accomplishments, wit, and conversational brilliancy, gained early admiration in fashionable circles.

In 1763 she married Mr. Henry Thrale, M.P. for Southwark, one of those princely metropolitan brewers, who, to quote the pompous and auctioneerlike description of his friend Dr. Johnson, "possessed the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." In the year 1765 that acquaintance with the great lexicographer commenced, which soon rose to intimacy, conduced to the happiness of all parties, added to the living celebrity of Mrs. Thrale, and laid the foundation of her literary monu

ment.

In the following year she contributed several poems to Anna Williams's 'Miscellanies,' and one among them has proved the most valuable of all Mrs. Thrale's writings, and still holds its solitary place in public estimation by the claim of intrinsic merit.

In 1781, after having passed through eighteen years of domestic trial softened by social enjoyment, the sudden death of Mr. Thrale left her a wealthy widow. They had previously lost their only son, and Mrs. Thrale, with her four daughters, removed after her husband's decease from his hospitable home at Streatham to a house in the city of Bath. There she engaged the services of Signor Gabriel Piozzi, a young and handsome Italian, as music-master to her daughters, and, in defiance of the remonstrances of her friends, she married him in 1784. In the same year Dr. Johnson died, and Mrs. Piozzi published a volume entitled 'Anecdotes of Dr. Samuel Johnson during the last twenty years of his life.' This book, though inexact and incomplete, as woman's works are ever apt to be, contains materials of which subsequent biographers have proved the value.

Soon after her second marriage Mrs. Piozzi accompanied

her husband to his native country, became acquainted at Florence with Mr. Robert Merry, the self-styled Della Crusca, Mr. Bertie Greathead, Mr. William Parsons, and other English gentlemen of equally bad taste, adopted their literary peculiarities, and contributed several compositions, both in prose and verse, to their collection, printed in 1786, and called 'The Florentine Miscellany.'

In 1788 she published two volumes of Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Johnson.' In 1789 she published 'Observations and Reflections made in the course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany,' in two volumes: in 1794 her British Synonymy, or an Attempt to Regulate the Choice of Words in Familiar Conversation,' in two volumes; and, in 1801, 'Retrospection, or a Review of the most striking and important Events, Characters, Situations, and their Consequences, which the last eighteen hundred years have presented to the view of Mankind.'

In 1809 Signor Piozzi died. Her elastic spirits depressed for a little while by this bereavement recovered in due time their natural tone, and lasted out her life. On the 27th of January, 1820, she celebrated her eightieth birthday by an entertainment in the Assembly Rooms at Bath, where, assisted by her kinsfolk, Sir John and Lady Salusbury, she received between seven and eight hundred people with her wonted urbanity and sprightliness. She opened the ball with Sir John, danced with the alacrity and dignity of her youthful days, and afterwards presided with affable hospitality at the supper-table, having one British admiral on her right and another on her left hand.

On the 2nd of May, 1821, she died at Clifton.

Her only good poem needs no eulogy, it commends itself to the common sense of mankind.

66

THE THREE WARNINGS. A TALE.

The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground:
'T was therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increas'd with years
So much that in our latter stages,
When pains grows sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.

This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few perceive,
If old assertions can't prevail,

Be pleased to hear a modern tale.

When sports went round, and all were gay, On neighbour Dobson's wedding-day, Death call'd aside the jocund groom With him into another room,

And looking grave, 'You must,' says he,

Quit your sweet bride, and come with me.'

With you! and quit my Susan's side!

With you!' the hapless husband cried; 'Young as I am! 't is monstrous hard! Besides, in truth, I'm not prepared :

How roundly he pursu'd his course,

And smok'd his pipe, and strok'd his horse,
The willing Muse shall tell:

He chaffer'd then, he bought, he sold,
Nor once perceived his growing old,
Nor thought of Death as near;
His friends not false, his wife no shrew,
Many his gains, his children few,

He pass'd his hours in peace:

But while he view'd his wealth increase,
While thus along Life's dusty road
The beaten track content he trod,

Old Time, whose haste no mortal spares,
Uncall'd, unheeded, unawares,

So soon d'ye call it?' Death replies ; 'Surely, my friend, you 're but in jest ; 'Since I was here before,

"T is six-and-thirty years at least,
'And you are now fourscore.'

'So much the worse,' the clown rejoined ;
To spare the aged would be kind:
However, see your search be legal ;
And your authority-is 't regal?
'Else you are come on a fool's errand,

'With but a Secretary's warrant.

Besides you promis'd me Three Warnings,

Which I have look'd for nights and mornings,

But for that loss of time and ease,

I can recover damages.'

'I know,' cries Death, that, at the best,

'I seldom am a welcome guest :

'But don't be captions, friend, at least :

'I little thought you'd still be able

'Perhaps,' says Dobson, so it might, But latterly I've lost my sight.'

This is a shocking story, 'faith;

Yet there's some comfort still,' says Death;
Each strives your sadness to amuse,

'I'll warrant you hear all the news.'

'There's none,' cries he, 'and if there were,

'I'm grown so deaf, I could not hear,'
'Nay then,' the spectre stern rejoined,
These are unjustifiable yearnings;

'If you are Lame, and Deaf, and Blind,
'You've had your Three sufficient Warnings.
So come along, no more we'll part!'

He said, and touched him with his dart;

And now old Dobson, turning pale,
Yields to his fate-so ends my tale."

JANE TAYLOR.

The children of the British empire are more indebted to Dr. Isaac Watts than to any other writer, and next to him perhaps to Anne and Jane Taylor of Ongar. Isaac Taylor, their father, practised for many years the art of lineengraving, and gained distinction in London. His wife was a woman of excellent sense and of many acquirements. They had a large family of children, and Jane, the second daughter, was born in London on the 23rd of September, 1783. In the summer of the year 1786 they removed to Lavenham in Suffolk, where the father continued his artistic labours, and being a man of deep piety and energetic temper occupied himself occasionally in delivering lectures on religious and scientific subjects.

Delicate health, fertility of practical invention, and a tendency to imaginative pleasures were among her early characteristics. She began to make verses and tales at a very early age, and the first ambition which her timid and reserved nature evinced was to write a book. Her temper was very gentle, her affections were tender and deep, and she was more especially distinguished by a susceptibility