Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 23

Thurlow, speaking of the choice of a successor to Lord Mansfield, said, "I hesitated long between the intemperance of Kenyon, and the corruption of Buller; not but what there was a d----d deal of corruption in Kenyon's intemperance, and a d----d deal of intemperance in Buller's corruption." Just so, we may hesitate long between the romance and the worldliness of Johnson, not but what there was a d----d deal of romance in his worldliness, and a d----d deal of worldliness in his romance.

The late Lord Alvanley, whose heart was as inflammable as his wit was bright, used to tell how a successful rival in the favour of a married dame offered to retire from the field for _5001_., saying, "I am a younger son: her husband does not give dinners, and they have no country house: no _liaison_ suits me that does not comprise both." At the risk of provoking Mr. Carlyle's anathema, I now avow my belief that Johnson was, nay, boasted of being, open to similar influences; and as for his "ideal Uranias," no man past seventy idealises women with whom he has been corresponding for years about his or their "natural history," to whom he sends recipes for "lubricity of the bowels," with an a.s.surance that it has had the best effect upon his own.[1]

[Footnote 1: Letters, vol. ii. p. 397. The letter containing the recipe actually begins "My dear Angel." Had Johnson forgotten Swift's lines on Celia? or the repudiation of the divine nature by Ermodotus, which occurs twice in Plutarch? The late Lord Melbourne complained that two ladies of quality, sisters, told him too much of their "natural history."]

Rough language, too, although not incompatible with affectionate esteem, can hardly be reconciled with imaginative romance--

"Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me down stairs?"

"His ugly old wife," says the reviewer, "was an angel." Yes, an angel so far as exalted language could make her one; and he had always half-a-dozen angels or G.o.ddesses on his list. "_Je change d'objet, mais la pa.s.sion reste_." For this very reason, I repeat, his affection for Mrs. Piozzi was not a deep, devoted, or absorbing feeling at any time; and the gloom which settled upon the evening of his days was owing to his infirmities and his dread of death, not to the loosening of cherished ties, nor to the compelled solitude of a confined dwelling in Bolt Court. The plain matter of fact is that, during the last two years of his life, he was seldom a month together at his own house, unless when the state of his health prevented him from enjoying the hospitality of his friends. When the fatal marriage was announced, he was planning what Boswell calls a jaunt into the country; and in a letter dated Lichfield, Oct. 4, 1784, he says: "I pa.s.sed the first part of the summer at Oxford (with Dr. Adams); afterwards I went to Lichfield, then to Ashbourne (Dr. Taylor's), and a week ago I returned to Lichfield."

In the journal which he kept for Dr. Brocklesby, he writes, Oct. 20: "The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books to which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amus.e.m.e.nts. Sir Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to public life; and I hope still to keep my station, till G.o.d shall bid me _Go in peace_."

Boswell reports him saying about this time, "Sir, I look upon every day to be lost when I do not make a new acquaintance."

After another visit to Dr. Adams, at Pembroke College, he returned on the 16th Nov. to London, where he died on the 13th Dec. 1784. The proximate cause of his death was dropsy; and there is not the smallest sign of its having been accelerated or embittered by unkindness or neglect.

Whoever has accompanied me thus far will be fully qualified to form an independent opinion of Lord Macaulay's dashing summary of Mrs.

Piozzi's imputed ill-treatment of Johnson:

"Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never be replaced.

The strange dependants to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more; and it would have been well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived to be the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her beyond any thing in the world, tears far more bitter than he would have shed over her grave.

"With some estimable, and many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own was necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained by her husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but always the undisputed master of his house, her worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom n.o.body but herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against this degrading pa.s.sion. But the struggle irritated her nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson could not approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham: she never pressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a welcome guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he commended the house and its inmates to the Divine protection, and, with emotions which choked his voice and convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever that beloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to him were to run out.

"Here, in June 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made their appearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life, had married an Italian fiddler; that all London was crying shame upon her; and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with allusions to the Ephesian matron and the two pictures in Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial of her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened across Mount Cenis, and learned, while pa.s.sing a merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties at Milan, that the great man with whose name hers is inseparably a.s.sociated, had ceased to exist."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Encyclopaedia Britannica," last edition. The Essay on Johnson is reprinted in the first volume of Lord Macaulay's "Miscellaneous Writings."]

"Splendid recklessness," is the happy expression used by the "Sat.u.r.day Review" in characterising this account of the alleged rupture with its consequences; and no reader will fail to admire the rhetorical skill with which the expulsion from Streatham with its library formed by himself, the chapter in the Greek testament, the gloomy and desolate home, the music-master in whom n.o.body but herself could see anything to admire, the few and evil days, the emotions that convulsed the frame, the painful and melancholy death, and the merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties, have been grouped together with the view of giving picturesqueness, impressive unity, and d.a.m.natory vigour to the sketch. "Action, action, action," says the orator; "effect, effect, effect," says the historian. Give Archimedes a place to stand on, and he would move the world. Give Fouche a line of a man's handwriting, and he would engage to ruin him. Give Lord Macaulay the semblance of an authority, an insulated fact or phrase, a sc.r.a.p of a journal, or the tag end of a song, and on it, by the abused prerogative of genius, he would construct a theory of national or personal character, which should confer undying glory or inflict indelible disgrace.

