locked up in the Bank, and she consequently wrote most of the
Anecdotes from memory, which may account for some minor
discrepancies, like that relating to the year in which she made the
acquaintance with Johnson.
The book attracted great attention; and whilst some affected to
discover in it the latent signs of wounded vanity and pique, others
vehemently impugned its accuracy. Foremost amongst her assailants
stood Boswell, who had an obvious motive for depreciating her, and he
attempts to destroy her authority, first, by quoting Johnson's
supposed imputations on her veracity; and secondly, by individual
instances of her alleged departure from truth.
Thus, Johnson is reported to have said:--"It is amazing, Sir, what
deviations there are from precise truth, in the account which is
given of almost everything. I told Mrs. Thrale, You have so little
anxiety about truth that you never tax your memory with the exact
thing."
Her proneness to exaggerated praise especially excited his
indignation, and he endeavours to make her responsible for his
rudeness on the strength of it.
"Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long (now North).
_Johnson_. 'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr. Long's character is
very _short_. It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of genteel
appearance, and that is all. I know nobody who blasts by praise as
you do: for whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set
against a character. They are provoked to attack it. Now there is
Pepys; you praised that man with such disproportion, that I was
incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserves. _His blood is
upon your head_. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself;
for your censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a
leering smile) she is the first woman in the world, could she but
restrain that wicked tongue of hers;--she would be the only woman,
could she but command that little whirligig.'"
Opposite the words I have printed in italics she has written: "An
expression he would not have used; no, not for worlds."
In Boswell's note of a visit to Streatham in 1778, we find:--
"Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very
earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost
conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth even in the
most minute particulars. 'Accustom your children,' said he,
'constantly to this: if a thing happened at one window, and they,
when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it
pass, but instantly check them: you do not know where deviation from
truth will end.' _Boswell_. 'It may come to the door: and when once
an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be
varied so as to be totally different from what really happened.' Our
lively hostess, whose fancy was impatient of the rein, fidgeted at
this, and ventured to say 'Nay, this is too much. If Dr. Johnson
should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the
restraint only twice a day: but little variations in narrative must
happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching.'
_Johnson_. 'Well, Madam, and you _ought_ to be perpetually watching.
It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional
lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.'"
Now for the illustrative incident, which occurred during the same
visit:--
"I had before dinner repeated a ridiculous story told me by an old
man, who had been a passenger with me in the stage-coach to-day. Mrs.
Thrale, having taken occasion to allude to it in talking to me,
called it, 'The story told you by the old _woman_.' 'Now, Madam,'
said I, 'give me leave to catch you in the fact: it was not an old
_woman_, but an old _man_, whom I mentioned as having told me this.'
I presumed to take an opportunity, in the presence of Johnson, of
showing this lively lady how ready she was, unintentionally, to
deviate from exact authenticity of narration."
In the margin: "Mrs. Thrale knew there was no such thing as an Old
Man: when a man gets superannuated, they call him an Old Woman."
The remarks on the value of truth attributed to Johnson are just and
sound in the main, but when they are pointed against character, they
must be weighed in reference to the very high standard he habitually
insisted upon. He would not allow his servant to say he was not at
home when he was. "A servant's strict regard for truth," he
continued, "must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may
know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such
nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me,
have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for
himself?"
One of his townspeople, Mr. Wickens, of Lichfield, was walking with
him in a small meandering shrubbery formed so as to hide the
termination, and observed that it might be taken for an extensive
labyrinth, but that it would prove a deception, though it was,
indeed, not an unpardonable one. "Sir," exclaimed Johnson, "don't
tell me of deception; a lie, Sir, is a lie, whether it be a lie to
the eye or a lie to the ear." Whilst he was in one of these
paradoxical humours, there was no pleasing him; and he has been known
to insult persons of respectability for repeating current accounts of
events, sounding new and strange, which turned out to be literally
true; such as the red-hot shot at Gibraltar, or the effects of the
earthquake at Lisbon. Yet he could be lax when it suited him, as
speaking of epitaphs: "The writer of an epitaph should not be
considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance
must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. In lapidary
inscriptions a man is not upon oath." Is he upon oath in narrating an
anecdote? or could he do more than swear to the best of his
recollection and belief, if he was. Boswell's notes of conversations
are wonderful results of a peculiar faculty, or combination of
faculties, but the utmost they can be supposed to convey is the
substance of what took place, in an exceedingly condensed shape,
lighted up at intervals by the _ipsissima verba_, of the speaker.
