Chapter V (1)

Adoption of John Salusbury Piozzi--The _Canterbury Tales_--Bath
Riots, 1800--Chancery suit with Miss Thrale--Bach-y-graig
restored--_Retrospection_ published, 1801--The Blagdon
controversy--Political epigram.

The Piozzis were at Bath on Christmas Day, when she invites Mrs. Pennington to their lodgings for the New Year. The date of the next letter indicates that their visit lasted about four months.

BRYNBELLA, _Sunday, Mar. 10, 1799_.

_First_ of friends in every sense of the word, dear and kind
Mrs. Pennington! what a charming letter have you written me! and
how consoling it was to receive such a compensation--although a
small one--for the converse I have so great reason to regret.

Our journey was excellent, and mended on us ev'ry Stage, till
the sun lighted up our lovely Vale of Clwydd, and never seen
before ascending the last hill, has smiled upon us ever since.

I shall not begin work till after Easter, we have enough to
employ us now in surveying our sweet place, and recounting the
_Braave alteraations_, as the Fool said to Mr. Whalley....

Are not you sorry for the poor tricked and betrayed, but ever
courageous Neapolitans; of which those were happiest who left
their dead bodies in the street, defending their lovely city to
the last? Vesuvius seems to have half a mind to save further
disgrace on that country, and will perhaps swallow it up,
_from_ the French, or _with_ the French; who knows?

Well! I got dear Dr. Randolph's blessing, and a kind squeeze
by the hand of his amiable Lady, before we left Bath: and then
I resolved to mind my own business, and let the Public think
of its own affairs. They mingle so with _mine_ however, that I
cannot separate them, as Siddons does. Her little girl seemed
bent upon shewing me, that day we dined at Miss Lee's, and made
our Partenza, how well you were versed in the knowledge of her
family character. She is sure enough no common child, no healthy
child, and no good-humoured child. If she remains at Belvedere
House, she will not long be a spoiled child; for those Ladies
_have the way_, and will make her a charming creature. _We
parents_ meantime seldom think our nestlings _can_ be improved.
It is therefore _very seldom_, (never I think,) that we feel
obliged to those who bring our Babies into what the world calls
_good order_. I should think it happiness for Cecilia to remain
where she is, and felicity for Miss Lees to return her safe home
again in April....

Mrs. Mostyn sent the old Nurse I told you of, over here in
a Post Chaise, to see Brynbella while we were away. "What a
place!" exclaimed she, "and what fools the builders to plan a
thing it is impossible they should live to finish. But they have
an heir now, come from Italy I find." This is the only domestic
news which could interest _you_; and I know Mr. Pennington is
kind enough to care about whatever concerns us and our little
boy....

As far back as October 1798 King Ferdinand of Naples had raised an army to act under the Austrian General Mack, for the expulsion of the French. Nelson's arrival in December encouraged him to make an expedition against Rome which was, for the moment, successful; but in a short time the French retook it, and marched on Naples, which they occupied in January, after sixty-four hours street fighting with the Lazzaroni, the regular troops being away. The King took refuge on Nelson's ship and escaped to Palermo, General Mack and the army had to surrender, and the territory became, for a short time, the Parthenopean Republic.

The Rev. Francis Randolph, D.D., Prebendary of Bristol, and afterwards Vicar of Banwell, was a preacher of some note, and for some time acted as chaplain and tutor in English to the Duchess of Kent, at the little Court of Amorbach, shortly before the birth of the Princess Victoria.

One result of the disturbances in Italy was the bringing over to England and adoption of a son of Mr. Piozzi's brother Gianbatista, merchant of Brescia, born in 1783, and christened John Salusbury. He assumed the additional surname of Salusbury in 1813, and was knighted while High Sheriff of Denbigh a few years later. On his marriage Mrs. Piozzi gave him Brynbella and her Welsh estate, a proceeding which probably completed the estrangement of her daughters, though they had been well provided for by their father's will, and Miss Thrale had declined the offer of it as a dowry for herself.

BRYNBELLA, _5 Apr. 1799_.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's letters are always delightful, and the
little gleam of sunshine given by the Archduke's victory strikes
across the middle of your last so prettily! So like the darling
brightness that illuminates our valley just now, with gloom and
gathering storm all round it....

You see [Mrs. Jackson's] conjectures about the Play were right
after all. Mrs. Radcliffe owns herself Author, as Susan Thrale
writes me word, and Jane de Montfort will come out immediately.
She says not a syllable of Mr. Whalley's performance. Lord bless
me, my dear! His unfortunate niece, cydevant Fanny Sage, sent
to me yesterday for £20; and said she was _detain'd_, (for debt
I trow,) at our poor, petty town of St. Asaph, two miles off. A
tall, ill-looking man on horseback brought the letter, but will
not, I hope, revenge my refusal of his Lady's request, when
Dumouriez shall have set all the wild Irish at full liberty. I
was half afraid, sure enough, yet little disposed to give what
would make 40 honest cottagers happy, to a gay lass whom I never
liked in her _best days_, and who never had any claims on my
_friendship_, which she now talks so loudly of.

Well! and your little favourite John Salusbury! Susanna Thrale
has been to Streatham on purpose, I fancy, to gratify hers and
her family's curiosity. So she saw a little boy with my _name_,
and my husband's _face_; and I know not which was the greatest
recommendation of the _two_--to her....

