Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 17

"_January 29, 1783_.--Adieu to all that's dear, to all that's lovely; I am parted from my life, my soul, my Piozzi. If I can get health and strength to write my story here, 'tis all I wish for now--oh misery!

[Here are four pages missing.] The cold dislike of my eldest daughter I thought might wear away by familiarity with his merit, and that we might live tolerably together, or, at least, part friends--but no; her aversion increased daily, and she communicated it to the others; they treated _me_ insolently, and _him_ very strangely--running away whenever he came as if they saw a serpent--and plotting with their governess--a cunning Italian--how to invent lyes to make me hate him, and twenty such narrow tricks. By these means the notion of my partiality took air, and whether Miss Thrale sent him word slily or not I cannot tell, but on the 25th January, 1783, Mr. Crutchley came hither to conjure me not to go to Italy; he had heard such things, he said, and by _means_ next to _miraculous_. The next day, Sunday, 26th, f.a.n.n.y Burney came, said I must marry him instantly or give him up; that my reputation would be lost else.

"I actually groaned with anguish, threw myself on the bed in an agony which my fair daughter beheld with frigid indifference. She had indeed never by one tender word endeavoured to dissuade me from the match, but said, coldly, that if I _would_ abandon my children I _must_; that their father had not deserved such treatment from me; that I should be punished by Piozzi's neglect, for that she knew he hated me; and that I turned out my offspring to chance for his sake, like puppies in a pond to swim or drown according as Providence pleased; that for her part she must look herself out a place like the other servants, for my face would she never see more.' 'Nor write to me?' said I. 'I shall not, madam,' replied she with a cold sneer, 'easily find out your address; for you are going you know not whither, I believe.'

"Susan and Sophy said nothing at all, but they taught the two young ones to cry 'Where are you going, mama? will you leave us and die as our poor papa did?' There was no standing _that_., so I wrote my lover word that my mind was all distraction, and bid him come to me the next morning, 27th January--my birthday--and spent the Sunday night in torture not to be described. My falsehood to my Piozzi, my strong affection for him, the incapacity I felt in myself to resign the man I so adored, the hopes I had so cherished, inclined me strongly to set them all at defiance, and go with him to church to sanctify the promises I had so often made him; while the idea of abandoning the children of my first husband, who left me so n.o.bly provided for, and who depended on my attachment to his offspring, awakened the voice of conscience, and threw me on my knees to pray for _His_ direction who was hereafter to judge my conduct. His grace illuminated me, His power strengthened me, and I flew to my daughter's bed in the morning and told her my resolution to resign my own, my dear, my favourite purpose, and to prefer my children's interest to my love. She questioned my ability to make the sacrifice; said one word from him would undo all my--[Here two pages are missing].

"I told Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley three days ago that I had determined--seeing them so averse to it--that I would not go abroad, but that, if I did not leave England, I _would_ leave London, where I had not been treated to my mind, and where I had flung away much unnecessary money with little satisfaction; that I was greatly in debt, and somewhat like distress'd: that borrowing was always bad, but of one's children worst: that Mr. Crutchley's objection to their lending me their money when I had a mortgage to offer as security, was unkind and harsh: that I would go live in a little way at Bath till I had paid all my debts and cleared my income: that I would no more be tyrannized over by people who hated or people who plundered me, in short that I would retire and save my money and lead this uncomfortable life no longer. They made little or no reply, and I am resolved to do as I declared. I will draw in my expenses, lay by every shilling I can to pay off debts and mortgages, and perhaps--who knows? I may in six or seven years be freed from all inc.u.mbrances, and carry a clear income of 2500_l._ a year and an estate of 500_l._ in land to the man of my heart. May I but live to discharge my obligations to those who _hate me_; it will be paradise to discharge them to him who _loves me_."

"_April, 1783_.--I will go to Bath: nor health, nor strength, nor my children's affections, have I. My daughter does not, I suppose, much delight in this scheme [viz, retrenchment of expenses and removal to Bath], but why should I lead a life of delighting her, who would not lose a shilling of interest or an ounce of pleasure to save my life from perishing? When I was near losing my existence from the contentions of my mind, and was seized with a temporary delirium in Argyll Street, she and her two eldest sisters laughed at my distress, and observed to dear f.a.n.n.y Burney, that it was _monstrous droll_.

_She_ could hardly suppress her indignation.

"Piozzi was ill.... A sore throat, Pepys said it was, with four ulcers in it: the people about me said it had been lanced, and I mentioned it slightly before the girls.' Has he cut his own throat?'

says Miss Thrale in her quiet manner. This was less inexcusable because she hated him, and the other was her sister; though, had she exerted the good sense I thought her possessed of, she would not have treated him so: had she adored, and fondled, and respected him as he deserved from her hands, and from the heroic conduct he shewed in January when he gave into her hands, that dismal day, all my letters containing promises of marriage, protestations of love, &c., who knows but she might have kept us separated? But never did she once caress or thank me, never treat him with common civility, except on the very day which gave her hopes of our final parting. Worth while to be sure it was, to break one's heart for her! The other two are, however, neither wiser nor kinder; all swear by her I believe, and follow her footsteps exactly. Mr. Thrale had not much heart, but his fair daughters have none at all."[1]

[Footnote 1: This is the very accusation they brought against her.]

