down,--I must write it down now. A woman came to London from a
distant county to prosecute some business, and fell into distress;
she was sullen and silent, and the people with whom her affairs
connected her advised her to apply for assistance to some friend.
What friends can I have in London? says the woman, nobody here knows
anything of me. One can't tell _that_, was the reply. Where have you
lived? I have wandered much, says she, but I am originally from
Litchfield. Who did you know in Litchfield in your youth? Oh, nobody
of any note, I'll warrant: I knew one _David Garrick_, indeed, but I
once heard that he turned strolling player, and is probably dead long
ago; I also knew an obscure man, _Samuel Johnson_, very good he was
too; but who can know anything of poor Johnson? I was likewise
acquainted with _Robert James_, a quack doctor. _He_ is, I suppose,
no very reputable connection if I could find him. Thus did this woman
name and discriminate the three best known characters in
London--perhaps in Europe."
"'Such,' says Mrs. Montagu, 'is the dignity of Mrs. Thrale's virtue,
and such her superiority in all situations of life, that nothing now
is wanting but an earthquake to show how she will behave on _that_
occasion.' Oh, brave Mrs. Montagu! She is a monkey, though, to
quarrel with Johnson so about Lyttleton's life: if he was a great
character, nothing said of him in that book can hurt him; if he was
not a great character, they are bustling about nothing."
"Mr. Crutchley lives now a great deal with me; the business of
executor to Mr. Thrale's will makes much of his attendance necessary,
and it begins to have its full effect in seducing and attaching him
to the house,--Miss Burney's being always about me is probably
another reason for his close attendance, and I believe it is so. What
better could befall Miss Burney, or indeed what better could befall
_him_, than to obtain a woman of honour, and character, and
reputation for superior understanding? I would be glad, however, that
he fell honestly in love with her, and was not trick'd or trapp'd
into marriage, poor fellow; he is no match for the arts of a
novel-writer. A mighty particular character Mr. Crutchley is:
strangely mixed up of meanness and magnificence; liberal and splendid
in large sums and on serious occasions, narrow and confined in the
common occurrences of life; warm and generous in some of his motives,
frigid and suspicious, however, for eighteen hours at least out of
the twenty-four; likely to be duped, though always expecting fraud,
and easily disappointed in realities, though seldom flattered by
fancy. He is supposed by those that knew his mother and her
connections to be Mr. Thrale's natural son, and in many things he
resembles him, but not in person: as he is both ugly and awkward. Mr.
Thrale certainly believed he was his son, and once told me as much
when Sophy Streatfield's affair was in question but nobody could
persuade him to court the S.S. Oh! well does the Custom-house officer
Green say,--
"'Coquets! leave off affected arts,
Gay fowlers at a flock of hearts;
Woodcocks, to shun your snares have skill,
You show so plain you strive to kill.'"
"_3rd June_, 1781.--Well! here have I, with the grace of God and the
assistance of good friends, completed--I really think very
happily--the greatest event of my life. I have sold my brewhouse to
Barclay, the rich Quaker, for 135,000_l_., to be in four years' time
paid. I have by this bargain purchased peace and a stable fortune,
restoration to my original rank in life, and a situation undisturbed
by commercial jargon, unpolluted by commercial frauds, undisgraced by
commercial connections. They who succeed me in the house have
purchased the power of being rich beyond the wish of rapacity[1], and
I have procured the improbability of being made poor by flights of
the fairy, speculation. 'Tis thus that a woman and men of feminine
minds always--I speak popularly--decide upon life, and chuse certain
mediocrity before probable superiority; while, as Eton Graham says
sublimely,--
"'Nobler souls,
Fir'd with the tedious and disrelish'd good,
Seek their employment in acknowledg'd ill,
Danger, and toil, and pain.'
"On this principle partly, and partly on worse, was dear Mr. Johnson
something unwilling--but not much at last--to give up a trade by
which in some years 15,000_l._ or 16,000_l._ had undoubtedly been
got, but by which, in some years, its possessor had suffered agonies
of terror and tottered twice upon the verge of bankruptcy. Well! if
thy own conscience acquit, who shall condemn thee? Not, I hope, the
future husbands of our daughters, though I should think it likely
enough; however, as Johnson says very judiciously, they must either
think right or wrong: if they think right, let us now think with
them; if wrong, let us never care what they think. So adieu to
brewhouse, and borough wintering; adieu to trade, and tradesmen's
frigid approbation; may virtue and wisdom sanctify our contract, and
make buyer and seller happy in the bargain!"
[Footnote 1: There is a curious similarity here to Johnson's phrase,
"the potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice."]
After mentioning some friends who disapproved of the sale, she adds:
"Mrs. Montagu has sent me her approbation in a letter exceedingly
affectionate and polite. 'Tis over now, tho', and I'll clear my head
of it and all that belongs to it; I will go to church, give God
thanks, receive the sacrament and forget the frauds, follies, and
inconveniences of a commercial life this day."