With regard to public affairs, our domestic traytors terrify
me most; but if French valour should, by this late victory,
get into discredit abroad, perhaps it would not be so much the
_Ton_ to imitate their proceedings here at home, and we should
remember Hannah More's prediction of the _Crane-neck-turn_. If
they _can_ be made to _run_ they will find no place that will
receive them I believe. All honest men, and women too, are their
natural enemies: and a Grison girl said to a gentleman I know
something of--"Why, dear Sir, what should we sit still for, like
figures made of Papier-machée, till our houses are burned down,
our parents mangled and our free will violated? Better go out
with the troops, and sell our lives at least at as high a price
as we can." The same gentleman wrote his sister word that the
high roads were covered with _female corpses_, which he gallop'd
over. These are, far as my reading goes, new notions, and new
occurrences....

The victory was no doubt that won against Jourdan and the French army of the Rhine, by a vastly superior force under the Archduke Charles, at Stockach. His despatch is dated 25th March, but the full account did not reach England till April.

Miss Thrale's information about the new play was not quite accurate. _De Montfort, a Tragedy of Hate_, was one of a series of Plays on the Passions by Joanna Baillie, but it was published anonymously, and several well-known writers, including Sir Walter Scott, were suspected of its authorship. There is a note about it in Mrs. Piozzi's Commonplace Book as follows: "I remember a knot of Literary Characters met at Miss Lees' House in Bath, deciding--contrary to my own judgement--that a _learned man_ must have been the author; and I, chiefly to put the Company in a good humour, maintained it was a woman. Merely, said I, because both the heroines are Dames Passées, and a man has no notion of mentioning a female after she is five and twenty. What a goose Joanna must have been to reveal her sex and name! Spite and malice have pursued her ever since.... She is a Zebra devoured by African Ants--the Termites Bellicosus."

_Wensday 29 May 1799._

_Not one Oak in Leaf._

On the very evening of the day I receive your last kind letter,
dear Friend, I write to acknowledge both. The _home_ post will
tell you nothing you like tho', except that our accounts of
little Salusbury are all good: but _poor Uncle_ is always having
a bad foot, and as you say, if it were not for the comfortable
news from Italy, he would be low enough.

This blowing, blighting weather ruins us all; my poor cottagers
are sick, with Agues chiefly, and Dropsies; with broken hearts
too, poor things, when their horses drop under even empty carts,
for full ones they cannot drag. Our Hay here has been at _one
Penny_ o'pound, our Beef at _ten Pence_. This approaches very
near to famine, but may justly be termed scarcity; and the same
dreadful wind which retards the growth of all vegetation, and
restrains the hand of industry in _our own Island_, has driven
our protecting fleet from Cadiz harbour, and let the French and
Spaniards form a junction.

Meanwhile charming Hannah More was right in her conversation,
as in her book; there has been a Crane-neck-turn, as she
expressed it, and things are certainly mending on the Continent.
If Ireland should come to her senses, and _unite_ with us in
abhorrence of French principles and French seducers, who could
promise them assistance and never carry it, but go on another
scheme, while the rebels _there_ were waiting the Fleet's
arrival--it might be lucky that Lord Bridport _did_ let them
escape. Poor fellow! how you do hate that man! Very comically,
and very unreasonably indeed; for when we saw him he was, as the
phrase is, out of his element, and looked to be sure something
like a _fish out of water_. But I never heard anything amiss
of him in my life, and believe he will not be found, at the
critical moment, to carry "Two Faces under _a Hood_."

Have you seen Dr. and Mrs. Randolph lately? What do they say
about these _Riflers of Sweets_ that we hear so much of? Bath
has been a scene of _odd robberies_ by gay Lotharios, "who
scorn to ask the lordly owners' leave." It makes me only laugh,
but I trust Hannah More would say, like Benvolio, "No, Coz, I
rather _weep_."[13] Glorious creature! How she writes! Finding
new reasons to enforce old Virtues, and adorning her sacred
sentiments with brilliancy that throws _rays_ round all her
periods. It would be doing her too much wrong to suppose _her_
capable of regarding the nonsense talked against her by Misses
mad to see their Mammas reading the new book with approbation,
and looking at _them_ over their spectacles at every interesting
passage. She must be invulnerable to wounds from such weak
hands, sure. The old heroes in Homer,

[13] _Romeo and Juliet_, I. i. 189.

By Pallas guarded thro' the dreadful field,
Saw swords beside them innocently play,
While darts were bid to turn their points away.

All they can say and do only contributes to shew how greatly
such a book was wanted. Mr. Whalley's thinking he has
contributed to Siddons's fame is pretty enough; she thinks _her_
contribution useful to him, no doubt. The writer of Pizarro is
censured for giving _her_ part to Mrs. Jordan....

The intelligence concerning Mrs. Radcliffe's having written
that play on hatred seems to have been premature. Oh, how your
account of Mrs. Jackson's domestic situation presses Hannah
More's book upon one's heart! The Italians have a proverb to
say that there are only three things worth caring about, La
Salute, l'Anima, and la Borsa; one's Soul, one's Health, and
one's Purse. _We risque all three_ to make our fair daughters
_accomplish'd_. Doctor Johnson said that whoever found their
mothers admired and reverenced by that circle which forms a
little _silk-worm world_ round every individual, would add
their admiration and reverence, merely because they saw other
people pay them theirs. "I cared," says he, "nothing for _my_
parents, because nobody cared for them." Mrs. Jackson's children
cannot make that _their_ excuse. She has been a woman--since I
have known her--particularly _petted_ by her friends, and those
friends have been people eminent for good taste and good sense.

Are the Canterbury Tales come out yet? Nobody has sent them
_me_, and I will not write again to Harriet Lee till I have read
them. Sophia is in town with her little protégée, who, if she
cannot conjure down

The pale moon from the sapphire sky,
May draw Endymion from the moon,

perhaps; and I really wish her good luck. Tickell's _Ætherial
Spirit_ is a new med'cine much in fashion, it is so finely
_dephlegmated_, the Apothecaries say. I think there is as much
pure spirit, and as little _phlegm_ about the tiny Bath Belle as
can be imagined. Some rich man may _take_ her, I hope.