"Whilst he went on talking triumphantly," says Boswell, "I was fixed
in admiration, and said to Mrs. Thrale, 'O for short-hand to take
this down!' 'You'll carry it all in your head,' said she; 'a long
head is as good as short-hand.'" On his boasting of the efficiency of
his own system of short-hand to Johnson, he was put to the test and
failed.
Mrs. Piozzi at once admits and accounts for the inferiority of her
own collection of anecdotes, when she denounces "a trick which I have
seen played on common occasions, of sitting steadily down at the
other end of the room, to write at the moment what should be said in
company, either _by_ Dr. Johnson or _to_ him, I never practised
myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred,
and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that were it commonly
adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society, and a
conversation assembly room would become tremendous as a court of
justice." This is a hit at Boswell, who (as regards Johnson himself)
had full licence to take notes the best way he could. Madame
D'Arblay's are much fuller, and bear a suspicious resemblance to the
dialogues in her novels.
In a reply to Boswell, dated December 14th, 1793, Miss Seward
pointedly remarks:
"Dr. Johnson's frequently-expressed contempt for Mrs. Thrale on
account of that want of veracity which he imputes to her, at least as
Mr. Boswell has recorded, either convicts him of narrating what
Johnson never said, or Johnson himself of that insincerity of which
there are too many instances, amidst all the recorded proofs of his
unprovoked personal rudeness, to those with whom he conversed; for,
this repeated contempt was coeval with his published letters, which
express such high and perfect esteem for that lady, which declare
that 'to hear her, was to hear Wisdom, that to see her, was to see
Virtue.'"
Lord Macaulay and his advocate in the "Edinburgh Review," who speak
of Mrs. Piozzi's "white lies," have not convicted her of one; and Mr.
Croker bears strong testimony to her accuracy.
Mrs. Piozzi prefaces some instances of Johnson's rudeness and
harshness by the remark, that "he did not hate the persons he treated
with roughness, or despise them whom he drove from him by apparent
scorn. He really loved and respected many whom he would not suffer to
love him." Boswell echoes the remark, multiplies the instances, and
then accuses her of misrepresenting their friend. After mentioning a
discourteous reply to Robertson the historian, which was subsequently
confirmed by Boswell, she proceeds to show that Johnson was no
gentler to herself or those for whom he had the greatest regard.
"When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin, killed in
America, 'Prithee, my dear (said he), have done with canting: how
would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations
were at once spitted like larks and roasted for Presto's
supper?'--Presto was the dog that lay under the table." To this
Boswell opposes the version given by Baretti:
"Mrs. Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid down her
knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, 'O, my dear Johnson! do you
know what has happened? The last letters from abroad have brought us
an account that our poor cousin's head was taken off by a
cannon-ball.' Johnson, who was shocked both at the fact and her light
unfeeling manner of mentioning it, replied, 'Madam, it would give
_you_ very little concern if all your relations were spitted like
those larks, and dressed for Presto's supper."
This version, assuming its truth, aggravates the personal rudeness of
the speech. But her marginal notes on the passage are: "Boswell
appealing to Baretti for a testimony of the truth is comical enough!
I never addressed him (Johnson) so familiarly in my life. I never did
eat any supper, and there were no larks to eat."
"Upon mentioning this story to my friend Mr. Wilkes," adds Boswell,
"he pleasantly matched it with the following sentimental anecdote. He
was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris to sup with him and a
lady who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was
going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much
for her, she was in such distress, and that he meant to make her a
present of 200 louis d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of
Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every
pathetic air of grief, but ate no less than three French pigeons,
which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr.
Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, "Excessive
sorrow is exceeding dry," but I never heard "Excessive sorrow is
exceeding hungry." Perhaps one hundred will do. The gentleman took
the hint." Mrs. Piozzi's marginal ebullition is: "Very like my hearty
supper of larks, who never eat supper at all, nor was ever a hot dish
seen on the table after dinner at Streatham Park."
Two instances of inaccuracy, announced as particularly worthy of
notice, are supplied by "an eminent critic," understood to be Malone,
who begins by stating, "I have often been in his (Johnson's) company,
and never _once_ heard him say a severe thing to any one; and many
others can attest the same." Malone had lived very little with
Johnson, and to appreciate his evidence, we should know what he and
Boswell would agree to call a severe thing. Once, on Johnson's
observing that they had "good talk" on the "preceding evening," "Yes,
Sir," replied Boswell, "you tossed and gored several persons." Do
tossing and goring come within the definition of severity? In another
place he says, "I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned;" and Miss
Reynolds relates that "One day at her own table he spoke so very
roughly to her, that every one present was surprised that she could
bear it so placidly; and on the ladies withdrawing, I expressed great
astonishment that Dr. Johnson should speak so harshly to her, but to
this she said no more than 'Oh, dear, good man.'"
One of the two instances of Mrs. Piozzi's inaccuracy is as
follows:--"He once bade a very celebrated lady (Hannah More) who
praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an
emphasis (which always offended him) consider what her flattery was
worth before she choaked _him_ with it."
Now, exclaims Mr. Malone, let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with
this:
"The person thus represented as being harshly treated, though a very
celebrated lady, was _then_ just come to London from an obscure
situation in the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she
met Dr. Johnson. She very soon began to pay her court to him in the
most fulsome strain. 'Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam,' was his
reply. She still _laid it on_. 'Pray, Madam, let us have no more of
this,' he rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she
continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this indelicate
and _vain_ obtrusion of compliments, he exclaimed, 'Dearest lady,
consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow
it so freely.'
"How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all
those circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale
either did not know, or has suppressed!"
How do we know that these circumstances really belong to it? what
essential difference do they make? and how do they prove Mrs.
Thrale's inaccuracy, who expressly states the nature of the probable,
though certainly most inadequate, provocation.
The other instance is a story which she tells on Mr. Thrale's
authority, of an argument between Johnson and a gentleman, which the
master of the house, a nobleman, tried to cut short by saying loud
enough for the doctor to hear, "Our friend has no meaning in all
this, except just to relate at the Club to-morrow how he teased
Johnson at dinner to-day; this is all to do himself honour." "No,
upon my word," replied the other, "I see no honour in it, whatever
you may do." "Well, Sir," returned Mr. Johnson sternly, "if you do
not see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace." Malone, on the
authority of a nameless friend, asserts that it was not at the house
of a nobleman, that the gentleman's remark was uttered in a low tone,
and that Johnson made no retort at all. As Mrs. Piozzi could hardly
have invented the story, the sole question is, whether Mr. Thrale or
Malone's friend was right. She has written in the margin: "It was the
house of Thomas Fitzmaurice, son to Lord Shelburne, and Pottinger the
hero."[1]
"Mrs. Piozzi," says Boswell, "has given a similar misrepresentation
of Johnson's treatment of Garrick in this particular (as to the
Club), as if he had used these contemptuous expressions: 'If Garrick
does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely one ought to sit in a society
like ours--
"'Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player.'"
The lady retorts, "He did say so, and Mr. Thrale stood astonished."
Johnson was constantly depreciating the profession of the stage.[2]
[Footnote 1: "Being in company with Count Z----, at Lord ----'s
table, the Count thinking the Doctor too dogmatical, observed, he did
not at all think himself honoured by the conversation.' And what is
to become of me, my lord, who feel myself actually
disgraced?"--_Johnsoniana_, p. 143, first edition.]