Madame D'Arblay was at Streatham on the day of the sale, and gives a
dramatic colour to the ensuing scene:
"_Streatham, Thursday_.--This was the great and most important day to
all this house, upon which the sale of the brewery was to be decided.
Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr.
Barclay, the Quaker, who was the _bidder_. She was in great agitation
of mind, and told me, if all went well she would wave a white
pocket-handkerchief out of the coach window.
"Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Five
o'clock followed, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the
lawn, where we sauntered, in eager expectation, till near six, and
then the coach appeared in sight, and a white pocket-handkerchief was
waved from it. I ran to the door of it to meet her, and she jumped
out of it, and gave me a thousand embraces while I gave my
congratulations. We went instantly to her dressing-room, where she
told me, in brief, how the matter had been transacted, and then we
went down to dinner. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley had accompanied
her home."
The event is thus announced to Langton by Johnson, in a letter
printed by Boswell, dated June 16, 1781: "You will perhaps be glad to
hear that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered of her brewhouse, and that it
seemed to the purchaser so far from an evil that he was content to
give for it 135,000_l_. Is the nation ruined." _Marginal note_: "I
suppose he was neither glad nor sorry."
Thrale died on the 4th April, 1781, and Mrs. Thrale left Streatham on
the 7th October, 1782. The intervening eighteen months have been made
the subject of an almost unprecedented amount of misrepresentation.
Hawkins, Boswell, Madame D'Arblay, and Lord Macaulay have vied with
each other in founding uncharitable imputations on her conduct at
this period of her widowhood; and it has consequently become
necessary to recapitulate the authentic evidence relating to it. As
Piozzi's name will occur occasionally, he must now be brought upon
the scene.
He is first mentioned in "Thraliana" thus:
"_Brighton, July_, 1780.--I have picked up Piozzi here, the great
Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach
Hester."
A detailed account of the commencement of the acquaintance is given
in one of the autobiographical fragments. She says he was recommended
to her by letter by Madame D'Arblay as "a man likely to lighten the
burthen of life to her," and that both she and Mr. Thrale took to him
at once. Madame D'Arblay is silent as to the introduction or
recommendation; but gives an amusing account of one of their first
meetings:
"A few months after the Streathamite morning visit to St. Martin's
Street, an evening party was arranged by Dr. Burney, for bringing
thither again Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, at the desire of Mr. and
Mrs. Greville and Mrs. Crewe; who wished, under the quiet roof of Dr.
Burney, to make acquaintance with these celebrated personages." The
conversation flagged, and recourse was had to music--
"Piozzi, a first-rate singer, whose voice was deliciously sweet, and
whose expression was perfect, sung in his very best manner, from his
desire to do honour to _il Capo di Casa_; but _il Capo di Casa_ and
his family alone did justice to his strains: neither the Grevilles
nor the Thrales heeded music beyond what belonged to it as fashion:
the expectations of the Grevilles were all occupied by Dr. Johnson;
and those of the Thrales by the authoress of the Ode to Indifference.
When Piozzi, therefore, arose, the party remained as little advanced
in any method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as upon its
first entrance into the room....
"Dr. Burney now began to feel considerably embarrassed; though still
he cherished hopes of ultimate relief from some auspicious
circumstance that, sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his
favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents.
"Vainly, however, he sought to elicit some observations that might
lead to disserting discourse; all his attempts received only quiet,
acquiescent replies, 'signifying nothing.' Every one was awaiting
some spontaneous opening from Dr. Johnson.
"Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her ease. She feared
not Dr. Johnson; for fear made no part of her composition; and with
Mrs. Greville, as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from
curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in full
carelessness of its event; for though triumphant when victorious, she
had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from envy or
spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification when vanquished.
But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated for Dr. Johnson;
and, therefore, though not without difficulty, constrained herself to
be passive.
"When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition of Mr. Greville
to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt
a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however
grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and
the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood,
rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg; and, at
length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity that, in the midst
of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as
could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human
faculties; she grew tired of the music, and yet more tired of
remaining, what as little suited her inclinations as her abilities, a
mere cipher in the company; and, holding such a position, and all its
concomitants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above
her control; and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be
thought of her by her fine new acquaintance, she suddenly, but
softly, arose, and stealing on tip-toe behind Signor Piozzi, who was
accompanying himself on the piano-forte to an animated _arria
parlante_, with his back to the company, and his face to the wall;
she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating
them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes,
while languishingly reclining her head; as if she were not less
enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the
transports of harmony than himself.
"This grotesque ebullition of ungovernable gaiety was not perceived
by Dr. Johnson, who faced the fire, with his back to the performer
and the instrument. But the amusement which such an unlooked for
exhibition caused to the party, was momentary; for Dr. Burney,
shocked lest the poor Signor should observe, and be hurt by this
mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something
between pleasantness and severity, whispered to her, 'Because, Madam,
you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of
all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?'