Have you felt an interest in these African discoveries? They
are things of prodigious _curiosity_, rate them at the lowest.
I think very seriously about them for my own part, but none of
my correspondents seem caring much concerning that subject,
unless 'tis Miss Thrale, from whom I get about 4 or 5 letters
in a year,--and she has been ill this Spring. So has everybody.
I watch the weathercock all day, but the cold blight continues.
The leaves which _try_ to come out look like fry'd Parsley round
a dish of Soles....

In April 1797, when it was expected that the Spanish and French fleets would effect a junction, Lord St. Vincent was ordered to blockade the former at Cadiz. He held his post under many difficulties, caused by the mutinous spirit which had spread from the Nore and Spithead, through 1798, but broke down under the strain, and in June 1799 resigned his command to Baron, afterwards Viscount Keith, and husband of Hester Thrale. Meanwhile the French fleet was blockaded in Brest by Lord Bridport, now Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Squadron, but in April the French slipped out and sailed for the Mediterranean, while Bridport went to look for them off the coast of Ireland.

Mr. Whalley's play was a five-act tragedy called _The Castle of Montval_, performed "with universal applause" at Drury Lane. The _British Critic_ reviewer, though he had not seen the performance, thought it interesting enough to deserve a permanent place on the stage. But the measure of success it obtained was due to the acting of Mrs. Siddons as the Countess, which the author acknowledged by dedicating the second edition to her.

Elizabeth Anne Tickell, the pupil whom Sophia Lee evidently expected to make a sensation in London society, was the daughter of Richard Tickell the dramatist and Mary Linley, the sister of Mrs. Sheridan, who had died in 1787. With regard to her beauty there was little difference of opinion, but Sally Siddons, who knew her well, describes her as an "every-day character," without talent or originality, and "never heard anything so tiresome" as her singing. She was never "taken," but died unmarried in 1860.

The "Ethereal Anodyne Spirit" was a quack medicine invented by William Tickell, a surgeon, who also lived at Bath, and may have been a relation of Richard.

BRYNBELLA, _Wensday 17 Jul. 1799_.

Your letter, dearest Mrs. Pennington, is like yourself, full of
true friendship, honest loyalty and sound criticism. Freedom
from _prejudices_, as principals are called now o' days, we
must not come to you for.... I do believe you were right in
that _unjustifiable_ conjecture of yours concerning the death
of those Deputies at Rastadt.... But _Retrospect_ of past ages
can shew no perfidy beyond _that_, if so it should prove upon
investigation. The Archduke now seems to act with his hands
untied, and co-operates with Suwarrow in everything, yet I
suspect something behind the curtain still. The Emperor is
willing enough to see Italy freed, but does not want Louis
Dixhuit on his throne again, I suppose; whereas the Russians
and English are trying to accomplish y^t purpose with all
their might, and no lasting peace can be obtained but by his
restoration. We shall see how 'twill end.

You are droll indeed in your account of the New Canterbury
Tales, I have not read them yet.... When Romances first were
written they went by the name of Incredibilities; but people
soon found out that Fiction looks best the more she endeavour to
resemble Truth. It grows however a mighty tedious thing, after a
certain age, to keep filling one's head with flitting dreams so,
turning one's mind into a Magic Lanthorn for Shadows and Ombres
Chinoises to pass over. If incredibilities are desirable, _we_
can hear enough of Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn. As that Lady told you at
some place that Mrs. _Moyston_, as she called her, made all the
talk,--_and so she does, God knows_.

Well, any nonsense but _dishonourable_ nonsense, _disgraceful_
folly such as Honoria Gubbins has exhibited. You know I always
said she looked like a Bacchante Girl, but she admired nothing
except _Siddons_ I remember. In good time. Dear, charming
Siddons! How triumphantly must she have looked in the first and
last scene of Pizarro! And what a happy contrast Sheridan has
made between her artificial character, and Cora's natural one!
Yet I cannot seriously approve of a _Heroic_ Tragedy in _prose_.
_Domestic_ Tragedy, George Barnwell, or the Gamester, or the
Stranger, would lose the interest they now gain in our hearts,
if they spoke any but colloquial and domestic language. Poetry
is made on purpose to adorn the lofty sentiments of Rolla, and
Cora's song is the sweetest thing in the whole play,--only
because 'tis _verse_.

Poor Cora! She is not of _your_ mind, that love is of no
consequence compared with a hundred other things; and that she
should have completely no _other_ idea present to _her_ mind,
makes her so natural, so interesting, and so adorable. What is
stranger than love itself, and love is strange enough too,--is
that one should never have done admiring that _selfish_ passion
when represented in works of fancy. I remember an old Alderman
of London, who, when there was loud talk of invasion 20 years
ago or more, said among a dozen people once at my house:
"Well! I care not, for my part, if the _Island_ was _devoured_
to-morrow, so as my wife and child were safe, and I had enough
to keep them with." This _patriotic_ sentiment met with no
approbation at all from an old Alderman in real life; yet this
is the sentiment that Cora expresses all through five acts, and
not only her auditors in the Pit and Boxes, but Rolla himself
likes her the better for it. So you see Fiction may resemble
Truth in some things, while if Truth resembles Fiction we hiss
her out of doors.

Poor dear old Mr. Jones is very bad, and like to die, or has
been like to die, and I am very sorry indeed; for though there's
but little poetry or criticism about old Mr. Jones, he is a good
friend and a valuable member of society, and wishes well to my
Master and to me....

Mrs. Siddons goes to Edinburgh, I hear, but by what you say of
Sally, I trust she cannot be of the party. Miss Thrale is in
Scotland, and will have the pleasure of seeing her, as I saw her
at Bath. No letter have I ever received from Marlbro' Street but
one, and _that_ was from the Master of the Mansion....

The little boy comes next week, next month I mean, with Davies.

Austria, having signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, and received unexpectedly favourable terms from Napoleon, agreed to hold a conference at Rastadt, and (by secret articles) to induce the German States to cede the left bank of the Rhine to France. While the conference was proceeding the Directory had occupied Switzerland, though Massena, Jourdan, and Scherer had all suffered defeats. The French envoys were ordered to leave the town, and were murdered on the road by Austrian hussars. The Emperor expressed deep abhorrence of a crime which aroused general indignation, and helped the Directory to fill up their depleted armies.

Alexander Vasilievitch Suvoroff or Suwarrow, a Russian general, had been sent to help the Austrians. He took command of the army in Italy, where he beat Moreau, Macdonald, and Joubert, but owing to jealousy he was transferred to Switzerland, and believing himself betrayed by the Austrians, he retired to Russia, and died in disgrace.

BRYNBELLA, _21 Aug. 1799_.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter is like yourself, wise and
kind, and I am willing to join in your wish for early meeting
this year, but not for an early winter. Oh! little do you _Towns
folk_ know how prejudicial is this weather to Country Farmers,
Labourers, etc. The Shoemaker and his apprentice at Bristol make
so many more boots and clogs, and some Bath Chairmen get a few
shillings extra: but _my_ honest neighbours have but just barely
_bread_, in the _strictest_ sense; mere bread, and that made
of Barley too, for their families, during such winters as this
cruel summer will infallibly produce. Mr. Piozzi and I shall
scarce be suffered to get thro' the Village, they will so cling
and cry round us, and beg we will stay another month, another
week, etc.

When the Gardener came yesterday, scratching his head, and
saying there would be no wall-fruit this year, I could hardly
answer him civilly; but I _did_ say, "For God's sake, think
about the hay and corn, and hang the fine people and their
wall-fruit." The produce of whole meadows may be seen swimming
down our over-flooded River to the sea this moment, and carrying
with it the subsistence of hundreds of innocents.

May this fine Expedition make amends for all! It _will_, if
peace and abatement of necessary exertion be its consequences.
English pride will be bravely swelled, that's certain, if we
can thus give law and order and happiness to Europe. Are such
blessings within hope? People _say_ they are almost within
_grasp_. Meanwhile let us try to live that we may see these good
days. Mrs. Bagot, the Bishop's wife's death has affected my
spirits strangely. I got a pain in my stomach on the _instant_
Allen told me the news, and it has never wholly left me since.
She din'd here in high spirits on our Wedding day, three weeks
ago, and expired on Saturday morning. The Ton men and Ton women
bear these things without concern, and prove that fashion can
do more than philosophy towards hardening one's heart, but my
nervous fingers shake while I write about it....

To divert thought I took up the Canterbury Tales which Mr.
Gillon had just brought me. Harriet's management of the
_pretty Mamma_ making the man miserable so unconsciously is
very good, and in _this age_, scarcely violates probability.
The other story is too romantic, and the ghost part too
in-artificial, one sees it could be only Carey. For love, it
abounds but little with _that_, I think. Julia keeps her passion
very quiet; one is most interested about Agnes and Carey.

Real life meanwhile affords stranger occurrences than any novel
can show. Mr. Conant, the London Magistrate, told Mr. Gillon,
who told us, the following tale not a fortnight ago. Some little
London shopkeepers sent out their girl of eleven years old, with
a baby 8 _months_ old in her arms, upon some errand, I forget
what, but no further off than the short street's end. A young
woman, genteely dress'd, stop't the girl, and beg'd her to cross
over and ask the price of a gay coloured handkerchief hanging
at a window, promising that she would hold the infant till his
sister returned. When she came back however, both little boy and
young woman were vanish'd; and the girl ran back, half wild,
to her parents, and told the story. They flew from the Counter
in search of the thief, and desperate with rage and terror,
exhibited to the neighbours a certainty that the shop might be
easily plundered while their distress employed every thought.
Accordingly the _man_ returning home at night, found his poor
dwelling robbed of many valuable articles, while the girl, to
whom all this confusion was owing, had hid herself under the bed
for fear of a beating, and the father was persuaded _she_ too
was lost. The mother, parting from her husband, who had wandered
over six parishes, swore she would never see home again without
her baby, and remained out the whole day and the whole night in
search. Morning found her, much exhausted, at a chandler's shop
door in Edgeware Road, and when it opened she went in to buy a
bit of cheese. A little wench went in with her, and the mistress
of the house, seeing her anguish, kindly asked the cause. "I've
lost my child," said she, "my dear little boy." "My mammy has
found one," says the wench, "and don't know what to do with it."
They ran together to a Green-stall, and found Baby safe in that
woman's possession, who said a young _gentlewoman_ had pretended
to buy Sellery of her, and while she went backwards to look for
some, threw down the infant, and was seen no more. Mr. Conant
was applied to, and found a cause for all. The well-dress'd lady
was a Chambermaid, who had a child for whose maintenance she was
paid, altho' it died during the first week; and the father had
resolved, that hapless day, to see his son. Molly had nothing
for it but to borrow one, and when the purpose was served,
to rid her hands on't, and no Novel can bring to a reader's
fancy more perfect distress than these poor parents suffered.
Their girl, however, who lay concealed till mother and brother
returned, told her tale so well that a subscription was raised,
and all went better than before in the little shop in Silver
Street, Carnaby Market.

