Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 25

He complains in a note that Mrs. Piozzi, to whom he told the anecdote, has related it "as if the gentleman had given the natural history of the mouse." But, in a letter to Johnson she tells _him_ "I have seen the man that saw the mouse," and he replies "Poor V----, he is a good man, &c.;" so that her version of the story is the best authenticated. Opposite Boswell's aggressive paragraph she has written: "I saw old Mitch.e.l.l of Brighthelmstone affront him (Johnson) terribly once about fleas. Johnson, being tired of the subject, expressed his impatience of it with coa.r.s.eness. 'Why, Sir,' said the old man, 'why should not Flea bite o'me be treated as Phlebotomy? It empties the capillary vessels.'"

Boswell's Life of Johnson was not published till 1791; but the controversy kindled by the Tour to the Hebrides and the Anecdotes, raged fiercely enough to fix general attention and afford ample scope for ridicule: "The Bozzi &c. subjects," writes Hannah More in April 1786, "are not exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of them. Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. _That_, the Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace, spoil all conversation, and destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys' last night." In one of Walpole's letters about the same time we find:

"All conversation turns on a trio of culprits--Hastings, Fitzgerald, and the Cardinal de Rohan.... So much for tragedy. Our comic performers are Boswell and Dame Piozzi. The c.o.c.k biographer has fixed a direct lie on the hen, by an advertis.e.m.e.nt in which he affirms that he communicated his ma.n.u.script to Madame Thrale, and that she made no objection to what he says of her low opinion of Mrs. Montagu's book.

It is very possible that it might not be her real opinion, but was uttered in compliment to Johnson, or for fear he should spit in her face if she disagreed with him; but how will she get over her not objecting to the pa.s.sage remaining? She must have known, by knowing Boswell, and by having a similar intention herself, that his 'Anecdotes' would certainly be published: in short, the ridiculous woman will be strangely disappointed. As she must have heard that _the whole first impression of her book was sold the first day_, no doubt she expected on her landing, to be received like the governor of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm.

She, and Boswell, and their Hero, are the joke of the public. A Dr.

Walcot, _soi-disant_ Peter Pindar, has published a burlesque eclogue, in which Boswell and the Signora are the interlocutors, and all the absurdest pa.s.sages in the works of both are ridiculed. The print-shops teem with satiric prints in them: one in which Boswell, as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the bear, has this witty inscription, 'My Friend _delineavit_.' But enough of these mountebanks."

What Walpole calls the absurdest pa.s.sages are precisely those which possess most interest for posterity; namely, the minute personal details, which bring Johnson home to the mind's eye. Peter Pindar, however, was simply labouring in his vocation when he made the best of them, as in the following lines. His satire is in the form of a Town Eclogue, in which Bozzy and Madame Piozzi contend in anecdotes, with Hawkins for umpire:

BOZZY.

"One Thursday morn did Doctor Johnson wake, And call out 'Lanky, Lanky,' by mistake-- But recollecting--'Bozzy, Bozzy,' cry'd-- For in _contractions_ Johnson took a pride!"

MADAME PIOZZI.

"I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down; As such a tale was current through the town,-- Says I, 'Do tell me, Doctor, what befell.'-- 'Why, dearest lady, there is nought to _tell_; 'I ponder'd on the _proper'st_ mode to _treat_ him-- 'The dog was impudent, and so I beat him!

'Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs; '_Others_, that I belabour'd, held their tongues.'"

"Did any one, that he was _happy_, cry-- Johnson would tell him plumply, 'twas a lie.

A Lady told him she was really so; On which he sternly answer'd, 'Madam, no!

'Sickly you are, and ugly--foolish, poor; 'And therefore can't he happy, I am sure.

''Twould make a fellow hang himself, whose ear 'Were, from such creatures, forc'd such stuff to hear.'"

BOZZY.

"Lo, when we landed on the Isle of Mull, The megrims got into the Doctor's skull: With such bad humours he began to fill, I thought he would not go to Icolmkill: But lo! those megrims (wonderful to utter!) Were banish'd all by tea and bread and b.u.t.ter!"

At last they get angry, and tell each other a few home truths:--

BOZZY.

"How could your folly tell, so void of truth, That miserable story of the youth, Who, in your book, of Doctor Johnson begs Most seriously to know if cats laid eggs!"

MADAME PIOZZI.

"_Who_ told of Mistress Montagu the lie-- So palpable a falsehood?--Bozzy, fie!"

BOZZY.

"_Who_, madd'ning with an anecdotic itch, Declar'd that Johnson call'd his mother _b-tch?_"

MADAME PIOZZI.