"It was now that shone the brightest attribute of Mrs. Thrale,
sweetness of temper. She took this rebuke with a candour, and a sense
of its justice the most amiable: she nodded her approbation of the
admonition; and, returning to her chair, quietly sat down, as she
afterwards said, like a pretty little miss, for the remainder of one
of the most humdrum evenings that she had ever passed.
"Strange, indeed, strange and most strange, the event considered, was
this opening intercourse between Mrs. Thrale and Signor Piozzi.
Little could she imagine that the person she was thus called away
from holding up to ridicule, would become, but a few years
afterwards, the idol of her fancy and the lord of her destiny! And
little did the company present imagine, that this burlesque scene was
but the first of a drama the most extraordinary of real life, of
which these two persons were to be the hero and heroine: though, when
the catastrophe was known, this incident, witnessed by so many, was
recollected and repeated from coterie to coterie throughout London,
with comments and sarcasms of endless variety."[1]
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Dr. Burney, &c., vol. ii, pp. 105--111.]
Madame D'Arblay mentioned the same circumstance in conversation to
the Rev. W. Harness: yet it seems strange in connection with an entry
in "Thraliana" from which it would appear that her friend was far
from wanting in susceptibility to sweet sounds:
"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, 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 newspapers yesterday told what all the musical folks gained, and
set Piozzi down 1200_l_. o' year."
On the 24th August, 1780, Madame D'Arblay writes: "I have not seen
Piozzi: he left me your letter, which indeed is a charming one,
though its contents puzzled me much whether to make me sad or merry."
Mrs. Thrale was still at Brighton; so that the scene at Dr. Burney's
must have occurred subsequently; when she had already begun to find
Piozzi what the Neapolitan ladies understand by _simpatico_. Madame
D'Arblay's "Memoirs," as I shall have occasion to point out, are by
no means so trustworthy a register of dates, facts, or impressions as
her "Diary."
Whilst Thrale lived, Mrs. Thrale's regard for Piozzi was certainly
not of a nature to cause scandal or provoke censure, and as it
ripened into love, it may be traced, step by step, from the frankest
and fullest of all possible unveilings of the heart. Rare indeed are
the instances in which such revelations as we find in "Thraliana"
could be risked by either man or woman, without giving scope to
malevolence; and they should not only be judged as a whole and by the
context, but the most favourable construction should be put upon
them. When, in this sort of self-communing, every passing emotion,
every transitory inclination, is set down, it would be unfair and
even foolish to infer that the emotion at once became a passion, or
that the inclination was criminally indulged.
The next notice of Piozzi occurs in Madame D'Arblay's "Diary" for
July 10th, 1781:
"You will believe I was not a little surprised to see Sacchini. He is
going to the Continent with Piozzi, and Mrs. Thrale invited them both
to spend the last day at Streatham, and from hence proceed to
Margate.... The first song he sang, beginning 'En quel amabil volto,'
you may perhaps know, but I did not; it is a charming mezza bravura.
He and Piozzi then sung together the duet of the 'Amore Soldato;' and
nothing could be much more delightful; Piozzi taking pains to sing
his very best, and Sacchini, with his soft but delicious whisper,
almost thrilling me by his exquisite and pathetic expression. They
then went through that opera, great part of 'Creso,' some of
'Erifile,' and much of 'Rinaldo.'"
Piozzi's attentions had attracted Johnson's notice without troubling
his peace. On November 24th, 1781, he wrote from Ashbourne: "Piozzi,
I find, is coming in spite of Miss Harriet's prediction, or second
sight, and when _he_ comes and _I_ come, you will have two about you
that love you; and I question if either of us heartily care how few
more you have. But how many soever they may be, I hope you keep your
kindness for me, and I have a great mind to have Queeny's kindness
too."
Again, December 3rd, 1781: "You have got Piozzi again,
notwithstanding pretty Harriet's dire denunciations. The Italian
translation which he has brought, you will find no great accession to
your library, for the writer seems to understand very little English.
When we meet we can compare some passages. Pray contrive a multitude
of good things for us to do when we meet. Something that may _hold
all together_; though if any thing makes _me_ love you more, it is
going from you."
We learn from "Thraliana," that the entanglement with Piozzi was not
the only one of which Streatham was contemporaneously the scene:
"_August,_ 1781.--I begin to wish in good earnest that Miss Burney
should make impression on Mr. Crutchley. I think she honestly loves
the man, who in his turn appears to be in love with some one
else--Hester, I fear, Oh! that would indeed be unlucky! People have
said so a long while, but I never thought it till now; young men and
women will always be serving one so, to be sure, if they live at all
together, but I depended on Burney keeping him steady to herself.
