Chapter VII: Part 7

"All these exactnesses in a man who was nothing less than exact himself, made him extremely impracticable as an inmate, though most instructive as a companion, and useful as a friend. Mr. Thrale too could sometimes overrule his rigidity, by saying coldly, 'There, there, now we have had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson, we will not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you please,'--or some such speech; but when there was nobody to restrain his dislikes, it was extremely difficult to find any body with whom he could converse, without living always on the verge of a quarrel, or of something too like a quarrel to be pleasing. I came into the room, for example, one evening, where he and a gentleman, whose abilities we all respected exceedingly, were sitting; a lady who had walked in two minutes before me had blown 'em both into a flame, by whispering something to Mr. S----d, which he endeavoured to explain away, so as not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. 'And have a care, Sir,' said he, just as I came in; 'the old lion will not bear to be tickled.'[1] The other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth,

'So! you've displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting
With most admir'd disorder.'

"Such accidents, however, occurred too often, and I was forced to take advantage of my lost lawsuit, and plead inability of purse to remain longer in London or its vicinage. I had been crossed in my intentions of going abroad, and found it convenient, for every reason of health, peace, and pecuniary circumstances, to retire to Bath, where I knew Mr. Johnson would not follow me, and where I could for that reason command some little portion of time for my own use; a thing impossible while I remained at Streatham or at London, as my hours, carriage, and servants, had long been at his command, who would not rise in the morning till twelve o'clock perhaps, and oblige me to make breakfast for him till the bell rung for dinner, though much displeased if the toilet was neglected, and though much of the time we passed together was spent in blaming or deriding, very justly, my neglect of economy, and waste of that money which might make many families happy. The original reason of our connexion, his _particularly disordered health and spirits_[2], had been long at an end, and he had no other ailments than old age and general infirmity, which every professor of medicine was ardently zealous and generally attentive to palliate, and to contribute all in their power for the prolongation of a life so valuable.

"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 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. To the assistance we gave him, the shelter our house afforded to his uneasy fancies, and to the pains we took to soothe or repress them, the world perhaps is indebted for the three political pamphlets, the new edition and correction of his Dictionary, and for the Poets' Lives, which he would scarce have lived, I think, and kept his faculties entire, to have written, had not incessant care been exerted at the time of his first coming to be our constant guest in the country; and several times after that, when he found himself particularly oppressed with diseases incident to the most vivid and fervent imaginations. I shall for ever consider it as the greatest honour which could be conferred on any one, to have been the confidential friend of Dr. Johnson's health; and to have in some measure, with Mr. Thrale's assistance, saved from distress at least, if not from worse, a mind great beyond the comprehension of common mortals and good beyond all hope of imitation from perishable beings."

[Footnote 1: This must be the quarrel between Johnson and Seward at which Miss Streatfield cried. _(Ante,_ p. 116.)]

[Footnote 2: These words are underlined in the manuscript.]

This was written in Italy in 1785, when, painfully alive to the insults heaped upon her on Johnson's account, she may be excused for dwelling on what she had endured for his sake. But if, as may be inferred from her statement, some of the cordiality shewn him during the palmy days of their intimacy was forced, this rather enhances than lessens the merit of her services, which thus become elevated into sacrifices. The question is not how she uniformly felt, but how she uniformly behaved to him; and the fact of her being obliged to retire to Bath to get out of his way proves that there had been no rupture, no coolness, no serious offence given or taken on either side, up to April, 1783; just one year-and-a-half after the alleged expulsion from Streatham.

There were ample avowable reasons for her retirement, and no suspicion could have crossed Johnson's mind that he was an incumbrance, or he would not have been found at her house by Boswell, as he was found on the 21st March, 1783, when she said "she was going to Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. Johnson before I came." Considering the heart-rending struggle in which she was engaged at this time, with the aggravated infliction of an unsympathising and dogmatic friend, the wonder is how she retained her outward placidity at all.

"_Sunday Morning, 6th April_, 1783.--I have been very busy preparing to go to Bath and save my money; the Welch settlement has been examined and rewritten by Cator's desire in such a manner that a will can revoke it or charge the estate, or anything. I signed my settlement yesterday, and, before I slept, wrote my will, charging the estate with pretty near _3000l_. But what signifies it? My daughters deserve no thanks from my tenderness and they want no pecuniary help from my purse--let me provide in some measure, for my dear, my absent Piozzi.--God give me strength to part with him courageously.--I expect him every instant to breakfast with me for the _last time_.--Gracious Heavens, what words are these! Oh no, for mercy may we but meet again! and without diminished kindness. Oh my love, my love!

"We did meet and part courageously. I persuaded him to bring his old friend Mecci, who goes abroad with him and has long been his confidant, to keep the meeting from being too tender, the separation from being too poignant--his presence was a restraint on our conduct, and a witness of our vows, which we renewed with fervour, and will keep sacred in absence, adversity, and age. When all was over I flew to my dearest, loveliest friend, my Fanny Burney, and poured all my sorrows into her tender bosom."

"_Bath, April 14th, 1783._--Here I am, settled in my plan of economy, with three daughters, three maids and a man," &c.

Piozzi left England the night of the 8th May, 1783.

