblest of mankind suffered more pain 
 by having his awkwardness and mean birth perpetuated, 
 than he enjoyed pleasure in having his virtue celebrated 
 
 B B 4
 
 376 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 by a poet, whose works certainly would not fail of con- 
 signing it to immortality. 
 
 TO DEFY, TO CHALLENGE. 
 
 These words are synonymous when applied to a single 
 combat between particular people ; but the first verb is 
 vastly more comprehensive than the second. Antony 
 CHALLENGED Augustus to commit the fate of universal 
 empire to his single arm, conscious that in such a con- 
 test (as his opponent easily discovered) the advantages 
 lay all against Octavius, who for that reason laughed at 
 his proposal, and with due dignity DEFIED such empty 
 menaces.* A man whose situation is wholly desperate, 
 may indeed CHALLENGE the seven champions if he 
 chooses, without fear of losing the victory, because no 
 loss can set him any lower : but who is he that would 
 be mad enough to enter the lists ? 
 
 Our two words were not ill-exemplified in a very 
 different line of life, when a flashy fellow known about 
 London by the name of Captain Jasper some twenty 
 years ago, burst suddenly into the Bedford Coffee- 
 house, and snatching up a hat belonging to some one 
 in the room, cried out " Whoever owns this hat is a 
 rascal, and I CHALLENGE him to come out and fight." 
 A grave gentleman sitting near the fire replied, in a 
 firm but smooth tone of voice, " Whoever does own the 
 
 * Napoleon, when challenged by Sir Sidney Smith in Egypt, 
 replied that he would think of it when his proposed antagonist 
 was a Marlborough.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 377 
 
 hat is a blockhead, and I hope we may defy you, Sir, 
 to find any such fool here." Captain Jasper walked to 
 the street-door, and discharged a brace of bullets into 
 his own head immediately.* 
 
 TO DROP, TO FALL, TO TUMBLE, TO SINK SUDDENLY. 
 
 These neuter verbs are not synonymous ; because, al- 
 though whatever DROPS must in some measure FALL, 
 yet everything that FALLS does not necessarily DROP. 
 A man climbed a tree in my orchard yesterday, for 
 example, where he was gathering apples ; having missed 
 his footing, I saw him, after many attempts to save 
 himself by catching at boughs, &c. FALL at length to 
 the ground the apples DROPPED out of his hand on the 
 first moment of his slipping. To SINK SUDDENLY, half 
 implies that he FELL in water, unless we speak of such 
 an earthquake as once destroyed the beautiful town of 
 Port Eoyal in Jamaica, when the ground cleaving into 
 many fissures, people SUNK IN on the sudden ; some 
 breast-high, others entirely out of sight. To TUMBLE is 
 an act of odd precipitancy, and often means voluntary 
 FALLS endured, or eluded by fearlessness and adroit 
 agility : 'tis then a verb active, a trick played to get 
 
 * A stock story at the Grecian was, that a bully, who insisted 
 on a particular seat, came and found it occupied by a templar ; 
 " Who is that in my seat ? " "I don't know, sir/' said the waiter. 
 "Where is the hat I left on it?" "He put it into the fire." 
 " Did he ! d n n ! but a fellow who would do that would not 
 mind flinging me after it j " and so saying he disappeared.
 
 378 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 moneys and shew the powers of humanity at an escape, 
 as in feats of harlequinery ; or the strange thing done 
 many years ago by Grimaldi, a famous grotesque 
 dancer, eminent for powers of this kind, at the Meuse 
 Gate in London ; where having made a mock quarrel, 
 and stripped himself as if intending to fight, previously 
 collecting a small circle to see the battle, he suddenly 
 sprung over his antagonist's and spectators' heads, and 
 TUMBLING round in the air, lighted on his legs and ran 
 away, leaving the people to gape. When the well- 
 known Buffo di Spagna, or Spanish buffoon, who de- 
 lighted to frequent such exhibitions, was asked what 
 person he thought to be the first TUMBLES in the world, 
 he archly replied : " Marry, Sirs, I am of opinion that 
 'twas Lucifer ; for he TUMBLED first, and TUMBLED fur- 
 thest too, and yet hurt himself so little with the FALL, 
 that he is too nimble for many of us to escape him 
 
 yet." 
 
 DULL, STUPID, HEAVY. 
 
 Of the first upon this fiat and insipid list Mr. Pope 
 has greatly enlarged the signification, and taught us 
 to call everything DULL that was not immediately and 
 positively witty. This is too much, surely ; and indeed 
 one finds it received so only in the Dunciad or Essay 
 upon Criticism. Information may be HEAVY sometimes 
 without being STUPID or DULL, I think ; its own weight 
 of matter may render it so ; and he who conveys useful 
 knowledge should neither be mocked nor slighted 
 because he happens to be unskilled in the art of
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 379 
 
 levigating his learning to hit the strength or rather 
 feebleness of moderns to endure it. There is, how- 
 ever, a kind of talk that is merely HEAVY, and in no 
 sense important. Such conversation has been lately 
 called a bore*, from the idea it gave some old sports- 
 man originally I believe of a horse that hangs upon his 
 rider's hand with a weight of STUPID impulse, as if he 
 would bore the very ground through with his nose ; 
 tiring the man upon his back most cruelly. The cant 
 phrase used at those public schools, where they call a 
 boy who is not quick-witted, and cannot be made a 
 scholar, a blunt f, is so good, that I sigh for its removal 
 into social life, where blunts are exceedingly frequent, 
 and we have no word for them. Dullard is out of use ; 
 we find it now only in Shakespeare. 
 
 MARRIAGE, WEDDING, NUPTIALS. 
 
 Although these are all common conversation words, 
 they can scarcely be used synonymously. There is a 
 treaty of MARRIAGE going forward in such a family, say 
 we, and I expect an invitation to the WEDDING dinner, 
 as 'tis reported the parents are disposed to celebrate 
 
 * The word bore is even more abused than clever, and frequently 
 creates the very feeling it affects to describe. Young ladies and 
 gentlemen who are suffering from mere vacancy of mind, make a 
 merit of their emptiness by exclaiming, in a tone of conscious 
 superiority, that they are bored. The mechanical operation of 
 boreing may have suggested the word. 
 
 t The ne plus ultra of insults at a German University is 
 Dummkopf.
 
 380 BRITISH SYJ?ONYMY. 
 
 these NUPTIALS with great festivity, and very few friends 
 of the family will be left out. 
 
 Meantime our great triumph over foreigners, who 
 visit us from warmer climates, is in the superior feli- 
 city of our married couples ; nor do I praise those 
 superficial writers who so lament the infidelities com- 
 mitted among us in papers which carried to the Con- 
 tinent tend to make them believe there is no more 
 conjugal attachment in Britain, than at Genoa or 
 Venice. Truth is, we find in all great capitals an ill 
 example set by a dozen women of distinction who give 
 the ton as 'tis called ; and with regard to such, London 
 confesses her share : yet is the mass of middling 
 people left untainted ; and even among our nobility, 
 those of the first fortune and dignity in England live 
 with an Arcadian constancy and true affection, such as 
 can very rarely happen in nations where a contrary 
 conduct is neither punished by the Legislature, nor 
 censured by Society; for there is no need to resolve 
 virtue and vice into effect of climate, unless we are 
 supposed to improve or degenerate like animals which 
 ivhiten as they approach the Pole human nature will 
 go wrong if religion forbears to restrain, and govern- 
 ment neglects to punish. 
 
 MELODY, HARMONY, MUSICK. 
 
 These terms are used as synonymes only by people who 
 revert not to their derivation ; when the last is soon dis- 
 covered to contain the other two, while the first means 
 merely the air or, as Italians better express it, la can-
 
 BRITISH SYNONTMT. 381 
 
 tilena, because our very word MELODY implies honey- 
 sweet singing, mellifluous succession of simple sounds, 
 so as to produce agreeable and sometimes almost en- 
 chanting effect. Meanwhile both co-operation and com- 
 bination are understood to meet in the term HARMONY, 
 which, like every other science, is the result of know- 
 ledge operating upon genius, and adds in the audience 
 a degree of astonishment to approbation, enriching all 
 our sensations of delight, and clustering them into a 
 maturity of perfection. 
 
 MELODY is to HARMONY what innocence is to virtue ; 
 the last could not exist without the former, on which 
 they are founded ; but we esteem him who enlarges 
 simplicity into excellence, and prize the opening chorus 
 of Acis and Galatea beyond the Voi Amanti of Giardini, 
 although this last-named composition is elegant, and the 
 other vulgar. 
 
 Where the original thought, however, like Corregio's 
 Magdalen in the Dresden Gallery set round with jewels, 
 is lost in the blaze of accompaniment, our loss is the less 
 if that thought should be somewhat coarse or indelicate ; 
 but MUSICK of this kind pleases an Italian ear far less 
 than do Sacchini's sweetly soothing MELODIES, never 
 overlaid by that fulness of HARMONY with which German 
 composers sometimes perplex instead of informing their 
 hearers. His chorusses in Erifile, though nothing defi- 
 cient either in richness or radiance, are ever transparent ; 
 while the charming subject (not an instant lost to view) 
 reminds one of some fine shell coloured by Nature's 
 hand, but seen to most advantage through the clear
 
 382 BKITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 waves that wash the coast of Coromandel when mild 
 monsoons are blowing. With regard to MFSICK, Plato 
 said long ago, that if any considerable alteration took 
 place in the MUSICK of a country, he should, from that 
 single circumstance, predict innovation in the laws, a 
 change of customs, and subversion of the government. 
 Rousseau, in imitation of this sentiment, which he had 
 probably read translated as well as myself, actually 
 foretold it of the French, without acknowledging whence 
 his idea sprung ; and truly did he foretell it. " The 
 French," says he, " have no MUSICK now nor can have, 
 because their language is not capable of musical expres- 
 sion ; but if ever they do get into a better style (which 
 they certainly soon did, changing Lulli and Eameau for 
 Grluck and for Piccini) tant pis pour eux." 
 
