Chapter VIII: Part 8

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 passed 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 embarrassing confusion in the minds of biographers and editors, too prone 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."

No. 3.[1]

[Footnote 1: What Johnson termed an "adumbration" of this letter appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for Dec. 1784:

"MADAM,--If you are already ignominiously married, you are lost beyond all redemption;--if you are not, permit me one hour's conversation, to convince you that such a marriage must not take place. If, after a whole hour's reasoning, you should not be convinced, you will still be at liberty to act as you think proper. I have been extremely ill, and am still ill; but if you grant me the audience I ask, I will instantly take a post-chaise and attend you at Bath. Pray do not refuse this favour to a man who hath so many years loved and honoured you."]

"MADAM,--If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married: if it is yet undone, let us _once_ more _talk_ together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and _served you_[1], I who long thought you the first of womankind, entreat that, before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours,

"SAM. JOHNSON.

"July 2, 1784.

"I will come down, if you permit it."

[Footnote 1: The four words which I have printed in italics are indistinctly written, and cannot be satisfactorily made out.]

No. 4.

"July 4, 1784.

"SIR,--I have this morning received from you so rough a letter in reply to one which was both tenderly and respectfully written, that I am forced to desire the conclusion of a correspondence which I can bear to continue no longer. The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first; his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner, and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which he has been always a zealous adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect it.

"I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so) you mean only that celebrity which is a consideration of a much lower kind. I care for that only as it may give pleasure to my husband and his friends.

"Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship _never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard_; but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us converse no more. God bless you."

No. 5.

_To Mrs. Piozzi_.

"London, July 8, 1784.

"DEAR MADAM,--What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me: I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere.

"I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may be happy in this world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.

"Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security; your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to Italy.

"I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by giving it.

"When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable stream[1] that separated the two kingdoms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own affection pressed her to return. The Queen went forward.--If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther.--The tears stand in my eyes.

"I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good wishes, for I am, with great affection,

"Your, &c.

"Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me."

[Footnote 1: Queen Mary left the Scottish for the English coast, on the Firth of Solway, in a fishing-boat. The incident to which Johnson alludes is introduced in "The Abbot;" where the scene is laid on the sea-shore. The unusual though expressive term "irremeable," is defined in his dictionary, "admitting no return." His authority is Dryden's Virgil:

"The keeper dream'd, the chief without delay
Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way."

The word is a Latin one anglicised:

"Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undae."]

In a memorandum on this letter, she says:--"I wrote him (No. 6) a very kind and affectionate farewell."

Before calling attention to the results of this correspondence, I must notice a charge built upon it by the reviewer, with the respectable aid of the foul-mouthed and malignant Baretti:

"This letter is now printed for the first time by Mr. Hayward. But he has omitted to notice the light which is thrown on it by Baretti's account of the marriage. That account is given in the 'European Magazine' for 1788. It is very circumstantial, and too long to transcribe, but the upshot is this: He says that, in order to meet her returning lover, she left Bath with her daughters as for a journey to Brighton; quitted them on some pretence at Salisbury, and posted off to town, _deceiving Dr. Johnson, who continued to direct to her at Bath as usual_.[1] 'In London she kept herself concealed for some days in my parish, and not very far distant from my own habitation, ... in Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital.' 'In a _few weeks_,' he adds, 'she was in a condition personally to resort to Mr. Greenland (her lawyer) to settle preliminaries, then returned to Bath with Piozzi, and there was married.' Now Baretti was a libeller, _and not to be believed except upon compulsion_; but if he does speak the truth, then the date, 'Bath, June 30,' of her circular letter, is a mystification; so is the passage in her letter to Johnson of July _4_, about 'sending it by the coach to prevent his coming.' Of course she was mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming, for if he had come he would have found her flown. According to this supposition, she did not return to Bath at all, but remained perdue in London, with her lover, during the whole 'Correspondence.' Is it the true one?

"We cannot but suspect that it is, and that the solution of the whole of this little domestic mystery is to be found in a passage in the 'Autobiographical Memoir,' vol. i. p. 277. There were _two_ marriages:--

"'Miss Nicholson went with us to Stonehenge, Wilton, &c., _whence I returned to Bath_ to wait for Piozzi. He was here on the eleventh day after he got Dobson's letter. In twenty-six more we were married _in London_ by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, and returned hither to be married by Mr. Morgan, of Bath, at St. James's Church, July 25, 1784.'