[Footnote 2: "_Boswell_. There, Sir, you are always heretical, you
never will allow merit to a player. _Johnson_. Merit, Sir, what
merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer or a
ballad-singer?"--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_, p. 556.]
Whilst finding fault with Mrs. Piozzi for inaccuracy in another
place, Boswell supplies an additional example of Johnson's habitual
disregard of the ordinary rules of good breeding in society:--
"A learned gentleman [Dr. Vansittart], who, in the course of
conversation, wished to inform us of this simple fact, that the
council upon the circuit of Shrewsbury were much bitten by fleas,
took, I suppose, seven or eight minutes in relating it
circumstantially. He in a plenitude of phrase told us, that large
bales of woollen cloth were lodged in the town-hall; that by reason
of this, fleas nestled there in prodigious numbers; that the lodgings
of the council were near the town-hall; and that those little animals
moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in
great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious
narrative, and then burst out (playfully however), 'It is a pity,
Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a
time, that a lion must have served you a twelve-month.'"
He complains in a note that Mrs. Piozzi, to whom he told the
anecdote, has related it "as if the gentleman had given the natural
history of the mouse." But, in a letter to Johnson she tells _him_ "I
have seen the man that saw the mouse," and he replies "Poor V----, he
is a good man, &c.;" so that her version of the story is the best
authenticated. Opposite Boswell's aggressive paragraph she has
written: "I saw old Mitchell of Brighthelmstone affront him (Johnson)
terribly once about fleas. Johnson, being tired of the subject,
expressed his impatience of it with coarseness. 'Why, Sir,' said the
old man, 'why should not Flea bite o'me be treated as Phlebotomy? It
empties the capillary vessels.'"
Boswell's Life of Johnson was not published till 1791; but the
controversy kindled by the Tour to the Hebrides and the Anecdotes,
raged fiercely enough to fix general attention and afford ample scope
for ridicule: "The Bozzi &c. subjects," writes Hannah More in April
1786, "are not exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of
them. Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. _That_, the
Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace, spoil all conversation, and
destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys' last night." In one of
Walpole's letters about the same time we find:
"All conversation turns on a trio of culprits--Hastings, Fitzgerald,
and the Cardinal de Rohan.... So much for tragedy. Our comic
performers are Boswell and Dame Piozzi. The cock biographer has fixed
a direct lie on the hen, by an advertisement in which he affirms that
he communicated his manuscript to Madame Thrale, and that she made no
objection to what he says of her low opinion of Mrs. Montagu's book.
It is very possible that it might not be her real opinion, but was
uttered in compliment to Johnson, or for fear he should spit in her
face if she disagreed with him; but how will she get over her not
objecting to the passage remaining? She must have known, by knowing
Boswell, and by having a similar intention herself, that his
'Anecdotes' would certainly be published: in short, the ridiculous
woman will be strangely disappointed. As she must have heard that
_the whole first impression of her book was sold the first day_, no
doubt she expected on her landing, to be received like the governor
of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm.
She, and Boswell, and their Hero, are the joke of the public. A Dr.
Walcot, _soi-disant_ Peter Pindar, has published a burlesque eclogue,
in which Boswell and the Signora are the interlocutors, and all the
absurdest passages in the works of both are ridiculed. The
print-shops teem with satiric prints in them: one in which Boswell,
as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the bear, has this witty
inscription, 'My Friend _delineavit_.' But enough of these
mountebanks."
What Walpole calls the absurdest passages are precisely those which
possess most interest for posterity; namely, the minute personal
details, which bring Johnson home to the mind's eye. Peter Pindar,
however, was simply labouring in his vocation when he made the best
of them, as in the following lines. His satire is in the form of a
Town Eclogue, in which Bozzy and Madame Piozzi contend in anecdotes,
with Hawkins for umpire:
BOZZY.