"Come, friendly muse! some rhimes discover
With which to meet my dear at Dover,
Fondly to bless my wandering lover
And make him dote on dirty Dover.
Call each fair wind to waft him over,
Nor let him linger long at Dover,
But there from past fatigues recover,
And write his love some lines from Dover.
Too well he knows his skill to move her,
To meet him two years hence at Dover,
When happy with her handsome rover
She'll bless the day she din'd at Dover."

"_Russell Street, Bath, Thursday, 8th May_, 1783.--I sent him these verses to divert him on his passage. Dear angel! _this day_ he leaves a nation to which he was sent for my felicity perhaps, I hope for his own. May I live but to make him happy, and hear him say 'tis _me_ that make him so!"--

In a note on the passage in which he states that Johnson studiously avoided all mention of Streatham or the family after Thrale's death, Hawkins says:--"It seems that between him and the widow there was a formal taking of leave, for I find in his Diary the following note: '1783, April 5th, I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I had some expostulations with her. She said she was likewise affected. I commended the Thrales with great good will to God; may my petitions have been heard.'" This being the day before her parting interview with Piozzi, no doubt she was much affected: and as the newspapers had already taken up the topic of her engagement, the expostulations probably referred to it.

Preceding commentators were not bound to know what is now learned from "Thraliana"; but they were bound to know what might always have been learned from Johnson's printed letters; and the tone of these from the separation in April, 1783, to the marriage in July, 1784, is identically the same as at any period of the intimacy which can be specified. There are the same warm expressions of regard, the same gratitude for acknowledged kindness, the same alternations of hope and disappointment, the same medical details, and the same reproaches for silence or fancied coldness, in which he habitually indulged towards all his female correspondents. Shew me a complaint or reproach, and I will instantly match it with one from a period when the intimacy was confessedly and notoriously at its height. If her occasional explosions of irritability are to be counted, what inference is to be drawn from Johnson's depreciatory remarks on her, and indeed on everybody, so carefully treasured up by Hawkins and Boswell?

On June 13th, 1783, he writes to her:

"Your last letter was very pleasing; it expressed kindness to me, and some degree of placid acquiescence in your present mode of life, _which is, I think, the best which is at present within your reach_.

"My powers and attention have for a long time been almost wholly employed upon my health, I hope not wholly without success, but solitude is very tedious."

She replies:

"Bath, June 15th, 1783.

"I believe it is too true, my dear Sir, that you think on little except yourself and your own health, but then they are subjects on which every one else would think too--and that is a great consolation.

"I am willing enough to employ all my thoughts upon _myself_, but there is nobody here who wishes to think with or about me, so I am very sick and a little sullen, and disposed now and then to say, like king David, 'My lovers and my friends have been put away from me, and my acquaintance hid out of my sight.' If the last letter I wrote showed some degree of placid acquiescence in a situation, which, however displeasing, is the best I can get at just now, I pray God to keep me in that disposition, and to lay no more calamity upon me which may again tempt me to murmur and complain. _In the meantime assure yourself of my undiminished kindness and veneration: they have been long out of accident's power either to lessen or increase."_....

"That _you_ should be solitary is a sad thing, and a strange one too, when every body is willing to drop in, and for a quarter of an hour at least, save you from a _tete-a-tete_ with yourself. I never could catch a moment when you were alone whilst we were in London, and Miss Thrale says the same thing."

A few days afterwards, June 19th, he writes:

"I am sitting down in no cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over now with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done you evil."

Two days before, he had suffered a paralytic stroke, and lost the power of speech for a period. After minutely detailing his ailments and their treatment by his medical advisers, he proceeds:

"How this will be received by you I know not. I hope you will sympathise with me; but perhaps

"My mistress gracious, mild, and good,
Cries! Is he dumb? 'Tis time he should.

"But can this be possible? I hope it cannot. I hope that what, when I could speak, I spoke of you, and to you, will be in a sober and serious hour remembered by you; and surely it cannot be remembered but with some degree of kindness. I have loved you with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let not all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great distress your pity and your prayers. _You see, I yet turn to you with my complaints as a settled and unalienable friend_; do not, do not drive me from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.

"O God! give me comfort and confidence in Thee; forgive my sins; and if it be thy good pleasure, relieve my diseases for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

_"I am almost ashamed of this querulous letter, but now it is written, let it go."_

The Edinburgh reviewer quotes the first paragraph of this letter to prove Johnson's consciousness of change on her side, and omits all mention of the passages in which he turns to her as "a settled and unalienable friend," and apologises for his querulousness!

Some time before (November 1782), she had written to him:

"My health is growing very bad, to be sure. I will starve still more rigidly for a while, and watch myself carefully; but more than six months will I not bestow upon that subject; you shall not have in me a valetudinary correspondent, _who is always writing such letters, that to read the labels tied on bottles by an apothecary's boy would be more eligible and amusing_; nor will I live, like Flavia in 'Law's Serious Call,' who spends half her time and money on herself, with sleeping draughts, and waking draughts, and cordials and broths. My desire is always to determine against my own gratification, so far as shall be possible for my body to co-operate with my mind, and you will not suspect me of wearing blisters, and living wholly upon vegetables for sport. If that will do, the disorder may be removed; but if health is gone, and gone for ever, we will act as Zachary Pearce the famous bishop of Rochester did, when he lost the wife he loved so--call for one glass to the health of her who is departed, never more to return--and so go quietly back to the usual duties of life, and forbear to mention her again from that time till the last day of it."