"Now in order to make this account tally with Baretti's we must allow for a slight exertion of that talent for 'white lies' on the lady's part, of which her friends, Johnson included, used half playfully and half in earnest to accuse her. And we are afraid Baretti's story does appear, on the face of it, the more probable of the two. It does seem more likely, since they were to be married in London (of which Baretti knew nothing), that she met Piozzi secretly in London on his arrival, than that she performed the awkward evolutions of returning from Salisbury to Bath to wait for him there, then going to London in company with him to be married, and then back to Bath to be married over again. But if this be so, then the London marriage most likely took place almost immediately on the meeting of the enamoured couple, and while the 'Correspondence' was going on. In which case the words in the 'Memoir' 'in twenty-six days,' &c., were apparently intended, by a little bit of feminine adroitness, to appear to apply to this first marriage,--of the suddenness of which she may have been ashamed,--while they really apply to the conclusion of the whole affair by the _second_. Will any one have the Croker-like curiosity to inquire whether any record remains of the dates of marriages celebrated by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain?"[2]

[Footnote 1: These words, italicised by the reviewer, contain the pith of the charge, which has no reference to her visit to London six weeks before.]

[Footnote 2: Edinb. Review, No. 230, p. 522.]

Why Croker-like curiosity? Was there anything censurable in the curiosity which led an editor to ascertain whether a novel like "Evelina" was written by a girl of eighteen or a woman of twenty-six? But Lord Macaulay sneered at the inquiry[1], and his worshippers must go on sneering like their model--_vitiis imitabile_. The certificate of the London marriage (now before me) shews that it was solemnised on the 23rd July, by a clergyman named Richard Smith, in the presence of three attesting witnesses. This, and the entries in "Thraliana," prove Baretti's whole story to be false. "Now Baretti was a libeller, and not to be believed except upon compulsion;" meaning, I suppose, without confirmatory evidence strong enough to dispense with his testimony altogether. He was notorious for his _black_ lies. Yet he is believed eagerly, willingly, upon no compulsion, and without any confirmatory evidence at all.

[Footnote 1: The following passage is reprinted in the corrected edition of Lord Macaulay's Essays:--"There was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her (Miss Burney's) first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot; the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books." There is reason to believe that the entry Mr. Croker copied was that of the baptism of an elder sister of the same name who died before the birth of the famous Fanny.]

The internal evidence of the improbability of the story has disappeared in the reviewer's paraphrase. Baretti says that at Salisbury "she suddenly declared that a letter she found of great importance demanded her immediate presence _in London_.... But Johnson did not know the least tittle of this transaction, and he continued to direct his letters to Bath as usual, expressing, no doubt, an immense wonder _at her pertinacious silence_." So she told her daughters that she was going to London, whilst she deceived Johnson, who was sure to learn the truth from them; and he was wondering at her pertinacious silence at the very time when he was receiving letters from her, dated Bath! Why, having formally announced her determination to marry Piozzi, she should not give him the meeting in London if she chose, fairly passes my comprehension.

Whilst the reviewer thinks he is strengthening one point, he is palpably weakening another. She would not have been "mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming," if she had already thrown him off and finally broken with him? That she was afraid, and had reason to be so, is quite consistent with my theory, quite inconsistent with Lord Macaulay's and the critic's. Johnson's letter (No. 3) is that of a coarse man who had always been permitted to lecture and dictate with impunity. Her letter (No. 4) is that of a sensitive woman, who, for the first time, resents with firmness and retorts with dignity. The sentences I have printed in italics speak volumes. "Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish, nor can your unmitigated severity itself lessen my regard." There is a shade of submissiveness in her reply, yet, on receiving it, he felt as a falcon might feel if a partridge were to shew fight. Nothing short of habitual deference on her part, and unrepressed indulgence of temper on _his_, can account for or excuse his not writing before this unexpected check as he wrote after it. If he had not been systematically humoured and flattered, he would have seen at a glance that he had "no pretence to resent," and have been ready at once to make the best return in his power for "that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched." She wrote him a kind and affectionate farewell; and there (so far as we know) ended their correspondence. But in "Thraliana" she sets down:

"_Milan, 27th Nov_. 1784.--I have got Dr. Johnson's picture here, and expect Miss Thrale's with impatience. I do love them dearly, as ill as they have used me, and always shall. Poor Johnson did not _mean_ to use me ill. He only grew upon indulgence till patience could endure no further."

