ond he was so witty, there was no bearing him; the third he was so drunk, there was no bearing him." *

In the "Anecdotes" she relates that one day in Wales she meant to please Johnson with a dish of young peas. "Are they not charming?" said I, while he was eating them. "Perhaps," said he, "they would be so-to a pig;" meaning (according to the marginal note), because they were too little boiled.

"Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he despised none more, I think, than the man who marries for maintenance : and of a friend who made his alliance on no higher principles, he said once, 'Now has that fellow,' it was a nobleman of whom we were speaking, at length obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and for that certainty, like his brother dog in the fable, he will get his neck galled for life with a collar.'" The nobleman was Lord Sandys.

"He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slyly, or, as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise one's friend with an unexpected favor; which, ten to one,' says he, 'fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. O, never be seduced by such silly pretences,' continued he; if a wench wants a good gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more delicate; as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron."'" This lady was Mrs. Montague.

"I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at themselves in a glass. They do not surprise me at all by so doing,' said Johnson: they see, reflected in that glass,

Query, whether this is the gentleman immortalized by Peter Plymley: "In the third year of his present Majesty (George III.) and in the thirtieth of his own age, Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown, then upon his travels, danced one evening at the court of Naples. His dress was a volcano silk, with lava buttons. Whether (as the Neapolitan wits said) he had studied dancing under Saint Vitus, or whether David, dancing in a linen vest, was his model, is not known; but Mr. Brown danced with such inconceivable alacrity and vigor, that he threw the Queen of Naples into convulsions of laughter, which terminated in a miscarriage, and changed the dynasty of the Neapolitan throne."

men who have risen from almost the lowest situations in life ; one to enormous riches, the other to everything this world can give, rank, fame, and fortune. They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them; and I see not why they should avoid the mirror.'"

The one, she writes, was Mr. Cator, the other, Wedderburne. Another great lawyer and very ugly man, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, was remarkable for the same peculiarity, and had his walls covered with looking-glasses. His personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one of Wilkes's happiest repartees.

Opposite a passage descriptive of Johnson's conversation, she has written: "We used to say to one another familiarly at Streatham Park, Come, let us go into the library and make Johnson speak Ramblers.'"

The Piozzis returned from Italy in March, 1787, and soon after their arrival hired a house in Hanover Square, where they resided till May, 1790, when they removed to Streatham. The Johnsonian circle was broken up, and some of its most distinguished members were no more. Still it is curious to mark how this woman, who had "fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen to a land where she was unknown," was received where she was best known after an absence of less than three years. According to the Autobiography, her reception was in all respects satisfactory, and it only depended upon herself to resume her former place in society. A few extracts from her Diary will help to show how far this conclusion was well founded or the contrary :

"1787, May 1st.-It was not wrong to come home after all, but very right. The Italians would have said we were afraid to face England, and the English would have said we were confined abroad in prisons or convents, or some stuff. I find Mr. Smith (one of our daughter's guardians) told that poor baby Cecilia a fine staring tale how my husband locked me up at Milan and fed me on bread and water, to make the child hate Mr. Piozzi. 5*

Good God! What infamous proceeding was this! My husband never saw the fellow, so could not have provoked him."

:

"May 19th. We had a fine assembly last night indeed in my best days I never had finer; there were near a hundred people in the rooms, which were besides much admired."

"1788, January 1st. How little I thought this day four years that I should celebrate this 1st of January, 1788, here at Bath, surrounded with friends and admirers? The public partial to me, and almost every individual whose kindness is worth wishing for, sincerely attached to my husband."

"Mrs. Byron is converted by Piozzi's assiduity, she really likes him now; and sweet Mrs. Lambert told everybody at Bath she was in love with him."

"I have passed a delightful winter in spite of them, caressed by my friends, adored by my husband, amused with every entertainment that is going forward: what need I think about three sullen Misses?

and yet!"

"August 1st. Baretti has been grossly abusive in the 'European Magazine' to me: that hurts me but little; what shocks me is that those treacherous Burneys should abet and puff him. He is a most ungrateful because unprincipled wretch; but I am sorry that anything belonging to Dr. Burney should be so monstrously wicked."

