Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 3

"Oft in danger, yet alive, We are come to thirty-five; Long may better years arrive, Better years than thirty-five.

Could philosophers contrive Life to stop at thirty-five, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five.

High to soar, and deep to dive, Nature gives at thirty-five.

Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five; He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five; And all who wisely wish to wive Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."

"'And now,' said he, as I was writing them down, 'you may see what it is to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order exactly.' And so they do."

Byron's estimate of life at the same age, is somewhat different:

"Too old for youth--too young, at thirty-five To herd with boys, or h.o.a.rd with good threescore, I wonder people should he left alive.

But since they are, that epoch is a bore."

Lady Aldborough, whose best witticisms unluckily lie under the same merited ban as Rochester's best verses, resolved not to pa.s.s twenty-five, and had her pa.s.sport made out accordingly till her death at eighty-five. She used to boast that, whenever a foreign official objected, she never failed to silence him by the remark, that he was the first gentleman of his country who ever told a lady she was older than she said she was. Actuated probably by a similar feeling, and in the hope of securing to herself the benefit of the doubt, Mrs. Thrale omitted in the "Anecdotes" the year when these verses were addressed to her, and a sharp controversy has been raised as to the respective ages of herself and Dr. Johnson at the time. It is thus summed up by one of the combatants:

"In one place Mr. Croker says that at the commencement of the intimacy between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was twenty-five years old. In other places he says that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's seventieth. Johnson was born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's seventieth, she could have been only twenty-one years old in 1765. This is not all. Mr. Croker, in another place, a.s.signs the year 1777 as the date of the complimentary lines which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth birthday. If this date be correct Mrs. Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could have been only twenty-three when her acquaintance commenced. Mr.

Croker, therefore, gives us three different statements as to her age.

Two of the three must be incorrect. We will not decide between them."[1]

[Footnote 1: Macaulay's Essays.]

Mr. Salusbury, referring to a china bowl in his possession, says: "The slip of paper now in it is in my father's handwriting, and copied, I have heard him say, from the original slip, which was worn out by age and fingering. The exact words are, 'In this bason was baptised Hester Lynch Salusbury, 16th Jan. 1740-41 old style, at Bodville in Carnarvonshire.'"

The incident of the verses is thus narrated in "Thraliana": "And this year, 1777[1], when I told him that it was my birthday, and that I was then thirty-five years old, he repeated me these verses, which I wrote down from his mouth as he made them." If she was born in 1740-41, she must have been thirty-six in 1777; and there is no perfectly satisfactory settlement of the controversy, which many will think derives its sole importance from the two chief controversialists.

[Footnote 1: In one of her Memorandum books, 1776.]

The highest authorities differ equally about her looks. "My readers,"

says Boswell, "will naturally wish for some representation of the figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well-proportioned, and stately. As for _Madam_, or _My Mistress_, by which epithets Johnson used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk." "He should have added," observes Mr. Croker, "that she was very pretty."

This was not her own opinion, nor that of her cotemporaries, although her face was attractive from animation and expression, and her personal appearance pleasing on the whole. Sometimes, when visiting the author of "Piozziana,"[1] she used to look at her little self, as she called it, and spoke drolly of what she once was, as if speaking of some one else; and one day, turning to him, she exclaimed: "No, I never was handsome: I had always too many strong points in my face for beauty." On his expressing a doubt of this, and hinting that Dr.

Johnson was certainly an admirer of her personal charms, she replied that his devotion was at least as warm towards the table and the table-cloth at Streatham.

[Footnote 1: "Piozziana; or Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi, with Remarks. By a Friend." (The Rev. E. Mangin.) Moxon, 1833. These reminiscences, unluckily limited to the last eight or ten years of her life at Bath, contain much curious information, and leave a highly favourable impression of Mrs. Piozzi.]

One day when he was ill, exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, she appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an iron-grey. "'Why do you delight,' said he, 'thus to thicken the gloom of misery that surrounds me? is not here sufficient acc.u.mulation of horror without antic.i.p.ated mourning?'--'This is not mourning, Sir!' said I, drawing the curtain, that the light might fall upon the silk, and show it was a purple mixed with green.--'Well, well!' replied he, changing his voice; 'you little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?'"

According to the author of "Piozziana," who became acquainted with her late in life, "She was short, and though well-proportioned, broad, and deep-chested. Her hands were muscular and almost coa.r.s.e, but her writing was, even in her eightieth year, exquisitely beautiful; and one day, while conversing with her on the subject of education, she observed that 'all Misses now-a-days, wrote so like each other, that it was provoking;' adding, 'I love to see individuality of character, and abhor sameness, especially in what is feeble and flimsy.' Then, spreading her hand, she said, 'I believe I owe what you are pleased to call my good writing, to the shape of this hand, for my uncle, Sir Robert Cotton, thought it was too manly to be employed in writing like a boarding-school girl; and so I came by my vigorous, black ma.n.u.script.'"