Queeny behaves like an angel about it. Mr. Johnson says the name of
Crutchley comes from _croix lea_, the cross meadow; _lea_ is a
meadow, I know, and _crutch_, a crutch stick, is so called from
having the handle go _crosswise_."
"_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?"
"_12th October_, 1781.--Yesterday was my wedding-day; it was a
melancholy thing to me to pass it without the husband of my youth.
"'Long tedious years may neither moan,
Sad, deserted, and alone;
May neither long condemned to stay
Wait the second bridal day!!!'[1]
"Let me thank God for my children, however, my fortune, and my
friends, and be contented if I cannot be happy."
[Footnote 1: _Note by Mrs. T._: "Samuel Wesley's verses, making part
of an epithalamium."]
"_15th October_, 1781.--My maid Margaret Rice dreamed last night that
my eldest daughter was going to be married to Mr. Crutchley, but that
Mr. Thrale _himself_ prevented her. An odd thing to me, who think Mr.
Crutchley is his son."
Although the next day but one after Thrale's death Johnson carried
Boswell to dine at the Queen's Arms' Club, his grief was deep and
durable. Indeed, it is expressed so often and so earnestly as to
rebut the presumption that "my mistress" was the sole or chief tie
which bound him to Streatham. Amongst his Prayers and Meditations is
the following:
"_Good Friday, April 13th_, 1781.--On Wednesday, 11th, was buried my
dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday, 4th; and with him were
buried many of my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think, on
Wednesday morning, he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his
pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen
years had never been turned upon me but with respect or benignity.
Farewell. May God, that delighteth in mercy, have had mercy on thee!
I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The
decease of him, from whose friendship I had obtained many
opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a
refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with
myself."
On the same paper is a note: "My first knowledge of Thrale was in
1765. I enjoyed his favours for almost a fourth part of my life."
On the 20th March, 1782, he wrote thus to Langton:
"Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The
spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for
fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or
tenderness; for such another friend, the general course of human
things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham,
but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a
weakly body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on
the edge of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found
the friends sickly whom I went to see."
There is ample evidence that he neither felt nor suspected any
diminution of kindness or regard, and continued, till their final
departure from Streatham, to treat it as his home.
In November she writes, "Do not forget Streatham and its inhabitants,
who are all much yours;" and he replies:
"Birmingham, Dec. 8th, 1781.
"DEAR MADAM,--I am come to this place on my way to London and to
Streatham. I hope to be in London on Tuesday or Wednesday, and
Streatham on Thursday, by your kind conveyance. I shall have nothing
to relate either wonderful or delightful. But remember that you sent
me away, and turned me out into the world, and you must take the
chance of finding me better or worse. This you may know at present,
that my affection for you is not diminished, and my expectation from
you is increased. Do not neglect me, nor relinquish me. Nobody will
ever love you better or honour you more."
"Feb. 16th, 1782.
"DEAREST LADY,--I am better, but not yet well; but hope springs
eternal. As soon as I can think myself not troublesome, you may be
sure of seeing me, _for such a place to visit nobody ever had_.
Dearest Madam, do not think me worse than I am; be sure, at least,
that whatever happens to me, I am with all the regard that admiration
of excellence and gratitude for kindness can excite, Madam, your" &c.
In "Thraliana":
"_23rd February, 1782 (Harley Street)_.--The truth is, Mr. Johnson
has some occult disorder that I cannot understand; Jebb and Bromfield
fancy it is water between the heart and pericardium--I do not think
it is _that_, but I do not know what it is. He apprehends no danger
himself, and he knows more of the matter than any of them all."
On February 27th, 1782, he writes to Malone: "I have for many weeks
been so much out of order, that I have gone out only in a coach to
Mrs. Thrale's, where I can use all the freedom that sickness
requires."
On March 20th, 1782, to Mrs. Grastrell and Mrs. Aston: "When Dr.
Falconer saw me, I was at home only by accident, for I lived much
with Mrs. Thrale, and had all the care from her that she could take
or could be taken."
April 26th, 1782, to Mrs. Thrale:
"MADAM,--I have been very much out of order since you sent me away;
but why should I tell you, who do not care, nor desire to know? I
dined with Mr. Paradise on Monday, with the Bishop of St. Asaph
yesterday, with the Bishop of Chester I dine to-day, and with the
Academy on Saturday, with Mr. Hoole on Monday, and with Mrs. Garrick
on Thursday, the 2nd of May, and then--what care you? _What then_?
"The news run, that we have taken seventeen French transports; that
Langton's lady is lying down with her eighth child, all alive; and
Mrs. Carter's Miss Sharpe is going to marry a schoolmaster sixty-two
years old.
"Do not let Mr. Piozzi nor any body else put me quite out of your
head, and do not think that any body will love you like your" &c.
"April 30th, 1782.