In a letter to Mr. S. Lysons from Milan, dated December 7th, 1784, which proves that she was not frivolously employed, she says:

"My next letter shall talk of the libraries and botanical gardens, and twenty other clever things here. I wish you a comfortable Christmas, and a happy beginning of the year 1785. Do not neglect Dr. Johnson: you will never see any other mortal so wise or so good. I keep his picture in my chamber, and his works on my chimney."

"Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."

What he said of her can only be learned from her bitter enemies or hollow friends, who have preserved nothing kindly or creditable.

Hawkins states that a letter from Johnson to himself contained these words:--"Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice (meaning her love of her children or her pride) would have saved her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or pity."

Madame D'Arblay gives two accounts of the last interview she ever had with Johnson,--on the 25th November, 1784. In the "Diary" she sets down:

"I had seen Miss T. the day before."

"'So,' said he, 'did I.'

"I then said, 'Do you ever, Sir, hear, from her mother?'

"'No,' cried he, 'nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly.[1] I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her name. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind.'"

[Footnote 1: If this was true, it is strange that he did not destroy the letter (No. 4) which gave him so sudden and mortifying a check. Miss Hawkins says in her Memoirs: "It was I who discovered the letter. I carried it to my father; he enclosed and sent it to her, _there never having been any intercourse between them_." Anything from Hawkins about Streatham and its inmates must therefore have been invention or hearsay.]

In the "Memoirs," describing the same interview, she says:--"We talked then of poor Mrs. Thrale, but only for a moment, for I saw him greatly incensed, and with such severity of displeasure, that I hastened to start another subject, and he solemnly enjoined me to mention that no more."

This was only eighteen days before he died, and he might be excused for being angry at the introduction of any agitating topic. It would stain his memory, not hers, to prove that, belying his recent professions of tenderness and gratitude, he directly or indirectly encouraged her assailants.

"I was tempted to observe," says the author of "Piozziana," "that I thought, as I still do, that Johnson's anger on the event of her second marriage was excited by some feeling of disappointment; and that I suspected he had formed some hope of attaching her to himself. It would be disingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer. I forget it; but the impression on my mind is that she did not contradict me." Sir James Fellowes' marginal note on this passage is: "This was an absurd notion, and I can undertake to say it was the last idea that ever entered her head; for when I once alluded to the subject, she ridiculed the idea: she told me she always felt for Johnson the same respect and veneration as for a Pascal."[1]

[Footnote 1: When Sheridan was accused of making love to Mrs. Siddons, he said he should as soon think of making love to the Archbishop of Canterbury.]

On the margin of the passage in which Boswell says, "Johnson wishing to unite himself with this rich widow was much talked of, but I believe without foundation,"--she has written, "I believe so too!!" The report sufficed to bring into play the light artillery of the wits, one of whose best hits was an "Ode to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., on their approaching Nuptials," beginning:

"If e'er my fingers touched the lyre,
In satire fierce, in pleasure gay,
Shall not my Thralia's smiles inspire,
Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay?

"My dearest lady, view your slave,
Rehold him as your very _Scrub_:
Ready to write as author grave,
Or govern well the brewing tub.

"To rich felicity thus raised,
My bosom glows with amorous fire;
Porter no longer shall be praised,
'Tis I Myself am _Thrale's Entire_."

She has written opposite these lines, "Whose fun was this? It is better than the other." The other was:

"Cervisial coctor's viduate dame,
Opinst thou this gigantick frame,
Procumbing at thy shrine,
Shall catinated by thy charms,
A captive in thy ambient arms
Perennially be thine."

She writes opposite: "Whose silly fun was this? Soame Jenyn's?"

The following paragraph is copied from the note-book of the late Miss Williams Wynn[1], who had recently been reading a large collection of Mrs. Piozzi's letters addressed to a Welsh neighbour:

[Footnote 1: Daughter of Sir Watkyn Wynn (the fourth baronet) and granddaughter of George Grenville, the Minister. She was distinguished by her literary taste and acquirements, as well as highly esteemed for the uprightness of her character, the excellence of her understanding, and the kindness of her heart. Her journals and note-books, carefully kept during a long life passed in the best society, are full of interesting anecdotes and curious extracts from rare books and manuscripts. They are now in the possession of her niece, the Honourable Mrs. Rowley.]

"_London, March_, 1825.--I have had an opportunity of talking to old Sir William Pepys on the subject of his old friend, Mrs. Piozzi, and from his conversation am more than ever impressed with the idea that she was one of the most inconsistent characters that ever existed. Sir William says he never met with any human being who possessed the talent of conversation in such a degree. I naturally felt anxious to know whether Piozzi could in any degree add to this pleasure, and found, as I expected, that he could not even understand her.