"One Thursday morn did Doctor Johnson wake,
And call out 'Lanky, Lanky,' by mistake--
But recollecting--'Bozzy, Bozzy,' cry'd--
For in _contractions_ Johnson took a pride!"
MADAME PIOZZI.
"I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down;
As such a tale was current through the town,--
Says I, 'Do tell me, Doctor, what befell.'--
'Why, dearest lady, there is nought to _tell_;
'I ponder'd on the _proper'st_ mode to _treat_ him--
'The dog was impudent, and so I beat him!
'Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs;
'_Others_, that I belabour'd, held their tongues.'"
"Did any one, that he was _happy_, cry--
Johnson would tell him plumply, 'twas a lie.
A Lady told him she was really so;
On which he sternly answer'd, 'Madam, no!
'Sickly you are, and ugly--foolish, poor;
'And therefore can't he happy, I am sure.
''Twould make a fellow hang himself, whose ear
'Were, from such creatures, forc'd such stuff to hear.'"
BOZZY.
"Lo, when we landed on the Isle of Mull,
The megrims got into the Doctor's skull:
With such bad humours he began to fill,
I thought he would not go to Icolmkill:
But lo! those megrims (wonderful to utter!)
Were banish'd all by tea and bread and butter!"
At last they get angry, and tell each other a few
home truths:--
BOZZY.
"How could your folly tell, so void of truth,
That miserable story of the youth,
Who, in your book, of Doctor Johnson begs
Most seriously to know if cats laid eggs!"
MADAME PIOZZI.
"_Who_ told of Mistress Montagu the lie--
So palpable a falsehood?--Bozzy, fie!"
BOZZY.
"_Who_, madd'ning with an anecdotic itch,
Declar'd that Johnson call'd his mother _b-tch?_"
MADAME PIOZZI.
"_Who_, from M'Donald's rage to save his snout,
Cut twenty lines of defamation out?"
BOZZY.
"_Who_ would have said a word about Sam's wig,
Or told the story of the peas and pig?
Who would have told a tale so very flat,
Of Frank the Black, and Hodge the mangy cat?"
MADAME PIOZZI.
"Good me! you're grown at once confounded _tender_;
Of Doctor Johnson's fame a _fierce_ defender:
I'm sure you've mention'd many a pretty story
Not much redounding to the Doctor's glory.
_Now_ for a _saint_ upon us you would palm him--
First _murder_ the poor man, and then _embalm him!_"
BOZZY.
"Well, Ma'am! since all that Johnson said or wrote,
You hold so sacred, how have you forgot
To grant the wonder-hunting world a reading
Of Sam's Epistle, just before your _wedding_:
Beginning thus, (in strains not form'd to flatter)
'Madam,
'_If that most ignominious matter
'Be not concluded_'--[1]
Farther shall I say?
No--we shall have it from _yourself_ some day,
To justify your passion for the _Youth_,
With all the charms of eloquence and truth."
MADAME PIOZZI.
"What was my marriage, Sir, to _you_ or _him?_
_He_ tell me what to do!--a pretty whim!
_He_, to _propriety_, (the beast) _resort!_
As well might _elephants preside_ at _court_.
Lord! let the world to _damn_ my match _agree;_
Good God! James Boswell, what's _that world_ to _me?_
The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale,
Fed on her pork, poor souls! and swill'd her ale,
May _sicken_ at Piozzi, nine in ten--
Turn up the nose of scorn--good God! what then?
For _me_, the Dev'l may fetch their souls so _great_;
_They_ keep their homes, and _I_, thank God, my meat.
When they, poor owls! shall beat their cage, a jail,
I, unconfin'd, shall spread my peacock tail;
Free as the birds of air, enjoy my ease,
Choose my own food, and see what climes I please.
_I_ suffer only--if I'm in the wrong:
So, now, you prating puppy, hold your tongue."
[Footnote 1: This evidently referred to the "adumbration" of
Johnson's letter (No. 4), _antè_, p. 239.]
Walpole's opinion of the book itself had been expressed in a
preceding letter, dated March 28th, 1786: