So

in April 1786, "are not exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of them. Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. That, the Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace, spoil all conversation, and destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys' last night.” In one of Walpole's letters about the same time we find : "All conversation turns on a trio of culprits --Hastings, Fitzgerald, and the Cardinal de Rohan. much for tragedy. Our comic performers are Boswell and Dame Piozzi. The cock biographer has fixed a direct lie on the hen, by an advertisement in which he affirms that he communicated his manuscript to Madame Thrale, and that she made no objection to what he says of her low opinion of Mrs. Montagu's book. It is very possible that it might not be her real opinion, but was uttered in compliment to Johnson, or for fear he should spit in her face if she disagreed with him; but how will she get over her not objecting to the passage remaining? She must have known, by knowing Boswell, and by having a similar intention herself, that his 'Anecdotes' would certainly be published: in short, the ridiculous woman will be strangely disappointed. As she must have heard that the whole first impression of her book was sold the first day, no doubt she expected on her landing, to be received like the governor of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm. She, and Boswell, and their Hero, are the joke of the public. A Dr. Walcot, soi-disant Peter Pindar, has published a burlesque eclogue, in which Boswell and the Signora are the interlocutors, and all

the absurdest passages in the works of both are ridiculed. The print-shops teem with satiric prints in them: one in which Boswell, as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the bear, has this witty inscription, My Friend delineavit.' But enough of these mountebanks."

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

BOZZY.

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

MADAME PIOZZI.

"I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down;
As such a tale was current through the town,
Says I, 'Do tell me, Doctor, what befell.'.
'Why, dearest lady, there is nought to tell;
'I ponder'd on the proper'st mode to treat him-
'The dog was impudent, and so I beat him!
Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs;
'Others, that I belabour'd, held their tongues.'

"Did any one, that he was happy, cry —
Johnson would tell him plumply, 'twas a lie.
A Lady told him she was really so;

On which he sternly answer'd, 'Madam, no!

999

'Sickly you are, and ugly-foolish, poor;

'And therefore can't be happy, I am sure.
""Twould make a fellow hang himself, whose ear
'Were, from such creatures, forc'd such stuff to hear.'"

BOZZY.

"Lo, when we landed on the Isle of Mull, The megrims got into the Doctor's skull : With such bad humours he began to fill,

I thought he would not go to Icolmkill:

But lo! those megrims (wonderful to utter!)

Were banish'd all by tea and bread and butter!"

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

BOZZY.

"How could your folly tell, so void of truth,
That miserable story of the youth,

Who, in your book, of Doctor Johnson begs
Most seriously to know if cats laid eggs!"

MADAME PIOZZI.

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

BOZZY.

"Who, madd'ning with an anecdotic itch, Declar'd that Johnson call'd his mother b-tch?"

MADAME PIOZZI.

66 Who, from M'Donald's rage to save his snout, Cut twenty lines of defamation out ? ”

BOZZY.

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

Who would have told a tale so very flat,

Of Frank the Black, and Hodge the mangy cat?"

MADAME PIOZZI.

"Good me! you're grown at once confounded tender; Of Doctor Johnson's fame a fierce defender :

I'm sure you've mention'd many a pretty story
Not much redounding to the Doctor's glory.
Now for a saint upon us you would palm him
First murder the poor man, and then embalm him!"

BOZZY.

"Well, Ma'am! since all that Johnson said or wrote, You hold so sacred, how have you forgot

To grant the wonder-hunting world a reading
Of Sam's Epistle, just before your wedding:
Beginning thus, (in strains not form'd to flatter)
'Madam,

"If that most ignominious matter

'Be not concluded". *

Farther shall I say?

No we shall have it from yourself some day,
To justify your passion for the Youth,
With all the charms of eloquence and truth."

MADAME PIOZZI.

"What was my marriage, Sir, to you or him?
He tell me what to do! — a pretty whim!
He, to propriety, (the beast) resort!

As well might elephants preside at court.
Lord! let the world to damn my match agree;
Good God! James Boswell, what's that world to me?
The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale,
Fed on her pork, poor souls! and swill'd her ale,
May sicken at Piozzi, nine in ten

Turn up the nose of scorn good God! what then?
For me, the Dev'l may fetch their souls so great ;
They keep their homes, and I, thank God, my meat.
When they, poor owls! shall beat their cage, a jail,
I, unconfin'd, shall spread my peacock tail;

Free as the birds of air, enjoy my ease,

Choose my own food, and see what climes I please.
I suffer only if I'm in the wrong:

So, now, you prating puppy, hold your tongue."

* This evidently referred to the "adumbration" of Johnson's letter (No. 4.), antè, p. 239.

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

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

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