lamentably disappointed--in her, I mean: not in him. I had conceived
a favourable opinion of her capacity. But this new book is wretched;
a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish in a very vulgar style,
and too void of method even for such a farrago. . . The Signora talks
of her doctor's _expanded_ mind and has contributed her mite to show
that never mind was narrower. In fact, the poor woman is to be
pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out[1], but
have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his
brutalities as wit, and his worst conundrums as humour. Judge! The
Piozzi relates that a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he
replied: 'In Ireland: it was a bog planted with palm trees.'"
[Footnote 1: See _antè_, p. 202 and 270.]
Walpole's statement, that the whole first impression was sold the
first day, is confirmed by one of her letters, and may be placed
alongside of a statement of Johnson's reported in the book. Clarissa
being mentioned as a perfect character, "on the contrary (said he)
you may observe that there is always something which she prefers to
truth. Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the
romances; but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of
perhaps the only book, which, being printed off betimes one morning,
a new edition was called for before night."
When the king sent for a copy of the "Anecdotes" on the evening of
the publication, there was none to be had.
In April, 1786, Hannah More writes:
"Mrs. Piozzi's book is much in fashion. It is indeed entertaining,
but there are two or three passages exceedingly unkind to Garrick
which filled me with indignation. If Johnson had been envious enough
to utter them, she might have been prudent enough to suppress them."
In a preceding letter she had said:
"Boswell tells me he is printing anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, not his
_life_, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his _pyramid_, I
besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed
friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said
roughly, he would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to
please anybody." The retort will serve for both Mrs. Piozzi and
himself.
Mrs. Piozzi writes from Venice, May 20th, 1786: "Cadell says he never
yet published a work the sale of which was so rapid, and that
rapidity of so long continuance. I suppose the fifth edition will
meet me at my return."
"Milan, July 6th, 1786.
"If Cadell would send me some copies, I should be very much obliged
to him. _'Tis like living without a looking-glass never to see one's
own book so_."
The copy of the "Anecdotes" in my possession has two inscriptions on
the blank leaves before the title-page. The one is in Mrs. Piozzi's
handwriting: "This little dirty book is kindly accepted by Sir James
Fellowes from his obliged friend, H.L. Piozzi, 14th February, 1816;"
the other: "This copy of the 'Anecdotes' was found at Bath, covered
with dirt, the book having been long out of print[1], and after being
bound was presented to me by my excellent friend, H.L.P. (signed)
J.F."
[Footnote 1: The "Anecdotes" were reprinted by Messrs. Longman in
1856, and form part of their "Traveller's Library."]
It is enriched by marginal notes in her handwriting, which enable us
to fill up a few puzzling blanks, besides supplying some information
respecting men and books, which will be prized by all lovers of
literature.
One of the anecdotes runs thus: "I asked him once concerning the
conversation powers of a gentleman with whom I was myself
unacquainted. 'He talked to me at the Club one day (replies our
Doctor) concerning Catiline's conspiracy; so I withdrew my attention,
and thought about Tom Thumb.'"
In the margin is written "Charles James Fox." Mr. Croker came to the
conclusion that the gentleman was Mr. Vesey. Boswell says that Fox
never talked with any freedom in the presence of Johnson, who
accounted for his reserve by suggesting that a man who is used to the
applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of a private
company. But the real cause was his sensitiveness to rudeness, his
own temper being singularly sweet. By an odd coincidence he occupied
the presidential chair at the Club on the evening when Johnson
emphatically declared patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Again: "On an occasion of less consequence, when he turned his back
on Lord Bolingbroke in the rooms of Brighthelmstone, he made this
excuse: 'I am not obliged, Sir,' said he to Mr. Thrale, who stood
fretting, 'to find reasons for respecting the rank of him who will
not condescend to declare it by his dress or some other visible mark:
what are stars and other signs of superiority made for?' The next
evening, however, he made us comical amends, by sitting by the same
nobleman, and haranguing very loudly about the nature, and use, and
abuse, of divorces. Many people gathered round them to hear what was
said, and when my husband called him away, and told him to whom he
had been talking, received an answer which I will not write down."