Johnson was never driven or expelled from Mrs. Piozzi's house or family: if very intelligible hints were given, they certainly were not taken; the library was not formed by him; the Testament may or may not have been Greek; his powerful frame shook with no convulsions but what may have been occasioned by the unripe grapes and hard peaches; he did not leave Streatham for his gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet Street; the few and evil days (two years, nine weeks) did not run out in that house; the music-master was generally admired and esteemed; and the merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties is simply another sample of the brilliant historian's mode of turning the abstract into the concrete in such a manner as to degrade or elevate at will. An Italian concert is not a merry meeting; and a lemonade-party, I presume, is a party where (instead of _eau-sucree_ as at Paris) the refreshment handed about is lemonade: not an enlivening drink at Christmas. In a word, all these graphic details are mere creations of the brain, and the general impression intended to be conveyed by them is false, substantially false; for Mrs. Piozzi never behaved otherwise than kindly and considerately to Johnson at any time.

Her life in Italy has been sketched in her best manner by her own lively pen in the "Autobiography" and what she calls the "Travel Book," to be presently mentioned. Scattered notices of her proceedings occur in her letters to Mr. Lysons, and in the printed correspondence of her cotemporaries.

On the 19th October, 1784, she writes to Mr. Lysons from Turin:

"We are going to Alexandria, Genoa, and Pavia, and then to Milan for the winter, as Mr. Piozzi finds friends everywhere to delay us, and I hate hurry and fatigue; it takes away all one's attention. Lyons was a delightful place to me, and we were so feasted there by my husband's old acquaintances. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of c.u.mberland too paid us a thousand caressing civilities where we met with them, and we had no means of musical parties neither. The Prince of Sisterna came yesterday to visit Mr. Piozzi, and present me with the key of his box at the opera for the time we stay at Turin. Here's honour and glory for you! When Miss Thrale hears of it, she will write perhaps; the other two are very kind and affectionate."

In "Thraliana":

"_3rd November_, 1784.--Yesterday I received a letter from Mr.

Baretti, full of the most flagrant and bitter insults concerning my late marriage with Mr. Piozzi, against whom, however, he can bring no heavier charge than that he disputed on the road with an innkeeper concerning the bill in his last journey to Italy; while he accuses me of murder and fornication in the grossest terms, such as I believe have scarcely ever been used even to his old companions in Newgate, whence he was released to scourge the families which cherished, and bite the hands that have since relieved him. Could I recollect any provocation I ever gave the man, I should be less amazed, but he heard, perhaps, that Johnson had written me a rough letter, and thought he would write me a brutal one: like the Jewish king, who, trying to imitate Solomon without his understanding, said, 'My father whipped you with whips, but I will whip you with scorpions.'"

"Milan, Dec. 7.

"I correspond constantly and copiously with such of my daughters as are willing to answer my letters, and I have at last received one cold sc.r.a.p from the eldest, which I instantly and tenderly replied to. Mrs. Lewis too, and Miss Nicholson, have had accounts of my health, for I found _them_ disinterested and attached to me: those who led the stream, or watched which way it ran, that they might follow it, were not, I suppose, desirous of my correspondence, and till they are so, shall not be troubled with it."

Miss Nicholson was the lady left with the daughters, and Mrs. Piozzi could have heard no harm of her from them or others when she wrote thus. The same inference must be drawn from the allusions to this lady at subsequent periods. After stating that she "dined at the minister's o' Tuesday, and he called all the wise men about me with great politeness indeed"--"Once more," she continues, "keep me out of the newspapers if you possibly can: they have given me many a miserable hour, and my enemies many a merry one: but I have not deserved public persecution, and am very happy to live in a place where one is free from unmerited insolence, such as London abounds with.

"'Illic credulitas, illic temerarius error.'

G.o.d bless you, and may you conquer the many-headed monster which I could never charm to silence." In "Thraliana," she says:

"_January_, 1785.--I see the English newspapers are full of gross insolence to me: all burst out, as I guessed it would, upon the death of Dr. Johnson. But Mr. Boswell (who I plainly see is the author) should let the _dead_ escape from his malice at least. I feel more shocked at the insults offered to Mr. Thrale's memory than at those cast on Mr. Piozzi's person. My present husband, thank G.o.d! is well and happy, and able to defend himself: but dear Mr. Thrale, that had fostered these cursed wits so long! to be stung by their malice even in the grave, is too cruel:--

"'Nor church, nor churchyards, from such fops are free.'"[1]--POPE.

[Footnote 1: Probably misquoted for--

"No place is sacred, not the church is free."

_Prologue to the Satires_.]

The license of our press is a frequent topic of complaint. But here is a woman who had never placed herself before the public in any way so as to give them a right to discuss her conduct or affairs, not even as an author, made the b.u.t.t of every description of offensive personality for months, with the tacit encouragement of the first moralist of the age.