 Rousseau had indeed the fate of Cassandra, little less 
 mad than himself; and Burney justly observed, that it 
 was strange a nation so frequently accused of volatility 
 and caprice, should have invariably manifested a steady 
 perseverance and constancy to one particular taste in 
 this art, which the strongest ridicule and contempt of 
 other countries could never vanquish or turn out of its 
 course. He has however lived to see them change their 
 mode of receiving pleasure from this very science ; has 
 seen them accomplish the predictions of Rousseau, and 
 confirm the opinions of Plato ; seen them murder their 
 own monarch, set fire to their own cities, and blaze 
 themselves away a wonder to fools, a beacon to wise 
 men. This example has at least served to show the use 
 of those three words which occasioned so long a specu-
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 383 
 
 lation. MELODY is chiefly used speaking of vocal MU- 
 SICK, and HARMONY means many parts combining to 
 form composition. Shall I digress in saying that this 
 latter seems the genuine taste of the English, who love 
 plenty and opulence in all things ? Our MELODIES are 
 commonly vulgar, but we like to see them richly drest ; 
 and the late silly humour of listening to tunes made 
 upon three notes only, is a mere whim of the moment, 
 as it was to dote upon old ballads about twenty or thirty 
 years ago ; it will die away in a twelvemonth for sim- 
 plicity cannot please without elegance : nor does it 
 really please a British ear, even when exquisitely sweet 
 and delicate. 
 
 "We buy Blair's works, but would rather study War- 
 burton's ; we talk of tender Venetian airs, but our 
 hearts acknowledge Handel. Meantime 'tis unjust to 
 say that German MUSICK is not expressive ; when the 
 Italians say so, they mean it is not amorous : but 
 other affections inhabit other souls ; and surely the last- 
 named immortal composer has no rival in the power 
 of expressing and exciting sublime devotion and rap- 
 turous sentiment. See his grand chorus, Unto us a 
 Son is born, &c. Pleyel's Quartettos too, which have 
 all somewhat of a drum and fife in them, express what 
 Germans ever have excelled in regularity, order, dis- 
 cipline, arms, in a word, war. When such MUSICK is 
 playing, it reminds one of Eowe's verses which say so 
 very truly, that 
 
 " The sound of arms shall wake our martial ardour, 
 And cure the amorous sickness of a soul
 
 384 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 Begun by sloth and nursed with too much ease. 
 
 The idle god of love supinely dreams 
 
 Amidst inglorious shades and purling streams ; 
 
 In rosy fetters and fantastic chains 
 
 He binds deluded maids and simple swains ; 
 
 With soft enjoyment wooes them to forget 
 
 The hardy toils and labours of the great : 
 
 But if the warlike trumpet's loud alarms 
 
 To virtuous acts excite, and manly arms, 
 
 The coward boy avows his abject fear, 
 
 Sublime on silken wings he cuts the air, 
 
 Scar'd at the noble noise and thunder of the war." 
 
 What then do those critics look for, who lament that 
 German MUSICK is not expressive ? They look for 
 plaintive sounds meant to raise tender emotions in the 
 breast ; and this is the peculiar province of MELODY 
 which, like Anacreon's lyre, vibrates to amorous touches 
 only, and resounds with nothing but love. Of this 
 sovereign power, 
 
 " To take the 'prison'd soul, and lap it in Elysium," 
 
 Italy has long remained in full possession : the Syrens' 
 coast is still the residence of melting softness and of 
 sweet seduction. The MUSICK of a nation naturally re- 
 presents that nation's favourite energies, pervading 
 every thought and every action ; while even the de- 
 votion of that warm soil is tenderness, not sublimity ; 
 and either the natives impress their gentle souls with 
 the contemplation of a Saviour newly laid, in innocence 
 and infant sweetness, upon the spotless bosom of more 
 than female beauty or else rack their soft hearts with 
 the afflicting passions ; and with eyes fixed upon a
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 385 
 
 bleeding crucifix, weep their Kedeemer's human suffer- 
 ings, as though he were never to re-assume divinity. 
 Meantime the piety of Lutherans soars a sublimer flight; 
 and when they set before the eyes of their glowing 
 imagination Messiah ever blessed, they kindle into rap- 
 ture, and break out with pious transport, 
 
 "Hallelujah ! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, &c." 
 
 They think of Him that sitteth high above the heavens, 
 begotten before all worlds ! 
 
 " Effulgence of the Father ! Son beloved ! " 
 
 With such impressions, such energies, such inspira- 
 tion Milton wrote poetry, and Handel composed 
 MUSICK. 
 
 MISTAKE, ERROR, MISCONCEPTION. 
 
 Whoever thinks these words strictly synonymous will 
 find himself in an ERROR ; while he who says he wan- 
 dered out of his way between London and Bath, from 
 mere MISCONCEPTION, makes a comical MISTAKE for he 
 only committed an ERROR in neglecting to punish those 
 who turned him out of the right road/o? 1 ajoJce. These 
 are the niceties of language that books never teach, 
 and conversation alone can establish. Let foreigners 
 however settle it in their minds, that the word first used 
 in this catalogue of false apprehension, is used when 
 one man or one thing is taken for another : the second 
 applies much wider, and we say it of all who deviate 
 from the right path, whether that deviation is or is not 
 
 VOL. II. C C
 
 386 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 caused by a mere MISTAKE : the latter seems less an act 
 of the will than either of the other two ; 'tis more a 
 perversion of the head than any thing else, and its 
 resistance against conviction carries with it somewhat 
 laughable. A nobleman, for instance, employing his 
 architect to show him the elevation of a house he in- 
 tended to build, the artist produces a drawing made 
 with Indian ink. This is no bad form of a house, says' 
 my lord, but I don't like the colour my house shall 
 be white. By all means, replied the builder, this is a 
 white house. No, this is black and white, methinks 
 evidently so, indeed and striped about somehow in a 
 way that does not please me.* Oh dear ! no such 
 thing, my lord the house will be white enough. 
 That I don't know, Sir; if you contradict my senses 
 now, you may do the same then : but my house shall 
 not be patched about with black as this paper is it 
 shall be all clean Portland stone. Doubtless, my lord ; 
 what you see here is perfectly white, I assure you. 
 You are an impudent fellow (answers the proprietor), 
 and endeavour to impose upon me, because I am not 
 conversant in these matters, by persuading me that I do 
 not know black from white ; but I do know an honest 
 man from a rogue so get about your business directly, 
 no such shall be my architect. 
 
 This was MISCONCEPTION. When the faux Martin 
 
 * This recalls the reply of a distinguished lawyer (now a peer) 
 to the late Mr. Justice Gaselee, who remarked that Canning was 
 not so tall as the bronze statue of him near Westminster Hall : 
 " No ; nor so green either."
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 387 
 
 Guerre came to France from India, and took possession 
 of the house, lands, wife, &c. of a man whom he 
 strongly resembled, and who, by four or five years' ab- 
 sence from his family, was so forgotten by them that 
 neither brother nor sisters found out the imposture 
 their caresses and obedience, their rents and profits, 
 were all intended to the person of another man, and 
 were only paid to him by a fatal but innocent MISTAKE. 
 But when the jury condemned a man wholly uncon- 
 cerned in the business to suffer for a crime one of them- 
 selves had committed, nor ever found out that good 
 evidence was wanting to prove his guilt, till the real 
 perpetrator of the murder owned it himself in private 
 to the judge they acted with too little caution and 
 delicacy, and have been always justly censured for the 
 ERROR. The facts are all acknowledged ones. 
 
 NARRATION, ACCOUNT, RECITAL. 
 
 In order to give a good ACCOUNT of the fact (say we)> 
 'tis necessary to hear a clear RECITAL of the circumstances, 
 but if we mean to make a pleasing NARRATION, those cir- 
 cumstances should not be dwelt on too minutely, but 
 rather one selected from the rest, to set in a full light. 
 Whoever means to please in conversation, seeing no per- 
 son more attended to than he who tells an agreeable 
 story, concludes too hastily that his own fame will be 
 firmly established by a like means ; and so gives his 
 time up to the collection and RECITAL of anecdotes. 
 Here, however, is our adventurer likely enough to fail ; 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 for either his fact is too notorious, and he sees his au- 
 dience turn even involuntarily away from a tale told 
 them yesterday perhaps by a more pleasing narrator; 
 or it is too obscure, and incapable of interesting his 
 hearers. Were we to investigate the reason why narra- 
 tives please better in a mixed company, than sentiment ; 
 we might discover that he who draws from his own 
 mind to entertain his circle will soon be tempted to 
 dogmatize, and assume the air, with the powers, of a 
 teacher ; while the man, who is ever ready to tell one 
 somewhat unknown before, adds an idea to the listener's 
 stock, without forcing on us that of our own inferiority. 
 He is in possession of a fact more than we are that's 
 all ; and he communicates that fact for our amusement. 
 
 NATION, COUNTRY, KINGDOM, 
 
 Are all of them collective terms, well understood, 
 and at first sight only synonymous. A moment's reflec- 
 tion shews us many COUNTRIES which are not kingdoms, 
 and some KINGDOMS which include not the whole NATION 
 to which they apparently belong. The first of these 
 words is used in some universities for the distinction of 
 the scholars, and professors of colleges. The faculty of 
 Paris consists of four, and when the procureur of that 
 which is called the French NATION speaks in public, his 
 style is Honoranda Gallorum Natio. I hope they 
 have changed their phrase now, when all KINGDOMS, 
 COUNTRIES, NATIONS, and LANGUAGES, unite in abhorrence 
 of their late disgraceful conduct towards the good house 
 of Bourbon, so named from Archibald Borboiiius in the
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 389 
 
 year 1127, whose impress was a globe, and round it this 
 anagram of the earl's name, Orbi bonus. The times 
 how changed in this fatal year to Frenchmen, 1793 ! 
 
 Strokes of national character, national humour, how- 
 ever, still exist : with regard to the latter, we see their 
 bons mots still untranslatable beyond those of other 
 kingdoms; and our authors plunder French comedies 
 in vain ; the humour loses and evaporates : witness Far- 
 quhar's endeavour to force into his Inconstant, the gay 
 reply made by Le prince de Gruemene, when Louis 
 Quatorze's queen, a grave Spaniard, seriously proposed 
 putting the famous Ninon de PEnclos among les filles 
 repenties. " Madam," answered the courtier, <f elle 
 n'est ni fille, ni repentie." * This was NATIONAL plea- 
 santry, and will not translate for that reason. No more 
 will that proof of John Bull's NATIONAL character, told 
 of a fellow, who, when King Charles the First of Eng- 
 land lay before Eochelle, was employed by that Prince 
 as a diver, to carry papers, &c. which having done most 
 dexterously, the good-natured sovereign bid him name 
 his own reward. " Something to drink your majesty's 
 health, that's all," quoth the man. " Blockhead ! " 
 exclaimed the duke of Buckingham, who stood in pre- 
 sence and was provoked at his stupidity for asking 
 nothing better, " why didst not drink when thou wert 
 under water ? " " Why so I did, master ! " replied the 
 
 * When an English lady appeared in a tableau vivant as a Mag- 
 dalen, it was observed that she looked like a Magdalen who had. 
 not repented.
 