Instead of acting on the same principle, he perseveres in addressing his "ideal Urania" as if she had been a consulting physician:

"London, June 20th, 1783.

"DEAREST MADAM,--I think to send you for some time a regular diary. You will forgive the gross images which disease must necessarily present. Dr. Lawrence said that medical treatises should be always in Latin. The two vesicatories did not perform well," &c. &c.

"June 23, 1783.

"_Your offer, dear Madam, of coming to me, is charmingly kind_; but I will lay it up for future use, and then let it not be considered as obsolete; _a time of dereliction may come, when I may have hardly any other friend_, but in the present exigency I cannot name one who has been deficient in civility or attention. What man can do for man has been done for me. Write to me very often."

That the offer was serious and heartfelt, is clear from "Thraliana":

"_Bath, June 24th_, 1783.--A stroke of the palsy has robbed Johnson of his speech, I hear. Dreadful event! and I at a distance. Poor fellow! A letter from himself, _in his usual style_, convinces me that none of his faculties have failed, and his physicians say that all present danger is over."

He writes:

"June 24th, 1783.

"Both Queeny's letter and yours gave me, to-day, great pleasure. Think as well and as kindly of me as you can, but do not flatter me. Cool reciprocations of esteem are the great comforts of life; hyberbolical praise only corrupts the tongue of the one, and the ear of the other."

"June 28th, 1783.

"Your letter is just such as I desire, and as from you I hope always to deserve."

Her own state of mind at this time may be collected from "Thraliana":

"_June, _1783.--Most sincerely do I regret the sacrifice I have made of health, happiness, and the society of a worthy and amiable companion, to the pride and prejudice of three insensible girls, who would see nature perish without concern ... were their gratification the cause.

"The two youngest have, for ought I see, hearts as impenetrable as their sister. They will all starve a favourite animal--all see with unconcern the afflictions of a friend; and when the anguish I suffered on their account last winter, in Argyll Street, nearly took away my life and reason, the younger ridiculed as a jest those agonies which the eldest despised as a philosopher. When all is said, they are exceeding valuable girls--beautiful in person, cultivated in understanding, and well-principled in religion: high in their notions, lofty in their carriage, and of intents equal to their expectations; wishing to raise their own family by connections with some more noble ... and superior to any feeling of tenderness which might clog the wheels of ambition. What, however, is my state? who am condemned to live with girls of this disposition? to teach without authority; to be heard without esteem; to be considered by them as their superior in fortune, while I live by the money borrowed from them; and in good sense, when they have seen me submit my judgment to theirs at the hazard of my life and wits. Oh, 'tis a pleasant situation! and whoever would wish, as the Greek lady phrased it, to teize himself and repent of his sins, let him borrow his children's money, be in love against their interest and prejudice, forbear to marry by their advice, and then shut himself up and live with them."[1]

[Footnote 1: After Buckingham had been some time married to Fairfax's daughter, he said it was like marrying the devil's daughter and keeping house with your father-in-law.]

Is it possible to misconstrue such a letter as the following from Johnson to her, now that the querulous and desponding tone of the writer is familiar to us?

"London, Nov. 13th, 1783.

"DEAR MADAM,--Since you have written to me with the attention and tenderness of ancient time, your letters give me a great part of the pleasure which a life of solitude admits. You will never bestow any share of your good-will on one who deserves better. Those that have loved longest, love best. A sudden blaze of kindness may by a single blast of coldness be extinguished, but that fondness which length of time has connected with many circumstances and occasions, though it may for a while be suppressed by disgust or resentment, with or without a cause, is hourly revived by accidental recollection.[1] To those that have lived long together, every thing heard and every thing seen recals some pleasure communicated, or some benefit conferred, some petty quarrel, or some slight endearment. Esteem of great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered, may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life. A friend may be often found and lost, but an _old friend_ never can be found, and Nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost."

[Footnote 1:

"Yet, oh yet thyself deceive not:
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away."--BYRON.]

The date of the following scene, as described by Madame D'Arblay in the "Memoirs," is towards the end of November, 1783:

"Nothing had yet publicly transpired, with certainty or authority, relative to the projects of Mrs. Thrale, who had now been nearly a year at Bath[1]; though nothing was left unreported, or unasserted, with respect to her proceedings. Nevertheless, how far Dr. Johnson was himself informed, or was ignorant on the subject, neither Dr. Burney nor his daughter could tell; and each equally feared to learn.

"Scarcely an instant, however, was the latter left alone in Bolt Court, ere she saw the justice of her long apprehensions; for while she planned speaking upon some topic that might have a chance to catch the attention of the Doctor, a sudden change from kind tranquillity to strong austerity took place in his altered countenance; and, startled and affrighted, she held her peace....

"Thus passed a few minutes, in which she scarcely dared breathe; while the respiration of the Doctor, on the contrary, was of asthmatic force and loudness; then, suddenly turning to her, with an air of mingled wrath and woe, he hoarsely ejaculated: 'Piozzi!'