The marginal note is: "He said: 'Why, Sir, I did not know the man. If
he will put on no other mark of distinction, let us make him wear his
horns.'" Lord Bolingbroke had divorced his wife, afterwards Lady
Diana Beauclerc, for infidelity.
A marginal note naming the lady of quality (Lady Catherine Wynne)
mentioned in the following anecdote, verifies Mr. Croker's
conjectural statement concerning her:
"For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's
seat in Wales, with less attention than he had long been accustomed
to, he had a rougher denunciation: 'That woman,' cries Johnson, 'is
like sour small beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the
wretched country she lives in: like that, she could never have been a
good thing, and even that bad thing is spoiled.' It was in the same
vein of asperity, and I believe with something like the same
provocation, that he observed of a Scotch lady, 'that she resembled a
dead nettle; were she alive,' said he, 'she would sting.'"
From similar notes we learn that the "somebody" who declared Johnson
"a tremendous converser" was George Grarrick; and that it was Dr.
Delap, of Sussex, to whom, when lamenting the tender state of his
_inside_, he cried out: "Dear Doctor, do not be like the spider, man,
and spin conversation thus incessantly out of thy own bowels."
On the margin of the page in which Hawkins Browne is commended as the
most delightful of conversers, she has written: "Who wrote the
'Imitation of all the Poets' in his own ludicrous verses, praising
the pipe of tobacco. Of Hawkins Browne, the pretty Mrs. Cholmondeley
said she was soon tired; because the first hour he was so dull, there
was no bearing him; the second he was so witty, there was no bearing
him; the third he was so drunk, there was no bearing him." [1]
[Footnote 1: Query, whether this is the gentleman immortalised by
Peter Plymley: "In the third year of his present Majesty (George
III.) and in the thirtieth of his own age, Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown,
then upon his travels, danced one evening at the court of Naples. His
dress was a volcano silk, with lava buttons. Whether (as the
Neapolitan wits said) he had studied dancing under Saint Vitus, or
whether David, dancing in a linen vest, was his model, is not known;
but Mr. Brown danced with such inconceivable alacrity and vigour,
that he threw the Queen of Naples into convulsions of laughter, which
terminated in a miscarriage, and changed the dynasty of the
Neapolitan throne."]
In the "Anecdotes" she relates that one day in Wales she meant to
please Johnson with a dish of young peas. "Are they not charming?"
said I, while he was eating them. "Perhaps," said he, "they would be
so--to a pig;" meaning (according to the marginal note), because they
were too little boiled. Pennant, the historian, used to tell this as
having happened at Mrs. Cotton's, who, according to him, called out,
"Then do help yourself, Mr. Johnson." But the well-known high
breeding of the lady justifies a belief that this is one of the many
repartees which, if conceived, were never uttered at the time.[1]
[Footnote 1: I have heard on good authority that Pennant afterwards
owned it as his own invention.]
When a Lincolnshire lady, shewing Johnson a grotto, asked him: "Would
it not be a pretty cool habitation in summer?" he replied: "I think
it would, Madam, _for a toad_." Talking of Gray's Odes, he said,
"They are forced plants, raised in a hotbed; and they are poor
plants: they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, who
had been running down ode-writing in general, as a bad species of
poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been literally cucumbers, they had
been better things than odes." "Yes, Sir," said Johnson, "_for a
hog_."
To return to the Anecdotes:
"Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he despised none
more, I think, than the man who marries for maintenance: and of a
friend who made his alliance on no higher principles, he said once,
'Now has that fellow,' it was a nobleman of whom we were speaking,
'at length obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and for that
certainty, like his brother dog in the fable, he will get his neck
galled for life with a collar.'" The nobleman was Lord Sandys.