 390 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 man ; " but the water was salt you know, so it made 
 me the more a-dry." 
 
 NOW, AT PBESENT, THIS INSTANT. 
 
 While metaphysicians expand their subtleties into im- 
 perceptibility upon this fatal monosyllable, one would 
 hope that conversation might go on without dispute 
 concerning what flies away like the witches in Macbeth, 
 who, while we contend about the nature of their exist- 
 ence, make themselves air, into which they vanish. So, 
 alas ! does NOW ; the present moment passing away even 
 before the word is written that explains it. We may 
 tell foreigners, however, that 'tis usual in our language 
 when calling in a hurry, to cry NOW, NOW, as the quick- 
 est expression, I suppose, for urging another to imme- 
 diate haste. " AT PRESENT we cannot come to you " is 
 a common phrase He was here THIS INSTANT, means, 
 'tis not an instant scarcely since he was here : but it 
 does certainly mean time past ; for one says to a person 
 who, looking round, misses the individual sought for 
 *' Why, she is here, NOW, cannot you see her ? " 
 
 " I thought we were to begin upon the subject NOW," 
 says a man impatient of decision. " We will begin THIS 
 INSTANT," replies his cooler friend (meaning a future 
 time, though near) ; " AT PRESENT it would not be so 
 proper." These things are difficult to foreigners ; nor 
 can I guess why both time past, and time to come, should 
 be hourly and commonly exprest by THIS INSTANT, which 
 at first view appears improper enough.
 
 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 391 
 
 TO NULLIFY, TO ANNULL, TO DISANNULL, TO MAKE NULL 
 AND VOID. 
 
 These verbs stand in conversation chiefly in the place 
 of the verb to annihilate, or rather between that and 
 the softer phrase of, to render ineffectual. Horatio's 
 arguments, say we, were rendered NULL and VOID, at 
 least in my opinion, by what our friend Cleomenes 
 urged against them : but no man better knows than he 
 how to NULLIFY the discourse of his competitor without 
 annihilating the speaker either in his own eyes, or 
 those of the auditors ; as a good legislator will see the 
 way to ANNULL a statute no longer useful or necessary, 
 without taking away by direct annihilation all trace or 
 remembrance of its former utility. The third verb is a 
 favourite among the vulgar here in England, who mis- 
 apply it comically enough. I asked the late Lord 
 Halifax's gardener for a walk and summer-house I used 
 to see at Horton : " There was such a walk once," re- 
 plies the man, " but my Lord DISANNULLED it." 
 
 In 1815, Mrs. Piozzi sent a copy of "British Syno- 
 nymy " to Sir James Fellowes with the following note 
 and verses, which will appropriately conclude this com- 
 pilation : 
 
 5 Xov., 1815. 
 
 Accept, dear Sir, this second-hand copy of your poor 
 little friend's favourite work, now completely out of
 
 392 BRITISH SYNONYMY. 
 
 print. That it should bear the name of Samuel John- 
 son on the title page, is so curious, that I would not 
 erase it. 
 
 Ten years at fewest must have elapsed since the 
 author of the "Rambler" had breathed his last, when 
 this book saw the light ; and he to whom I have now 
 the honour of presenting it, was struggling between 
 the perils of fire and water in the midst of the At- 
 lantic Ocean. Awful Retrospect ! Yet a lightly volant 
 pen traces the following lines, only to say that 
 
 In this Synonymy you'll find 
 Portraits from poor Floretta's mind ; 
 With many a tale and many a jest, 
 By which her fancy was imprest. 
 Oh ! had that fancy been acquainted 
 
 With characters too late display'd, 
 Far happier pictures had been painted, 
 
 Far stronger light and softer shade. 
 Beneath the life-preserving hand, 
 How had we seen the soldier stand ! 
 Or kneel, instructed to adore 
 Him who bestow'd the healing pow'r. 
 But merit, dazzling men to blindness, 
 Was still reserv'd for Piozzi's Finis.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abdy, Lady and Miss, ii. 161. 
 Abington, Mrs., i. 87, 88. 
 Aldborough, Lady, anecdote of, i. 
 
 31, 342. 
 Alfieri and the Duchess of Albany, 
 
 i. 331. 
 Alexander I. of Russia, anecdote of, 
 
 ii. 94. 
 Alphabet, infant, Mrs. Thrale's, i. 
 
 48. 
 " Alphabet, the Political, or the 
 
 Young Member's A, B, C," quoted, 
 
 i. 48. 
 Amelia, Princess, daughter of 
 
 George II., i. 331. 
 Andrews, Miles Peter, i. 335. 
 
 his death, ii. 95. 
 
 " Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson," i. 59, 
 
 note; ii. 125. 
 
 Anne, Queen, couplet on, i. 330. 
 Anglesea, isle of, ii. 234. 
 Antichrist, ii. 170. 
 Ashe, Miss, i. 331. 
 Asheri, Mrs. Piozzi's story of, ii. 
 
 19. 
 
 Aston, Molly, Johnson's admiration 
 for, i. 26. 
 
 Johnson's epigram on her, i. 
 
 43. 
 
 " Atlas," man-of-war, the, i. 353. 
 Atmospheric stones, ii. 93. 
 Autobiographical Memoirs of Mrs. 
 Piozzi, i. 235 et seq. 
 
 Bach y Graig, Dr. Johnson's de- 
 scription of, i. 74, 254. 
 
 " Baeviad and Maeviad,". origin of 
 the, i. 133. 
 
 Bagot, Mrs., ii. 83. 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, ii. 274. 
 
 VOL. II. D D 
 
 Balbus, story of, ii. 157. 
 Banks, Sir Joseph, ii. 235, 239. 
 Barclay, Mr., the Quaker, purchases 
 Mr. Thrale's brewery, i. 95, 158, 
 294. 
 
 Baretti, Signor Guiseppe, his verses, 
 quoted, i. 29. 
 
 accompanies Dr. Johnson and 
 
 the Thrales on a tour to 
 France, i. 78. 
 
 history of Baretti, i. 80. 
 
 his trial for murder, i. 81. 
 
 his introduction to the Thrales, 
 
 i. 83. 
 
 Dr. Warton's opinion of him, 
 
 i. 84. 
 
 account of him by Dr. Camp- 
 bell, i. 85. 
 
 his dislike of Boswell, i. 87. 
 
 passages in Dr. Johnson's letters 
 
 relating to, i. 168. 
 
 his papers in the " European 
 
 Magazine," i. 169. 
 
 his death, i. 169. 
 
 his rupture with Dr. Johnson, 
 
 i. 171. 
 
 his character, sketched by Mrs. 
 
 Thrale, i. 171 ; ii. 334, 346, 
 348. 
 
 the comedy of the " Sentimen- 
 tal Mother," i. 172. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 16. 
 
 Barnard, Dr., Provost of Eton, 
 Johnson's remarks on, quoted, 
 i. 59, note. 
 Barrow, his description of Wit 
 
 quoted, i. 228. 
 Bassis' verses, ii. 30. 
 translation of, ii. 31. 
 
 Bath, riots in, ii. 306.
 
 394 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bayntum, Admiral Sir H., ii. 328, 
 
 note. 
 
 Beadon, Dr., ii. 321. 
 Bearcroft, Mr., anecdotes of, i. 
 
 202. 
 
 Beauclerc, Lady Diana, i. 151. 
 Beauclerc, Topham, i. 348 ; ii. 43. 
 Bells, names of, ii. 181. 
 Beloe, his " Sexagenarian," ii. 220. 
 Bentley, Dr. Richard, his verses on 
 
 Learning, i. 326. 
 Bertola's verses, ii. 44. 
 
 his fables, ii. 45. 
 
 Betty, the actor, ii. 101. 
 
 Blue Stocking Clubs, origin of the, 
 
 i. 22. 
 Bodryddan, visited by Johnson, i. 
 
 74. 
 Bodville, Mrs. Thrale's birthplace, 
 
 i. 76. 
 
 Boethius, Dr. Johnson and Mrs. 
 Thrale's translations from, i. 47, 
 324. 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, anecdote of 
 
 Johnson and, i. 151. 
 Bolingbroke, Lady, ii. 43. 
 Bolton, Duke of, Lord Harry Pow- 
 
 lett, anecdote of, i. 354. 
 Bonaparte, intelligence of his me- 
 ditated escape from Elba, i. 337. 
 
 military tactics, i. 356. 
 
 his expedition to Egypt, ii. 71. 
 
 pasquinade on, ii. 1OO. 
 
 - the Apocalyptic beast, ii. 104. 
 Boothby, Miss Hill, Johnson's ad- 
 
 miration for, i. 26. 
 Boswell, James, his character as a 
 biographer, i. 4. 
 
 his " Letters to Temple," and 
 
 " Boswelliana," i. 4. 
 his account of Johnson's intro- 
 duction into Mr. Thrale's 
 family quoted, i. 10, 11. 
 
 his jealousy of Mrs. Thrale, i. 
 
 11. 
 
 his first visit to Streatham Park, 
 
 i. 38. 
 
 arranges an interview between 
 
 Johnson and Lord March- 
 mont, i. 39. 
 
 his conversations at Streatham, 
 
 i. 41. 
 
 his version of Johnson's epi- 
 gram on Mary Aston, i. 43. 
 
 Boswell, James, his proposed poetical 
 epistle to Johnson, i. 46. 
 
 his dislike of Baretti, i. 87. 
 
 Walpole's remarks on his " An- 
 ecdotes of Dr. Johnson," i. 
 133. 
 
 reasons for his depreciating 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, i. 134. 
 Peter Pindar's satire on, quoted, 
 
 i. 145. 
 Boulogne, Mrs. Piozzi's account of, 
 
 i. 180. 
 
 Bouverie, Mrs., i. 34O. 
 Bowdler, Rev. Dr., i. 91. 
 Bowles, Mr., shooting his nephew, 
 
 ii. 252. 
 Bowles, Rev. W., and his fountain, 
 
 i. 75, note. 
 
 Boyce, Johnson's description of, i. 
 322 
 
 his verses to Cave, i. 322. 
 
 Bramah and his air-balloon, ii. 116. 
 Brighton, Dr. Johnson at, i. 97. 
 Bristow, Caroline (afterwards Mrs. 
 
 Lyttelton), i. 78. 
 British Museum, ii. 253. 
 Broadhead, Mrs., ii. 198. 
 Browne, Isaac Hawkins, i. 152. 
 Brynbella, i. 2O8, 209, 289. 
 Buffbn, verses on, ii. 49. 
 Burdett, Lady, ii. 282. 
 Burdett, Sir F., ii. 245, 297. 
 Burke, Right Hon. Edmund, his 
 opinion of Dr. Johnson as a 
 public speaker, i. 63. 
 
 remarks on him, i. 348. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 17. 
 
