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From a drawing by George Dance, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Emery Walker

HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI (b. 1741, d. 1821)

On July 25th, 1784, Mrs. Thrale married Signor Piozzi. The union, which proved a happy one (notwithstanding the abuse showered upon the lady from all quarters) resulted in estranging her from Dr. Johnson. It is not impossible that Johnson might have been reconciled to Mrs. Piozzi had he lived longer, but he died six months after the marriage, during which time she was abroad, and he in failing health.

public, because both the money, and the pictures, and the curiosities, would remain in the country; whereas if they were sold into another kingdom, the nation would indeed get some money, but would lose the pictures and curiosities, which it would be desirable we should have, for improvement in taste and natural history. The only question was, as the nation was much in want of money, whether it would not be better to take a large price from a foreign State?"

He entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between intuition and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the other requiring a circuitous process; one he observed was the eye of the mind, the other the nose of the mind.

***,

A young gentleman present took up the argument against him, and maintained that no man ever thinks of the nose of the mind, not adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's "In my mind's eye, Horatio." He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as putting himself forward as his antagonist with too much. presumption upon which he called to him in a loud tone, "What is it you are contending for, if you be contending?"—And afterwards imagining that the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of smart drollery, he said, “Mr. **** it does not become you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is not your talent; you have there neither intuition nor sagacity."-The gentleman protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had the greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during which we were somewhat uneasy;-JOHNSON: Give me your hand, Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short." Mr. *****: “Sir, I am honoured by your attention in any way." JOHNSON: JOHNSON: "Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by our compliments."

He now said, "He wished much to go to Italy, and that he dreaded passing the winter in England." I said nothing; but enjoyed a secret satisfaction in thinking that I had taken the most effectual measures to make such a scheme practicable. On Monday, June 28, I had the honour to receive from the Lord Chancellor the following letter:

66 SIR,

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

"I SHOULD have answered your letter immediately; if (being much engaged when I received it) I had not put it in my pocket, and forgot to open it till this morning.

"I am much obliged to you for the suggestion, and I will adopt and press it as far as I can. The best argument, I am sure, and I hope it is not likely to fail, is Dr. Johnson's merit.—But it will be necessary, if I should be so unfortunate as to miss seeing you, to converse with Sir Joshua on the sum it will be proper to ask,-in short, upon the means of setting him out. It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man should perish for want of the means to take care of his health.

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This letter gave me a very high satisfaction; I next day went and showed it to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was exceedingly pleased with it. He thought that I should now communicate the negotiation to Dr. Johnson, who might afterwards complain if the attention with which he had been honoured should be too long concealed from him. I intended to set out for Scotland next morning; but Sir Joshua cordially

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EFFORTS TO SEND JOHNSON TO ITALY

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insisted that I should stay another day, that Johnson and I might dine with him, that we three might talk of his Italian tour, and, as Sir Joshua expressed himself, I have it all out. I hastened to Johnson, and was told by him that he was rather better to-day. BOSWELL: "I am very anxious about you, Sir, and particularly that you should go to Italy for the winter, which I believe is your own wish." JOHNSON "It is, Sir." BOSWELL: "You have no objection, I presume, but the money it would require." JOHNSON: "Why no, Sir."-Upon which I gave him a particular account of what had been done, and read to him the Lord Chancellor's letter. He listened with much attention; then warmly said, "This is taking prodigious pains about a man.”—“ O, Sir (said I with most sincere affection), your friends would do everything for you." He paused,-grew more and more agitated,till tears started into his eyes, and he exclaimed with fervent emotion, "GOD bless you all." I was so affected that I also shed tears.—After a short silence, he renewed and extended his grateful benediction, "GOD bless you all, for JESUS CHRIST's sake." We both remained for some time unable to speak. He rose suddenly and quitted the room, quite melted in tenderness. He stayed but a short time, till he had recovered his firmness; soon after he returned I left him, having first engaged him to dine at Sir Joshua Reynolds's next day.—I never was again under that roof, which I had so long reverenced.

On Wednesday, June 30, the friendly confidential dinner with Sir Joshua Reynolds took place, no other company being present. Had I known that this was the last time that I should enjoy in this world, the conversation of a friend whom I so much respected, and from whom I derived so much instruction and entertainment, I should have been deeply affected. When I now look back to it, I am vexed that a single word should have been forgotten.