So instead of our best com^s to Dr. and Mrs. Randolph, instead
of affec^te regards to Mr. Pennington, or Bon Mots of our
little John Salusbury, here's a page from y^e Romance of Real
Life, unadorned by your true friend H. L. Piozzi, and for this
you will pay 8_d._

_By M. Bovi after P. Violet, 1800. From the Collection of A. M.
Broadley, Esq._]

BRYNBELLA, _17 Oct. 1799_.

Do you know, dear Mrs. Pennington, that Mrs. Randolph and I are
in correspondence? We are indeed, and 'tis all about Bath, and
Laura Place, and No. 1, and Christmas Holidays, and our dear
Friend from Dowry Square: and not a word of the dismal, the more
than dismal gloom, which these last accounts from abroad have
thickened round us once again on approach of foggy November....

_We_ are at this instant trembling from apprehension that the
French will fall upon Milan, and make an example of those that
called in their enemies. I'm glad my little boy is far away
from them all. I think you will find him improved, unless he
falls off this half-year, and begins to change his nice little
teeth, etc.... All the Jacobins will _be up_ now, and happy I
suppose; but let them remember we have taken Surinam in one
Continent, and Seringapatam in another. The money is ours, and
the Commodities (which their friends the French _must_ buy,) are
all ours; and the very warehouses in every port are too little
to hold our riches. Few of them are thinkers deep enough to know
that wealth, at such a moment as this, is a mere invitation to
plunder; and I wish not to remind _them_ of so fatal a truth,
tho' I scruple not to tell it to _you_. While it can purchase
Russians to find _them_ in employment, the money is useful
however, and well bestow'd: and I would rather hire foreign
troops with it than send out our own, who will be necessary when
the war _draws nearer_. And I feel sorry the Ministers did not
make more bustle in London about the capture of Surinam, for it
is undoubtedly fair to rejoyce when _we_ reap solid advantages
from a war whence no other Country, not even that of the
Victors, gains any advantages _at all_. Said I well and wisely?

Mrs. Siddons's situation does not please me, for _her_ sake;
for my own 'tis well enough, for we are the more likely to meet
at Bath. Being at Doncaster so late in the year is a dull thing
indeed. I wish she had some method of getting paid at Drury
Lane, because _seceders_, if they are not called back to their
seats, only look silly: and when Mr. Garrick left London for
his health one year, when in the fulness of public favour, I
remember he was disgusted at his return, to find the receipts of
the theatre had suffered nothing at all, during an absence he
thought would have broken all our hearts....

The bad news from abroad doubtless related to the Dutch expedition, in which the English troops had suffered a good deal. On 10th October the Duke of York reported the conclusion of an armistice with the French, on the conditions of withdrawing the English and Russian troops, surrendering the fortress of Helder, and restoring the French prisoners.

Seringapatam had been taken in the spring by General Harris, under whom Colonel Arthur Wellesley was serving, and Tippoo Sahib was slain. The despatch giving the details, dated 7th May, appeared in the _Gazette_ of 14th September.

Sheridan's habitual unpunctuality in the matter of payments had at last driven Mrs. Siddons to revolt. She writes on 18th September: "I have just received a letter, in the usual easy style, from Mr. Sheridan, who, I fancy, thinks he has only to issue his Sublime Commands, and that they will of course be obeyed. _This_ time I believe, however, he will find himself mistaken, for Sid [her husband,] does _at last_ seem resolutely determined not to let me play till he has sufficient satisfaction, at least for the money which is my due; and unless something is immediately done to that end, I shall go to Doncaster to play at the Races--they begin the 24th of this month." This decisive step soon brought Sheridan to reason; there was only one Siddons, and before long she was back again, practically on her own terms.

[_P.M._ BATH.] _Saturday Night. [Dec. 1799.]_

I shall expect and prepare for my dear Mrs. Pennington, to begin
what her company will make it, a happy commencement of 1800....
I shall feel glad _this_ year to see December close upon me,
which for some time has carried with it a sensation more awful
than pleasing. When the sand was high in the hour-glass, I well
remember longing for a New Year as if it had been a new gown;
and there was a _gloss_ on every 1st January _then_, that seem'd
as if all misfortune would _slip over_ and not stain it....

We leave our little boy with Davies because he himself (Mr.
Davies,) said that staying at Streatham in holyday time, when he
could attend and tutor him with personal and _undivided_ care,
would bring him forward, and I call that _true regard_: but
everybody must be allowed to love their own babies their own
way....

With regard to the people in power, I firmly believe they do
their best, neither interest nor ambition can be gratified by
failure; and tho' a dapper Postilion may injure those in the
chaise by driving to an _inch_, for a wager or for a frolic,
I'll trust a Coachman, because he runs equal risque with
myself....

I wish this embargo on Levantine goods was over tho', for people
bring none from Turkey now: true Mocha coffee sells for 12_s._
the pound, it was at 3_s._ three years ago....

The expected meeting was for a time deferred on account of Mrs. Pennington's ill-health. Save for one or two notes of no particular interest, the correspondence ceases till the Piozzis return to Wales.

BRYNBELLA, _Sunday 9 Mar. 1800_.

I hasten to fulfil my promise to dear Mrs. Pennington. We came
home but last night, and I write to say that we are come home
well, and find our Household well too, and truly glad of our
safe and early return.

The time past at Shrewsbury was full of amusement; Miss Owen
feasted and fondled us, and called all the people round to feast
us and fondle us, and detain us till Thursday, which had been
long bespoke, and Fryday beside, by the charming Cottagers in
Llangollen Vale. _They_ asked me much after that Mrs. Pennington
who writes such beautiful letters, and insisted on my describing
your person to them, and said they knew Miss Seward esteemed
you highly, though all intimacy between you was at an end. The
unaccountable knowledge those Recluses have of all living books
and people and things is like magic; one can mention no one of
whom the private history is unknown to them....

