the year 1749, lamenting the fate of the famous Cuzzona, an actress
who some time before had been in high vogue, but was then as they
heard in a very pitiable situation. 'Let us go and visit her,' said
one of them, 'she lives but over the way.' The other consented; and
calling at the door, they were shown up stairs, but found the faded
beauty dull and spiritless, unable or unwilling to converse on any
subject. 'How's this?' cried one of her consolers, 'are you ill? or
is it but low spirits chains your tongue so?'--'Neither,' replied
she: ''tis hunger I suppose. I ate nothing yesterday, and now 'tis
past six o'clock, and not one penny have I in the world to buy me any
food.'--'Come with us instantly to a tavern; we will treat you with
the best roast fowls and Port wine that London can produce.'--'But I
will have neither my dinner nor my place of eating it prescribed to
_me_,' answered Cuzzona, in a sharper tone, 'else I need never have
wanted.' 'Forgive me,' cries the friend; 'do your own way; but eat in
the name of God, and restore fainting nature.'--She thanked him then;
and, calling to her a friendly wretch who inhabited the same theatre
of misery, gave _him_ the guinea the visitor accompanied his last
words with; 'and run with this money,' said she, 'to such a
wine-merchant,' (naming him); 'he is the only one keeps good Tokay by
him. 'Tis a guinea a bottle, mind you,' to the boy; 'and bid the
gentleman you buy it of give you a loaf into the bargain,--he won't
refuse.' In half an hour or less the lad returned with the Tokay.
'But where,' cries Cuzzona, 'is the loaf I spoke for?' 'The merchant
would give me no loaf,' replies her messenger; 'he drove me from the
door, and asked if I took him for a baker.' 'Blockhead!' exclaims
she; 'why I must have bread to my wine, you know, and I have not a
penny to purchase any. Go beg me a loaf directly.' The fellow returns
once more with one in his hand and a halfpenny, telling 'em the
gentleman threw him three, and laughed at his impudence. She gave her
Mercury the money, broke the bread into a wash-hand basin which stood
near, poured the Tokay over it, and devoured the whole with
eagerness. This was indeed a heroine in PROFUSION. Some active
well-wishers procured her a benefit after this; she gained about
350_l_., 'tis said, and laid out two hundred of the money instantly
in a _shell-cap_. They wore such things then."
When Savage got a guinea, he commonly spent it in a tavern at a
sitting; and referring to the memorable morning when the "Vicar of
Wakefield" was produced, Johnson says: "I sent him (Goldsmith) a
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as
soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him
for his rent. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and
had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him." Mrs. Piozzi
continues:
"But Doctor Johnson had always some story at hand to check
extravagant and wanton wastefulness. His improviso verses made on a
young heir's coming of age are highly capable of restraining such
folly, if it is to be restrained: they never yet were printed, I
believe.
"'Long expected one-and-twenty,
Lingering year, at length is flown;
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great Sir John, are now your own.
Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell,
Wild as wind, and light as feather,
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.
Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies,
All the names that banish care;
LAVISH of your grandsire's guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.
All that prey on vice or folly
Joy to see their quarry fly;
There the gamester light and jolly,
There the lender grave and sly.
Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,
Let it wander as it will;
Call the jockey, call the pander,
Bid them come and take their fill.
When the bonny blade carouses,
Pockets full, and spirits high--
What are acres? what are houses?
Only dirt or wet or dry.
Should the guardian friend or mother
Tell the woes of wilful waste;
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother--
You can hang or drown at last.'"
These verses were addressed to Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade, in
August, 1780. They bear a strong resemblance to some of Burns' in his
"Beggar's Sonata," written in 1785:--
"What is title, what is treasure,
What is reputation's care;
If we lead a life of pleasure,
Can it matter how or where?"
Boswell's "Life of Johnson" was published in May, 1791. It is thus
mentioned in "Thraliana":--
"_May_, 1791.--Mr. Boswell's book is coming out, and the wits expect
me to tremble: what will the fellow say? ... that has not been said
already."
No date, but previous to 25th May, 1791.--"I have been now laughing
and crying by turns, for two days, over Boswell's book. That poor man
should have a _Bon Bouillon_ and be put to bed ... he is quite
light-headed, yet madmen, drunkards, and fools tell truth, they say
... and if Johnson was to me the back friend he has represented ...
let it cure me of ever making friendship more with any human being."