"1789, January 17th. Mrs. Siddons dined in a coterie of my unprovoked enemies yesterday at Porteus's. She mentioned our concerts, and the Erskines lamented their absence from one we gave two days ago, at which Mrs. Garrick was present and gave a good report to the Blues. Charming Blues! blue with venom I think; I suppose they begin to be ashamed of their paltry behavior. Mrs. Garrick, more prudent than any of them, left a loophole for returning friendship to fasten through, and it shall fasten that woman has lived a very wise life, regular and steady in her conduct, attentive to every word she speaks and every step she treads, decorous in her manners and graceful in her person. My fancy forms the Queen just like Mrs. Garrick they are country women, and have, as the phrase is, had a hard card to play; yet, never lurched by tricksters nor subdued by superior powers, they will rise from the table unhurt either by others or

themselves,
having played a saving game.
risques, to be sure, that I have; yet

"When after some distinguished leap

I have run

and better than

She drops her pole and seems to slip,
Straight gath'ring all her active strength,
She rises higher half her length;'

now I have never stood with the world in general, I believe. May the books just sent to press confirm the partiality of the Public!"

"1789, January.—I have a great deal more prudence than people suspect me for: they think I act by chance, while I am doing nothing in the world unintentionally, and have never, I dare say, in these last fifteen years, uttered a word to husband, or child, or servant, or friend, without being very careful what it should be. Often have I spoken what I have repented after, but that was want of judgment, not of meaning. What I said I meant to say at the time, and thought it best to say. . . . I do not err from haste or a spirit of rattling, as people think I do : when I err, 't is because I make a false conclusion, not because I make no conclusion at all; when I rattle, I rattle on purpose."

"1789, May 1st. Mrs. Montague wants to make up with me again. I dare say she does; but I will not be taken and left even at the pleasure of those who are much nearer and dearer to me than Mrs. Montague. We want no flash, no flattery. I never had more of either in my life, nor ever lived half so happily Mrs. Montague wrote creeping letters when she wanted my help, or foolishly thought she did, and then turned her back upon me and sent her adherents to do the same. I despise such conduct, and Mr. Pepys, Mrs. Ord, &c., now sneak about and look ashamed of themselves, well they may!"

:

"1790, March 18th. I met Miss Burney at an assembly last night 't is six years since I had seen her: she appeared most fondly rejoiced, in good time! and Mrs. Locke, at whose house we stumbled on each other, pretended that she had such a regard for me, &c. I answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good-humor; and we talked of the King and Queen, his Majesty's illness and recovery, ... and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference."

"I saw Master Pepys too and Mrs. Ord; and only see how foolish and how mortified the people do but look."

"Barclay and Perkins live very genteely. I dined with them. at our brewhouse one day last week. I felt so oddly in the old house where I had lived so long."

"The Pepyses find out that they have used me very ill. . . . I hope they find out too that I do not care. Seward, too, sues for reconcilement underhand; .. so they do all; and I sincerely

66

"When lim'd, the poor bird thus with eagerness strains,
Nor regrets his torn wing while his freedom he gains:
The loss of his plumage small time will restore,

And once tried the false twig, it shall cheat him no more.'"

1790, July 28th. We have kept our seventh wedding-day and celebrated our return to this house with prodigious splendor and gayety. Seventy people to dinner. Never was a

pleasanter day seen, and at night the trees and front of the house were illuminated with colored lamps, that called forth our neighbors from all the adjacent villages to admire and enjoy the diversion. Many friends swear that not less than a thousand men, women, and children might have been counted in the house and grounds, where, though all were admitted, nothing was stolen, lost, or broken, or even damaged, a circumstance most incredible; and which gave Mr. Piozzi a high opinion of English gratitude and respectful attachment."

"1790, December 1st. Dr. Parr and I are in correspondence, and his letters are very flattering: I am proud of his notice to be sure, and he seems pleased with my acknowledgments of esteem he is a prodigious scholar; but in the mean time

I have lost Dr. Lort."

The following are some of the names most frequently mentioned in her Diary as visiting or corresponding with her after her return from Italy: Lord Fife, Dr. Moore, the Kembles, Dr. Currie, Mrs. Lewis (widow of the Dean of Ossory), Dr. Lort, Sir Lucas Pepys, Mr. Selwin, Sammy Lysons (sic), Sir Philip

* Streatham.