"He evidently meant to say more; but the effort with which he articulated that name robbed him of any voice for amplification, and his whole frame grew tremulously convulsed.

"His guest, appalled, could not speak; but he soon discerned that it was grief from coincidence, not distrust from opposition of sentiment, that caused her taciturnity. This perception calmed him, and he then exhibited a face 'in sorrow more than anger.' His see-sawing abated of its velocity, and, again fixing his looks upon the fire, he fell into pensive rumination.

"At length, and with great agitation, he broke forth with: 'She cares for no one! You, only--You, she loves still!--but no one--and nothing else!--You she still loves----'

"A half smile now, though of no very gay character, softened a little the severity of his features, while he tried to resume some cheerfulness in adding: 'As ... she loves her little finger!'

"It was plain by this burlesque, or, perhaps, playfully literal comparison, that he meant now, and tried, to dissipate the solemnity of his concern.

"The hint was taken; his guest started another subject; and this he resumed no more. He saw how distressing was the theme to a hearer whom he ever wished to please, not distress; and he named Mrs. Thrale no more! Common topics took place, till they were rejoined by Dr. Burney, whom then, and indeed always, he likewise spared upon this subject."

[Footnote 1: About six months.]

After quoting this description at length, Lord Brougham remarks:

"Now Johnson was, perhaps unknown to himself, in love with Mrs. Thrale, but for Miss Burney's thoughtless folly there can be no excuse. And her father, a person of the very same rank and profession with Mr. Piozzi, appears to have adopted the same senseless cant, as if it were less lawful to marry an Italian musician than an English. To be sure, Miss Burney says, that Mrs. Thrale was lineally descended from Adam de Saltsburg, who came over with the Conqueror. But assuredly that worthy, unable to write his name, would have held Dr. Johnson himself in as much contempt as his fortunate rival, and would have regarded his alliance as equally disreputable with the Italian's, could his consent have been asked."[1]

[Footnote 1: Lives of Men of Letters, &c, vol. ii.]

If the scene took place at all, it must have taken place within a few days after the profession of satisfied and unaltered friendship contained in Johnson's letter of November 13th. His next letter is to Miss Thrale:

"Nov. 18th, 1783.

"Dear Miss,--Here is a whole week, and nothing heard from your house. Baretti said what a wicked house it would be, and a wicked house it is. Of you, however, I have no complaint to make, for I owe you a letter. Still I live here by my own self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to dinner, which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered."

On February 24th, 1784, Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy:

"Poor Dr. Johnson has had a very bad winter, attended by Heberden and Brocklesby, who neither of them expected he would have survived the frost: that being gone, he still remains, and I hope will now continue, at least till the next severe one. It has indeed carried off a great many old people."

Johnson to Mrs. Thrale:

"March 10th, 1784.

"Your kind expressions gave me great pleasure; do not reject me from your thoughts. Shall we ever exchange confidence by the fireside again?"

He was so absorbed with his own complaints as to make no allowance for hers. Yet her health was in a very precarious state, and in the autumn of the same year, his complaints of silence and neglect were suspended by the intelligence that her daughter Sophia was lying at death's door. On March 27th, 1784, she writes:

"You tell one of my daughters that you know not with distinctness the cause of my complaints. I believe she who lives with me knows them no better; one very dreadful one is however removed by dear Sophia's recovery. It is kind in you to quarrel no more about expressions which were not meant to offend; but unjust to suppose, I have not lately thought myself dying. Let us, however, take the Prince of Abyssinia's advice, _and not add to the other evils of life the bitterness of controversy._ If courage is a noble and generous quality, let us exert it _to_ the last, and _at_ the last: if faith is a Christian virtue, let us willingly receive and accept that support it will most surely bestow--and do permit me to repeat those words with which I know not why you were displeased: _Let us leave behind us the best example that we can_.

"All this is not written by a person in high health and happiness, but by a fellow-sufferer, who has more to endure than she can tell, or you can guess; and now let us talk of the Severn salmons, which will be coming in soon; I shall send you one of the finest, and shall be glad to hear that your appetite is good."

Johnson to Mrs. Thrale:

"April 21st, 1784.

"The Hooles, Miss Burney, and Mrs. Hull (Wesley's sister), feasted yesterday with me very cheerfully on your noble salmon. Mr. Allen could not come, and I sent him a piece, and a great tail is still left."

"April 26th, 1784.

"Mrs. Davenant called to pay me a guinea, but I gave two for you. Whatever reasons you have for frugality, it is not worth while to save a guinea a year by withdrawing it from a public charity."

"Whilst I am writing, the post has brought me your kind letter. Do not think with dejection of your own condition: a little patience will probably give you health: it will certainly give you riches, and all the accommodations that riches can procure."

Up to this time she had put an almost killing restraint on her inclinations, and had acted according to Johnson's advice in everything but the final abandonment of Piozzi; yet Boswell reports him as saying, May 16th: "Sir, she has done everything wrong since Thrale's bridle was off her neck."