Both Sir Joshua and I were so sanguine in our expectations, that we expatiated with confidence on the liberal provision which we were sure would be made for him, conjecturing whether munificence would be displayed in one large donation, or in an ample increase of his pension. He himself catched so much of our enthusiasm, as to allow himself to suppose it not impossible that our hopes might in one way or other be realised. He said that he would rather have his pension doubled than a grant of a thousand pounds; "For (said he), though probably I may not live to receive as much as a thousand pounds, a man would have the consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his life in splendour, how long soever it might be." Considering what a moderate proportion an income of six hundred pounds a year bears to innumerable fortunes in this country, it is worthy of remark that a man so truly great should think it splendour.

As an instance of extraordinary liberality of friendship, he told us that Dr. Brocklesby had upon this occasion offered him a hundred a year for his life. A grateful tear started into his eye, as he spoke this in a faltering tone.

Sir Joshua and I endeavoured to flatter his imagination with agreeable prospects of happiness in Italy. "Nay (said he), I must not expect much of that; when a man goes to Italy merely to feel how he breathes the air, he can enjoy very little."

Our conversation turned upon living in the country, which Johnson, whose melancholy mind required the dissipation of quick successive variety, had habituated himself to consider as a kind of mental imprisonment. "Yet, Sir (said I), there are many people who are content to live in the country." JOHNSON: "Sir, it is in the intellectual world as in the physical world: we are told by natural philosophers that a body is at rest in the place that is fit for it; they who are content to live in the country, are fit for the country."

Talking of various enjoyments, I argued that a refinement of taste was a disadvantage, as they who have attained to it must be seldomer pleased than those who have no nice discrimination, and are therefore satisfied with everything that comes in their way. JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir; that is a paltry notion. Endeavour to be as perfect as you can in every respect.'

I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach to the entry of Bolt-court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, "Fare you well;" and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetic briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, long separation.

I remained one day more in town, to have the chance of talking over my negotiations with the Lord Chancellor; but the multiplicity of his Lordship's important engagements did not allow of it; so I left the management of the business in the hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Soon after this time, Dr. Johnson had the mortification of being informed by Mrs. Thrale, that "what she supposed he never believed," was true; namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, an Italian music-master. He endeavoured to prevent it; but in vain. If she would publish the whole of the correspondence that passed between Dr. Johnson and her on the subject, we should have a full view of his real sentiments. As it is, our judgment must be biassed by that characteristic specimen which Sir John Hawkins has given us : Poor Thrale, I thought that either her virtue or her vice would have restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over; and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget, or pity.” †

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It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable portion of happiness from the comforts and elegances which he enjoyed in Mr. Thrale's family; but Mrs. Thrale assures us he was indebted for these to her husband alone, who certainly respected him sincerely. Her words are," Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson; but the perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in the first years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; nor could I pretend to support it without help, when my coadjutor was no more." Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have heard Mrs. Thrale make in his lifetime, without a single murmur against any peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which attended their intimacy.

As a sincere friend of the great man whose Life I am writing, I think it necessary to guard my readers against the mistaken notion of Dr. Johnson's character which this lady's "Anecdotes " of him suggest; for from the very nature and form of her book, "it lends deception lighter wings to fly."

"Let it be remembered (says an eminent critic), § that she has comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. Johnson in twenty years, during which period, doubtless, some severe things were said by him; and they who read the book

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in two hours, naturally enough suppose that his whole conversation was of this complexion. But the fact is, I have been often in his company, and never once heard him say a severe thing to anyone and many others can attest the same. When he did say a severe thing, it was generally extorted by ignorance pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation.

"Two instances of inaccuracy (adds he) are peculiarly worthy of notice :

"It is said,*That natural roughness of his manner so often mentioned, would, notwithstanding the regularity of his notions, burst through them all from time to time; and he once bade a very celebrated lady [Hannah More], who praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or

perhaps too strong an emphasis (which always offended him), consider what her flattery was worth, before she choked him with it."

"Now let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with this. The person thus represented as being harshly treated, though a very celebrated lady, was then just come to London from an obscure situation in the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's, one evening, she met Dr. Johnson. She very soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain. 'Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam,' was his reply. She still laid it on. 'Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this,' he

rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he exclaimed, 'Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely.'

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* "Anecdotes," p. 183. 69-(2279)

From a photo by Emery Walker after a drawing by George Dance in the National

Portrait Gallery

GABRIEL PIOZZI (b. 1741, d. 1809)

After the death of Mr. Thrale his vivacious widow fell under the spell of an Italian musician and Roman Catholic, Signor Piozzi, who married her in July, 1784. The married pair travelled through France, Italy, Germany and Belgium, returning to England in 1787, and to Streatham in 1790. Subsequently Mrs. Piozzi built Brynbella on the Clwyd, where her second husband died. He is described as a well-mannered, amiable man, who took every care of his wife's fortune.

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