Let me therefore talk of Mr. Pennington, and ask how he does.
You may be certain how I do, and what I do. Looking out my
books, setting my places to rights, ladling out the soup to
30 families round, feeding the dogs with what _they leave_,
mixed up with Potatoe peelings and so forth, is mine and my
Master's and Abbiss's employment; whilst Allen blows her nose
in consequence of cold catch'd in a damp bed at Worcester--and
thanks God the evil ends there.

The little three-legged cur jumps into my lap, licks my face,
and runs to his Master to tell the good news, how the family
is come home to the Hall, and everybody and everything looks
pleased to see us.... I have had a civil letter from Susan
Thrale, who bids me direct to Cumberland Street, and makes
commonplace lamentations concerning the _times_, but _nothing
further_, nothing I mean tending towards confidence or
communication.

We broke our chaise between Llangollen and Ruthyn,--no wonder!
Such roads! 'Tis really frightful: but neither Mr. Piozzi nor I
were hurt.

Here are no Members of Parliament, no Franks of course, so I
shall write very seldom; for the joke is a good one two or three
times o' year, but no oftener, when 14_d._ is to pay for 44
lines about nothing: and friendship is a fine thing, but so is
fourteen Pence....

There is a Lady at Shrewsbury, born the last day of 1699, and
she is very well, and plays upon the Piano e forte, as you
describe Mr. Whalley's mother to do; but poor Mrs. Montague's
sun is setting apace I hear. She has left her fine house, and
retired into a smaller, giving up the grandeur to her Nephew,
and Lady Oakley said, the estate too, but I hope she has had
_more wit than that_. Lady Oakley is very agreeable.... I saw
her in a robe embroider'd (as she said,) with the wings of an
Indian Fly; there is no describing its beauty or lustre....

Mrs. Montagu does not appear to have left Montagu House permanently, for she died there the following August. Lady Oakley was the wife of Charles Oakley, Governor of Madras, who was created a Baronet in 1790.

Needless to say Mrs. Piozzi's economical fit in the matter of letters did not last long, the correspondence continues much as usual; but as a matter of fact the letters from Wales to Bristol only cost the recipient 8_d._, not 1_s._ 2_d._

There is no date or postmark to the next letter, but Mrs. Pennington assigns it to April 1800.

What in the world, dear Mrs Pennington, has been doing at Bath?
I wrote to Dr. Randolph about a book of his which I wanted, and
his letter in return has affected me very deeply. Yours gave a
hint of something like a riot, but nobody seems sensible that we
live out of the world here, and know nothing of what passes in
it. The newspaper we take, though it swelled and raved so about
Mr. King's fire, said nothing of _this_, or so little we quite
disregarded it: and yet Dr. Randolph says that _our_ quarter
of the Town was saved by miracle from being even now a heap of
cinders.

Thank God we were come home. The slight shock of earthquake
that usher'd in our Fast Day _here_, and frighted many of our
neighbours, not _us_, is a light matter compared with mobs and
insurrections. Let us, as King David said of old, fall into
the hands of God, and not into the hands of men. The noise
accompanying even this trifle of a concussion was such as to
alarm Mrs. Griffiths exceedingly. She said it was like a hundred
carts of lime stone overturned close by her bed. Mr. Piozzi and
I never waked to hear or feel it.

Miss Thrale had not then (as now,) kept our eyes wholly
sleepless by a new and violent attack on our feelings and
property: sending, without notice or introduction, to our
Oxfordshire Tenant, a requisition to pay _her_ the rent I have
hitherto received for 19 years since my first husband's death,
in consequence of the Marriage Settlement signed by him in 1763,
confirmed again by Will in 1781, and claim'd now, A.D.
1800, with threats (to our afflicted friend Mr. Gillon,) of
making me refund all I have _unjustly taken from my daughters_.
It will be soon refunded. No ass, as Moses says, of theirs did
I ever take, nor no present at their hands for bribe. How cruel
'tis to sit down and accuse me so! Miss Thrale says Streatham
was given me to _make up_ £400 o' year, but that Crowmarsh is
not liable. Now it will turn out upon examination that Crowmarsh
is _first_ liable, and that if my due from that estate is not
paid me, I have a right to make _forcible_ entry, and _take_
it, _without impeachment of waste_. This, being provided in the
Marriage Settlement, I understand _must_ be secure, so do not
you nor dear Mr. Pennington be uneasy; we shall _lose_ nothing
but appetite and sleep. And I was _so_ well after the Bath
waters! and proposed being _so_ diligent at the Book: and now
nothing but law, and letters, and Chancery suits, and false
accusations and every evil plague.

No news from abroad yet that we can depend upon. Will it be good
when it arrives? The times, as Dr. Randolph says, are signally
aweful, and I verily think that Daemons are roaming about among
us, with enlarged permission both to tempt and terrify. God
preserve us! even from our own bad passions, He only can. _Mine_
are sometimes ready to run away with me now, for Welsh blood
heats over a fire of sharp thorns thus, till it boyls again. Oh
dear! how dreadful are these days! A Lady in this neighbourhood
made a grand entertainment on the Fast appointed by Government,
by way of spiting that Government. They must leave off
appointing such solemnities: the time is over when they did any
good....

I wish Miss Case would tell me what they have suffer'd at Bath,
and what they have escaped, for I cannot now make it clearly
out. If harm comes to Hannah More we are all undone, _her_
health is a public concern....

This earthquake was not so slight a thing as I thought it; some
houses at Conway and Caernarvon were much injured, and it spread
a general alarm from the _unfrequency_ of the thing. Yet to
people who have lived much in Italy, an earthquake that did not
_wake_ one seems laughable enough....