The next extracts are from "Thraliana":

"_Bath, Nov. 30th, 1783._--Sophia will live and do well; I have saved my daughter, perhaps obtained a friend. They are weary of seeing me suffer so, and the eldest beg'd me yesterday not to sacrifice my life to her convenience. She now saw my love of Piozzi was incurable, she said. Absence had no effect on it, and my health was going so fast she found that I should soon be useless either to her or him. It was the hand of God and irresistible, she added, and begged me not to endure any longer such unnecessary misery.

"So now we may be happy if we will, and now I trust _some_ [_(sic) query "no?_"] other cross accident will start up to torment us; I wrote my lover word that he might come and fetch me, but the Alps are covered with snow, and if his prudence is not greater than his affection--my life will yet be lost, for it depends on his safety. Should he come at my call, and meet with any misfortune on the road ... death, with accumulated agonies, would end me. May Heaven avert such insupportable distress!"

"_Dec._ 1783.--My dearest Piozzi's Miss Chanon is in distress. I will send her 10_l_. Perhaps he loved her; perhaps she loved _him_; perhaps both; yet I have and will have confidence in his honour. I will not suffer love or jealousy to narrow a heart devoted to _him_. He would assist her if he were in England, and _she_ shall not suffer for his absence, tho' I _do_. She and her father have reported many things to my prejudice; she will be ashamed of herself when she sees me forgive and assist her. O Lord, give me grace so to return good for evil as to obtain thy gracious favour who died to procure the salvation of thy professed enemies. 'Tis a good Xmas work!"

"_Bath, Jan. 27th_, 1784.--On this day twelvemonths ... oh dreadfullest of all days to me I did I send for my Piozzi and tell him we must part. The sight of my countenance terrified Dr. Pepys, to whom I went into the parlour for a moment, and the sight of the agonies I endured in the week following would have affected anything but interest, avarice, and pride personified, ... with such, however, I had to deal, so my sorrows were unregarded. Seeing them continue for a whole year, indeed, has mollified my strong-hearted companions, and they _now_ relent in earnest and wish me happy: I would now therefore be _loath to dye_, yet how shall I recruit my constitution so as to live? The pardon certainly did arrive the very instant of execution--for I was ill beyond all power of description, when my eldest daughter, bursting into tears, bid me call home the man of my heart, and not expire by slow torture in the presence of my children, who had my life in their power. 'You are dying _now_,' said she. 'I know it,' replied I, 'and I should die in peace had I but seen him _once again_.' 'Oh send for him,' said she, 'send for him quickly!' 'He is at Milan, child,' replied I, 'a thousand miles off!' 'Well, well,' returns she, 'hurry him back, or I myself will send him an express.' At these words I revived, and have been mending ever since. This was the first time that any of us had named the name of Piozzi to each other since we had put our feet into the coach to come to Bath. I had always thought it a point of civility and prudence never to mention what could give nothing but offence, and cause nothing but disgust, while they desired nothing less than a revival of old uneasiness; so we were all silent on the subject, and Miss Thrale thought him dead."

According to the Autobiography, the daughters did not conclusively relent till the end of April or the beginning of May, when a missive was dispatched for Piozzi, and Mrs. Thrale went to London to make the requisite preparations.

_Mrs. Thrale to Miss F. Burney_.

"Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square,
"Tuesday Night, May, 1784.

"I am come, dearest Burney. It is neither dream nor fiction; though I love you dearly, or I would not have come. Absence and distance do nothing towards wearing out real affection; so you shall always find it in your true and tender H.L.T.

"I am somewhat shaken bodily, but 'tis the mental shocks that have made me unable to bear the corporeal ones. 'Tis past ten o'clock, however, and I must lay myself down with the sweet expectation of seeing my charming friend in the morning to breakfast. I love Dr. Burney too well to fear him, and he loves me too well to say a word which should make me love him less."

_Journal (Madame D'Arblay's) Resumed_.

"May 17.--Let me now, my Susy, acquaint you a little more connectedly than I have done of late how I have gone on. The rest of that week I devoted almost wholly to sweet Mrs. Thrale, whose society was truly the most delightful of cordials to me, however, at times mixed with bitters the least palatable.

"One day I dined with Mrs. Grarrick to meet Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Carter, Miss Hamilton, and Dr. and Miss Cadogan; and one evening I went to Mrs. Vesey, to meet almost everybody,--the Bishop of St. Asaph, and all the Shipleys, Bishop Chester and Mrs. Porteous, Mrs. and Miss Ord, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Miss Palmer, Mrs. Buller, all the Burrows, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Grarrick, and Miss More, and some others. But all the rest of my time I gave wholly to dear Mrs. Thrale, who lodged in Mortimer Street, and who saw nobody else. Were I not sensible of her goodness, and full of incurable affection for her, should I not be a monster?

* * * * *

"I parted most reluctantly with my dear Mrs. Thrale, whom, when or how, I shall see again, Heaven only knows! but in sorrow we parted--on _my_ side in real affliction."

The excursion is thus mentioned in "Thraliana": "_28th May_, 1784.--Here is the most sudden and beautiful spring ever seen after a dismal winter: so may God grant me a renovation of comfort after my many and sharp afflictions. I have been to London for a week to visit Fanny Burney, and to talk over my intended (and I hope approaching) nuptials, with Mr. Borghi: a man, as far as I can judge in so short an acquaintance with him, of good sense and real honour:--who loves my Piozzi, _likes_ my conversation, and wishes to serve us sincerely. He has recommended Duane to take my power of attorney, and Cator's loss will be the less felt. Duane's name is as high as the Monument, and his being known familiarly to Borghi will perhaps quicken his attention to our concerns.