"He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one
person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slily, or,
as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise
one's friend with an unexpected favour; 'which, ten to one,' says he,
'fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such
a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that
superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh! never be seduced
by such silly pretences,' continued he; 'if a wench wants a good
gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more
delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor
scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that
could digest iron.'" This lady was Mrs. Montagu.
"I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at
themselves in a glass--'They do not surprise me at all by so doing,'
said Johnson: 'they see reflected in that glass, men who have risen
from almost the lowest situations in life; one to enormous riches,
the other to everything this world can give--rank, fame, and fortune.
They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the
exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them;
and I see not why they should avoid the mirror.'" The one, she
writes, was Mr. Cator, the other, Wedderburne. Another great lawyer
and very ugly man, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, was remarkable for the
same peculiarity, and had his walls covered with looking-glasses. His
personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated
courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one
of Wilkes's happiest repartees.
Opposite a passage descriptive of Johnson's conversation she has
written: "We used to say to one another familiarly at Streatham Park,
'Come, let us go into the library, and make Johnson speak Ramblers.'"
Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy:
"December 16th, 1786.
"I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi, dated Vienna, November 4, in
which she says that, after visiting Prague and Dresden, she shall
return home by Brussels, whither I have written to her; and I imagine
she will be in London early in the new year. Miss Thrale is at her
own house at Brighthelmstone, accompanied by a very respectable
companion, an officer's widow, recommended to her as such.[1] There
is a new life of Johnson published by a Dr. Towers, a Dissenting
minister and Dr. Kippis's associate in the Biographia Britannica, for
which work I take it for granted this life is to be hashed up again
when the letter 'J' takes its turn. There is nothing new in it; and
the author gives Johnson and his biographers all fair play, except
when he treats of his political opinions and pamphlets. I was glad to
hear that Johnson confessed to Dr. Fordyce, a little before his
death, that he had offended both God and man by his pride of
understanding.[2] Sir John Hawkins' Life of him is also finished, and
will be published with the works in February next. From all these I
suppose Boswell will borrow largely to make up his quarto life;--and
so our modern authors proceed, preying on one another, and
complaining sorely of each other."
[Footnote 1: The Hon. Mrs. Murray, afterwards Mrs. Aust!]
[Footnote 2: He used very different language to Langton.]
"March 8th, 1787.
"I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi from Brussels, intimating
that she should soon be in England, and I expect every day to hear of
her arrival. I do not believe that she purchased a marquisate abroad;
but it is said, with some probability, that she will here get the
King's license, or an act of Parliament, to change her name to
Salusbury, her maiden name. Sir John Hawkins, I am told, bears hard
upon her in his 'Life of Johnson.'"
"March 21st, 1787.
"Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi are arrived at an hotel in Pall Mall, and are
about to take a house in Hanover Square; they were with me last
Saturday evening, when I asked some of her friends to meet her; she
looks very well, and seems in good spirits; told me she had been that
morning at the bank to get 'Johnson's Correspondence' amongst other
papers, which she means forthwith to commit to the press. There is a
bookseller has printed two supplementary volumes to Hawkins' eleven,
consisting almost wholly of the 'Lilliputian Speeches.' Hawkins has
printed a Review of the 'Sublime and Beautiful' as Johnson's, which
Murphy says was his."
"March 13th, 1787.
"Mrs. Piozzi and her _caro sposo_ seem very happy here at a good
house in Hanover Square, where I am invited to a rout next week, the
first I believe she has attempted, and then will be seen who of her
old acquaintance continue such. She is now printing Johnson's Letters
in 2 vols. octavo, with some of her own; but if they are not ready
before the recess they will not be published till next winter. Poor
Sir John Hawkins, I am told, is pulled all to pieces in the Review."
Sir John was treated according to his deserts, and did not escape
whipping. One of the severest castigations was inflicted by Porson.