Much may, and probably much _will_ happen this summer, to give
us a little further insight into what's coming in earnest. The
best is our seasonable and salutary change of weather; had we
corn _to sow_, the ground will be in fine order for putting
it in. I am glad Buonaparte sends us no corn, I was afraid of
contagion in the sacks; and the thought of an expedition to
Egypt and Syria frights me, lest some pestilential disease
should be brought home from places so constantly infected....

BRYNBELLA, _1st May 1800_.

My dear Mrs. Pennington is _too_ apt to be right. You do not, I
perceive, think us safe from this new attack upon our property,
and we are _not_ safe....

_Thus it stands._ If we litigate, such is the dubious position
of Mr. Thrale's words in my old Marriage Settlement, that years
will roll away, and Empires be overthrown, before the affair can
be decided, and in the meantime Crowmarsh rents will be retained
till the decision. A circumstance very unpleasing to _us_ for
every reason; the strongest of all, because to Miss Thrale
the estate _must_ go at my death, so that unless my life is
prolonged beyond the usual limits of humanity, Mr. Piozzi _can_
hope for nothing from a law dispute, except Attorney's Bills
to pay with a diminished income. Of all _this_ our fair enemy
cannot be ignorant, and does not profess to desire anything
but profit from the contest; so we may be _sure_ she will make
great terms for herself. The parley of eloquence on Mr. Gillon's
side, supported by Butler's Opinion concerning our Case, is held
to-day I think. The best thing is that Mr. Thrale confirmed his
Marriage Settlement by his Will, adding the bequests in that
Will to what formerly was provided in the other Instrument; but
nothing has been _worded_ so as to preclude discussion among
eager disputants, diligent to catch and cavil, and endowed with
Marianne's powers and delight in wrangling. We are in a Wasps'
nest, and must make haste out, and be stung as little as we can.
Resistance is vain, and will be impolitic, in my mind....

That people are quiet, and the fires accidental, I would
willingly perswade myself, but cannot. That your friend Paul,
Emperor of all the Russias, is a true friend and firm ally, may
now reasonably enough be doubted. He wants an excuse for falling
upon Turkey, and takes that of quarrelling with Great Britain.
It is exceedingly offensive to be forced into submission to his
caprices; but I suppose George the III at close of life will not
find new enemies a good thing any more than poor H. L. P. does,
or will be able, any better than H. L. P., to find _supplies_
for a new contest which, like her's, _can_ terminate in no
advantage, and will be attended with _certain_ loss abroad,
increase of poverty, and of course ill-humour, at home. You may
see how spiteful the people are, even by their opposition to his
private conveniency in making a new road to Windsor from London.
No want of spite in this world, I'll warrant, either to princes
or to people; my Book will have proved that new and wise remark
by this time next year. If we go to London with it, I shall
vote for an apartment in the Adelphi Hotel; such a place will
do well enough for November, and our income _must_ be reduced,
and I will not suffer _my_ business or pleasures to retard my
husband's long projected happiness of not having a debt in the
world. The very journey is expense enough. We shall be near Mr.
Gillon there, and I shall not have an acquaintance in London
but Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Holman, perhaps not the first even
of those, as the seasons seem to change so; everybody makes it
Summer till after Christmas, and Winter to July.

There is great talk of a new book written by Hannah More, The
Progress of Pilgrim Good-intent through the Land of Jacobinism;
have you read it? and is it charming?...

The Rheumatism has caught my shoulder before Gout seized my
Master's toe this year. I was to have gone in the Cold Bath this
morning, but the pain prevents me....

After the battle of the Nile, England, Russia, and Turkey had entered into an alliance against France. But the Emperor Paul, annoyed at his treatment by Austria, and accusing the allies of treachery, came to terms with Bonaparte, with whom he concerted a plan for a joint invasion of India.

_Sat. 16 May_, BRYNBELLA.

My last letter was a wretch: how could you, dearest Friend,
commend it so? If I remember anything about it, it was low,
cold, and flat. The usage I had received sunk my nerves down,
they were not irritated. Use of the cold bath, meant to
strengthen them, threw me all out in _nettle-stings_. And _now_,
for crowning of all, my poor Master's torment, villainous Gout,
has, as you once observed of Mr. Pennington's, watched the
due time, and thrown in _his_ assistance to the fair Ladies'
cause. Their cause is cold though, and notwithstanding our
defenders cannot bring matters to a decision yet, they give
us hopes that little will be lost, except the arrears, worth,
Mr. Gillon says, £1000. He has behaved divinely to be sure,
and deserves all your generous praises of him. Nobody applauds
Miss Thrale's proceedings I think. Mrs. Holman and you inveigh
_loudest_ against her, and it _was_ a cruel thing to fly so
upon that estate, which her Father would never have left _her
at all_, had I not so requested him, because I thought it was
unfair that, from accumulation of fortune after they lost _him_,
the youngest daughter would be richer than the eldest: but I
meant her to have Crowmarsh after my death, and so he meant it
too. Well! one has always heard some nonsense how two negatives
make an affirmative, so I suppose in _Law_, when a man gives a
thing twice over, it turns out _no gift at all_. Mr. Thrale
tried _three_ times to secure his Oxfordshire property for me,
and if I miss it at last, no blame can attach to _him_. The
flaw was in the _Settlement_ you see, and the Will confirms
the _Settlement_, so God knows how 'twill end at last. The
Mr. Butler employed on our side has a high character in his
profession as _Chamber Council_, etc. Being a Roman Catholic he
cannot reach the honours of his calling, but rests contented
with the profits....