"_25th May_, 1791.--The death of my son, so suddenly, so horribly
produced before my eyes now suffering from the tears then shed ... so
shockingly brought forward in Boswell's two guinea book, made me very
ill this week, very ill indeed[1]; it would make the modern friends
all buy the work I fancy, did they but know how sick the _ancient_
friends had it in their power to make me, but I had more wit than
tell any of 'em. And what is the folly among all these fellows of
wishing we may know one another in the next world.... Comical enough!
when we have only to expect deserved reproaches for breach of
confidence and cruel usage. Sure, sure I hope, rancour and resentment
will at least be put off in the last moments: ... sure, surely, we
shall meet no more, except on the great day when each is to answer to
other and before other.... After _that_ I hope to keep better company
than any of them."
[Footnote 1: The death of her son is not unkindly mentioned by
Boswell. See p. 491, roy. oct. edit. But the imputations on her
veracity rest exclusively on his prejudiced testimony.]
In 1801, Mrs. Piozzi published "Retrospection; or a Review of the
Most Striking and Important Events, Characters, Situations, and their
Consequences, which the Last Eighteen Hundred Years have presented to
the View of Mankind." It is in two volumes quarto, containing rather
more than 1000 pages. A fitting motto for it would have been _De
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis._ The subject, or range of subjects,
was beyond her grasp; and the best that can be said of the book is
that a good general impression of the stream of history, lighted up
with some striking traits of manners and character, may be obtained
from it. It would have required the united powers and acquirements of
Raleigh, Burke, Gibbon, and Voltaire to fill so vast a canvass with
appropriate groups and figures; and she is more open to blame for the
ambitious conception of the work than for her comparative failure in
the execution. In 1799 she writes to Dr. Gray: "The truth is, my
plans stretch too far for these times, or for my own age; but the
wish, though scarce hope, of my heart, is to finish the work I am
engaged in, get you to look it over for me, and print in March 1801."
She published it in January 1801, but it was not looked over by her
learned correspondent. Some slight misgiving is betrayed in the
Preface:
"If I should have made improper choice of facts, and if I should be
found at length most to resemble Maister Fabyan of old, who writing
the life of Henry V. lays heaviest stress on a new weathercock set-up
on St. Paul's steeple during that eventful reign, my book must share
the fate of his, and be like that forgotten: reminding before its
death perhaps a friend or two of a poor man (Macbean) living in later
times, that Doctor Johnson used to tell us of; who being advised to
take subscriptions for a new Geographical Dictionary, hastened to
Bolt Court and begged advice. There having listened carefully for
half-an-hour, 'Ah, but dear Sir,' exclaimed the admiring parasite,
'if I am to make all this eloquent ado about Athens and Rome, where
shall we find place, do you think, for Richmond, or Aix La
Chapelle?'"
Writing from Bath, December 15th, 1802, she says:
"The 'Gentleman's Magazine' for July 1801 contained my answer to such
critics as confined themselves to faults I could have helped
committing--had they been faults. Those who merely told disagreeable
truths concerning my person, or dress, or age, or such stuff,
expected, of course, no reply. There are innumerable press errors in
the book, from my being obliged to print on new year's day--during an
insurrection of the printers. These the 'Critical Review' laid hold
of with an acuteness sharpened by malignity."
Moore, who was staying at Bowood, sets down in his diary for April,
1823: "Lord L. in the evening, quoted a ridiculous passage from the
Preface to Mrs. Piozzi's 'Retrospections,' in which, anticipating the
ultimate perfection of the human race, she says she does not despair
of the time arriving when 'Vice will take refuge in the arms of
impossibility.' Mentioned also an ode of hers to Posterity,
beginning, 'Posterity, gregarious dame,' the only meaning of which
must be, a lady _chez qui_ numbers assemble--a lady at _home_."[1]
[Footnote 1: Memoirs, &c., vol. iv. p. 38.]
There is no such passage in the Preface to "Retrospection," and the
ode is her "Ode to Society," who is not improperly addressed as
"gregarious."
"I repeated," adds Moore, "what Jekyll told the other day of
Bearcroft saying to Mrs. Piozzi, when Thrale, after she had
repeatedly called him Mr. Beercraft: 'Beercraft is not my name,
Madam; it may be your trade, but it is not my name.'" It may always
be questioned whether this offensive description of repartee was
really uttered at the time. But Bearcroft was capable of it. He began
his cross-examination of Mr. Vansittart by--"With your leave, Sir, I
will call you Mr. Van for shortness." "As you please, Sir, and I will
call you Mr. Bear."