It was fortunate that the hand-writing compensated for the hands; and as she attached great importance to blood and race, that she did not live to read Byron's "thoroughbred and tapering fingers," or to be shocked by his theory that "the hand is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate." Her Bath friend appeals to a miniature (engraved for this work) by Roche, of Bath, taken when she was in her seventy-seventh year. Like Cromwell, who told the painter that if he softened a harsh line or so much as omitted a wart, he should never be paid a sixpence,--she desired the artist to paint her face deeply rouged, which it always was[1], and to introduce a trivial deformity of the jaw, produced by a horse treading on her as she lay on the ground after a fall. In this respect she proved superior to Johnson; who, with all his love of truth, could not bear to be painted with his defects. He was displeased at being drawn holding a pen close to his eye; and on its being suggested that Reynolds had painted himself holding his ear in his hand to catch the sound, he replied: "He may paint himself as deaf as he pleases, but I will not be Blinking Sam."

[Footnote 1: "One day I called early at her house, and as I entered her drawing-room, she pa.s.sed me, saying, 'Dear Sir, I will be with you in a few minutes; but, while I think of it, I must go to my dressing-closet and paint my face, which I forgot to do this morning.' Accordingly she soon returned, wearing the requisite quant.i.ty of bloom; which, it must be noticed, was not in the least like that of youth and beauty. I then said that I was surprised she should so far sacrifice to fashion, as to take that trouble. Her answer was that, as I might conclude, her practice of painting did not proceed from any silly compliance with Bath fashion, or any fashion; still less, if possible, from the desire of appearing younger than she was, but from this circ.u.mstance, that in early life she had worn rouge, as other young persons did in her day, as a part of dress; and after continuing the habit for some years, discovered that it had introduced a dull yellow colour into her complexion, quite unlike that of her natural skin, and that she wished to conceal the deformity."--_Piozziana_.]

Reynolds' portrait of Mrs. Thrale conveys a highly agreeable impression of her; and so does Hogarth's, when she sat to him for the princ.i.p.al figure in "The Lady's Last Stake." She was then only fourteen; and he probably idealised his model; but that he also produced a striking likeness, is obvious on comparing his picture with the professed portraits. The history of this picture (which has been engraved, at Lord Macaulay's suggestion, for this work) will be found in the Autobiography and the Letters.

Boswell's account of his first visit to Streatham gives a tolerably fair notion of the footing on which Johnson stood there, and the manner in which the interchange of mind was carried on between him and the hostess. This visit took place in October, 1769, four years after Johnson's introduction to her; and Boswell's absence from London, in which he had no fixed residence during Johnson's life, will hardly account for the neglect of his ill.u.s.trious friend in not procuring him a privilege which he must have highly coveted and would doubtless have turned to good account.

"On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation; and found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circ.u.mstance that can make society pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be equally the care of his host and hostess. I rejoiced at seeing him so happy."

"Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it; his love verses were college verses: and he repeated the song, 'Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains,' &c. in so ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to her guns with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saving, 'My dear lady, talk no more of this.

Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.'

"Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talents for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in 'Florizel and Perdita,' and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:--

"'I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.'

"_Johnson._--'Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David!

Smile with the simple!--what folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.'" Boswell adds, that he repeated this sally to Glarrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it; on which Mrs. Thrale remarks, "How odd to go and tell the man!"

The independent tone she took when she deemed the Doctor unreasonable, is also proved by Boswell in his report of what took place at Streatham in reference to Lord Marchmont's offer to supply information for the Life of Pope:

"Elated with the success of my spontaneous exertion to procure material and respectable aid to Johnson for his very favourite work, 'the Lives of the Poets,' I hastened down to Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, where he now was, that I might insure his being at home next day; and after dinner, when I thought he would receive the good news in the best humour, I announced it eagerly: 'I have been at work for you to-day, Sir. I have been with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell you he has a great respect for you, and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock, and communicate all he knows about Pope.' _Johnson._ 'I shall not be in town to-morrow. I don't care to know about Pope.'

_Mrs. Thrale_ (surprised, as I was, and a little angry). 'I suppose, Sir, Mr. Boswell thought that as you are to write Pope's Life, you would wish to know about him.' _Johnson._ 'Wish! why yes. If it rained knowledge, I'd hold out my hand; but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it.' There was no arguing with him at the moment. Sometime afterwards he said, 'Lord Marchmont will call upon me, and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont.' Mrs. Thrale was uneasy at this unaccountable caprice: and told me, that if I did not take care to bring about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him, it would never take place, which would be a great pity."