"Her infatuation for him seems perfectly unaccountable. Johnson in his rough (I may here call it brutal) manner said to her, 'Why Ma'am, he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old dog too.' Sir William says he really believes that she combated her inclination for him as long as possible; so long, that her senses would have failed her if she had attempted to resist any longer. She was perfectly aware of her degradation. One day, speaking to Sir William of some persons whom he had been in the habit of meeting continually at Streatham during the lifetime of Mr. Thrale, she said, not one of them has taken the smallest notice of me ever since: they dropped me before I had done anything wrong. Piozzi was literally at her elbow when she said this."

The reviewer quotes the remark, "She was perfectly aware of her degradation," as resting on the personal responsibility of Miss Wynn, "who knew her in later life in Wales." The context shews that Miss Wynn (who did not know her) was simply repeating the impressions of Sir William Pepys, one of the bitterest opponents of the marriage, to whom she certainly never said anything derogatory to her second husband. The uniform tenor of her letters and her conduct shew that she never regarded her second marriage as discreditable, and always took a high and independent, instead of a subdued or deprecating, tone with her alienated friends. A bare statement of the treatment she received from them is surely no proof of conscious degradation.

In a letter to a Welsh neighbour, near the end of her life, some time in 1818, she says:

"Mrs. Mostyn (her youngest daughter) has written again on the road back to Italy, where she likes the Piozzis above all people, she says, _if they were not so proud of their family_. Would not that make one laugh two hours before one's own death? But I remember when Lady Egremont raised the whole nation's ill will here, while the Saxons were wondering how Count Bruhle could think of marrying a lady born Miss Carpenter. The Lombards doubted in the meantime of my being a gentlewoman by birth, because my first husband was a brewer. A pretty world, is it not? A Ship of Fooles, according to the old poem; and they will upset the vessel by and by."

This is not the language of one who wished to apologise for a misalliance.

As to Piozzi's assumed want of youth and good looks, Johnson's knowledge of womankind, to say nothing of his self-love, should have prevented him from urging this as an insuperable objection. He might have recollected the Roman matron in Juvenal, who considers the world well lost for an old and disfigured prize-fighter; or he might have quoted Spenser's description of one--

"Who rough and rude and filthy did appear,
Unseemly man to please fair lady's eye,
Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear,
When fairer faces were bid standen by:
Oh! who can tell the bent of woman's phantasy?"

Madame Campan, speaking of Caroline of Naples, the sister of Marie Antoinette, says, she had great reason to complain of the insolence of a Spaniard named Las Casas, whom the king, her father-in-law, had sent to persuade her to remove M. Acton[1] from the conduct of affairs and from about her person. She had told him, to convince him of the nature of her sentiments, that she would have Acton painted and sculptured by the most celebrated artists of Italy, and send his bust and his portrait to the King of Spain, to prove to him that the desire of fixing a man of superior capacity could alone have induced her to confer the favour he enjoyed. Las Casas had dared to reply, that she would be taking useless trouble; that a man's ugliness did not always prevent him from pleasing, and that the King of Spain had too much experience to be ignorant that the caprices of a woman were inexplicable. Johnson may surely be allowed credit for as much knowledge of the sex as the King of Spain.

[Footnote 1: M. Acton, as Madame Campan calls him, was a member of the ancient English family of that name. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1791, and was the grandfather of Sir John E.E. Dalberg Acton, Bart., M.P., &c.]

Others were simultaneously accusing her of marrying a young man to indulge a sensual inclination. The truth is, Piozzi was a few months older than herself, and was neither ugly nor disagreeable. Madame D'Arblay has been already quoted as to his personal appearance, and Miss Seward (October, 1787) writes:

"I am become acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi. Her conversation is that bright wine of the intellects which has no lees. Dr. Johnson told me truth when he said she had more colloquial wit than most of our literary women; it is indeed a fountain of perpetual flow. But he did not tell me truth when he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. Mr. Piozzi is a handsome man, in middle life, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession. Though he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings with transcending grace and expression. I am charmed with his perfect expression on his instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must vibrate through his frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his song."

