BERKELEY SQUARE, _Oct._ 30, 1785.
I am a contradiction, yet very naturally so; I wish you not to write
yourself, and yet am delighted when I receive a letter in your own hand:
however, I don't desire it should be of four pages, like this last of
the 11th. When I have had the gout, I have always written by proxy. You
will make me ashamed, if you don't use the precedent. Your account of
yourself is quite to my satisfaction. I approve, too, of your not dining
with your company. Since I must be old and have the gout, I have long
turned those disadvantages to my own account, and plead them to the
utmost when they will save me from doing anything I dislike. I am so
lame, or have such a sudden pain, when I do not care to do what is
proposed to me! Nobody can tell how rapidly the gout may be come, or be
gone again; and then it is so pleasant to have had the benefit, and
none of the anguish!
I did send you a line last week in the cover of a letter to Lady
Craven,[1] which I knew would sufficiently tell your quickness how much
I shall be obliged to you for any attentions to her. I thought her at
Paris, and was surprised to hear of her at Florence. She has, I fear,
been _infinitamente_ indiscreet; but what is that to you or me? She is
very pretty, has parts, and is good-natured to the greatest degree; has
not a grain of malice or mischief (almost always the associates, in
women, of tender hearts), and never has been an enemy but to herself.
For that ridiculous woman Madame Piozzi,[2] and t'other more impertinent
one, of whom I never heard before, they are like the absurd English
dames with whom we used to divert ourselves when I was at Florence. As
to your little knot of poets, I do not hold the cocks higher than the
hens; nor would I advise them to repatriate. We have at present here a
most incomparable set, not exactly known by their names, but who, till
the dead of summer, kept the town in a roar, and, I suppose, will revive
by the meeting of Parliament. They have poured forth a torrent of odes,
epigrams, and part of an imaginary epic poem, called the "Rolliad,"[3]
with a commentary and notes, that is as good as the "Dispensary"[4] and
"Dunciad," with more ease. These poems are all anti-ministerial, and
the authors very young men, and little known or heard of before. I would
send them, but you would want too many keys: and indeed I want some
myself; for, as there are continually allusions to Parliamentary
speeches and events, they are often obscure to me till I get them
explained; and besides, I do not know several of the satirised heroes
even by sight: however, the poetry and wit make amends, for they are
superlative.
[Footnote 1: Lady Craven, _née_ Berkeley, had given abundant cause for
scandal during her husband's life, which did not abate when, a month
after his death, she married the Margrave of Anspach.]
[Footnote 2: Mme. Piozzi, the Mrs. Thrale of Boswell's "Life of
Johnson." Mr. Thrale was a brewer, the founder of the great firm now
known as Barclay and Perkins. She was many years younger than he; and,
after his death, she married Signor Piozzi, a professional musician of
eminence. Johnson, who had been an habitual guest of her husband and her
at their villa at Streatham, set the fashion of condemning this second
marriage as a disgraceful _mésalliance_; but it is not very easy to see
in what respect it was so. In social position she had certainly had the
advantage over Mr. Thrale, being the daughter of a Carnarvonshire
baronet of ancient family. But a first-rate musician was surely the
equal of a brewer. After Johnson's death she published a volume of her
reminiscences of him, which may be allowed to have been worthy neither
of him nor of her, and which was ridiculed by Peter Pindar in "A Town
Eclogue," in which the rivals Bozzy and Piozzi, on Virgil's
principle--_Alternis dicetis, amant alterna Camaenae_--relate in turn
anecdotes of Johnson's way of life, his witty sayings, &c., &c. Sir John
Hawkins, as judge of the contest, gives neither a prize; tells the lady,
"Sam's Life, dear ma'am, will only _damn your own_;" calls the gentleman
"a chattering magpie;" and--
Then to their pens and paper rush'd the twain,
To kill the mangled RAMBLER o'er again.]
[Footnote 3: In 1785 the wits of Brooks's, being much disappointed at
the result of the political conflict of 1784, gave some vent to their
spleen in verse. For their subject they selected an imaginary epic, of
which they gave fictitious extracts, and for their hero they took the
Member for Devonshire, John Rolle, invoking him--
Illustrious Rolle! oh may thy honoured name
Roll down distinguished on the rolls of fame.
It is a little odd that they abstained from similar puns on Pitt and
_pit_; but their indignation was chiefly directed at his youth as
ill-suited to his powers--
A sight to make surrounding nations stare,
A kingdom trusted to a schoolboy's care.
The chief contributors were Burke's friend, Dr. Lawrence; Sheridan's
brother-in-law, Tickell; General Fitzpatrick, Mr. G. Ellis, Lord G.
Townshend, and General Burgoyne.]
[Footnote 4: "The Dispensary" was a poem by a physician named Garth, to
advocate the cause of the physicians in a quarrel between them and the
apothecaries about the price to be charged for medicines. Johnson, in
his "Lives of the Poets," allows it the credit of smooth and free
versification, but denies it that of elegance. "No passage falls below
mediocrity, and few rise above it." It may be doubted whether Byron
himself could have risen high "above it" on subjects so unpoetical as
pills and black-doses.]
News I have none, wet or dry, to send you: politics are stagnated, and
pleasure is not come to town. You may be sure I am glad that Caesar is
baffled; I neither honour nor esteem him. If he is preferring his nephew
to his brother, it is using the latter as ill as the rest of the world.
Mrs. Damer is again set out for the Continent to-day, to avoid the
winter, which is already begun severely; we have had snow twice. Till
last year, I never knew snow in October since I can remember; which is
no short time. Mrs. Damer has taken with her her cousin Miss Campbell,
daughter of poor Lady William, whom you knew, and who died last year.
Miss Campbell has always lived with Lady Aylesbury, and is a very great
favourite and a very sensible girl. I believe they will proceed to
Italy, but it is not certain. If they come to Florence, the Grand Duke
should beg Mrs. Damer to give him something of her statuary; and it
would be a greater curiosity than anything in his Chamber of Painters.
She has executed several marvels since you saw her; and has lately
carved two colossal heads for the bridge at Henley, which is the most
beautiful one in the world, next to the Ponte di Trinità, and was
principally designed by her father, General Conway. Lady Spencer
draws--incorrectly indeed, but has great expression. Italy probably will
stimulate her, and improve her attention. You see we blossom in ruin!
Poetry, painting, statuary, architecture, music, linger here,
on this sea-encircled coast (GRAY),
as if they knew not whither to retreat farther for shelter, and would
not trust to the despotic patronage of the Attilas, Alarics, Amalasuntas
of the North! They leave such heroic scourges to be decorated by the
Voltaires and D'Alemberts of the Gauls, or wait till by the improvement
of balloons they may be transported to some of those millions of worlds
that Herschel[1] is discovering every day; for this new Columbus has
thrown open the great gates of astronomy, and neither Spanish
inquisitors nor English Nabobs will be able to torture and ransack the
new regions and their inhabitants. Adieu!
[Footnote 1: Herschel, having constructed the largest telescope that at
that time had ever been seen, in 1781 had given proof of its value by
the discovery of the _Georgium sidus_.]
_MRS. YEARSLEY--MADAME PIOZZI--GIBBON--"LE MARIAGE DE FIGARO."_