The ensuing conversation is a good sample of the freedom and variety of "talk" in which Johnson luxuriated, and shows how important a part Mrs. Thrale played in it:

"Mrs. Thrale told us, that a curious clergyman of our acquaintance (Dr. Lort is named in the margin) had discovered a licentious stanza, which Pope had originally in his 'Universal Prayer,' before the stanza,--

"'What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns us not to do,' &c.

It was this:--

"'Can sins of moment claim the rod Of everlasting fires?

And that offend great Nature's G.o.d Which Nature's self inspires."

and that Dr. Johnson observed, it had been borrowed from _Guarini_.

There are, indeed, in _Pastor Fido_, many such flimsy superficial reasonings as that in the last two lines of this stanza.

"_Boswell_. 'In that stanza of Pope's, "_rod of fires_" is certainly a bad metaphor.' _Mrs. Thrale_. 'And "sins of _moment_" is a faulty expression; for its true import is _momentous_, which cannot be intended.' _Johnson_. 'It must have been written "of _moments_." Of _moment_, is _momentous_; of _moments, momentary_. I warrant you, however, Pope wrote this stanza, and some friend struck it out.'

"Talking of divorces, I asked if Oth.e.l.lo's doctrine was not plausible:--

"'He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen, Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.'

Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale joined against this. _Johnson_. 'Ask any man if he'd wish not to know of such an injury.' _Boswell_. 'Would you tell your friend to make him unhappy?' _Johnson_. 'Perhaps, Sir, I should not: but that would be from prudence on my own account. A man would tell his father.' _Boswell_. 'Yes; because he would not have spurious children to get any share of the family inheritance.'

_Mrs. Thrale_. 'Or he would tell his brother.' _Boswell_. 'Certainly his _elder_ brother.... Would you tell Mr. ----?' (naming a gentleman who a.s.suredly was not in the least danger of so miserable a disgrace, though married to a fine woman). _Johnson_. 'No, Sir: because it would do no good; he is so sluggish, he'd never go to Parliament and get through a divorce.'" _Marginal Note_: "Langton."

There is every reason to believe that her behaviour to Johnson was uniformly marked by good-breeding and delicacy. She treated him with a degree of consideration and respect which he did not always receive from other friends and admirers. A foolish rumour having got into the newspapers that he had been learning to dance of Vestris, it was agreed that Lord Charlemont should ask him if it was true, and his lordship with (it is shrewdly observed) the characteristic spirit of a general of Irish volunteers, actually put the question, which provoked a pa.s.sing feeling of irritation. Opposite Boswell's account of this incident she has written, "Was he not right in hating to be so treated? and would he not have been right to have loved me better than any of them, because I never did make a Lyon of him?"

One great charm of her companionship to cultivated men was her familiarity with the learned languages, as well as with French, Italian, and Spanish. The author of "Piozziana" says: "She not only read and wrote Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, but had for sixty years constantly and ardently studied the Scriptures and the works of commentators in the original languages." She did not know Greek, and he probably over-estimated her other acquirements, which Boswell certainly underestimates when he speaks slightingly of them on the strength of Johnson's having said: "It is a great mistake to suppose that she is above him (Thrale) in literary attainments. She is more flippant, but he has ten times her learning: he is a regular scholar; but her learning is that of a school-boy in one of the lower forms."

If this were so, it is strange that Thrale should cut so poor a figure, should seem little better than a nonent.i.ty, whilst every imaginable topic was under animated discussion at his table; for Boswell was more ready to report the husband's sayings than the wife's. In a marginal note on one of the printed letters she says: "Mr. Thrale was a very merry talking man in 1760; but the distress of 1772, which affected his health, his hopes, and his whole soul, affected his temper too. Perkins called it being planet struck, and I am not sure he was ever completely the same man again." The notes of his conversation during the antecedent period are equally meagre.[1]

He is described by Madame D'Arblay as taking a singular amus.e.m.e.nt in hearing, instigating, and provoking a war of words, alternating triumph and overthrow, between clever and ambitious colloquial combatants.

[Footnote 1: "Pray, Doctor, said a gentleman to Johnson, is Mr.

Thrale a man of conversation, or is he only wise and silent?' 'Why, Sir, his conversation does not show the _minute_ hand; but he generally strikes the hour very correctly.'"--_Johnsoniana_.]

No one would have expected to find her as much at home in Greek and Latin authors as a man of fair ability who had received and profited by an University education, but she could appreciate a cla.s.sical allusion or quotation, and translate off-hand a Latin epigram.

"Mary Aston," said Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw!

"'Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria, Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale!'