Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi Part 8

[Footnote 1:

"He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back."]

"This scene is well told by Miss Burney, in her 'Camilla'[1] _ex relatione_ Mrs. Williams (Lady Cotton's sister, who was present) and Beata Lloyd, whose brother, Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of the Guards, was the Brummell of his day, celebrated for his manly beauty and accomplishments. I heard Lord Crewe say that Colonel Lloyd's horse, and his graceful manner of mounting him, used to attract members of both Houses (he among them) to _turn out_ to see him mount guard; and the Princesses were forbidden, when driving out, to go so often that way and at that time."

[Footnote 1: Book viii. chap, iv., Dr. Orkborne is described standing on the staircase of an inn absorbed in the composition of a paragraph whilst the party are at dinner.]

Their impressions of one another as travelling companions were sufficiently favourable to induce the party (with the addition of Baretti) to make a short tour in France in the autumn of the year following, 1775, during part of which Johnson kept a diary in the same laconic and elliptical style. The only allusion to either of his friends is:

"We went to Sansterre, a brewer. He brews with about as much malt as Mr. Thrale, and sells his beer at the same price, though he pays no duty for malt, and little more than half as much for beer. Beer is sold retail at sixpence a bottle."

In a letter to Levet, dated Paris, Oct. 22, 1775, he says:

"We went to see the king and queen at dinner, and the queen was so impressed by Miss, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who she was. I find all true that you have ever told me at Paris. Mr.

Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine table; but I think our cookery very bad. Mrs. Thrale got into a convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars."

A striking instance of Johnson's occasional impracticability occurred during this journey:

"When we were at Rouen together," says Mrs. Thrale, "he took a great fancy to the Abbe Kofiette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation: the talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Mr. Johnson p.r.o.nounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbe rose from his seat and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the abbe to England, intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the company of the Abbe Roffette."

In a letter dated May 9, 1780, also, Mrs. Thrale alludes to more than one disagreement in France:

"When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression?

I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne, when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity perhaps, and so now you begin again: after having taken five years'

breath, you might have done more than this. Say another word, and I will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys and how cross you were for nothing--but some how or other, our travels never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence."

Joseph Baretti, who now formed one of the family, is so mixed up with their history that some account of him becomes indispensable. He was a Piedmontese, whose position in his native country was not of a kind to tempt him to remain in it, when Lord Charlemont, to whom he had been useful in Italy, proposed his coming to England. His own story was that he had lost at play the little property he had inherited from his father, an architect. The education given him by his parents was limited to Latin; he taught himself English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. His talents, acquirements, and strength of mind must have been considerable, for they soon earned him the esteem and friendship of the most eminent members of the Johnsonian circle, in despite of his arrogance. He came to England in 1753; is kindly mentioned in one of Johnson's letters in 1754; and when he was in Italy in 1761, his ill.u.s.trious friend's letters to him are marked by a tone of affectionate interest. Ceremony and tenderness are oddly blended in the conclusion of one of them:

"May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or some other place nearer to, Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, SAMUEL JOHNSON."

Johnson remarked of Baretti in 1768: "I know no man who carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in his mind. He has not indeed many hooks, but with what hooks he has, he grapples very forcibly." Cornelia Knight was "disgusted by his satirical madness of manner," although admitting him to be a man of great learning and information. Madame D'Arblay was more struck by his rudeness and violence than by his intellectual vigour.

"Thraliana" confirms Johnson's estimate of Baretti's capacity:

"Will. Burke was tart upon Mr. Baretti for being too dogmatical in his talk about politics. 'You have,' says he, 'no business to be investigating the characters of Lord Falkland or Mr. Hampden. You cannot judge of their merits, they are no countrymen of yours.'

'True,' replied Baretti, 'and you should learn by the same rule to speak very cautiously about Brutus and Mark Antony; they are my countrymen, and I must have their characters tenderly treated by foreigners.'