The concluding sentence contains what Partridge would call a _non sequitur_, for the finest musical sensibility may coexist with the most commonplace qualities. But the lady's evidence is clear on the essential point; and another passage from her letters may assist us in determining the precise nature of Johnson's feelings towards Mrs. Piozzi, and the extent to which his later language and conduct regarding her were influenced by pique:

"Love is the great softener of savage dispositions. Johnson had always a metaphysic passion for one princess or another: first, the rustic Lucy Porter, before he married her nauseous mother; next the handsome, but haughty, Molly Aston; next the sublimated, methodistic Hill Boothby, who read her bible in Hebrew; and lastly, the more charming Mrs. Thrale, with the beauty of the first, the learning of the second, and with more worth than a bushel of such sinners and such saints. It is ridiculously diverting to see the old elephant forsaking his nature before these princesses:

"'To make them mirth, use all his might, and writhe,
His mighty form disporting.'

"_This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs. Thrale was, however, composed perhaps of cupboard love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled and gratified, from morn to night, by incessant homage_. The two first ingredients are certainly oddly heterogeneous; but Johnson, in religion and politics, in love and in hatred, was composed of such opposite and contradictory materials, as never before met in the human mind. This is the reason why folk are never weary of talking, reading, and writing about a man--

"'So various that he seem'd to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.'"

After quoting the sentence printed in italics, the reviewer says: "On this hint Mr. Hayward enlarges, nothing loth." I quoted the entire letter without a word of comment, and what is given as my "enlarging" is an _olla podrida_ of sentences torn from the context in three different and unconnected passages of this Introduction. The only one of them which has any bearing on the point shews, though garbled, that, in attributing motives, I distinguished between Johnson and his set.

Having thus laid the ground for fixing on me opinions I had nowhere professed, the reviewer asks, "Had Mr. Hayward, when he passed such slighting judgment on the motives of the venerable sage who awes us still, no fear before his eyes of the anathema aimed by Carlyle at Croker for similar disparagement? 'As neediness, and greediness, and vain glory are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a Johnson, acts, or can think of acting, on any other principle. Whatever, therefore, cannot be referred to the two former categories, Need and Greed, is without scruple ranged under the latter.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Edinb, Review, No. 230, p. 511.]

This style of criticism is as loose as it is unjust; for one main ingredient in Miss Seward's mixture is Platonic love, which cannot be referred to either of the three categories. Her error lay in not adding a fourth ingredient,--the admiration which Johnson undoubtedly felt for the admitted good qualities of Mrs. Thrale. But the lady was nearer the truth than the reviewer, when he proceeds in this strain:

"We take an entirely different view at once of the character and the feelings of Johnson. Rude, uncouth, arrogant as he was--spoilt as he was, which is far worse, by flattery and toadying and the silly homage of inferior worshippers--selfish as he was in his eagerness for small enjoyments and disregard of small attentions--that which lay at the very bottom of his character, that which constitutes the great source of his power in life, and connects him after death with the hearts of all of us, is his spirit of imaginative romance. He was romantic in almost all things--in politics, in religion, in his musings on the supernatural world, in friendship for men, and in love for women."

* * * * *

"Such was his fancied 'padrona,' his 'mistress,' his 'Thralia dulcis,' a compound of the bright lady of fashion and the ideal Urania who rapt his soul into spheres of perfection."

Imaginative romance in politics, in religion, and in musings on the supernatural world, is here only another term for prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and credulity--for rabid Toryism, High Church doctrines verging on Romanism, and a confirmed belief in ghosts. Imaginative romance in love and friendship is an elevating, softening, and refining influence, which, especially when it forms the basis of character, cannot co-exist with habitual rudeness, uncouthness, arrogance, love of toadying, selfishness, and disregard of what Johnson himself called the minor morals. Equally heterogeneous is the "compound of the bright lady of fashion and the ideal Urania." A goddess in crinoline would be a semi-mundane creature at best; and the image unluckily suggests that Johnson was unphilosophically, not to say vulgarly, fond of rank, fashion, and their appendages.

His imagination, far from being of the richest or highest kind, was insufficient for the attainment of dramatic excellence, was insufficient even for the nobler parts of criticism. Nor had he much to boast of in the way of delicacy of perception or sensibility. His strength lay in his understanding; his most powerful weapon was argument: his grandest quality was his good sense.

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 assurance 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 goddesses on his list. "_Je change d'objet, mais la passion 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 passed 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 amusements. Sir Joshua told me long ago that my vocation was to public life; and I hope still to keep my station, till God 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 nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against this degrading passion. 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 passing a merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade-parties at Milan, that the great man with whose name hers is inseparably associated, 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 "Saturday 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 nobody 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 damnatory 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 scrap 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 Duchess of Cumberland 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 scrap 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.'

God 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 God! 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 butt 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.]