Towards the end of 1795, Mrs. Piozzi left Streatham for her seat in
North Wales, where (1800 or 1801) she was visited by a young
nobleman, now an eminent statesman, distinguished by his love of
literature and the fine arts, who has been good enough to recall and
write down his impressions of her for me:
"I did certainly know Madame Piozzi, but had no habits of
acquaintance with her, and she never lived in London to my knowledge.
When in my youth I made a tour in Wales--times when all inns were
bad, and all houses hospitable--I put up for a day at her house, I
think in Denbighshire, the proper name of which was Bryn, and to
which, on the occasion of her marriage I was told, she had recently
added the name of Bella. I remember her taking me into her bed-room
to show me the floor covered with folios, quartos, and octavos, for
consultation, and indicating the labour she had gone through in
compiling an immense volume she was then publishing, called
'Retrospection.' She was certainly what was called, and is still
called, blue, and that of a deep tint, but good humoured and lively,
though affected; her husband, a quiet civil man, with his head full
of nothing but music.
"I afterwards called on her at Bath, where she chiefly resided. I
remember it was at the time Madame de Staël's 'Delphine,' and
'Corinne,' came out[1], and that we agreed in preferring 'Delphine,'
which nobody reads now, to 'Corinne,' which most people read then,
and a few do still. She rather avoided talking of Johnson. These are
trifles, not worth recording, but I have put them down that you might
not think me neglectful of your wishes; but now _j'ai vuidé mon
sac_."
[Footnote 1: "Delphine" appeared in 1804; "Corinne," in 1806.]
Her mode of passing her time when she had ceased writing books, with
the topics which interested her, will be best learned from her
letters. Her vivacity never left her, and the elasticity of her
spirits bore up against every kind of depression. A lady who met her
on her way to Wynnstay in January, 1803, describes her as "skipping
about like a kid, quite a figure of fun, in a tiger skin shawl, lined
with scarlet, and _only_ five colours upon her head-dress--on the top
of a flaxen wig a bandeau of blue velvet, a bit of tiger ribbon, a
white beaver hat and plume of black feathers--as gay as a lark."
In a letter, dated Jan. 1799, to a Welsh neighbour, Mrs. Piozzi says:
"Mr. Piozzi has lost considerably in purse, by the cruel inroads of
the French in Italy, and of all his family driven from their quiet
homes, has at length with difficulty saved one little boy who is now
just turned of five years old. We have got him here (Bath) since I
wrote last, and his uncle will take him to school next week; for as
our John has nothing but his talents and education to depend upon, he
must be a scholar, and we will try hard to make him a very good one.
"My poor little boy from Lombardy said as I walked him across our
market, 'These are sheeps' heads, are they not, aunt? I saw a basket
of men's heads at Brescia.'
"As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John
Salusbury, five years ago, when happier days smiled on his family, he
will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is
a foreigner. A lucky circumstance for one who is intended to work his
way among our islanders by talent, diligence, and education."
She thus mentions this event in "Thraliana," January 17th, 1798:
"Italy is ruined and England threatened. I have sent for one little
boy from among my husband's nephews. He was christened John
Salusbury: he shall be naturalised, and then we will see whether he
will be more grateful and natural and comfortable than Miss Thrales
have been to the mother they have at length driven to desperation."
She could hardly have denied her husband the satisfaction of rescuing
a single member of his family from the wreck; and they were bound to
provide handsomely for the child of their adoption. Whether she
carried the sentiment too far in giving him the entire estate (not a
large one) is a very different question; on which she enters
fearlessly in one of the fragments of the Autobiography. In a
marginal note on one of the printed letters in which Johnson writes:
"Mrs. Davenant says you regain your health,"--she remarks: "Mrs.
Davenant neither knew nor cared, as she wanted her brother Harry
Cotton to marry Lady Keith, and I offered my estate with her. Miss
Thrale said she wished to have nothing to do either with my family or
my fortune. They were all cruel and all insulting." Her fits of
irritation and despondency never lasted long.
Her mode of bringing up her adopted nephew was more in accordance
with her ultimate liberality, than with her early intentions or
professions of teaching him to "work his way among our islanders."