"Baretti could not endure to be called, or scarcely thought, a foreigner, and indeed it did not often occur to his company that he was one; for his accent was wonderfully proper, and his language always copious, always nervous, always full of various allusions, flowing too with a rapidity worthy of admiration, and far beyond the power of nineteen in twenty natives. He had also a knowledge of the solemn language and the gay, could be sublime with Johnson, or blackguard with the groom; could dispute, could rally, could quibble, in our language. Baretti has, besides, some skill in music, with a ba.s.s voice, very agreeable, besides a falsetto which he can manage so as to mimic any singer he hears. I would also trust his knowledge of painting a long way. These accomplishments, with his extensive power over every modern language, make him a most pleasing companion while he is in good humour; and his lofty consciousness of his own superiority, which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, is never despicable, but vanity, which he possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty ridiculous.

"France displayed all Mr. Baretti's useful powers--he bustled for us, he catered for us, he took care of the child, he secured an apartment for the maid, he provided for our safety, our amus.e.m.e.nt, our repose; without him the pleasure of that journey would never have balanced the pain. And great was his disgust, to be sure, when he caught us, as he often did, ridiculing French manners, French sentiments, &c. I think he half cryed to Mrs. Payne, the landlady at Dover, on our return, because we laughed at French cookery, and French accommodations. Oh, how he would court the maids at the inns abroad, abuse the men perhaps! and that with a facility not to be exceeded, as they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he could in Spain, I find, and so 'tis plain he could here. I will give one instance of his skill in our low street language. Walking in a field near Chelsea, he met a fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to be a foreigner, said sneeringly, 'Come, Sir, will you show me the way to France?' 'No, Sir,' says Baretti, instantly, 'but I will show you the way to Tyburn.' Such, however, was his ignorance in a certain line, that he once asked Johnson for information who it was composed the Pater Noster, and I heard him tell Evans[1] the story of Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in the Milanese dialect, expecting great credit for his powers of invention. Evans owned to me that he thought the man drunk, whereas poor Baretti was, both in eating and drinking, a model of temperance.

Had he guessed Evans's thoughts, the parson's gown would scarcely have saved him a knouting from the ferocious Italian."

[Footnote 1: Evans was a clergyman and rector of Southwark.]

On Oct. 20, 1769, Baretti was tried at the Old Bailey on a charge of murder, for killing with a pocket knife one of three men who, with a woman of the town, hustled him in the Haymarket.[1] He was acquitted, and the event is princ.i.p.ally memorable for the appearance of Johnson, Burke, Grarrick, and Beauclerc as witnesses to character. The substance of Johnson's evidence is thus given in the "Gentleman's Magazine":

[Footnote 1: In his defence, he said:--"I hope it will be seen that my knife was neither a weapon of offence or defence. I wear it to carve fruit and sweetmeats, and not to kill my fellow creatures. It is a general custom in France not to put knives on the table, so that even ladies wear them in their pockets for general use."]

"_Dr. J_.--I believe I began to be acquainted with Mr. Baretti about the year 1753 or 1754. I have been intimate with him. He is a man of literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.--_Q_. Was he addicted to pick up women in the streets?--_Dr. J. I_ never knew that he was.--_Q_. How is he as to eyesight?--_Dr. J._ He does not see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he could be capable of a.s.saulting any body in the street, without great provocation."

It would seem that Johnson's sensibility, such as it was, was not very severely taxed.

"_Boswell_.--But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged?

"_Johnson_.---I should do what I could to bail him; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer.

"_Boswell_.--Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?

"_Johnson_.--Yes, Sir, and eat it as if he were eating it with me.

Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow.

Friends have risen up for him on every side, yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."

Steevens relates that one evening previous to the trial a consultation of Baretti's friends was held at the house of Mr. c.o.x, the solicitor. Johnson and Burke were present, and differed as to some point of the defence. On Steevens observing to Johnson that the question had been agitated with rather too much warmth, "It may be so," replied the sage, "for Burke and I should have been of one opinion if we had had no audience." This is coming very near to--

"Would rather that the man should die Than his prediction prove a lie."

Two anecdotes of Baretti during his imprisonment are preserved in "Thraliana":

"When Johnson and Burke went to see Baretti in Newgate, they had small comfort to give him, and bid him not hope too strongly. 'Why what can _he_ fear,' says Baretti, placing himself between 'em, 'that holds two such hands as I do?'