 Burney, Miss. See D'Arblay, Ma- 
 dame. 
 Burney, Dr., ii. 268. 
 
 quoted, i. 16, note. 
 
 his visit with his daughter to 
 
 Streatham Park, i. 52. 
 
 his description of Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 Piozzi in 1808, i. 2O9. 
 
 and Doctor Johnson, i. 312. 
 
 his verses to Mrs. Thrale, i. 
 313. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 16. 
 
 Burney, Dr. junior, his death, i 
 
 232. 
 
 Byng, Admiral, i. 342. 
 Byron, Mrs. (wife of the Admiral), 
 
 i. 91,156; ii. 317.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 395 
 
 Byron, Mrs., i.319. 
 
 Byron, Lord, ii. 89, 253, 317. 
 
 his estimate of life at thirty- 
 five quoted, i. 31. 
 
 his estimate of Italian singers, 
 i. 106. 
 
 his description of Curran and 
 
 Madame cle Stael, i. 227. 
 
 his " Cain," ii. 299. 
 
 Cader Idris, ii. 86. 
 Campbell, Dr. Thomas, his " Diary" 
 quoted, i. 84, note. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale's account of him, 
 
 i. 85. 
 his account of the mode of 
 
 life at Streatham, i. 85. 
 Capetian Dynasty, story of the, ii. 
 
 101. 
 
 Capua, poverty of, ii. 189. 
 Carahoo, Princess of Jarasu, ii. 207, 
 
 208. 
 Careless, of the " Blue Posts " and 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, i. 61. 
 Carlton House, ii. 75. 
 Carlyle, the bookseller, ii. 298, 299. 
 Caroline of Anspach, Queen, and 
 
 Sir Woolston Dixie, anecdote of, 
 
 i. 340. 
 
 Caroline, Queen, at Bath, ii. 221, 
 222, 225. 
 
 her death, ii. 237. 
 
 her trial, ii. 317. 
 
 Caroline of Naples, story of, i. 125. 
 Carter, Mrs., her " Letters," ii. 205. 
 Catamaran, i. 318. 
 Cathcart, Lady, in " Castle Rack- 
 
 rent," i. 115. 
 Catherine, Empress of Russia, verses 
 
 on, i. 330. 
 
 Catholic question, ii. 246, 263. 
 Cator, Mr., i. 287, 288, 294. 
 Dr. Johnson's remark on, i. 
 
 154. 
 
 Cave, Boyce's verses to, i. 322. 
 Cervantes, ii. 119. 
 Chalmers' " Modern Astronomy," 
 
 ii. 157. 
 Chamberlayne, Mr., his verses, " The 
 
 Pleiades," i. 328. 
 Chambers, Sir Robert, i. 308. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 14. 
 
 Chantilly, Mrs. Piozzi's account of, 
 
 i. 180. 
 
 Chappelow, Mr., ii. 197, 199. 
 
 Charles Edward, the young Pre- 
 tender, at Florence,!. 331. 
 
 Charlotte, the Princess, her mar- 
 riage, ii. 147. 
 
 her death, ii. 223. 
 
 Charlotte, Queen, i. 164 
 
 Chester, walls of, i. 73. 
 
 Chesterfield, Philip Dormer, Earl 
 of, i. 177. 
 
 Christmas, old customs at, ii. 92. 
 
 Churchill, the poet, quoted, i. 346. 
 
 Cicisbeism in Italy, i. 185. 
 
 Clinton, Lord John, i. 91. 
 
 Club, the Literary, formation of the, 
 i. 21. 
 
 Club, Hell-fire, incident at the, i. 
 347, note. 
 
 Clubs, the Blue Stocking, origin of 
 the, i. 22. 
 
 CKvyd, the river, i. 74. 
 
 Cobbett, William, ii. 115, 181, 318. 
 
 Coligny, Henrietta de, verses on, i. 
 329. 
 
 Collier, Dr., i. 250. 
 
 educates Miss Hester Lynch 
 
 Salusbury, i. 250. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's account of, i. 
 
 305. 
 
 Comber, Mr., his verses, ii. 285. 
 Combermere Abbey, Johnson's visit 
 
 to, i. 78. 
 Conde, Prince of, anecdote of the, 
 
 i. 181, 182. 
 Congreve, W., his " Way of the 
 
 World" quoted, i. 45. 
 Conway, Mr. Shipley, i. 74, note. 
 Conway, W. A., and Mrs. Piozzi, i. 
 210; ii. 274, 281, 288, 297, 
 303, 324, 325. 
 
 notice of him, i. 211. 
 
 his letter to Mrs. Piozzi's ex- 
 ecutors, i. 220. 
 
 Conway, ii. 288, 289, 324, 325. 
 
 " Corinne " quoted, i. 116, note. 
 
 Corsini, Prince, i. 120. 
 
 Corsini, Cardinal, i. 120. 
 
 Cotton, Mrs., her cascade, i. 75. 
 
 Cotton, George (afterwards Dean of 
 Chester), ii. 248. 
 
 Cotton, Sir Lynch, Johnson's visit 
 and rudeness to, 78. 
 
 Cotton, Sir Robert Salusbury, i. 
 242.
 
 396 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cowper, Countess, i. 330. 
 
 Cowper, William, quoted, ii. 164. 
 
 Coxe's " Life of the Duke of Marl- 
 borough," ii. 250. 
 
 Crewe, Mrs., i. 340, 344 ; ii. 262. 
 
 Croker, Right Hon. John Wilson, 
 Lord Macaulay's remarks on 
 his editions of Boswell's 
 " Johnson " quoted, i. 32. 
 
 his translation of Johnson's epi- 
 gram on Mary Croker, i. 45. 
 
 his account of the correspond- 
 ence between Dr. Johnson and 
 Mrs. Piozzi on her marriage, i. 
 109. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke and Duchess of, 
 i. 118, 
 
 Curran, J. P., Byron's description 
 of him, i. 227. 
 
 Custom House, fire at the, ii. 9O. 
 
 Cuzzona, the actress, story of, i. 
 195. 
 
 Dancing, ii. 300. 
 
 D'Arblay, Madame, i. 28, 158. 
 
 her account of her first visit to 
 
 Streatham Park, i. 52. 
 
 her " Evelina," i. 53. 
 
 her introduction to Dr. John- 
 son, i. 54. 
 
 her notes of conversations at 
 
 Streatliam, i. 59. 
 
 quoted, i. 1 9. 
 
 her " Diary " quoted, i. 75, 
 
 note; 91, 95, 103, 105, 
 129. 
 
 her letter to Mrs. Piozzi on 
 
 her marriage, i. 107. 
 
 her remarks on Johnson's 
 
 " Letters," i. 163. 
 
 her character of Mrs. Piozzi, 
 
 i. 223. 
 
 her description of the Streat- 
 ham portraits, ii. 9. 
 
 her " Camilla," ii. 75. 
 
 her " Wanderer," ii. 89. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's account of her, 
 
 ii. 340. 
 
 Davenant, Mrs., i. 91, 321. 
 Davis, Eliza, story of, ii. 203. 
 Davison's verses on Dido, ii. 43. 
 Death, Dr. Johnson's letter upon, 
 
 i. 164. 
 Delamira of the Taller," i. 342. 
 
 Delap, Dr., i. 97, 152. 
 Delia Crusca verses, ii. 35. 
 Demosthenes, Johnson's remark on, 
 
 i. 44. 
 Dent, " Dog," and his bill on dogs, 
 
 ii. 73. 
 
 Desmoulins, Mrs., i. 18, 19. 
 Dido, verses on, ii. 42. 
 
 epigrams, ii. 42. 
 
 Divorces, conversation at Streatham 
 
 on, i. 41. 
 Dixon, Sir Woolston, and Queen 
 
 Caroline, i. 341. 
 Dobson, Dr., i. 276. 
 Doddridge's epigram on his own 
 
 motto quoted, i. 347. 
 Dodington, Bub (Lord Melcombe), 
 
 his " Diary," ii. 179. 
 Donkin, General, ii. 147, 154. 
 Dress, female, ii. 232. 
 
 , Dr. Johnson's observations on 
 
 female dress and demeanour, 
 i. 66, 67. 
 
 Dunning, Lord Ashburton, his per- 
 sonal vanity, i. 154. 
 
 , his ugliness, i. 349. 
 
 Duppa, R., Esq., edits Johnson's 
 
 " Journey into Wales," i. 73 ; ii. 
 
 176. 
 " Duty and Pleasure," ii. 7. 
 
 Edward, Prince, brother of George 
 
 III., i. 339, 34O. 
 Eglintoun, Lady, ii. 69. 
 Elton, Mr., ii. 298. 
 English, John, his epitaph, ii. 84. 
 Enigma, an, ii. 287. 
 Eparninondas, i. 356. 
 Esher in Surrey, ii. 70. 
 Etruscan pottery, ii. 151. 
 Exmouth, liberation of slaves, ii. 219. 
 Exmouth, Lord, Christian slaves 
 
 liberated by, in Rome, ii. 96. 
 
 Faber's prophecy for 1866, ii. 226. 
 " Fable for April, 1815, a," ii. 105. 
 Fables of Bertola, ii. 45. 
 Falmouth, Lord, i. 353. 
 " Fancy, Imagination," i. 2fi5. 
 Farinelli, the singer, ii. 244. 
 Farmer, Dr., ii. 277. 
 Ferrier, Miss, the novelist, ii. 258. 
 Fidele, Casa, Mrs. Piozzi's account 
 of the, i. 282.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 397 
 
 Fielding, Henry, his disregard of the 
 
 value of money, i. 207. 
 , Sally, sister of the novelist, 5. 
 
 262. 
 
 Fife, Lord, i. 288. 
 Fire-eaters, the, ii. 262. 
 Fisher, Clara, ii. 233. 
 Fitzpatrick, i. 255. 
 Fitzwilliam, Lord, ii. 300. 
 Flahault, Count, ii. 243. 
 Flint, Bet, Johnson's story of, i. 58. 
 Flood, Right Hon. H., his opinion 
 
 of Dr. Johnson's qualifications as 
 
 a public speaker, i. 63. 
 " Florence Miscellany," account of 
 the, i. 133; ii. 32, 36. 
 
 , preface to the, ii. 50. 
 
 Florence, Mrs. Piozzi's description 
 
 of, i. 190. 
 " Florizel and Perdita," Garrick's, i. 
 
