bury I am now enabled to print the whole correspondence, with the exception of her last letter, which she describes. No. 1. Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson. 66 Bath, June 30. "MY DEAR SIR, -The enclosed is a circular letter which I have sent to all the guardians, but our friendship demands somewhat more; it requires that it should beg your pardon for concealing from you a connection which you must have heard of by many, but I suppose never believed. Indeed, my dear Sir, it was concealed only to save us both needless pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would have killed me to take, and I only tell it you now because all is irrevocably settled and out of your power to prevent. I will say, however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some anxious moments, and though perhaps I am become by many privations the most independent woman in the world, I feel as if acting without a parent's consent till you write kindly to 66 SIR, As one of the executors of Mr. Thrale's will and guardian to his daughters, I think it my duty to acquaint you that the three eldest left Bath last Friday for their own house at Brighthelmstone in company with an amiable friend, Miss Nicholson, who has sometimes resided with us here, and in whose society they may, I think, find some advantages, and certainly no disgrace. I waited on them to Salisbury, Wilton, &c., and offered to attend them to the seaside myself, but they preferred this lady's company to mine, having heard that Mr. Piozzi is coming back from Italy, and judging perhaps by our past friendship and continued correspondence that his return would be succeeded by our marriage. 66 'I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant. "Bath, June 30, 1784." No. 3. - "MADAM, If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married: if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and served you,* I who long thought you the first of womankind, entreat that, before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours, "SAM. JOHNSON. "July 2, 1784. "I will come down if you permit it." No. 4. "July 4, 1784. “SIR, - I have this morning received from you so rough a letter in reply to one which was both tenderly and respectfully written, that I am forced to desire the conclusion of a correspondence which I can bear to continue no longer. The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first; his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner, and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which he has been always a zealous adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect it. "I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so) you mean only that celebrity which is a consideration of The four words which I have printed in italics are indistinctly written, and cannot be satisfactorily made out. a much lower kind. I care for that only as it may give pleasure to my husband and his friends. "Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard; but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us converse no more. God bless you." No. 5. To Mrs. Piozzi. "London, July 8, 1784. - "DEAR MADAM, What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me: I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere. "I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may be happy in this world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched. "Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security; your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to Italy. "I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by giving it. "When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable stream that separated the two kingdoms, walked by * Queen Mary left the Scottish for the English coast, on the Firth of Solway her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own affection pressed her to return. The Queen went forward. If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no further. — The tears stand in my eyes. “I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good wishes, for I am, with great affection, "Your, &c. "Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me." In a memorandum on this letter, she says: "I wrote him a very kind and affectionate farewell." Miss Hawkins says: "It was I who discovered the letter (No. 4). I carried it to my father, he enclosed it and sent it to her, there never having been any intercourse between them."* Hawkins states that a letter from Johnson to himself contained these words: "Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice (meaning her love of her children or her pride) would have restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or pity." Harsh language, and exhibiting little of that allowance for human frailty which might have been expected from the author of "Rasselas" and the "Rambler." Did he or the rest of her acquaintance who joined in censuring or repudiating her, ever attempt to enter into her feelings, and weigh her conduct with reference to its tendency to promote her own happiness? Could they have done so, had they tried? Can any one so identify himself or herself with another as to be sure of the soundness of the counsel, or the justice of the reproof? She was neither im in a fishing-boat. The incident to which Johnson alludes is introduced in "The Abbot;" where the scene is laid on the seashore. The unusual though expressive term "irremeable," is defined in his dictionary, "admitting no return." His authority is Dryden's Virgil: "The keeper dreamed, the chief without delay The word is a Latin one anglicized: Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undæ." * Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 66, note. poverishing her children (who had all independent fortunes) nor abandoning them. She was setting public opinion at defiance, which is commonly a foolish thing to do; but what is public opinion to a woman whose heart is breaking, and who finds, after a desperate effort, that she is unequal to the sacrifice demanded of her? She accepted Piozzi deliberately, with full knowledge of his character; and she never repented of her choice. The Lady Cathcart, whose romantic story is mentioned in "Castle Rackrent," was wont to say: "I have been married three times; the first for money, the second for rank, the third for love; and the third was worst of all." Mrs. Piozzi's experience would have led to an opposite conclusion. Her love match was an eminently happy one; and the consciousness that she had transgressed conventional observances or prejudices, not moral rules, enabled her to outlive and bear down calumny.* Madame D'Arblay says that her father was not disinclined to admit Mrs. Piozzi's right to consult her own notions of happiness in the choice of a second husband, had not the paramount duty of watching over her unmarried daughters interfered. On this topic, Mrs. Piozzi says, "that her eldest daughter (then near twenty†) having refused to join the wedding party on their tour, she left a lady whom they appeared to like exceedingly, with them." This lady disappointed expectation, and left them, or, according to another version, was summarily dismissed by Miss. Thrale (afterwards Lady Keith), who fortunately was endowed 666 *The pros and cons of the main question at issue are well stated in Corinne : 'Ah, pour heureux,' interrompit le Comte d'Erfeuil, 'je n'en crois rien: on n'est heureux que par ce qui est convenable. La société a, quoi qu'on fasse, beaucoup d'empire sur le bonheur; et ce qu'elle n'approuve pas, il ne faut jamais le faire.' 'On vivrait donc toujours pour ce que la société dira de nous,' reprit Oswald; et ce qu'on pense et ce qu'on sent ne servirait jamais de guide.' 'C'est très bien dit,' reprit le comte, 'trés-philosophiquement pensé: mais avec ces maximes là, l'on se perd; et quand l'amour est passé, le blâme de l'opinion reste. Moi qui vous paraîs léger, je ne ferai jamais rien qui puisse m'attirer la désapprobation du monde. On peut se permettre de petites libertés, d'aimables plaisanteries, qui annoncent de l'indépendance dans la manière d'agir; car, quand cela touche au sérieux.' —‘Mais le sérieux,' repondit Lord Nelvil, 'c'est l'amour et le bonheur.'"- Corinne, liv. ix. ch. 1. † In a note on the visit to Chatsworth with Johnson in July, 1774, Mrs. Piozzi says, "I remember Lady Keith, then ten years old, was the most amused of any of the party." She was born in September, 1764. |