Johnson was not called in to counsel on these matters of the heart, but he was not cast off or neglected. Madame D'Arblay lands him in Argyll Street on the 20th November, 1782. We hear of him at Mrs.

Thrale's house or in her company repeatedly from Madame D'Arblay and Dr. Lort. "Johnson," writes Dr. Lort, January 28th, 1783, "is much better. I saw him the other evening at Madame Thrale's in very good spirits." Boswell says:

"On Friday, March 21, (1783) having arrived in London the night before, I was glad to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house, in Argyle Street, appearances of friendship between them being still kept up. I was shown into his room; and after the first salutation he said, 'I am glad you are come; I am very ill'....

"He sent a message to acquaint Mrs. Thrale that I was arrived. I had not seen her since her husband's death. She soon appeared, and favoured me with an invitation to stay to dinner, which I accepted.

There was no other company but herself and three of her daughters, Dr. Johnson, and I. She too said she was very glad I was come; for she was going to Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr.

Johnson before I came. This seemed to be attentive and kind; and I, _who had not been informed of any change, imagined all to be as well as formerly_. He was little inclined to talk at dinner, and went to sleep after it; but when he joined us in the drawing-room he seemed revived, and was again himself."

This is quite decisive so far as Boswell is concerned, and disposes at once of all his preceding insinuations to her disadvantage. He had not seen her before since Thrale's death; and now, finding them together and jealously scrutinising their tone and manner towards each, he imagined all to be as well as formerly.[1] That they were on the point of living apart, and of keeping up their habitual interchange of mind exclusively by letters, is no proof that either was capriciously or irrecoverably estranged.

[Footnote 1: "Now on March 21, 1783, fifteen months before the marriage in question, Boswell speaks of the severance of the old friendship as effected: 'appearances of friendship,' he says, 'were still maintained between them.' Boswell was at feud with the lady when he wrote, as we all know. But his evidence is surely sufficient as to the fact of the rupture, though not as to its causes."--_(Edin.

Rev._ p. 510.) Boswell's concluding evidence, that to the best of his knowledge and observation, there was no change or rupture, is suppressed!]

The pleasures of intimacy in friendship depend far more on external circ.u.mstances than people of a sentimental turn of mind are willing to concede; and when constant companionship ceases to suit the convenience of both parties, the chances are that it will be dropped on the first favourable opportunity. Admiration, esteem, or affection may continue to be felt for one whom, from altered habits or new ties, we can no longer receive as an inmate or an established member of the family. Johnson was now in his seventy-fourth year, haunted by the fear of death, and fond of dwelling nauseously on his ailments and proposed remedies. From what pa.s.sed at Brighton, it would seem that there were moods in which he was positively unbearable, and could not be received in a house without driving every one else out of it. In a roomy mansion like Streatham he might be endured, because he could be kept out of the way; but in an ordinary town-house or small establishment, such a guest would resemble an elephant in a private menagerie.

There is also a very great difference, when arrangements are to be made for the domestication of a male visitor, between a family with a male head, and one consisting exclusively of females. Let any widow with daughters make the case her own, and imagine herself domesticated in Argyll or Harley Street with the lexicographer. The manly authority of Thrale was required to keep Johnson in order quite as much as to steady the imputed flightiness of the lady; and his idolaters must really remember that she was a sentient being, with feelings and affections which she was fully ent.i.tled to consult in arranging her scheme of life. When Lord Macaulay and his school tacitly a.s.sume that these are to weigh as dust in the balance against the claims of learning, they argue like sundry upholders of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, who contend that his subjects should complacently endure any amount of oppression rather than endanger (what they deem) the vital interests of the Church. When it is maintained that the discomfort was amply repaid by the glory he conferred, we are reminded of what the Strasbourg goose undergoes for fame: "Crammed with food, deprived of drink, and fixed near a great fire, before which it is nailed with its feet upon a plank, this goose pa.s.ses, it must be owned, an uncomfortable life. The torment would indeed be intolerable, if the idea of the lot which awaits him did not serve as a consolation. But when he reflects that his liver, bigger than himself, loaded with truffles, and clothed in a scientific _pate_, will, through the instrumentality of M. Corcellet, diffuse all over Europe the glory of his name, he resigns himself to his destiny, and suffers not a tear to flow."[1]

[Footnote 1: Almanach des Gourmands.]

Her case for a separation _de corps_ is thus stated in the "Anecdotes ":

"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 n.o.body 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sistance, 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 ma.n.u.script.]

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 inc.u.mbrance, 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.--G.o.d 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d; may my pet.i.tions 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 grat.i.tude 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.s 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.