Here's much to do with _Hate_ and more with _Love_,[14] as
Juliet says in Shakespear. Apropos to Hatred, I am delighted
that we know the author of De Montfort: she must be a fine
creature, and will excite no small share of the hatred she
describes. I _felt_ it was a woman's writing, no man makes
female characters _respectable_--no man of the present day I
mean, they only make them _lovely_. We must except _Dr. Moore_:
his Mrs. Barnett and his Laura Sedlitz are all that women ought
to _wish_ to be.

[14] "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."--_Romeo and
Juliet_, I. i. 181.

Don't you admire at my sitting here to criticize Plays and
Novels, like Miss Seward, while my Husband is lame, my fortune
is crippled, and my favourite dog has but _three legs_?

Farewell, dear Friend, ... 'tis five o'clock in the morning, I
was up at _four_, shall call the men and maids at six, send away
this scrawl at seven, jump into the bath at 8, breakfast at 9,
work at the book till 1, walk till 3, have dined by 4, fret over
Gillon's dispatches and Piozzi's misery all the rest of the day:
a pretty biographical sketch of your literally poor H. L. P.

Charles Butler, Mrs. Piozzi's counsel, was a brother of the Rev. Alban Butler, the hagiologist. As Roman Catholics were not permitted to be called to the Bar when he began his professional career, he took up conveyancing business, and helped to edit _Coke upon Littleton_. Taking advantage of the Enabling Act, he became a Barrister in 1791, and took silk in 1832.

_4 Jun. 1800._

... The Book goes on, _lamely_ perhaps, now my better half has
the _Gout_, but it does go. My Master mends too, and everything
mends. Miss Thrale _withdraws_ (somewhat disgracefully,) the
claim she could not _substantiate_: a tedious suit against this
never-dying Mother would have eaten up all the profits of her
hoped-for estate, and nobody would have benefited _but_ the
Lawyers. _Her_ friends were therefore persuaded by _our_ friends
to _give in_, as the Boxers say, and so the battle ends; and on
the last of May she writes to the Oxfordshire Tenant to pay £400
to us as usual,--that very £400 which, on the first of March,
she wrote the same man word--_was incontestably her own_....

Miss Bayley, a Lady who lives with Mrs. John Hunter, and is
related to her, has at length modestly owned herself Author of a
Drama that every one would have been most happy to have written:
but Mr. Chappelow (no bad mirror of the fashionable world,) says
people think it too _solemn,--they are not amused_. _I_ say they
are like old Polonius: see Hamlet's character of _him_ as a
Critic.[15]

[15] "He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps."--_Hamlet_,
II. ii.

Kemble is in high favour with the Beau Monde, I am told, and
his Sister declines; but she will pick up some more guineas,
and then no matter. I reckon her as having only _one_ daughter
to portion out; Sally will never marry, I suppose, if _half_
of what I have _heard_ of her ill health be true. Mr. Siddons
will be a long-lived man, as sick as he is always said to be;
nothing runs on like a life subject to one chronic and regular
complaint, Gout, or Rheumatism. Siddons will repeat over to two
or three generations the lamenting strains I heard him recite in
1788, and his Daughter will think herself young when everybody
else sees her grown old, because she has a father to nurse.
There was a Mrs. Shelley in Sussex, her sneering neighbours
called her Epistle and Gospel, who had two maiden daughters. One
broke her leg, and died at about 40 years old, but the other
departed not till 5 years ago. The Doctors informed her _Mama_
there was no hope, and she piously resigned to the loss. "But
tell me at least," cried she, "what ails my poor child, and
of what _can_ she possibly be dying?" "Of age, dear Madam,"
answered her Physician. "Miss Shelley was never strong, and 76
years have nearly worne her out." "Oh dear! Is she really? Why
I am but 94 myself, and I am not dying of age!" She spoke true,
and outlived her little girl, as she called her, six years.

Adieu, dear Mrs. Pennington, and tell my _old Friend_ this
story....

The asthmatic complaint from which Sally Siddons had suffered, almost from childhood, proved fatal in 1803, and she died, as Mrs. Piozzi anticipated, unmarried. Though her heart was given to Lawrence, the promise made to her dying sister, and her own strong common sense and knowledge of his character, prevented her from giving her hand. The prognostication respecting her father proved very wide of the mark, as he died at Bath only two years later.

_13 June 1800_, BRYNBELLA.

My dear Mrs. Pennington is a true friend, and has acute
feelings of friendship and of Injury. All is over between me
and my _beautiful_ and _deserving_ Daughters--_those_ were Mr.
Ray's epithets.... With regard to _our cause_, mark me! Mr.
Gillon, dear creature as he is, did not stop its proceedings by
_perswasion_; it was carried by law, though not by litigation.
Mr. Cator and Mr. Richards on _Miss Thrale's_ part, and Mr.
Gillon and Mr. Butler on _our_ parts, talked the matter
over; and they really _withdrew_ the claim they could not
_substantiate_, or make creditable to carry into a Court of
Judicature.

Gillon tells a laughable story of Miss Thrale's standing hard
for £10 which he advanced her, of his own money, to stop
further absurdity. And now let's hear no more on't, and do not,
Sweet Soul! make me in love with _resentment_; for except in a
friend's cause like your own, 'tis an unpleasing quality, and
productive of nothing but evil. We must quote our own Book of
Knowledge after all, and in the Article "Forgiveness," as I
_think_, you read these words. "A _wise_ man will make haste to
forgive, because anger is a painful sensation, and he wishes to
be rid on't. A _great_ man will pardon easily, because he finds
few things worthy his resentment; and a _good_ man will never
resent at all, knowing how much he has himself to be forgiven."
I wrote to the girls by yesterday's post, exactly as if no such
transactions had passed among us: so long live British Synonymy!