Before mentioning her next publication, I will show from "Thraliana"
her state of mind when about to start for England, and her
impressions of things and people on her return:
"1786.--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.[1] The worst part of this
disinterested 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 scrupulously avoid persuading my husband to become a
Lutheran or be of the English church, the Romanists will be diligent
to teach him all the narrowness and bitterness 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."
[Footnote 1: "Clear your mind of _cant_."--JOHNSON.]
"1787, _May_ 1_st_.--It was not wrong to come home after all, but
very right. The Italians would have said we were afraid to face
England, and the English would have said we were confined abroad in
prisons or convents or some stuff. I find Mr. Smith (one of our
daughter's guardians) told that poor baby Cecilia a fine staring tale
how my husband locked me up at Milan and fed me on bread and water,
to make the child hate Mr. Piozzi. Good God! What infamous
proceeding was this! My husband never saw the fellow, so could not
have provoked him."
"_May_ 19_th_.--We bad a fine assembly last night indeed: in my best
days I never had finer: there were near a hundred people in the rooms
which were besides much admired."
"1788, _January_ 1_st_.--How little I thought this day four years
that I should celebrate this 1st of January, 1788, here at Bath,
surrounded with friends and admirers? The public partial to _me_, and
almost every individual whose kindness is worth wishing for,
sincerely attached to my husband."
"Mrs. Byron is converted by Piozzi's assiduity, she really likes him
now: and sweet Mrs. Lambert told everybody at Bath she was in love
with him."
"I have passed a delightful winter in spite of them, caressed by my
friends, adored by my husband, amused with every entertainment that
is going forward: what need I think about three sullen Misses? ...
and yet!"----
"_August_ 1_st_--Baretti has been grossly abusive in the 'European
Magazine' to me: _that_ hurts me but little; what shocks me is that
those treacherous Burneys should abet and puff him. He is a most
ungrateful because unprincipled wretch; but I _am_ sorry that
anything belonging to Dr. Burney should be so monstrously wicked."
"1789, _January_ 17_th_.--Mrs. Siddons dined in a coterie of my
unprovoked enemies yesterday at Porteous's. She mentioned our
concerts, and the Erskines lamented their absence from one we gave
two days ago, at which Mrs. Garrick was present and gave a good
report to the _Blues_. Charming Blues! blue with venom I think; I
suppose they begin to be ashamed of their paltry behaviour. Mrs.
Grarrick, more prudent than any of them, left a loophole for
returning friendship to fasten through, and it _shall_ fasten: that
woman has lived a _very wise life_, regular and steady in her
conduct, attentive to every word she speaks and every step she
treads, decorous in her manners and graceful in her person. My fancy
forms the Queen just like Mrs. Grarrick: they are countrywomen and
have, as the phrase is, had a hard card to play; yet never lurched by
tricksters nor subdued by superior powers, they will rise from the
table unhurt either by others or themselves ... having played a
_saving game. I_ have run risques to be sure, that I have; yet--
"'When after some distinguished leap
She drops her pole and seems to slip,
Straight gath'ring all her active strength,
She rises higher half her length;'
and better than _now_ I have never stood with the world in general, I
believe. May the books just sent to press confirm the partiality of
the Public!"
"1789, _January_.--I have a great deal more prudence than people
suspect me for: they think I act by chance while I am doing nothing
in the world unintentionally, and have never, I dare say, in these
last fifteen years uttered a word to husband, or child, or servant,
or friend, without being very careful what it should be. Often have I
spoken what I have repented after, but that was want of _judgment_,
not of _meaning_. What I said I meant to say at the time, and thought
it best to say, ... I do not err from haste or a spirit of rattling,
as people think I do: when I err, 'tis because I make a false
conclusion, not because I make no conclusion at all; when I rattle, I
rattle on purpose."
"1789, _May_ 1_st_.--Mrs. Montagu wants to make up with me again. I
dare say she does; but I will not be taken and left even at the
pleasure of those who are much nearer and dearer to me than Mrs.