 39. 
 
 Foote, Samuel, i. 310. 
 " Fountains, The," Johnson's tale of, 
 
 i. 47. 
 
 Fox, Lady Caroline, i. 309. 
 Fox, Charles James, his verses, "The 
 Planets" i. 328. 
 
 his character, i. 344. 
 
 : his talents, i. 348. 
 
 France, Johnson's tour in, i. 78. 
 
 verses on, in 1792, ii. 110. 
 
 " Frankenstein," ii. 226, 281. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, Wedderburne's 
 remark on, i. 350. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's account of, i. 
 
 350. ; 
 
 Mr. Dale's lines on, i. 351. 
 
 French, Mrs. Piozzi's sketch of the, 
 
 i. 183. 
 
 Gainsborough, the painter, anecdote 
 of, i. 338. 
 
 Gaming, ii. 131. 
 
 Garrick, David, Dr. Johnson's opi- 
 nion of his talents for light 
 gay poetry, i. 39, 245 ; ii. 
 270. 
 
 his flattery of Dr. Johnson, i. 
 
 44. 
 
 his profession depreciated by 
 
 Dr. Johnson, i. 143. 
 
 anecdote of, i. 324. 
 
 his lines on Pelham, i. 357. 
 
 lines on his portrait, it, 15. 
 
 D 
 
 Garrick, David, his lines written at 
 
 Streatham, ii. 112. 
 Garrick, George, i. 152. 
 Garrick, Mrs., i. 156. 
 Gas lights introduced into London, 
 
 ii. 96, 212. 
 
 Genoa, siege of, ii. 92. 
 George III., caricature on, i. 329. 
 
 anecdote of, i. 339. 
 
 insults offered to him, ii. 68. 
 
 Gibbes, Dr., ii. 226, 274, 285. 
 Gibbon, Edmund, remarks on his 
 
 style, ii. 94. 
 
 Gifford, W,, origin of his " Basviad 
 and Masviad," i. 133. 
 
 his scurrilous lines on Mrs. 
 
 Piozzi, i. 178. 
 
 i his attack on Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 "British Synonymy," i. 194. 
 Gisborne's " Natural Theology," i. 
 
 232. 
 
 Glasse, Rev. G. H., notice of, ii. 174, 
 note. 
 
 his motto, ii. 236. 
 
 Glover, Miss, the actress, ii. 242. 
 Gluttony, Mrs. Piozzi's remarks on, 
 
 i. 3-2o'. 
 
 Godwin, Miss, ii. 281. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, i. 193. 
 
 his prodigality, i. 195. 
 
 his story of the boxer, ii. 149. 
 
 . his portrait at Streatham, i. 13. 
 
 Gray, Dr., ii. 245. 
 
 his " Connections between Sa- 
 cred Writ and Classic Litera- 
 ture," ii. 172, 173. 
 
 deatli of his mother, ii. 224. 
 
 Greenlanders, ii. 28'2. 
 Gunnings, the Miss, i. 31 S. 
 Gwaynyog, Dr. Johnson at, i. 75. 
 
 Hagley, Johnson's visit to, i. 77. 
 
 Hales, Dr., and his prophecy, ii. 
 235, 238. 
 
 Halifax, Lord, i. 245, 251. 
 
 Ilalsey, Edmund, uncle of the elder 
 Thrale, Mrs. Thrale's note re- 
 specting his rise, i. 9. 
 
 Hamilton, Archdeacon, i. 342. 
 
 Hamilton, Lady Archibald, i. 342. 
 
 Hamilton, Single-speech, supposed 
 author of " Letters of Jimius," i. 
 343. 
 
 Hampton Court Palace, ii. 154. 
 D 3
 
 393 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Harrington, Dr., ii. 138, 141, 148. 
 
 . his death, ii. 144. 
 
 Harris, James, Esq., author of 
 
 " Hermes," i. 49, 261. 
 Hart, Polly, ii. 291. 
 Hawkins, Miss, i. 114. 
 Hawkins, Sir John, i. 62. 
 his account of the correspond- 
 ence between Dr. Johnson and 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi on her marriage, i. 
 
 109. 
 
 Head, Mr., i. 317. 
 Hell- fire Club, incident at the, i. 
 
 347, note. 
 " Herald, The Morning," verses on 
 
 Mrs. Thrale in the, quoted, i. 
 
 49. 
 
 Hogarth, William, his portrait of 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, in the " Lady's 
 
 Last Stake," i. 37, 260; ii. 
 
 130. 
 
 his impromptu addressed to 
 
 Mr. Tighe, ii. 129. 
 Holland, Sir Henry, Bart., i. 229; 
 
 ii. 138, 139. 
 
 Holywell, Johnson at, i. 75. 
 Hone, Mr., ii. 226. 
 Hook, Matilda, ii. 233. 
 Hope, ii. 1 88. 
 Huggins, W., the translation of 
 
 Ariosto, and Baretti, i. 84. 
 Hunt, Mr., ii. 295. 
 Hunting, Dr. Johnson's opinion of, 
 
 i. 70. 
 Hyde Park, ii 211. 
 
 " Imagination's Search after Hap- 
 piness," i. 263. 
 
 Ireland forgeries, the, ii. 64, 67, 73, 
 75, 79. 
 
 Jackson, Humphrey, his connection 
 with Mr. Thrale, i. 257. 
 
 Jackson, Mr., i. 273, 274. 
 
 James, Sir Walter, ii. 277. 
 
 Jebb, Sir R., i. 300, 302. 
 
 anecdote of, ii. 25. 
 
 Jekyll, his remark on Lord Stowell, 
 it. 159. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his literary 
 eminence, i. 3. 
 
 his letter to Mrs. Thrale re- 
 specting " Tli raliana," quoted, 
 i. 6. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his introduc- 
 tion into the family of Mr. 
 Thrale, i. 7, 1 1. 
 
 his account of the rise of Mr. 
 
 Thrale's father, i. 7. 
 
 visited in Johnson's Court by 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, i. 12. 
 
 disliked by Mrs. Thrale's mo- 
 ther, i. 13. 
 
 his habits, i. 13. 
 
 his extremities of poverty and 
 
 want, i. 13. 
 
 his eating and drinking, i. 14. 
 
 his favourite dishes, described 
 
 by Peter Pindar, i. 15. 
 
 his affectation of great nicety 
 
 of palate, i. 15. 
 
 his fondness for late hours, i. 
 
 16. 
 
 . his sterling virtues, i. 1 7. 
 
 his household, as described by 
 
 Lord Macaulay, i. 17. 
 society in which he moved, i. 
 
 20, 21. 
 his reverence for bishops, i. 
 
 21. 
 
 his behaviour in the society of 
 
 women, i. 23. 
 his fondness for female society, 
 
 i. 24. 
 his admiration for Miss Booth- 
 
 by, i. 26. 
 
 and for Molly Aston, i. 26. 
 
 his wife, i. 26. 
 
 his remarks on love, i. 27. 
 
 probable causes of his long 
 
 domestication at Streatham, 
 
 i. 28. 
 his complimentary verses on 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, i. 29. 
 his Latin ode to Mrs. Thrale, 
 
 translated by Mr, Milnes, i. 
 
 29. 
 his verses on Mrs. Thrale's 
 
 thirty-fifth birthday, i. 30, 
 
 34. 
 his gloomy apprehensions of 
 
 death, i. 85. 
 his dislike at being painted 
 
 with all his defects, i. 37. 
 his conversations at Streatham 
 
 Park, i. 39, 41. 
 his interview with Lord March- 
 
 nTont, i. 39.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his epigram on 
 
 Mary Aston, i. 43. 
 his remarks on Demosthenes 
 
 and the Athenians, i. 44. 
 his opinion of, and respect for, 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, i. 45, 49. 
 his translations from Boethius, 
 
 i. 47. 
 and tale of the " Fountains," i. 
 
 47. 
 his introduction to Miss Bur- 
 
 ney, i. 54. 
 his account of the children of 
 
 Mr. Langton, i. 56. 
 his story of Bet Flint, i. 58. 
 
 his gallantry, i. 59. 
 
 his remarks on his own polite- 
 
 ness, i. 59, note, 
 
 the moralist and the hatter of 
 
 Southwark, i. 62. 
 
 Mr. Thrale's intention of bring- 
 ing Johnson into Parliament, 
 i. 62. 
 
 assistance afforded by Johnson 
 
 to Mr. Thrale in his difficul- 
 ties, i. 63. 
 
 portraitof Johnson by Doughty, 
 
 i. 65. 
 
 his attention to domestic econo- 
 my, i. 65. 
 
 and to propriety in dress, i. 
 
 66,67. 
 
 his answer to Sir John Lade, 
 
 i. 68. 
 
 his fondness for town life, i. 
 
 69. 
 
 his opinion of hunting, i. 
 
 70. 
 
 his delight in carriage travel- 
 ling, i. 70. 
 
 drawback on his gratifications, 
 
 i. 71. 
 
 his diary of a tour in Wales, i. 
 
 73. 
 
 his description of Bach y Graig, 
 
 i. 74. 
 
 his fondness for fruit, i. 77. 
 
 his visit to Lord Sandys, i. 
 
 77. 
 
 his dislike to the Lytteltons, i. 
 
 77. 
 
 his rudeness to Sir Lynch Cot- 
 ton, i. 78. 
 
 his tour in France, i. 78. 
 
 D 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, instance of his 
 
 occasional impracticability, i. 
 
 79. 
 his friendship for, and opinion 
 
 of, Baretti, i. 81. 
 his evidence on the trial of 
 
 Baretti, i. 82. 
 
 Dr. Campbell's description of 
 
 him, i. 86. 
 
 his rapid writing, i. 87. 
 
 his advice to Mrs. Thrale on 
 
 the death of her husband, i. 
 
 92. 
 appointed one of the executors, 
 
 i. 94. 
 his farewell to Streatham, i. 96, 
 
 128. 
 his visit to Brighton with the 
 
 Thrales, i. 97. 
 his complaints, i. 98, 99. 
 
 his disagreement with Mrs. 
 
 Thrale, i. 100. 
 his correspondence with her on 
 
 her marriage with Mr. Piozzi, 
 
 i. 109. 
 was Johnson a suitor for the 
 
 hand of Mrs. Thrale? i. 120. 
 
 Miss Seward's account of his 
 
 loves, i. 126, 127. 
 
 his last days, i. 128. 
 
 his death, i. 129. 
 
 his affection for Mrs. Piozzi, i. 
 
 129. 
 
 - proximate cause of his death, i. 
 131. 
 
 his strict attention to truth, i. 
 
