of his Lordship's important engagements did not allow of it; so I left the management of the business in the hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Soon after this time Dr. Johnson had the mortification of being informed by Mrs. Thrale, that "what she supposed he never believed," was true, namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, an Italian musick-master. He endeavoured to prevent it, but in vain. If she would publish the whole of the correspondence that passed between Dr. Johnson and her on the subject, we should have a full view of his real sentiments. As it is, our judgement must be biassed by that characteristick specimen, which Sir John Hawkins has given us: "Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice would have restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget, or pity."bl It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable portion of happiness from the comforts and elegancies which he enjoyed in Mr. Thrale's family; but Mrs. Thrale assures us he was indebted "Letters to Mrs. Thrale," Vol. II. p. 375. Dr. Johnson's Letter to Sir John Hawkins, 1 This opens a much discussed episode -namely, the final rupture of the long friendship between Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson. There was always great curiosity to see the whole correspondence, which consisted of two letters to Johnson, with his reply to each, and final rejoinder, which was of a friendly character. The whole was recently published in Mr. Hayward's "Biography," &c., of Mrs. Piozzi. It is as follows: "No. I. "Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson. "Bath, June 30. "MY DEAR SIR,-The enclosed is a circular letter which I have sent to all the guardians, but our friendship demands somewhat more; it requires that I should beg your pardon for concealing from you a connexion which you must have heard of by many, but I suppose never believed. Indeed, my dear Sir, it was concealed only to save us both needless pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would have killed me to take, and I only tell it you now because all is irrevocably settled and out of your power to prevent. I will say, however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some anxious "Life," p. 570. "SIR, As one of the executors of Mr. Thrale's will and guardian to his daughters, I think it my duty to acquaint you that the three eldest left Bath last Friday(25th) for their own house at Brighthelmstone in company with an amiable friend, Miss Nicholson, who has sometimes resided with us here, and in whose society they may, I think, find some advantages and certainly no disgrace. I waited on them to Salisbury, Wilton, &c., and offered to attend them to the seaside myself, but they preferred this lady's company to mine, having heard that Mr. Piozzi is coming back from Italy, and judging perhaps by our past friendship and continued correspondence that his return would be succeeded by our marriage. "I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant. "Bath, June 30, 1784.' for these to her husband alone, who certainly respected him sincerely. Her words are, "Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made me go on so long ■"Anecdotes,” p. 293. "No. 3.* "MADAM,-If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and served you, I who long thought you the first of womankind, entreat that, before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours, "SAM. JOHNSON. "July 2, 1784. "I will come down, if you permit it.' "What Johnson termed an 'adumbration' of this letter appeared in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for Dec. 1784: 666 'MADAM,—If you are already ignominiously married, you are lost beyond all redemption ;-if you are not, permit me one hour's conversation, to convince you that such a marriage must not take place. If, after a whole hour's reasoning, you should not be convinced, you will still be at liberty to act as you think proper. I have been extremely ill, and am still ill; but if you grant me the audience I ask, I will instantly take a post-chaise and attend you at Bath. Pray do not refuse this favour to a man who hath so many years loved and honoured you." "-Hayward. "The four words which I have printed in italics are indistinctly written, and cannot be satisfactorily made out.' -Hayward. The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first; his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner, and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which he has been always a zealous adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect it "I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so) you mean only that celebrity which is a consideration of a much lower kind. I care for that only as it may give pleasure to my husband and his friends. "Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard; but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us converse no more. God bless you.' "No. 5. "To Mrs. Piozzi. "London, July 8, 1784. ""DEAR MADAM,-What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me: I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere. "I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may be happy in this with Mr. Johnson; but the perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying, in the first years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; nor could I pretend to support it without help when my coadjutor was no more." Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have heard Mrs. Thrale make in his life-time, without a single murmur against any peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which attended their intimacy. As a sincere friend of the great man whose Life I am writing, I think it necessary to guard my readers against the mistaken notion world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched. "Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security; your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to Italy. "I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by giving it. "When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable stream that separated the two kingdoms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own affection pressed her to return. The Queen went forward. -If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther.-The tears stand in my eyes. "I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good wishes, for with great affection, I am, 646 'Your, &c. "Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me.' "In a memorandum on this letter, she says:- I wrote him (No. 6) a very kind and affectionate farewell.'" The lady only published the first and last of these letters, suppressing Johnson's rash attack and her own spirited reply. This was the subject of conversation at Mr. Windham's in the year 1791, when the substance of her letter was described at table by Sir Joshua ; which, it was added, "happened by some accident not to be returned to her with the rest of her letters."-(Maloniana, p. 412.) It was Miss Hawkins that found it, and brought it to her father, who returned it to her. As he had given a short abstract of it in his book, published before Mrs. Piozzi's letters, she must have known that it was in his possession, and where to obtain it. It is evident, therefore, that she could have published both letters if she pleased. to Fresh from the dinner just mentioned, Malone speaks of her as "that despicable woman," which seems to have been the opinion of the other guests. It must be said, that whatever right she had to follow her inclination, the records of her attachment reveal a deplorable degree of infatuation; and the spectacle of a matron of a mature age, with grown-up daughters, reduced to the point of death from her passion for a very ordinary being "an ugly dog," Johnson called him-does not inspire respect. To the point made in her letter as to her first husband's calling being inferior Piozzi's, though specious, it might have been answered, that when the clever brewer and his lady had secured so conspicuous a position in London society, in spite of such drawbacks, it showed a sordidness of mind to descend instead of rising. She owed this homage at least to the refined and accomplished society which had adopted her. She finally closed her indiscretions by offering marriage, when nearly eighty years old, to a young actor. In any case, the warmth of Johnson, who was then literally dying, might have been excused on the ground of its sincerity, as being the well-meant protest of an old friend. of Dr. Johnson's character, which this lady's "Anecdotes" of him suggest; for from the very nature and form of her book, it "lends deception lighter wings to fly." "Let it be remembered, (says an eminent critick,) that she has comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. Johnson in twenty years, during which period, doubtless, some severe things were said by him; and they who read the book in two hours, naturally enough suppose that his whole conversation was of this complexion. But the fact is, I have been often in his company, and never once heard him say a severe thing to any one; and many others can attest the same. When he did say a severe thing it was generally extorted by ignorance pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation. "Two instances of inaccuracy (adds he) are peculiarly worthy of notice : "It is said, 'That natural roughness of his manner so often mentioned, would, notwithstanding the regularity of his notions burst through them all from time to time; and he once bade a very cele brated lady, 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 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 compliment, he exclaimed, 'Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth before you bestow it so freely.' 1 "How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all these circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale either did not know, or has suppressed. • Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. 1 Mr. Croker and Mr. Hayward find no essential difference between the two versions. But the point of the story is found in the then obscurity of the person who was reproved; and the word VOL. III. "choaked" imparts an offensive air to Mrs. Piozzi's version of the rebuke. 2 Mr. Malone. There are some notes to the same effect in the Maloniana. 8 "She says, "One gentleman, however, who dined at a nobleman's house in his company, and that of Mr. Thrale, to whom I was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to enter the list in defence of King William's character; and having opposed and contradicted Fohnson two or three times, petulantly enough, the master of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect disagreeable consequences; to avoid which, he said, loud enough for the Doctor to hear-Our friend here has no meaning now in all this, except just to relate at club tomorrow how he teized 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. Fohnson, sternly,) if you do not see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace.' "This is all sophisticated. Mr. Thrale was not in the company, though he might heve related the story to Mrs. Thrale. A friend, from whom I had the story, was present; and it was not at the house of a nobleman. On the observation being made by the master of the house on a gentleman's contradicting Johnson, that he had talked for the honour, &c. the gentleman muttered, in a low voice, 'I see no honour in it;' and Dr. Johnson said nothing: so all the rest (though bien trouvée) is mere garnish."1 I have had occasion several times, in the course of this work, to point out the incorrectness of Mrs. Thrale, as to particulars which consisted with my own knowledge. But indeed she has, in flippant terms enough, expressed her disapprobation of that anxious desire of authenticity which prompts a person who is to record conversations, to write them down at the moment. Unquestionably, if they are to be recorded at all, the sooner it is done the better. This lady herself says, "To recollect, however, and to repeat the sayings of Dr. Johnson, is almost all that can be done by the writers of his Life; as his life, at least since my acquaintance with him, consisted in little else than talking, when he was not employed in some serious piece of work." She boasts of her having kept a common-place book; and, we find she noted, at one time or other, in a very lively manner, specimens of the conversations of Dr. Johnson, and of those who talked with him; but had she done it recently, they probably would have been less erroneous; and we should have been relieved "Anecdotes," p. 202. 'Mrs. Piozzi, in her marginal note on this passage, does not contradict Malone's statements, and adds, "it was • Ibid. p. 23. b Ibid. p. 44. the house of Thomas Fitzmaurice, son to Lord Shelburne, and Pottinger the hero " |