Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 20

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 n.o.bles 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-n.o.ble, 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 fa.s.se, 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 pa.s.se, 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 pet.i.tes 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 pa.s.sages, the Edinburgh reviewer remarks:

"Nothing can be more reasonable; and we should certainly live in a more peaceful (if not more entertaining) world, if n.o.body 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 a.s.sertion that the world has grown wiser, espouses a foreign 'professional,' will a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sertion of the kind) that the world has grown wiser; and the reviewer admits as much when he says that his supposit.i.tious 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 a.s.sailants 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 a.s.sure 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, grat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sions, 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.

Johnson's idolised wife was, at the lowest estimate, twenty-one years older than himself when he married her; and her sons were so disgusted by the connection, that they dropped the acquaintance. Yet it never crossed his mind that "Hetty" had as much right to please herself as "Tetty." Of the six letters that pa.s.sed between him and Mrs. Piozzi on the subject of the marriage, only two (Nos. 1 and 5) have hitherto been made public; and the incompleteness of the correspondence has caused the most embarra.s.sing confusion in the minds of biographers and editors, too p.r.o.ne to act on the maxim that, wherever female reputation is concerned, we should hope for the best and believe the worst. Hawkins, apparently ignorant that she had written to Johnson, to announce her intention, says, "He was made uneasy by a report" which induced him to write a strong letter of remonstrance, of which what he calls an _adumbration_ was published in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December 1784. Mr. Croker, avoiding a similar error, says:--"In the lady's own (part) publication of the correspondence, this letter (No. 1) is given as from Mrs. Piozzi, and is signed with the initial of her name: Dr. Johnson's answer is also addressed to Mrs. Piozzi, and both the letters allude to the matter as _done_; yet it appears by the periodical publications of the day, that the marriage did not take place until the 25th July. The editor knew not how to account for this but by supposing that Mrs. Piozzi, to avoid Johnson's importunity, had stated that as done which was only _settled to be done_."

The matter of fact is made plain by the circular (No. 2) which states that "Piozzi is coming back from Italy." He arrived on July 1st, after a fourteen months' absence, which proved both his loyalty and the sincerity of the struggle in her own heart and mind. Her letter (No. 1) as printed, is not signed with the initial of her name; and both Dr. Johnson's autograph letters are addressed to _Mrs. Thrale_.

But she has occasioned the mistake into which so many have fallen, by her mode of heading these when she printed the two-volume edition of "Letters" in 1788. By the kindness of Mr. Salusbury I am now enabled to print the whole correspondence, with the exception of her last letter, which she describes.

No. 1.

_Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson_.

"Bath, June 30.

"My Dear Sir,--The enclosed is a circular letter which I have sent to all the guardians, but our friendship demands somewhat more; it requires that I should beg your pardon for concealing from you a connexion which you must have heard of by many, but I suppose never believed. Indeed, my dear Sir, it was concealed only to save us both needless pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would have killed me to take, and I only tell it you now because all is irrevocably settled and out of your power to prevent. I will say, however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some anxious moments, and though perhaps I am become by many privations the most independent woman in the world, I feel as if acting without a parent's consent till you write kindly to

"Your faithful servant."

No. 2. _Circular_.

"Sir,--As one of the executors of Mr. Thrale's will and guardian to his daughters, I think it my duty to acquaint you that the three eldest left Bath last Friday (25th) for their own house at Brighthelmstone in company with an amiable friend, Miss Nicholson, who has sometimes resided with us here, and in whose society they may, I think, find some advantages and certainly no disgrace. I waited on them to Salisbury, Wilton, &c., and offered to attend them to the seaside myself, but they preferred this lady's company to mine, having heard that Mr. Piozzi is coming back from Italy, and judging perhaps by our past friendship and continued correspondence that his return would be succeeded by our marriage.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant.

"Bath, June 30, 1784."