Instead of suffering him to travel to and from the University by
coach, she insisted on his travelling post; and she is said to have
remarked to the mother of a Welsh baronet, who was similarly anxious
for the comfort and dignity of her heir, "Other people's children are
baked in coarse common pie dishes, ours in patty-pans."
She was misreported, or afterwards improved upon the thought; for, in
June 1810, she writes to Dr. Gray: "He is a boy of excellent
principle. Education at a private school has an effect like baking
loaves in a tin. The bread is more insipid, but it comes out _clean_;
and Mr. Gray laughed, when at breakfast this morning, our undercrusts
suggested the comparison."
In the Conway Notes, she says:
"Had we vexations enough? We had certainly many pleasures. The house
in Wales was beautiful, and the Boy was beautiful too. Mr. Piozzi
said I had spoiled my own children and was spoiling his. My reply
was, that I loved spoiling people, and hated any one I could not
spoil. Am I not now trying to spoil dear Mr. Conway?"
When she talks of spoiling, she must not be understood literally. In
1817 she writes from Bath to Dr. Gray:
"Sir John and Lady Salusbury staid with me six or seven weeks, and
made themselves most beloved among us. They are very good young
creatures.... My children read your _Key_ to each other on Sunday
noons: the _Connection_ on Sunday nights. You remember me hoping and
proposing to make dear Salusbury a gentleman, a Christian, and a
scholar; and when one has succeeded in the first two wishes, there is
no need to fret if the third does fail a _little_. Such is my
situation concerning my _adopted_, as you are accustomed to call
him."
Before she died she had the satisfaction of seeing him sheriff of his
county; and on carrying up an address, he was knighted and became Sir
John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury. Miss Williams Wynn has preserved a
somewhat apocryphal anecdote of his disinterestedness:
"When I read her (Mrs. P.'s) lamentations over her poverty, I could
not help believing that Sir J. Salusbury had proved ungrateful to his
benefactress. For the honour of human nature I rejoice to find this
is not the case. When he made known to his aunt his wish to marry,
she promised to make over to him the property of Brynbella. Even
before the marriage was concluded she had distressed herself by her
lavish expenditure at Streatham. I saw by the letters that Gillow's
bill amounted to near 2,400_l_., and Mr. (the late Sir John) Williams
tells me she had continually very large parties from London. Sir John
Salusbury then came to her, offered to relinquish all her promised
gifts and the dearest wish of his heart, saying he should be most
grateful to her if she would only give him a commission in the army,
and let him seek his fortune. At the same time he added that he made
this offer because all was still in his power, but that from the
moment he married, she must be aware that it would be no longer so,
that he should not feel himself justified in bringing a wife into
distress of circumstances, nor in entailing poverty on children
unborn.[1] She refused; he married; and she went on in her course of
extravagance. She had left herself a life income only, and large as
it was, no tradesman would wait a reasonable time for payment; she
was nearly eighty; and they knew that at her death nothing would be
left to pay her debts, and so they seized the goods."
[Footnote 1: If the estate was settled in the usual manner, he would
have only a life estate; and I believe it was so settled.]
When Fielding, the novelist, rather boastingly avowed that he never
knew, and believed he never should know, the difference between a
shilling and sixpence, he was told: "Yes, the time will come when you
will know it--when you have only eighteen pence left." If the author
of "Tom Jones" could not be taught the value of money, we must not be
too hard on Mrs. Piozzi for not learning it, after lesson upon lesson
in the hard school of "impecuniosity." Whilst Piozzi lived, her
affairs were faithfully and carefully administered. Although they
built Brynbella, spent a good deal of money on Streatham, and lived
handsomely, they never wanted money. He had a moderate fortune, the
produce of his professional labours, and left it, neither impaired
nor materially increased, to his family. With peculiar reference
probably to her habits of profuse expenditure, he used to say that
"white monies were good for ladies, yellow for gentlemen." He took
the guineas under his especial charge, leaving only the silver to
her. This was a matter of notoriety in the neighbourhood, and the
tenants, to please her or humour the joke, sometimes brought bags of
shillings and sixpences in part payment of their rents.
In the Conway Notes she says:
"Our head-quarters were in Wales, where dear Piozzi repaired my
church, built a new vault for my old ancestors, chose the place in it
where he and I are to repose together.... He lived some twenty-five
years with me, however, but so punished with gout that we found Bath
the best wintering-place for many, many seasons.--Mrs. Siddons' last
appearance there he witnessed, when she played Calista to Dimond's
Lothario, in which he looked _so_ like Garrick, it shocked us _all
three_, I believe; for Garrick adored Mr. Piozzi, and Siddons hated
the little great man to her heart. Poor Dimond! he was a well-bred,
pleasing, worthy creature, and did the honours of his own house and
table with peculiar grace indeed. No likeness in private life or
manner,--none at all; no wit, no fun, no frolic humour had Mr.