"Dear Burney, who loves me _kindly_ but the world _reverentially_, was, I believe, equally pained as delighted with my visit: ashamed to be seen in my company, much of her fondness for me must of course be diminished; yet she had not chatted freely so long with anybody but Mrs. Philips, that my coming was a comfort to her. We have told all to her father, and he behaved with the utmost propriety.

"Nobody likes my settling at Milan except myself and Piozzi; but I think 'tis nobody's affair but our own: it seems to me quite irrational to expose ourselves to unnecessary insults, and by going straight to Italy all will be avoided."

The crisis is told in "Thraliana":

"_10th June_, 1784.--I sent these lines to meet Piozzi on his return. They are better than those he liked so last year at Dover:

"Over mountains, rivers, vallies,
See my love returns to Calais,
After all their taunts and malice,
Ent'ring safe the gates of Calais,
While delay'd by winds he dallies,
Fretting to be kept at Calais,
Muse, prepare some sprightly sallies
To divert my dear at Calais,
Say how every rogue who rallies
Envies him who waits at Calais
For her that would disdain a Palace
Compar'd to Piozzi, Love, and Calais."

"_24th June_, 1784.--He is set out sure enough, here are letters from Turin to say so.... Now the Misses _must_ move; they are very loath to stir: from affection perhaps, or perhaps from art--'tis difficult to know.--Oh 'tis, yes, it is from tenderness, they want me to go with them to see Wilton, Stonehenge, &c.--I _will_ go with them to be sure."

"_27th June, Sunday_.--We went to Wilton, and also to Fonthill; they make an admirable and curious contrast between ancient magnificence and modern glare: Gothic and Grecian again, however. A man of taste would rather possess Lord Pembroke's seat, or indeed a single room in it; but one feels one should live happier at Beckford's.--My daughters parted with me at last prettily enough _considering_ (as the phrase is). We shall perhaps be still better friends apart than together. Promises of correspondence and kindness were very sweetly reciprocated, and the eldest wished for Piozzi's safe return very obligingly.

"I fancy two days more will absolutely bring him to Bath. The present moments are critical and dreadful, and would shake stronger nerves than mine! Oh Lord, strengthen me to do Thy will I pray."

"_28th June_.--I am not _yet sure of_ seeing him again--not _sure_ he lives, not _sure_ he loves me _yet_.... Should anything happen now!! Oh, I will not trust myself with such a fancy: it will either kill me or drive me distracted."

"_Bath, 2nd July_, 1784.--The happiest day of my whole life, I think--Yes, quite the happiest: my Piozzi came home yesterday and dined with me; but my spirits were too much agitated, my heart was too much dilated. I was too _painfully_ happy _then_; my sensations are more quiet to-day, and my felicity less tumultuous."

Written in the margin of the last entry--"We shall go to London about the affairs, and there be married in the Romish Church."

"_25th July_, 1784.--I am returned from church the happy wife of my lovely faithful Piozzi ... subject of my prayers, object of my wishes, my sighs, my reverence, my esteem.--His nerves have been horribly shaken, yet he lives, he loves me, and will be mine for ever. He has sworn, in the face of God and the whole Christian Church; Catholics, Protestants, all are witnesses."

In one of her memorandum books she has set down:

"We were married according to the Romish Church in one of our excursions to London, by Mr. Smith, Padre Smit as they called him, chaplain to the Spanish Ambassador.... Mr. Morgan tacked us together at St. James's, Bath, 25th July, 1784, and on the first day I think of September, certainly the first week, we took leave of England."

When her first engagement with Piozzi became known, the newspapers took up the subject, and rang the changes on the amorous disposition of the widow, and the adroit cupidity of the fortune-hunter. On the announcement of the marriage, they recommenced the attack, and people of our day can hardly form a notion of the storm of obloquy that broke upon her, except from its traces, which have never been erased. To this hour, we may see them in the confirmed prejudices of writers like Mr. Croker and Lord Macaulay, who, agreeing in little else, agree in denouncing "this miserable _mes_alliance" with one who figures in their pages sometimes as a music-master, sometimes as a fiddler, never by any accident in his real character of a professional singer and musician of established reputation, pleasing manners, ample means, and unimpeachable integrity. The repugnance of the daughters to the match was reasonable and intelligible, but to appreciate the tone taken by her friends, we must bear in mind the social position of Italian singers and musical performers at the period. "Amusing vagabonds" are the epithets by which Lord Byron designates Catalani and Naldi, in 1809[1]; and such is the light in which they were undoubtedly regarded in 1784. Mario would have been treated with the same indiscriminating illiberality as Piozzi.

[Footnote 1:

"Well may the nobles of our present race
Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face;
Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons,
And worship Catalani's pantaloons."

