of being rich beyond the wish of rapacity*, and I have procured the improbability of being made poor by flights of the fairy, speculation. 'Tis thus that a woman and men of feminine minds always-I speak popularlydecide upon life, and chuse certain mediocrity before probable superiority; while, as Eton Graham says sublimely,― "Nobler souls, Fir'd with the tedious and disrelish'd good, "On this principle partly, and partly on worse, was dear Mr. Johnson something unwilling-but not much at last. to give up a trade by which in some years 15,000l. or 16,000l. had undoubtedly been got, but by which, in some years, its possessor had suffered agonies of terror and tottered twice upon the verge of bankruptcy. Well! if thy own conscience acquit, who shall condemn thee? Not, I hope, the future husbands of our daughters, though I should think it likely enough; however, as Johnson says very judiciously, they must either think right or wrong: if they think right, let us now think with them; if wrong, let us never care what they think. So adieu to brewhouse, and borough wintering; adieu to trade, and tradesmen's frigid approbation; may virtue and wisdom sanctify our contract, and make buyer and seller happy in the bargain!” After mentioning some friends who disapproved of * There is a curious similarity here to Johnson's phrase, "the potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice." the sale, she adds: "Mrs. Montagu has sent me her approbation in a letter exceedingly affectionate and polite. 'Tis over now, tho', and I'll clear my head of it and all that belongs to it; I will go to church, give God thanks, receive the sacrament and forget the frauds, follies, and inconveniences of a commercial life this day." Madame D'Arblay was at Streatham on the day of the sale, and gives a dramatic colour to the ensuing scene: "Streatham, Thursday.-This was the great and most important day to all this house, upon which the sale of the brewery was to be decided. Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker, who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me, if all went well she would wave a white pocket-handkerchief out of the coach window. "Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Five o'clock followed, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered, in eager expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a white pockethandkerchief was waved from it. I ran to the door of it to meet her, and she jumped out of it, and gave me a thousand embraces while I gave my congratulations. We went instantly to her dressing-room, where she told me, in brief, how the matter had been transacted, and then we went down to dinner. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Crutchley had accompanied her home." The event is thus announced to Langton by Johnson, in a letter printed by Boswell, dated June 16, 1781: "You will perhaps be glad to hear that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered of her brewhouse, and that it seemed to the purchaser so far from an evil that he was content to give for it 135,000l. Is the nation ruined." Marginal note: "I suppose he was neither glad nor sorry." Thrale died on the 4th April, 1781, and Mrs. Thrale left Streatham on the 7th October, 1782. The intervening eighteen months have been made the subject of an almost unprecedented amount of misrepresentation. Hawkins, Boswell, Madame D'Arblay, and Lord Macaulay have vied with each other in founding uncharitable imputations on her conduct at this period of her widowhood; and it has consequently become necessary to recapitulate the authentic evidence relating to it. As Piozzi's name will occur occasionally, he must now be brought upon the scene. He is first mentioned in "Thraliana" thus: "Brighton, July, 1780.-I have picked up Piozzi here, the great Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach Hester." A detailed account of the commencement of the acquaintance is given in one of the autobiographical fragments. She says he was recommended to her by letter by Madame D'Arblay as "a man likely to lighten the burthen of life to her," and that both she and Mr. Thrale took to him at once. Madame D'Arblay is silent as to the introduction or recommendation; but gives an amusing account of one of their first meetings: "A few months after the Streathamite morning visit to St. Martin's Street, an evening party was arranged by Dr. Burney, for bringing thither again Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, at the desire of Mr. and Mrs. Greville and Mrs. Crewe; who wished, under the quiet roof of Dr. Burney, to make acquaintance with these celebrated personages." The conversation flagged, and recourse was had to music "Piozzi, a first-rate singer, whose voice was deliciously sweet, and whose expression was perfect, sung in his very best manner, from his desire to do honour to il Capo di Casa; but il Capo di Casa and his family alone did justice to his strains: neither the Grevilles nor the Thrales heeded music beyond what belonged to it as fashion: the expectations of the Grevilles were all occupied by Dr. Johnson; and those of the Thrales by the authoress of the Ode to Indifference. When Piozzi, therefore, arose, the party remained as little advanced in any method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as upon its first entrance into the room. "Dr. Burney now began to feel considerably embarrassed; though still he cherished hopes of ultimate relief from some auspicious circumstance that, sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents. 66 6 Vainly, however, he sought to elicit some observations that might lead to disserting discourse; all his attempts received only quiet, acquiescent replies, signifying nothing.' Every one was awaiting some spontaneous opening from Dr. Johnson. ease. "Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her She feared not Dr. Johnson; for fear made no part of her composition; and with Mrs. Greville, as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in full carelessness of its event; for though triumphant when victorious, she had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from envy or spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification when vanquished. But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated for Dr. Johnson; and, therefore, though not without difficulty, constrained herself to be passive. "When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition of Mr. Greville to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood, rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg; and, at length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human faculties; she grew tired of the music, and yet more tired of remaining, what as little suited her inclinations as her abilities, a mere cipher in the company; and, holding such a position, and all its concomitants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above her control; and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be thought of her by her fine new acquaintance, |