Montagu. We want no flash, no flattery. I never had more of either in
my life, nor ever lived half so happily: Mrs. Montagu wrote creeping
letters when she wanted my help, or foolishly _thought_ she did, and
then turned her back upon me and set her adherents to do the same. I
despise such conduct, and Mr. Pepys, Mrs. Ord, &c. now sneak about
and look ashamed of themselves--well they may!"
"1790, _March_ 18_th_.--I met Miss Burney at an assembly last
night--'tis six years since I had seen her: she appeared most fondly
rejoyced, in good time! and Mrs. Locke, at whose house we stumbled on
each other, pretended that she had such a regard for me, &c. I
answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humour: and we
talked of the King and Queen, his Majesty's illness and recovery ...
and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference."
"I saw _Master Pepys_[1] too and Mrs. Ord; and only see how foolish
and how mortified the people do but look."
[Footnote 1: This is Sir W. Pepys mentioned _antè_, p. 252.]
"Barclay and Perkins live very genteelly. I dined with them at our
brewhouse one day last week. I felt so oddly in the old house where I
had lived so long."
"The Pepyses find out that they have used me very ill.... I hope they
find out too that I do not care, Seward too sues for reconcilement
underhand ... so they do all; and I sincerely forgive them--but, like
the linnet in 'Metastasio'--
"'Cauto divien per prova
Nè più tradir si fà.'
"'When lim'd, the poor bird thus with eagerness strains,
Nor regrets his torn wing while his freedom he gains:
The loss of his plumage small time will restore,
And once tried the false twig--it shall cheat him no more.'"
"1790, _July_ 28_th_.--We have kept our seventh wedding day and
celebrated our return to _this house_[1] with prodigious splendour
and gaiety. Seventy people to dinner.... Never was a pleasanter day
seen, and at night the trees and front of the house were illuminated
with coloured lamps that called forth our neighbours from all the
adjacent villages to admire and enjoy the diversion. Many friends
swear that not less than a thousand men, women, and children might
have been counted in the house and grounds, where, though all were
admitted, nothing was stolen, lost, or broken, or even damaged--a
circumstance almost incredible; and which gave Mr. Piozzi a high
opinion of English gratitude and respectful attachment."
[Footnote 1: Streatham.]
"1790, _December 1st_.--Dr. Parr and I are in correspondence, and his
letters are very flattering: I am proud of his notice to be sure, and
he seems pleased with my acknowledgments of esteem: he is a
prodigious scholar ... but in the meantime I have lost Dr. Lort."[1]
[Footnote 1: He died November 5th, 1790.]
In the Conway Notes, she thus sums up her life from March 1787 to
1791:
"On first reaching London, we drove to the Royal Hotel in Pall Mall,
and, arriving early, I proposed going to the Play. There was a small
front box, in those days, which held only two; it made the division,
or connexion, with the side boxes, and, being unoccupied, we sat in
it, and saw Mrs. Siddons act Imogen, I well remember, and Mrs.
Jordan, Priscilla Tomboy. Mr. Piozzi was amused, and the next day was
spent in looking at houses, counting the cards left by old
acquaintances, &c. The lady-daughters came, behaved with cold
civility, and asked what I thought of _their_ decision concerning
Cecilia, then at school. No reply was made, or a gentle one; but she
was the first cause of contention among us. The lawyers gave her into
my care, and we took her home to our new habitation in Hanover
Square, which we opened with music, cards, &c., on, I think, the 22nd
March. Miss Thrales refused their company; so we managed as well as
we could. Our affairs were in good order, and money ready for
spending. The World, as it is called, appeared good-humoured, and we
were soon followed, respected, and admired. The summer months sent us
about visiting and pleasuring, ... and after another gay London
season, Streatham Park, unoccupied by tenants, called us as if
_really home_. Mr. Piozzi, with more generosity than prudence, spent
two thousand pounds on repairing and furnishing it in 1790;--and we
had danced all night, I recollect, when the news came of Louis
Seize's escape from, and recapture by, his rebel subjects.'"