"Naldi and Catalani require little notice; for the visage of the one and the salary of the other will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagabonds."--_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Artists in general, and men of letters by profession, did not rank much higher in the fine world. (See Miss Berry's "England and France," vol. ii. p. 42.) A German author, non-noble, had a _liaison_ with a Prussian woman of rank. On her husband's death he proposed marriage, and was indignantly refused. The lady was conscious of no degradation from being his mistress, but would have forfeited both caste and self-respect by becoming his wife.]

Did those who took the lead in censuring or repudiating Mrs. Piozzi, ever attempt to enter into her feelings, or weigh her conduct with reference to its tendency to promote her own happiness? Could they have done so, had they tried? Rarely can any one so identify himself or herself with another as to be sure of the soundness of the counsel or the justice of the reproof. She was neither impoverishing her children (who had all independent fortunes) nor abandoning them. She was setting public opinion at defiance, which is commonly a foolish thing to do; but what is public opinion to a woman whose heart is breaking, and who finds, after a desperate effort, that she is unequal to the sacrifice demanded of her? She accepted Piozzi deliberately, with full knowledge of his character; and she never repented of her choice.

The Lady Cathcart, whose romantic story is mentioned in "Castle Rackrent," was wont to say:--"I have been married three times; the first for money, the second for rank, the third for love; and the third was worst of all." Mrs. Piozzi's experience would have led to an opposite conclusion. Her love match was a singularly happy one; and the consciousness that she had transgressed conventional observances or prejudices, not moral rules, enabled her to outlive and bear down calumny.[1]

[Footnote 1: The _pros_ and _cons_ of the main question at issue are well stated in _Corinne_: "Ah, pour heureux,' interrompit le Comte d'Erfeuil, 'je n'en crois rien: on n'est heureux que par ce qui est convenable. La societe a, quoi qu'on fasse, beaucoup d'empire sur le bonheur; et ce qu'elle n'approuve pas, il ne faut jamais le faire.' 'On vivrait done toujours pour ce que la societe dira de nous,' reprit Oswald; 'et ce qu'on pense et, ce qu'on sent ne servirait jamais de guide.' 'C'est tres bien dit,' reprit le comte, 'tres-philosophiquement pense; mais avec ces maximes la, l'on se perd; et quand l'amour est passe, le blame de l'opinion reste. Moi qui vous parais leger, je ne ferai jamais rien qui puisse m'attirer la desapprobation du monde. On peut se permettre de petites libertes, d'aimables plaisanteries, qui annoncent de l'independance dans la maniere d'agir; car, quand cela touche au serieux.'--'Mais le serieux, repondit Lord Nelvil, 'c'est l'amour et le bonheur.'"--_Corinne_, liv. ix. ch. 1.]

In reference to these passages, the Edinburgh reviewer remarks:

"Nothing can be more reasonable; and we should certainly live in a more peaceful (if not more entertaining) world, if nobody in it reproved another until he had so far identified himself with the culprit as to be sure of the justice of the reproof; perhaps, also, if a fiddler were rated higher in society than a duke without accomplishments, and a carpenter far higher than either. But neither reasoning nor gallantry will alter the case, nor prevail over the world's prejudice against unequal marriages, any more than its prejudices in favour of birth and fashion. It has never been quite established to the satisfaction of the philosophic mind, why the rule of society should be that 'as the husband, so the wife is,' and why a lady who contracts a marriage below her station is looked on with far severer eyes than a gentleman _qui s'encanaille_ to the same degree. But these things are so,--as the next dame of rank and fortune, and widow of an M.P., who, rashly relying on Mr. Hayward's assertion that the world has grown wiser, espouses a foreign 'professional,' will assuredly find to her cost, although she may escape the ungenerous public attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with literary men."

In 1784 they hanged for crimes which we should think adequately punished by a short imprisonment; as they hooted and libelled for transgressions or errors which, whatever their treatment by a portion of our society, would certainly not provoke the thunders of our press. I think (though I made no assertion of the kind) that the world has grown wiser; and the reviewer admits as much when he says that his supposititious widow "may escape the ungenerous public attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with literary men." But where do I recommend unequal marriages, or dispute the claims of birth and fashion, or maintain that a fiddler should be rated higher than a duke without accomplishments, and a carpenter _far_ higher than either? All this is utterly beside the purpose; and surely there is nothing reprehensible in the suggestion that, before harshly reproving another, we should do our best to test the justice of the reproof by trying to make the case our own. Goethe proposed to extend the self-same rule to criticism. One of his favourite canons was that a critic should always endeavour to place himself temporarily in the author's point of view. If the reviewer had done so, he might have avoided several material misapprehensions and misstatements, which it is difficult to reconcile with the friendly tone of the article or the known ability of the writer.

Envy at Piozzi's good fortune sharpened the animosity of assailants like Baretti, and the loss of a pleasant house may have had a good deal to do with the sorrowing indignation of her set. Her meditated social extinction amongst them might have been commemorated in the words of the French epitaph:

"Ci git une de qui la vertu
Etait moins que la table encensee;
On ne plaint point la femme abattue,
Mais bien la table renversee."

Which may be freely rendered:

"Here lies one who adulation
By dinners more than virtues earn'd;
Whose friends mourned not her reputation--
But her table--overturned."

Madame D'Arblay has recorded what took place between Mrs. Piozzi and herself on the occasion:

_Miss F. Burney to Mrs. Piozzi_.