 135. 
 
 his retort to Pottinger, i. 142. 
 
 his habitual disregard for the 
 
 rules of good breeding, i. 
 143. 
 
 controversy kindled by the 
 
 publication of the " Tour to 
 the Hebrides," and '' Anec- 
 dotes of Dr. Johnson," i. 144, 
 149. 
 
 " Letters from and to the late 
 
 Samuel Johnson, LL.D., i. 
 162. 
 
 his letters on Death, i. 164. 
 
 Saver's print of " Johnson's 
 
 Ghost," i. 174. 
 
 his verses on a young heir 
 
 coming of age, i. 1 98. 
 
 D 4
 
 400 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his apology 
 to Dr. Burney, i. 312. 
 
 his unconscious plagiarism, 5. 
 
 325. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 18. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale's character of him, 
 
 ii. 345. 
 
 Jones, the Hutchinsonian, ii. 69. 
 Jonson, Ben, his " Alchemist," ii. 
 
 259. 
 
 Jordan, Mrs., ii. 1 65. 
 " Junius, Letters of," authorship of, 
 
 i. 343; ii. 319. 
 his denunciation of the Duke 
 
 of Grafton's devotion to Nancy 
 
 Parsons quoted, i. 51. 
 
 Kaleidoscope, Mrs. Piozzi like a, ii. 
 
 237. 
 
 Kean, Edmund, ii. 181, 186. 
 Keep, Mr., i. 308. 
 Keith, Admiral Lord, his marriage 
 
 with Miss Thrale, i. 163. 
 Keith, Lady. See Thrale, Miss. 
 Kemble, Charles, ii. 157, 190. 
 Kemble, John, ii. 292. 
 Killaloe, Bishop of, i. 24. 
 Knight, Cornelia, ii. 189. 
 
 Lade, Lady, i. 255, 259. 
 
 Johnson's remarks on, i. 6%. 
 
 her conversation with Johnson 
 
 about her son, i. 69. 
 Lade, Sir John, account of, 5. 69. 
 
 Johnson's answer to, i. 68. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's verses addressed 
 
 to, i. 198. 
 
 caricature of, ii. 204. 
 
 Lambert, Mrs., i. 156. 
 
 Lamoignon, President, his lines, ii. 
 
 250. 
 
 Langton, Bennet, Esq., Johnson's 
 remark on, i. 42. 
 
 and on his children, i. 56. 
 
 story of, ii. 203. 
 
 Leicester, Earl of, ii. 67. 
 Leighton, Sir Baldwin, ii. 268. 
 Lennox, Lady Sarah, i. 352. 
 Leopold, King of the Belgians, ii. 
 
 147. 
 " Letters to and from the late Samuel 
 
 Johnson, LL. D.," publication of, 
 
 i. 162, 174. 
 
 Levct, Mr. Robert, in Dr. Johnson's 
 
 house, i. 18. 
 Johnson's lines on the death of, 
 
 i. 18. 
 
 Lisbon, earthquake at, i. 249. 
 Liver cases, ii. 274. 
 Liverpool, Lord, charms of his con- 
 versation, i. 344. 
 Llewenny Hall, ii. 98, 206. 
 London, verses for and against, ii. 
 
 169. 
 
 Lort, Rev. Dr., i. 40, 159; ii. 128. 
 Loughborough, Lord, his remark 
 
 on Benjamin Franklin, i. 350. 
 Louis XIV., his politeness, i. 59. 
 Lucan, Lord, i. 94. 
 Lucas, Mr., ii. 128. 
 Lust, Spenser's description of, 
 
 quoted, i. 124. 
 Luttrell, Simon, the " King of 
 
 Hell," i. 225. 
 Lutwyche, Mrs., ii. 97. 
 Lysons, Rev. Daniel, i. 6. 
 Lysons, Rev. Samuel, of Hemp- 
 stead Court, his collection of 
 books and MSS.,i. 6; ii. 61. 
 
 , letters from Mrs. Piozzi to, 
 
 i. 118, 119. 
 
 his collection of scraps, i. 173 ; 
 
 his death, ii. 291 . 
 
 Lysons family, notice of the, ii. 61. 
 Lyttelton, George Lord, cause of 
 Dr. Johnson's dislike for, i. 
 26, 77. 
 
 verses on his portrait, ii. 11. 
 
 the Lyttelton Ghost Story, i. 
 
 332. 
 Lyttelton, Lady, i. 337. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, his opinion of 
 Boswell as a biographer, i. 4. 
 
 and of the value of the Piozzi 
 
 papers, i. 5. 
 
 his description of the inmates 
 
 of Johnson's house quoted, i. 
 17. 
 
 his remarks on Croker's Bos- 
 
 well's " Johnson," i. 32. 
 
 his account of Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 second marriage, and of Dr. 
 Johnson's banishment from Streat- 
 ham, i. 1 27. 
 
 Malone, Mr., and the Ireland for- 
 geries, ii. 75.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 Malone, Mr., his remarks on Dr. 
 
 Johnson's rudeness, i. 140. 
 Maltzan, Count, i. 337. 
 Mann, Sir Horace, at Florence, i. 
 
 190. 
 
 Manucci, Count, i. 168, 286. 
 Mant, his verses, ii. 302. 
 Marie Antoinette, Queen, note on 
 
 her first confinement, i. 377. 
 Marriage, Selden's remarks on, ii. 
 
 80. 
 
 McEvoy, Miss, ii. 189, 226. 
 Maxwell's " Collectanea," quoted, i. 
 
 25. 
 
 Merrick, quoted, i 226. 
 Merry, Mr.,ii. 330. 
 Managiana," quoted, 
 his verses, to Mrs. Piozzi, ii. 
 
 35. 
 
 Milan, life at, i. 285. 
 Milnes, Richard Monckton, Esq., 
 
 M. P., his translation of John- 
 son's Latin Ode to Mrs. Thrale, 
 
 i. 29. 
 Milton's " Paradise Lost," quoted, 
 
 ii. 223, 273, 297. 
 Mitre Tavern, i. 46. 
 Mongolfier and his balloon, ii. 117. 
 Monkton, Mrs., (afterwards Lady 
 
 Cork) and Dr. Johnson, i. 23. 
 Montagu, Mrs., one of the founders, 
 
 of the Blue Stocking Club, i. 22, 
 
 168, 311, 319. 
 
 her " Essay on Shakspeare," i. 
 
 133. 
 
 1 Johnson's story of, i. 154. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's remarks on her 
 
 conduct, i. 157. 
 
 Montcalm, his dying words, i. 354. 
 Moore, Archbishop, and the Duke 
 
 of Marlborough, i. 356. 
 Moore, Thomas, his " Journal " 
 
 quoted, i. 201, 214 ; ii. 39, note. 
 More, Miss Hannah, i. 24. 
 - her remarks on the " Tour to 
 the Hebrides " and " Anec- 
 dotes of Dr. Johnson," i. 
 144, 149. 
 her opinion of Dr. Johnson's 
 
 Letters to Mrs. Thrale, i. 167. 
 Mostyn, Mrs., i. 118, 124; ii. 74, 
 
 87,219, 306. 
 Mountedgecumbe, Lord and Lady, 
 
 ii. 183. 
 
 Mount's Bay, ii. 326. 
 
 Mulgrave, Lord, and Burke, i. 352. 
 
 Murphy, Mr., introduces Johnson 
 
 into the family of Mr. Thrale, i. 
 
 11. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 13. 
 
 his song, " Attend all ye fair," 
 
 ii. 113. 
 
 his fidelity, ii 164. 
 
 his portrait by Reynolds, ii. 
 
 271, 278, 282. 
 Musgrave, Sir R., ii. 232. 
 Myddelton, Dr., 
 
 Naldi, the singer, i. 106. 
 
 Naples, Mrs. Piozzi's notes on, i. 
 
 191. 
 
 Nash, Beau, i. 309. 
 Nesbitt, Mrs., i. 255, note. 
 
 i. 299. 
 
 Nicholson, Miss, i. 110, 119, 275; 
 
 ii. 334. 
 
 Nicholson, Peg, i. 337. 
 Ninon de PEncIos, ii. 271. 
 North, Lord, i. 62. 
 
 his maxim quoted, ii. 122. 
 
 North, Mr. Dudley, Dr. Johnson's 
 
 character of, i. 134. 
 Norton, Sir Fletcher, i. 338. 
 
 verses on, i. 339. 
 
 Nova Scotia, colonisation of, i. 245. 
 
 OfHey Place, i. 249. 
 
 Omai, the Sandwich Islander, i. 171; 
 
 ii. 294. 
 Ombersley, Johnson's visit to, i. 
 
 77. 
 " On a Weeping Willow," &c., ii. 
 
 56. 
 
 O'Neill, Miss, ii. 240, 243, 2S9. 
 compared with Mrs. Siddons, 
 
 ii. 241. 
 Oratory, Johnson's declamation 
 
 against action in, i. 44. 
 Ord, Mr?., i. 91, 104. 
 
 i. 158. 
 
 Ossian, originality of, ii. 246. 
 
 Paap, Simon, the dwarf, ii. 2 IS, 
 
 233. 
 Parini, the Abhate, his impromptu 
 
 on Mongolfier's balloon, ii. 117. 
 Parish, Mr., and the Princess Tal- 
 
 levrand, ii. 134.
 
 402 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Parker, Dr., his complimentary 
 verses to Mrs. Thrale, i. 325. 
 
 Parr, Dr., his correspondence with 
 Mrs. Piozzi, i. 159. 
 
 Parry, Dr. C., ii. 261, 263. 
 
 Parry, Sir E., ii. 288. 
 
 Parsees, the, i. 303- 
 
 Parsons, Mr., his verses to Venus, 
 i. 278. 
 
 and to Mrs. Piozzi, i. 279. 
 
 Pasquin and Cardinal Zanetti, i. 
 353. 
 
 Pasquinade on Bonaparte, ii. 10O. 
 
 Pelham, Mr., i. 357. 
 
 Garriek's lines on, i. 357. 
 
 Pennington, Mrs., ii. 312, 328. 
 her letter to Miss Willoughby, 
 
 quoted, i. 215. 
 Penrice, Sir Henry, i. 248. 
 Penzance, Mrs. Piozzi at, ii. 313. 
 life at, ii. 314. 
 
 - climate of, ii. 319. 
 Pepys, Mr., i. 91, 158. 
 
 Johnson's character of, i. 1 34. 
 
 Johnson's rudeness to, i. 9 1 . 
 