January 20th, 1785, she writes from Milan:--"The Minister, Count Wilsick, has shown us many distinctions, and we are visited by the first families in Milan. The Venetian Resident will, however, be soon sent to the court of London, and give a faithful account, as I am sure, to all their _obliging_ inquiries."

In "Thraliana":

"_25th Jan_., 1785.--I have recovered myself sufficiently to think what will be the consequence to me of Johnson's death, but must wait the event, as all thoughts on the future in this world are vain. Six people have already undertaken to write his life, I hear, of which Sir John Hawkins, Mr. Boswell, Tom Davies, and Dr. Kippis are four.

Piozzi says he would have me add to the number, and so I would, but that I think my anecdotes too few, and am afraid of saucy answers if I send to England for others. The saucy answers _I_ should disregard, but my heart is made vulnerable by my late marriage, and I am certain that, to spite me, they would insult my husband.

"Poor Johnson! I see they will leave _nothing untold_ that I laboured so long to keep secret; and I was so very delicate _in trying to conceal his [fancied][1] insanity_ that I retained no proofs of it, or hardly any, nor even mentioned it in these books, lest by my dying first _they_ might be printed and the secret (for such I thought it) discovered. I used to tell him in jest that his biographers would be at a loss concerning some orange-peel he used to keep in his pocket, and many a joke we had about the lives that would be published.

Rescue me out of their hands, my dear, and do it yourself, said he; Taylor, Adams, and Hector will furnish you with juvenile anecdotes, and Baretti will give you all the rest that you have not already, for I think Baretti is a lyar only when he speaks of himself. Oh, said I, Baretti told me yesterday that you got by heart six pages of Machiavel's History once, and repeated them thirty years afterwards word for word. Why this is a _gross_ lye, said Johnson, I never read the book at all. Baretti too told me of you (said I) that you once kept sixteen cats in your chamber, and yet they scratched your legs to such a degree, you were forced to use mercurial plaisters for some time after. Why this (replied Johnson) is an unprovoked lye indeed; I thought the fellow would not have broken through divine and human laws thus to make puss his heroine, but I see I was mistaken."

[Footnote 1: Sic in the MS. See _ante_, p. 202.]

On February 3rd, 1785, Horace Walpole writes from London to Sir Horace Mann at Florence:--"I have lately been lent a volume of poems composed and printed at Florence, in which another of our exheroines, Mrs. Piozzi, has a considerable share; her a.s.sociates three of the English bards who a.s.sisted in the little garland which Ramsay the painter sent me. The present is a plump octavo; and if you have not sent me a copy by our nephew, I should be glad if you could get one for me: not for the merit of the verses, which are moderate enough and faint imitations of our good poets; but for a short and sensible and genteel preface by La Piozzi, from whom I have just seen a very clever letter to Mrs. Montagu, to disavow a jackanapes who has lately made a noise here, one Boswell, by Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. In a day or two we expect another collection by the same Signora."

Her a.s.sociates were Greathead, Merry, and Parsons. The volume in question was "The Florence Miscellany." "A copy," says Mr. Lowndes, "having fallen into the hands of W. Grifford, gave rise to his admirable satire of the 'Baviad and Moeviad.'"

In his Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell makes Johnson say of Mrs. Montagu's "Essay on Shakespeare": "Reynolds is fond of her book, and I wonder at it; for neither I, nor Beauclerc, nor Mrs.

Thrale could get through it." This is what Mrs. Piozzi wrote to disavow, so far as she was personally concerned. In a subsequent letter from Vienna, she says: "Mrs. Montagu has written to me very sweetly." The other collection expected from her was her "Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, during the last Twenty Years of his Life.

Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand, 1786."

She opened the matter to Mr. Cadell in the following terms:

"Florence, 7th June, 1785.

"_Sir_.,--As you were at once the bookseller and friend of Dr.

Johnson, who always spoke of your character in the kindest terms, I could wish you likewise to be the publisher of some Anecdotes concerning the last twenty years of his life, collected by me during the many days I had opportunity to spend in his instructive company, and digested into method since I heard of his death. As I have a large collection of his letters in England, besides some verses, known only to myself, I wish to delay printing till we can make two or three little volumes, not unacceptable, perhaps, to the public; but I desire my intention to be notified, for divers reasons, and, if you approve of the scheme, should wish it to be immediately advertized. My return cannot be in less than twelve months, and we may be detained still longer, as our intention is to complete the tour of Italy; but the book is in forwardness, and it has been seen by many English and Italian friends."

On July 27th, 1785, she writes from Florence:

"We celebrated our wedding anniversary two days ago with a magnificent dinner and concert, at which the Prince Corsini and his brother the Cardinal did us the honour of a.s.sisting, and wished us joy in the tenderest and politest terms. Lord and Lady Cowper, Lord Pembroke, and _all_ the English indeed, doat on my husband, and show us every possible attention."

On the 18th July, 1785, she writes again to Mr. Cadell:--"I am favoured with your answer and pleased with the advertis.e.m.e.nt, but it will be impossible to print the verses till my return to England, as they are all locked up with other papers in the Bank, nor should I choose to put the key (which is now at Milan) in any one's hand except my own."