"Norbury Park, Aug. 10, 1784.

"When my wondering eyes first looked over the letter I received last night, my mind instantly dictated a high-spirited vindication of the consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the cooler judgment of future reflection. Committing myself, therefore, to that period, I determined simply to assure you, that if my last letter hurt either you or Mr. Piozzi, I am no less sorry than surprised; and that if it offended you, I sincerely beg your pardon.

"Not to that time, however, can I wait to acknowledge the pain an accusation so unexpected has caused me, nor the heartfelt satisfaction with which I shall receive, when you are able to write it, a softer renewal of regard.

"May Heaven direct and bless you!

"F.B.

"N.B. This is the sketch of the answer which F.B. most painfully wrote to the unmerited reproach of not sending _cordial congratulations_ upon a marriage which she had uniformly, openly, and with deep and avowed affliction, thought wrong."

_Mrs. Piozzi to Miss Burney_.

"'Wellbeck Street, No. 33, Cavendish Square.
"'Friday, Aug. 13, 1784.

"'Give yourself no serious concern, sweetest Burney, All is well, and I am too happy myself to make a friend otherwise; quiet your kind heart immediately, and love my husband if you love his and your

"'H.L. PIOZZI.'

"N.B. To this kind note, F.B. wrote the warmest and most affectionate and heartfelt reply; but never received another word! And here and thus stopped a correspondence of six years of almost unequalled partiality, and fondness on her side; and affection, gratitude, admiration, and sincerity on that of F.B., who could only conjecture the cessation to be caused by the resentment of Piozzi, when informed of her constant opposition to the union."

If F.B. thought it wrong, she knew it to be inevitable, and in the conviction that it was so, she and her father had connived at the secret preparations for it in the preceding May.

A very distinguished friend, whose masterly works are the result of a consummate study of the passions, after dwelling on the "impertinence" of the hostility her marriage provoked, writes: "She was evidently a very vain woman, but her vanity was sensitive, and very much allied to that exactingness of heart which gives charm and character to woman. I suspect it was this sensitiveness which made her misunderstood by her children." The justness of this theory of her conduct is demonstrated by the self-communings in "Thraliana;" and she misunderstood them as much as they misunderstood her. By her own showing she had little reason to complain of what they _did_ in the matter of the marriage; it was what they said, or rather did not say, that irritated her. She yearned for sympathy, which was sternly, chillingly, almost insultingly withheld.

In 1800, she wrote thus to Dr. Gray: "What a good example have you set them (his children)! going to visit dear mama at Twickenham--long may they keep their parents, pretty creatures! and long may they have sense to know and feel that no love is like parental affection,--the only good perhaps which cannot be flung away."[1]

[Footnote 1: "We may have many friends in life, but we can only have one mother: a discovery, says Gray, which I never made till it was too late."--ROGERS.]

Madame D'Arblay states that her father was not disinclined to admit Mrs. Piozzi's right to consult her own notions of happiness in the choice of a second husband, had not the paramount duty of watching over her unmarried daughters interfered. But they might have accompanied her to Italy as was once contemplated; and had they done so, they would have seen everything and everybody in it under the most favourable auspices. The course chosen for them by the eldest was the most perilous of the two submitted for their choice. The lady, Miss Nicholson, whom their mother had so carefully selected as their companion, soon left them; or according to another version was summarily dismissed by Miss Thrale (afterwards Viscountess Keith), who fortunately was endowed with high principle, firmness, and energy. She could not take up her abode with either of her guardians, one a bachelor under forty, the other the prototype of Briggs, the old miser in "Caecilia." She could not accept Johnson's hospitality in Bolt Court, still tenanted by the survivors of his menagerie; where, a few months later, she sate by his death-bed and received his blessing. She therefore called to her aid an old nurse-maid, named Tib, who had been much trusted by her father, and with this homely but respectable duenna, she shut herself up in the house at Brighton, limited her expenses to her allowance of 200_l._ a-year, and resolutely set about the course of study which seemed best adapted to absorb attention and prevent her thoughts from wandering. Hebrew, Mathematics, Fortification, and Perspective have been named to me by one of trusted friends as specimens of her acquirements and her pursuits.

"There's a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we may."

In that solitary abode at Brighton, and in the companionship of Tib, may have been laid the foundation of a character than which few, through the changeful scenes of a long and prosperous life, have exercised more beneficial influence or inspired more genuine esteem. On coming of age, and being put into possession of her fortune, she hired a house in London, and took her two eldest sisters to live with her. They had been at school whilst she was living at Brighton. The fourth and youngest, afterwards Mrs. Mostyn, had accompanied the mother. On the return of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi, Miss Thrale made a point of paying them every becoming attention, and Piozzi was frequently dining with her. Latterly, she used to speak of him as a very worthy sort of man, who was not to blame for marrying a rich and distinguished woman who took a fancy to him. The other sisters seem to have adopted the same tone; and so far as I can learn, no one of them is open to the imputation of filial unkindness, or has suffered from maternal neglect in a manner to bear out Dr. Burney's forebodings by the result. Occasional expressions of querulousness are matters of course in family differences, and are seldom totally suppressed by the utmost exertion of good feeling and good sense.