charged; and expressing neither regret of the past, nor fear of the future, I believe. Strong in his prejudices, haughty and independent in his spirit, cruel in his anger, even when unprovoked; vindictive to excess, if he through misconception supposed himself even slightly injured, pertinacious in his attacks, invincible in his aversions: the description of Menelaus in 'Homer's Iliad,' as rendered by Pope, exactly suits the character of Baretti:

"So burns the vengeful Hornet, soul all o'er,
Repuls'd in vain, and thirsty still for gore;
Bold son of air and heat on angry wings,

Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.'"

In reference to this article, she remarks in "Thraliana":

"There seems to be a language now appropriated to the newspapers, and a very wretched and unmeaning language it is. Yet a certain set of expressions are so necessary to please the diurnal readers, that when Johnson and I drew up an advertisement for charity once, I remember the people altered our expressions and substituted their own, with good effect too. The other day I sent a Character of Baretti to 'The World,' and read it two mornings after more altered than improved in my mind: but no matter: they will talk of wielding a language, and of barbarous infamy,- sad stuff, to be sure, but such is the taste of the times. They altered even my quotation from Pope; but that was too impudent."

The comparison of Baretti to the hornet was truer

than she anticipated: animamque in vulnere ponit. Internal evidence leads almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he was the author or prompter of "The Sentimental Mother: a Comedy in Five Acts. The Legacy of an Old Friend, and hisLast Moral Lesson' to Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale, now Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi. London: Printed for James Ridgeway, York Street, St. James's Square, 1789. Price three shillings." The principal dramatis persona are Mr. Timothy Tunskull (Thrale), Lady Fantasma Tunskull, two Misses Tunskull, and Signor Squalici.

Lady Fantasma is vain, affected, silly, and amorous to excess. Not satisfied with Squalici as her established gallant, she makes compromising advances to her daughter's lover on his way to a tête-à-tête with the young lady, who takes her wonted place on his knee with his arm round her waist. Squalici is also a domestic spy, and in league with the mother to cheat the daughters of their patrimony. Mr. Tunskull is a respectable and complacent nonentity.

The dialogue is seasoned with the same malicious insinuations which mark Baretti's letters in the "European Magazine;" without the saving clause with which shame or fear induced him to qualify them, namely, that no breach of chastity was suspected or believed. It is difficult to imagine who else would have thought of reverting to Thrale's establishment eight years after it had been broken up by death; and in one of his papers in the "European Magazine," he holds out a threat that she might find herself the sub

ject of a play: "Who knows but some one of our modern dramatic geniusses may hereafter entertain the public with a laughable comedy in five long acts, entitled, with singular propriety, the Scientific Mother'?”

Mrs. Piozzi had some-how contracted a belief, to which she alludes more than once with unfeigned alarm, that Mr. Samuel Lysons had formed a collection of all the libels and caricatures of which she was the subject on the occasion of her marriage. His collections have been carefully examined, and the sole semblance of warrant for her fears is an album or scrap-book containing numerous extracts from the reviews and newspapers, relating to her books. The only caricature preserved in it is the celebrated one by Sayers entitled "Johnson's Ghost." The ghost, a flattering likeness of the doctor, addresses a pretty woman seated at a writing table:

"When Streatham spread its pleasant board,
I opened learning's valued hoard,

And as I feasted, prosed.

Good things I said, good things I eat,
I gave you knowledge for your meat,
And thought th' account was closed.

“If obligations still I owed,

You sold each item to the crowd,
I suffered by the tale.

For God's sake, Madam, let me rest,

No longer vex your quondam guest,

I'll pay you for your ale."

When a prize was offered for the best address on the

rebuilding of Drury Lane, Sheridan proposed an addi

tional reward for one without a phoenix. Equally acceptable for its rarity would be a squib on Mrs. Piozzi without a reference to the brewery.

Her manuscript notes on the two volumes of Letters are numerous and important, comprising some curious fragments of autobiography, written on separate sheets of paper and pasted into the volumes opposite to the passages which they expand or explain. They would create an inconvenient break in the narrative if introduced here, and they are reserved for a separate section.

Her next literary labour is thus mentioned in " Thraliana":

"While Piozzi was gone to London I worked at my Travel Book, and wrote it in two months completebut 'tis all to correct and copy over again. While my husband was away I wrote him these lines: he staid just a fortnight:

66

VOL. I.

"I think I've worked exceeding hard

To finish five score pages.

I write you this upon a card,

In hopes you'll pay my wages.
The servants all get drunk or mad,
This heat their blood enrages,
But your return will make me glad,—
That hope one pain assuages.

"To shew more kindness, we defy
All nations and all ages,

And quite prefer your company
To all the seven sages.

Y

Then hasten home, oh, haste away!
And lengthen not your stages;

We then will sing, and dance and play,
And quit awhile our cages."

She had now taken rank as a popular writer, and thought herself entitled to use corresponding language to her publisher:

I

"MR. CADELL,- Sir, this is a letter of business. have finished the book of observations and reflections made in the course of my journey thro' France, Italy, and Germany, and if you have a mind to purchase the MS. I make you the first offer of it. Here, if complaints had any connection with business, I would invent a thousand, and they should be very kind ones too; but it is better to tell you the size and price of the book. My calculations bring it to a thousand pages of letter-press like Dr. Moore's; or you might print it in three small volumes, to go with the Anecdotes.' Be that as it will, the price, at a word (as the advertisers. say of their horse), is 500 guineas and twelve copies to give away, though I will not, like them, warrant it free from blemishes. No creature has looked over the papers but Lord Huntingdon, and he likes them exceedingly. Direct your answer here, if you write immediately; if not, send the letter under cover to Mrs. Lewis, London Street, Reading, Berks; and believe me, dear Sir, your faithful humble servant,

"Bennet Street, Bath, Friday, Nov. 14th, 1788."

6

"H. L. PIOZZI.