 Pepys, Sir Lucas, i. 272, 302. 
 Pepys, Sir William,!. 811. 
 Perkins, Mr., i. 43, 158, 259, 294. 
 ' Mrs. Thrale's letters to, re- 
 ferred to, i. 61. 
 
 and the print of Dr. Johnson, 
 
 i. 65. 
 
 purchases the brewery, i. 96. 
 
 Persians, the, in London, in 1818, 
 
 ii. 257. 
 Pindar, Peter, his enumeration of 
 
 Dr. Johnson's favourite 
 
 dishes, quoted, i. 15. 
 his verses on Dr. Johnson and 
 
 the whiskey at Inverary, i. 47. 
 his satire on Boswell and Mrs. 
 
 Piozzi, quoted, i. 1 46. 
 Piozzi, Mrs., her moral character, i. 
 
 4. 
 
 value and attraction of her 
 
 writings, i. 5. 
 
 list of the papers contained in 
 
 the present work, i. 5. 
 
 her " Thraliana," i. 6, 7. 
 
 her marriage to Mr. Thrale, i. 
 
 10. 
 
 her first introduction to Dr. 
 
 Johnson, i. 1 1 . 
 
 Piozzi, Mrs., her conversation, i. 
 33, 125, 160, 161. 
 
 Johnson's verses and ode to 
 
 her, 29 31, 34. 
 
 year of her birth, i. 32. 
 
 her personal appearance, i. 34. 
 
 her portrait by Roche, i. 36. 
 
 and by Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 and Hogarth, i. 37. 
 her familiarity with the learned 
 
 and modern languages, i. 42, 
 
 47. 
 
 Johnson's opinion of her, i. 45. 
 
 her translations from Boethius, 
 
 i. 47. 
 and her " Three Warnings," i. 
 
 47. 
 
 her fugitive pieces, i. 47. 
 
 popular estimate of her, i. 49. 
 
 her reception of Miss Burney 
 
 at Streatham, i. 52. 
 her trials and bereavements, i. 
 
 60. 
 
 her attention to business, i. 61. 
 
 her tour in Wales, i. 73. 
 
 her visit to her birthplace, i. 
 
 76. 
 
 Dr. Campbell's description of 
 
 her, i. 85. 
 
 her feelings outraged by her 
 
 husband, i. 89. 
 
 her account of a conversazione 
 
 at her house,!. 91. 
 
 death of Mr. Thrale, i, 92. 
 
 tale of the brewery, i. 95. 
 
 leaves her home at Streatham, 
 
 L 96. 
 
 her disagreement with John- 
 son, i. 1OO. 
 
 commencement of her ac- 
 quaintance with Piozzi, i. 
 103, 268. 
 
 her marriage to Piozzi, i. 10G, 
 
 et seq. 
 
 visits Italy, i. 118. 
 
 was Johnson a suitor for her 
 
 hand ? i. 1 20. 
 
 Miss Seward's account, i. 126. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's " Anecdotes of 
 
 Dr. Johnson," i. 133. 
 her alleged inaccuracy, i. 134. 
 
 Peter Pindar's satire on her 
 
 and on Boswell, i. 146.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Piozzi, Mrs., success of her " Anec- 
 dotes of Dr. Johnson," i. 149. 
 Walpole's opinion of it, i. 148. 
 
 her return to, and reception in, 
 
 London, i. 155. 
 
 her domestic thoughts, i. 156. 
 
 her return to Streatham, i. 
 
 159. 
 
 her correspondence with Dr. 
 
 Parr, i. 159. 
 
 names of the friends visiting 
 
 or corresponding with her, i. 
 160. 
 
 marriage of her eldest daugh- 
 
 ter, i. 161. 
 
 her " Letters to and from 
 
 the late Samuel Johnson, 
 LL.D.," i. 162. 
 
 Baretti's treatment of her, i. 
 
 169. 
 her remarks on Baretti's death, 
 
 i. 169. 
 and on his character, i. 171. 
 
 the comedy of " The Senti- 
 
 mental Mother," i. 172. 
 
 her alarm at Mr. S. Lysons' 
 
 collection of scraps, i. 173. 
 
 her " Observations and Re- 
 flections," i. 174. 
 
 criticisms on the work, i. 175. 
 
 her style, i. 177. 
 
 Gifford's lines on her, i. 178. 
 
 quotations from her Travels, i. 
 
 179 et seq. 
 
 her "British Synonymy," i. 
 
 194. 
 
 her " Retrospection,"!. 199. 
 
 leaves Streatham for Nortli 
 
 Wales, i. 202. 
 
 description of her and her 
 
 husband, in 1808, i. 209. 
 
 death of Mr. Piozzi, i. 210. 
 their portraits, i. 110. 
 
 her way of life after his death, 
 
 i. 210. 
 
 her fancy for W. A. Comvay, 
 
 i. 210. 
 
 her ball and supper on her 
 
 eightieth birthday, i. 214. 
 
 her death, i. 215. 
 
 her will, i. 215. 
 
 her character, i. 223, 227. 
 
 her autobiographical memoirs, 
 
 i. 235. 
 
 Piozzi, Mrs., her domestic trials, i. 
 271. 
 
 her account of her second 
 
 marriage, i. 275. 
 
 her residence in Italy, i. 281. 
 
 her biographical anecdotes, i. 
 
 286. 
 Mr. Thrale's will, and account 
 
 of the sale of the brewery, 
 
 i. 293. 
 account of Mr. Thrale's death, 
 
 i. 302. 
 
 and of Dr. Collier, i. 305. 
 
 her marginal notes in the two 
 
 volumes of printed letters, 
 
 i. 308. 
 
 her notes on Wraxall's " Me- 
 moirs of my own Time,'' 
 
 i. 327. 
 her original compositions in 
 
 prose and vtrse, ii. 3. 
 
 her letters, ii. 61. 
 
 extracts from " Thraliana," 
 
 ii. 329. 
 
 Piozzi, Mr., i. 91. 
 account of the commencement 
 
 of his acquaintance with Mrs. 
 
 Thrale, i. 103, 260. 
 
 his singing, i. 103, 104. 
 
 his marriage with Mrs. Thrale, 
 
 i. 107, 275. 
 Miss Williams Wynn's opinion 
 
 of him, i. 123. 
 
 his personal appearance, i. 125. 
 
 his prudent economy, i. IS'.?. 
 
 his losses in Italy, i. 20J. 
 
 his character, i. 208. 
 
 his death, i. 210, 291 . 
 
 account of him, i. 270. 
 
 -Politeness, i. 53. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale's, i. 53. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's, i. 59, note. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, Johnson's Life of, 
 
 i. 39. 
 
 conversation at Streatham on 
 
 his " Universal Prayer," i. 40. 
 
 quoted, i. 177 ; ii. 143. 
 
 anecdote of, i. 184, 185. 
 
 his letter to Martha Blount.ii. 
 
 196. 
 
 Porter, Miss, her " Pastor's Fire- 
 side," ii. 195. 
 
 Pottinger, Johnson's retort to, i. 142. 
 
 " Piozziar.a," i. 35, note.
 
 404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Piozziana," quoted, i. 33, 35, 37, 
 note, 42, 89, 236. 
 
 Prior, Matthew, Dr. Johnson's opin- 
 ion of, i. 38. 
 
 Queeny (Miss Thrale). See Thrale, 
 
 Miss. 
 Quin, the actor, i. 245. 
 
 Radcliffe, Dr., ii. 276, 277. 
 Ravase, the Abate, his verses to 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, ii. 47. 
 Ray, Mrs., her school at Streatham, 
 
 i. 272, 287. 
 Regent's Park, ii. 211. 
 " Retrospection," &c., of Mrs. Piozzi, 
 
 i. 199. 
 Revolution, French, effects of the, i. 
 
 182. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, his conversa- 
 tions with Dr. Johnson, i. 
 24. 
 - his portrait of Mrs. Thrale, i. 
 
 37. 
 
 excellence of his portraits, ii. 
 
 12, note. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 14. 
 
 Reynolds, Miss, her " Recollections 
 
 of Dr. Johnson," quoted, i. 49. 
 Rhuddlan Castle, visited by Johnson, 
 
 i. 74. 
 
 Rice, Mrs., i. 255, note. 
 Richardson, Samuel, i. 31 1 . 
 Roche, the miniature painter, his 
 
 portrait of Mrs. Piozzi, i. 36. 
 Rodney, Admiral, i. 331. 
 his victory over De Grasse, ii. 
 
 355. 
 
 Roffette, the Abbe", and Dr. John- 
 son, i. 79. 
 Romanism, ii. 217. 
 Rome, poverty of, ii. 189. 
 an English church in, ii. 
 
 219. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, ii. 80, 295. 
 Rondeaux, Mrs. Thrale's verses on, 
 i. 314. 
 
 Voitures, i. 315. 
 
 Rothes, Lady, i. 91. 
 
 Rugby school and original painting, 
 
 ii. 276. 
 Rumbold, Sir Thomas, epigram on, 
 
 i. 355. 
 Rush, Mr., i. 259. 
 
 Ryder, Bishop of Gloucester, ii. 
 225. 
 
 Sacchini, his singing, i. 103. 
 
 Salisbury, Bishop of, ii. 150. 
 
 Salusbury, Miss Hester Lynch, her 
 marriage to Mr. Thrale, i. 10. 
 See Piozzi. 
 
 Salusbury, Mrs., her dislike to Dr. 
 Johnson, 5. 13, 241. 
 
 Salusbury, Mr. (Mrs. Thrale's fa- 
 ther), i. 75. 
 
 Salusbury, Sir John Piozzi Salus- 
 bury, notice of, i. 204 206, 
 291; ii. 195. 
 
 Miss Wynn's anecdote of him, 
 
 i. 206. 
 
 Salusbury, Dr. Thomas, i. 248. 
 
 Salusbury, Lady, i. 249. 
 
 her death, i. 250. 
 
 Sandwich, Lord and Lady, i. 345. 
 
 his baboon, i. 347. 
 
 Sandys, Lord, Johnson's visit to, i. 
 77. 
 
 Johnson's remark on, i. 15*. 
 
 verses on his portrait, ii. 11. 
 
 Savage, Richard, his poverty and 
 
 want, i. 13. 
 
 - his extravagance, i. 195. 
 Sayers, his print of "Johnson's 
 
 Ghost," i. 174. 
 " Scaligeriana," ii. 279. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, ii. 136, 137, 193. 
 his novels, i 17, note; ii. 253, 
 
 273. 
 
 Schwellenberg, Mrs., i. 163, 165. 
 Scrase, Mr., i. 259 ; ii. 244. 
 Serpent worship, ii. 280. 
 Seward, Mr., at Streatham Park, i. 
 