"An Italian came one day to Baretti, when he was in Newgate for murder, to desire a letter of recommendation for the teaching of his scholars, when he (Baretti) should be hanged. 'You rascal,' replies Baretti, in a rage, 'if I were not _in my own apartment_, I would kick you down stairs directly,'"

The year after his acquittal Baretti published "Travels through Spain, Portugal, and France;" thus mentioned by Johnson in a Letter to Mrs, Thrale, dated Lichfield, July 20, 1770:

"That Baretti's book would please you all, I made no doubt. I know not whether the world has ever seen such travels before. Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write can seldom ramble." The rate of pay showed that the world was aware of the value of the acquisition. He gained _500l._ by this book. His "Frusta Letteraria," published some time before in Italy, had also attracted much attention, and, according to Johnson, he was the first who ever received money for copyright in Italy,

In a biographical notice of Baretti which appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1789, written by Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster, it is stated that it was not distress which compelled him to accept Mr. Thrale's hospitality, but that he was overpersuaded by Johnson, contrary to his own inclination, to undertake the instruction of the Misses Thrale in Italian. "He was either nine or eleven years almost entirely in that family," says the Dean, "though he still rented a lodging in town, during which period he expended his own _500l._, and received nothing in return for his instruction, but the partic.i.p.ation of a good table, and _150l._ by way of presents. Instead of his letters to Mrs. Piozzi in the 'European Magazine,' had he told this plain unvarnished tale, he would have convicted that lady of avarice and ingrat.i.tude, without incurring the danger of a reply, or exposing his memory to be insulted by her advocates."

He was less than three years in the family. As he had a pension of _80l._ a year, besides the interest of his _500l._, he did not want money. If he had been allowed to want it, the charge of avarice would lie at Mr., not Mrs., Thrale's door; and his memory was exposed to no insult beyond the stigma which (as we shall presently see) his conduct and language necessarily fixed upon it. All his literary friends did not entertain the same high opinion of him. An unpublished letter from Dr. Warton to his brother contains the following pa.s.sage:

"He (Huggins, the translator of Ariosto) abuses Baretti infernally, and says that he one day lent Baretti a gold watch, and could never get it afterwards; that after many excuses Baretti, skulked, and then got Johnson to write to Mr. Huggins a suppliant letter; that this letter stopped Huggins awhile, while Baretti got a protection from the Sardinian amba.s.sador; and that, at last, with great difficulty, the watch was got from a p.a.w.nbroker to whom Baretti had sold it."

This extract is copied from a valuable contribution to the literary annals of the eighteenth century, for which we are indebted to the colonial press.[1] It is the diary of an Irish clergyman, containing strong internal evidence of authenticity, although nothing more is known of it than that the ma.n.u.script was discovered behind an old press in one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

That such a person saw a good deal of Johnson in 1775, is proved by Boswell, whose accuracy is frequently confirmed in return. In one marginal note Mrs. Thrale says: "He was a fine showy talking man.

Johnson liked him of all things in a year or two." In another: "Dr.

Campbell was a very tall handsome man, and, speaking of some other _High_-bernian, used this expression: 'Indeed now, and upon my honour, Sir, I am but a Twitter to him.'"[2]

[Footnote 1: Diary of a Visit to England in 1775. By an Irishman (the Rev. Doctor Thomas Campbell, author of "A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland.") And other Papers by the same hand. With Notes by Samuel Raymond, M.A., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Sydney. Waugh and c.o.x. 1854.]

[Footnote 2: He is similarly described in the "Letters," vol. i. p.

329.]

Several of his entries throw light on the Thrale establishment:

"_14th._--This day I called at Mr. Thrale's, where I was received with all respect by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. She is a very learned lady, and joins to the charms of her own s.e.x, the manly understanding of ours. The immensity of the brewery astonished me."

"_16th._--Dined with Mr. Thrale along with Dr. Johnson, and Baretti.

Baretti is a plain sensible man, who seems to know the world well. He talked to me of the invitation given him by the College of Dublin, but said it (100_l._ a year and rooms) was not worth his acceptance; and if it had been, he said, in point of profit, still he would not have accepted it, for that now he could not live out of London. He had returned a few years ago to his own country, but he could not enjoy it; and he was obliged to return to London, to those connexions he had been making for near thirty years past. He told me he had several families with whom, both in town and country, he could go at any time and spend a month: he is at this time on these terms at Mr.

Thrale's, and he knows how to keep his ground. Talking as we were at tea of the magnitude of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing in Mr. Thrale's house still more extraordinary;--meaning his wife.