"_Who_, from M'Donald's rage to save his snout, Cut twenty lines of defamation out?"

BOZZY.

"_Who_ would have said a word about Sam's wig, Or told the story of the peas and pig?

Who would have told a tale so very flat, Of Frank the Black, and Hodge the mangy cat?"

MADAME PIOZZI.

"Good me! you're grown at once confounded _tender_; Of Doctor Johnson's fame a _fierce_ defender: I'm sure you've mention'd many a pretty story Not much redounding to the Doctor's glory.

_Now_ for a _saint_ upon us you would palm him-- First _murder_ the poor man, and then _embalm him!_"

BOZZY.

"Well, Ma'am! since all that Johnson said or wrote, You hold so sacred, how have you forgot To grant the wonder-hunting world a reading Of Sam's Epistle, just before your _wedding_: Beginning thus, (in strains not form'd to flatter) 'Madam, '_If that most ignominious matter 'Be not concluded_'--[1]

Farther shall I say?

No--we shall have it from _yourself_ some day, To justify your pa.s.sion for the _Youth_, With all the charms of eloquence and truth."

MADAME PIOZZI.

"What was my marriage, Sir, to _you_ or _him?_ _He_ tell me what to do!--a pretty whim!

_He_, to _propriety_, (the beast) _resort!_ As well might _elephants preside_ at _court_.

Lord! let the world to _d.a.m.n_ my match _agree;_ Good G.o.d! James Boswell, what's _that world_ to _me?_ The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale, Fed on her pork, poor souls! and swill'd her ale, May _sicken_ at Piozzi, nine in ten-- Turn up the nose of scorn--good G.o.d! what then?

For _me_, the Dev'l may fetch their souls so _great_; _They_ keep their homes, and _I_, thank G.o.d, my meat.

When they, poor owls! shall beat their cage, a jail, I, unconfin'd, shall spread my peac.o.c.k tail; Free as the birds of air, enjoy my ease, Choose my own food, and see what climes I please.

_I_ suffer only--if I'm in the wrong: So, now, you prating puppy, hold your tongue."

[Footnote 1: This evidently referred to the "adumbration" of Johnson's letter (No. 4), _ante_, p. 239.]

Walpole's opinion of the book itself had been expressed in a preceding letter, dated March 28th, 1786:

"Two days ago appeared Madame Piozzi's Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. I am lamentably disappointed--in her, I mean: not in him. I had conceived a favourable opinion of her capacity. But this new book is wretched; a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish in a very vulgar style, and too void of method even for such a farrago. . . The Signora talks of her doctor's _expanded_ mind and has contributed her mite to show that never mind was narrower. In fact, the poor woman is to be pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out[1], but have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his brutalities as wit, and his worst conundrums as humour. Judge! The Piozzi relates that a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he replied: 'In Ireland: it was a bog planted with palm trees.'"

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 202 and 270.]

Walpole's statement, that the whole first impression was sold the first day, is confirmed by one of her letters, and may be placed alongside of a statement of Johnson's reported in the book. Clarissa being mentioned as a perfect character, "on the contrary (said he) you may observe that there is always something which she prefers to truth. Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances; but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, which, being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night."

When the king sent for a copy of the "Anecdotes" on the evening of the publication, there was none to be had.

In April, 1786, Hannah More writes:

"Mrs. Piozzi's book is much in fashion. It is indeed entertaining, but there are two or three pa.s.sages exceedingly unkind to Garrick which filled me with indignation. If Johnson had been envious enough to utter them, she might have been prudent enough to suppress them."

In a preceding letter she had said:

"Boswell tells me he is printing anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, not his _life_, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his _pyramid_, I besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said roughly, he would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to please anybody." The retort will serve for both Mrs. Piozzi and himself.

Mrs. Piozzi writes from Venice, May 20th, 1786: "Cadell says he never yet published a work the sale of which was so rapid, and that rapidity of so long continuance. I suppose the fifth edition will meet me at my return."

"Milan, July 6th, 1786.

"If Cadell would send me some copies, I should be very much obliged to him. _'Tis like living without a looking-gla.s.s never to see one's own book so_."

The copy of the "Anecdotes" in my possession has two inscriptions on the blank leaves before the t.i.tle-page. The one is in Mrs. Piozzi's handwriting: "This little dirty book is kindly accepted by Sir James Fellowes from his obliged friend, H.L. Piozzi, 14th February, 1816;"

the other: "This copy of the 'Anecdotes' was found at Bath, covered with dirt, the book having been long out of print[1], and after being bound was presented to me by my excellent friend, H.L.P. (signed) J.F."