 53, 308. 
 Seward, Miss, i. 158, 160. 
 
 her account [of Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 Piozzi quoted, i. 1 25. 
 
 and of Dr. Johnson's affection 
 
 for Mrs. Thrale, i. 126, 127. 
 
 her opinions of Dr. Johnson's 
 
 letters to Mrs. Tlirale, i. 167. 
 her remarks on Barretti's con- 
 duct, i. 169. 
 her criticism on Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 travels, i. 175. 
 Shelburne, Lord, i. 338. 
 Shephard, Charles, ii. 318. 
 Sheridan, Thomas, i. 352
 
 INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Sicldons, Mrs., i. 289 ; ii. 63, 64, 69, 
 73, 212, 289, 315. 
 
 letter from Sir James Fellowes 
 
 to, i. 221. 
 
 her letter to Mrs. Piozzi, i. 
 
 222. 
 
 in Aspasia's character, ii. 155. 
 
 Sieyes, the Abbe, and the Dauphin, 
 
 ii. 108, 
 
 Simson, Joe, story of, i. 222. 
 Sisera and Jael, ii. 126. 
 Sisterna, Prince of, i. 118. 
 Snow, red, ii. 263, 282. 
 Social verses, ii. 53. 
 " Society, Ode to," ii. 39. 
 Sophia, the Electress, i. 246, 247, 
 
 note. 
 
 Southcote, Joanna, ii. 189. 
 Spelling, laws of, unfixed in the last 
 
 century, i. 177. 
 
 Spencer, Hon. W., his verses, ii. 144. 
 " Spenceriana," ii. 316. 
 Squib, the auctioneer, ii. 157. 
 Stael, Madame de, her " Delphine " 
 and " Corinne," i. 203. 
 
 her similarity to Mrs. Piozzi, 
 
 i. 223, 224. 
 
 Byron's estimate of her, i. 227. 
 
 Staker, Dr., i. 272. 
 
 Stanley, Blind, i. 314. 
 
 Stanley, Lady, ii. 121. 
 
 Steam-boats on the Thames, ii. 212. 
 
 Steevens, George, Esq., his veracity, 
 i. 48. 
 
 Sterne, Laurence, his " Tristram 
 Shandy," i. 325. 
 
 Stevens, Zenobia, story of, ii. 99, 
 321. 
 
 Stonehenge, i. 321. 
 
 Story, a frightful, ii. 32. 
 
 Stowell, Lord, on the proposal to 
 bring Dr. Johnson into Parlia- 
 ment, i. 62. 
 
 Stratton, Mrs., ii. 268. 
 
 Stratton, Miss, the actress, ii. 242. 
 
 Streatfield, Miss Sophia, and Mr. 
 Thrale, i. 89, 91 ; ii. 329. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's account of her, i. 
 
 296, 306, 329. 
 
 Streatham Park, Johnson at, i. 11, 
 28, 39, 41, 54, 85. 
 
 Miss Burney's account of her 
 
 first visit to, i. 51. 
 life at, i. 55, 86, 256. 
 
 Streatham Portraits, the, ii. 9. 
 
 verses on the, ii. 11. 
 
 Succession powder, i. 356. 
 
 Swift, Dean, his epistle of Mary 
 
 Gulliver quoted, 5. 46. 
 his fondness for fruit, i. 77. 
 
 " Synonymy, British," Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 published, i. 194. 
 extracts from, ii. 354. 
 
 Talleyrand, Prince, his remark on 
 
 Madame de Stael, i. 225. 
 " Tatler," the, i. 342. 
 Taylor, Dr., i. 168. 
 Taylor, Mr. Watson, ii. 271, 276, 
 
 278, 282. 
 " Temple, Letters to," of Boswell, 
 
 i. 4. 
 
 Thackeray, Dr., ii. 140. 
 Tliistlewood conspirators, ii. 206. 
 Thomas, Archdeacon, at Bath, ii. 
 
 225. 
 
 Thrale, Mrs. See Piozzi, Mrs. 
 Thrale, Mr., introduction of Dr. 
 Johnson into his family, i. 7, 1 1. 
 
 account of the rise of his father, 
 
 i. 79. 
 
 his early life and education, i. 
 
 9, 10. 
 
 his introduction to Johnson, 
 
 i. 11. 
 
 his visit to Johnson in Johnson's 
 Court, i. 12. 
 
 his personal appearance, i. 34. 
 
 Johnson's opinion of his learn- 
 ing, i. 42. 
 
 Miss Burney's description of 
 
 him, i. 55. 
 
 his ill health and misfortunes, 
 
 i. 60, 6 1 . 
 
 his intention of bringing Dr. 
 
 Johnson into Parliament, i. 
 62. 
 
 assisted by Johnson in his diffi- 
 culties, i. 63. 
 
 his embarrassments, i. 65. 
 
 his preference for Miss Sophia 
 
 Streatfield to his wife, i, 89. 
 
 his illness, i. 90. 
 
 and death, i. 92. 
 
 his introduction to Miss Sa- 
 
 lusbury, i. 257. 
 
 his marriage, i. 254. 
 
 his mode of life, i. 256.
 
 406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tlirale, Mr., his imprudence, i. 257. 
 his connexion with Humphrey 
 
 Jackson, i. 257. 
 his pecuniary difficulties, i. 
 
 258. 
 account of his will, and sale of 
 
 the brewery, i. 293. 
 
 and of his last illness, i. 299. 
 
 his death, i. 302. 
 
 lines on his portrait, ii. 15. 
 
 his character as sketched by 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, ii. 26. 
 
 his mode of teaching swimming, 
 
 ii. 296. 
 
 Thrale, Mr. Ralph, Johnson's ac- 
 count of, i. 7. 
 
 true account, i. 8, 9. 
 
 Thrale, Miss (afterwards Lady 
 
 Keith), 73, 74, 76, 79, 95, 
 
 275 ; ii. 163. 
 Miss Burney's description of 
 
 her, i. 52. 
 her conduct on her mother's 
 
 marriage, i. 1 17. 
 
 her filial affection, i. 118. 
 
 her marriage to Admiral Lord 
 
 Keith, i. 161. 
 " Thraliana," Johnson's letter to 
 
 Mrs. Thrale respecting, 
 
 quoted, i. 6. 
 
 . its present possessor, i. 7. 
 quoted, i. 69, 161, 169, 194, 
 
 205, 237, 260 ; ii. 26, 250, 329. 
 Thornton, Mr. H., and Mrs. Thrale, 
 
 i. 62. 
 
 Thurlow, Lord, anecdote of, i. 344. 
 Thynne, epitaph on, ii. 42, note. 
 " Time, Death, and H. L. P.," ii. 
 
 57. 
 " Tristram Shandy," plagiarisms in, 
 
 i. 325. 
 
 Trotti, the Marquis, i. 289. 
 Truth, Johnson's regard for, i. 135. 
 Tulip mania, ii. 289. 
 Twiss, Mrs., ii. 133. 
 
 Vansittart, Dr., and Dr. Johnson, 
 
 story of, i. 143. 
 Vega, Lope de, his sonnet quoted, i. 
 
 316. 
 imitated by Mr. Roderick, i. 
 
 316. 
 Venetian story of Mrs. Piozzi, i. 
 
 183. 
 
 Venetian women, i. 190. 
 
 Venice, crime in, in the last century, 
 
 i. 186. 
 
 the Mendicant! of, i. 189. 
 Vesey, Mrs., one of the founders of 
 
 the Blue Stocking Clubs, i. 22. 
 Vienna, Mrs. Piozzi's notes on, i. 
 
 192. 
 Vincent, Dr., Dean of Westminster, 
 
 his account of Baretti, quoted, i. 
 
 83. 
 
 Voiture's famous Rondeau, i. 315. 
 " Vortigern," forged play of, ii. 73, 
 
 79. 
 
 Wade, Mr., and the love letters, i. 
 
 320. 
 Wales, tour of Dr. Johnson and the 
 
 Thrales in, i. 73. 
 
 published by Mr. Duppa, i. 
 
 75. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, ii. 276. 
 Walpole, Horace, his remarks on 
 
 the " Florence Miscellany," i. 
 
 122. 
 his remarks on Boswell and 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, i. 145. 
 his opinion of Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, 
 
 i. 148. 
 his opinion of Dr. Johnson 
 
 after reading his Letters to 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, i. 163. 
 
 his " Love Story," ii. 71. 
 
 his criticism on Mrs. Piozzi's 
 
 Travels, i. 175. 
 
 hisletter to Miss Berry, quoted, 
 
 i. 178. 
 
 Ward, the actor, ii. 242, 270. 
 " Warnings, The Three," ii. 3. 
 
 when published, i. 47. 
 
 Warton, Dr., his opinion of Baretti, 
 
 i. 84. 
 
 Waterloo Bridge, ii. 96. 
 Watson, Bishop, his " Apology for 
 
 the Bible," ii. 78. 
 Weston, Sophia, i. 217, note. 
 Whalley, Dr. and Mrs., ii. 301. 
 Whitbread, S., M. P., i. 309. 
 Wilberforce, Mr., ii. 203. 
 Wilkes and Lord Guildford, story 
 of, ii. 181. 
 
 , story told by, i. 1 39. 
 
 Williams, Mrs., i. 17, 19.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Williams, Mrs. Anna, her " Miscel- 
 lanies," i. 47. 
 
 , Miss Helen, and Mrs. Piozzi, 
 
 i. 160; ii. 214, 301. 
 Willoughby, Miss, ii. 316, 320, 
 
 325. 
 
 Wilson, Miss, the singer, ii. 324. 
 Wilton, Fanny, i. 308. 
 Wit, Barrow's description of, quoted, 
 i. 228. 
 
 , Mrs. Piozzi's, i. 228. 
 
 Women, Dr. Johnson in the society 
 of, i. 2325. 
 
 , Dr. Johnson's remarks on 
 
 female dress and demeanour, i. 66, 
 67. 
 
 Wraxall, Sir N. W., his remarks 
 on Mrs. Thrale's colloquial 
 powers quoted, i. 22. 
 
 , Mrs. Piozzi's notes on his 
 
 " Historical Memoirs," i. 327. 
 
 Wroughton, Mrs. and Miss, ii. 148, 
 154. 
 
 Wynn, Miss Williams, i. 122, note. 
 
 extracts from her ''Common- 
 place Book," ii. 91. 
 
 Yonge, Sir William, i. 177. 
 Young, the actor, ii. 235, 285. 
 
 Zanelli, Cardinal, and Pasquin, i, 
 353. 
 
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