Dimond:--no grace, no dignity, no real unaffected elegance of mien or
behaviour had his predecessor, David,--whose partiality to my
fastidious husband was for that reason never returned. Merriment,
difficult for _him_ to comprehend, made no amends for the want of
that which no one understood better,--so he hated all the wits but
Murphy."
There is hardly a family of note or standing within visiting distance
of their place, that has not some tradition or reminiscence to relate
concerning them; and all agree in describing him as a worthy good
sort of man, obliging, inoffensive, kind to the poor, principally
remarkable for his devotion to music, and utterly unable to his dying
day to familiarise himself with the English language or manners. It
is told of him that being required to pay a turnpike toll near the
house of a country neighbour whom he was on his way to visit, he took
it for granted that the toll went into his neighbour's pocket, and
proposed setting up a gate near Brynbella with the view of levying
toll in his turn.
In September, 1800, she wrote from Brynbella to Dr. Gray:
"Dear Mr. Piozzi, who takes men out of misery so far as his power
extends in this neighbourhood, feels flattered and encouraged by your
very kind approbation. He has been getting rugs for the cottagers'
beds to keep them warm this winter, while we are away, and they all
take me into their sleeping rooms when I visit them _now_, to show
how comfortably they live. As for the old hut you so justly abhorred,
and so kindly noticed--it is knocked down and its coarse name too,
Potlicko: we call it Cottage-o'-the-Park. Some recurrence to the
original derivation in soup season will not, however, be much amiss I
suppose."
"Amongst the company," says Moore, "was Mrs. John Kemble. She
mentioned an anecdote of Piozzi, who upon calling upon some old lady
of quality, was told by the servant, she was 'indifferent.' 'Is she
indeed?' answered Piozzi, huffishly, 'then pray tell her I can be as
indifferent as she;' and walked away."[1]
[Footnote 1: Moore's Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 329.]
Till he was disabled by the gout, his principal occupation was his
violin, and it was her delight to listen to him. She more than once
observed to the vicar, "Such music is quite heavenly." "I am in
despair," cried out the village fiddler, "I may now stick my fiddle
in my thatched roof, for a greater performer is come to reside in the
parish." The existing superstition of the country is that his spirit,
playing on his favourite instrument, still haunts one wing of
Brynbella. If he designed the building, his architectural taste does
not merit the praises she lavishes on it. The exterior is not
prepossessing; but there is a look of comfort about the house; the
interior is well arranged: the situation, which commands a fine and
extensive view of the upper part of the valley of the Clywd, is
admirably chosen; the garden and grounds are well laid out; and the
walks through the woods on either side, especially one called the
Lovers' Walk, are remarkably picturesque. Altogether, Brynbella may
be fairly held to merit the appellation of a "pretty villa." The name
implies a compliment to Piozzi's country as well as to his taste; for
she meant it to typify the union between Wales and Italy in his and
her own proper persons. She says in the Conway Notes:
"Mr. Piozzi built the house for me, he said; my own old chateau,
Bachygraig by name, tho' very curious, was wholly uninhabitable; and
we called the Italian villa he set up as mine in the Vale of Cluid,
Brynbella, or the beautiful brow, making the name half Welsh and half
Italian, as _we_ were."
Dr. Burney, in a letter to his daughter, thus described the position
and feelings of the couple towards each other in 1808:
"During my invalidity at Bath I had an unexpected visit from your
Streatham friend, of whom I had lost sight for more than ten years.
She still looks very well, but is graver, and candour itself; though
she still says good things, and writes admirable notes and letters, I
am told, to my granddaughters C. and M., of whom she is very fond. We
shook hands very cordially, and avoided any allusion to our long
separation and its cause. The _caro sposo_ still lives, but is such
an object from the gout, that the account of his sufferings made me
pity him sincerely; he wished, she told me, 'to see his old and
worthy friend,' and _un beau matin_ I could not refuse compliance
with his wish. She nurses him with great affection and tenderness,
never goes out or has company when he is in pain."
In the Conway Notes she says: