The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821

by Hester Lynch Piozzi; Penelope Pennington

CHAPTER VII

Renewal of friendship, 1819—Weston-super-Mare—W. A. Conway—Birthday fête, 1820—Conway's love affair—Penzance—The Queen's trial—More law—Land's End—Return to Clifton and death, 1821—Mrs. Pennington's obituary notice—Her relations with the daughters and the executors—Epitaph.

The last letter shows the appearance of the little rift in the lute of friendship, which was destined to silence its tones for so many years. Its origin remains obscure. If Mrs. Pennington received no letters between April and July, she doubtless had some reason to feel aggrieved, but the reference to the "mutual complaints" of Mr. Piozzi and Mr. Pennington suggests that they had met in the interval, and that some disagreement had arisen, which had been taken up by their respective wives, and it is probable that some letters during this period may have been destroyed. Mrs. Piozzi clearly had no desire to keep up the quarrel, whatever it was; but it may be that her attempt at reconciliation was not worded in a way which would commend itself to the sensitive mind of Mrs. Pennington, smarting from some real or fancied slight to her husband or herself. And so the correspondence was not resumed for fifteen years.

Meantime much had happened. In 1807 Sophia Thrale married Henry Merrick, third son of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart., of Stourhead; and in the following year her elder sister, Hester, became the second wife of Viscount Keith. The marriages seem to have brought mother and daughters more closely together, for they paid a visit to Brynbella this year. In 1809, the gout from which he had suffered so long and so severely proved fatal to Mr. Piozzi. He had for some years conformed to the English Church, and in his last illness received the sacrament at the hands of a clergyman at Bath. He was buried 26th March, in the vault he had constructed in what Mrs. Piozzi calls Dymerchion, now Tremeirchion Church. She began her Commonplace Book the same year.

The "little boy," John Salusbury Piozzi, had finished his education at Oxford, and having grown to man's estate, and assumed the additional surname of Salusbury, married in 1814, Harriet Maria, daughter of Edward Pemberton of Ryton Grove, Salop. In 1816 he was appointed High Sheriff of Flint, and was knighted in the following year. To provide for the young couple, Mrs. Piozzi made over to them Brynbella and her Welsh estate, and retired to her beloved Bath, to live on the income from the English property settled on her by Thrale, and some £6000 which Piozzi's careful management had saved from their income. She had therefore—on paper—something like £2000 a year, but her generosity to her adopted son, and to her daughters in the re-fronting and fencing of Streatham Park, added to her love of entertaining, and a carelessness in money matters perhaps inherited from her father, left her in continual monetary difficulties.

Living so near Mrs. Pennington, and with so many common friends, it was hardly possible that they should not be brought together again, though there is no evidence as to how the reconciliation was effected. The correspondence was resumed in July 1819, but letters written by Mrs. Pennington somewhat later show that it was equally desired and equally genuine on both sides.

On Mrs. Pennington's side the rupture of one old friendship almost coincided with the renewal of another. On 18th October 1804, Anna Seward wrote to Mrs. Powys that she had been staying at Mendip Lodge, and that Dr. Whalley had undertaken to bring about a reconciliation with Mrs. Pennington, after twelve years of estrangement. "She received me with tears of returning love, and our reconcilement was perfect. She made me promise to stay with her a few days on my way back."

Her husband had a serious illness in 1813, as the result of which he resigned the office of M.C. at the Hot Wells, which he had held for nearly thirty years, in an address which "powerfully affected the feelings of all present." But his successor turned out to be quite unfitted for the post, and as Pennington's health had been improved by a stay at Weymouth, he was induced to take up the work again for a short time. Not long afterwards Mrs. Pennington's mother died at the age of ninety-seven. She had lost nearly all her faculties, and had been for some time unable to recognise even her daughter.

Mrs. Pennington to Maria Brown

Weston-super-Mare, 9 Oct. 1819.

... I shall not be sorry to return, tho' I leave dear Mrs. Piozzi behind, with whom I have passed some hours of every day, and our evenings always together, in the most perfect harmony. We seem entirely to have regained our former footing, and to revert to past times, persons, and anecdotes with mutual pleasure. She has sought no other, indeed sedulously avoided all other society since we have been here, and is happy and chearful when with us, as I ever saw her. It is not however with me exactly the same thing. I was Prima Donna, I now feel that many new friends and new connexions, with new interests and novel attractions, occupy the ground that I exclusively possessed; and I can only expect, in future, to be one of this larger groupe. I think the character of her mind was always rather kindness than attachment. I know not whether you admit the distinction; I feel it, and that I must henceforth be satisfied with such general proofs of this sentiment as opportunity may throw in our way.

The friend to whom this was written came to occupy much the same position with regard to Mrs. Pennington as the latter had done to Mrs. Piozzi. After Mrs. Pennington's death, the whole of her carefully treasured correspondence passed into her hands, including, besides the present series of letters, those relating to the Siddons-Lawrence tragedy, which were published in An Artist's Love Story, and others from Anna Seward, Helen Williams, the Randolphs, and Whalleys, and others of her correspondents.

In a letter to Miss Brown's mother, dated 28th February 1820, she pursues the same theme. "You judge," she writes, "very correctly of my feelings respecting my dear restored friend. It gives an interest to my life that nothing else could, and what is better, it seems to be felt mutually. We never are so happy as when together, and her letters, which come twice or thrice a week, are a perpetual source of amusement."

Weston-super-Mare, July 1819.

Sick or well, dear Mrs. Pennington is ever kind and obliging, but why empty her veins at such a rough rate? Were they bursting with heat? A Bath friend writes me word that the people there do feel themselves heavily oppress'd by a weight of atmospheric air, and walk about, he says, like somnambulists, with salmon-coloured faces. We have sea-breezes here that refresh our spirits, and send us out at night to stare after the Comet, which looked very pale last evening I saw it, but not, I hope, for anger.

There are other fiery fellows in the North, more dangerous by far, of whom I feel more afraid; but the Regent went safely, and was applauded it is said, and the Reformers will work no reformation at Smithfield under Mr. Hunt's guidance. He tried in vain to make the Basket Women at Bath hate Sinecures; tho' one of them said she knew he meant the Signing Curs, kept by Ministers to sign whatever they bid them,—comical enough!

If all goes on regularly and well, I shall certainly call on you, dear Madam, in my return. When that will be, however, is hard to say, for I have just hired myself a clean Cottage,—the Hotel is very noisy, and surprisingly expensive,—and since the Bathing agrees, I mean to try another tide or two by the way of making myself young, or making myself believe that I am younger than my neighbours of the same standing....

People are visiting-mad here, as everywhere else. Do you remember Mr. Pennington saying he hoped there were no Evening Parties in Heaven? He will not escape them till he gets thither, nor shall, without the utmost difficulty his and your ever faithful and obliged

H. L. Piozzi.

I saw Miss Williams spreading the Bread Fruit with butter, and eating it at her tea, ten days before I left Bath,—but it was kind in you to send me some.

The comet of July 1819 was that now known by the name of Winnecke, who, in 1858, identified it with one previously observed by Encke.

Henry Hunt had for many years been associated with the leading agitators of the time. He made the acquaintance of Horne Tooke in 1800, shared imprisonment with Cobbett in 1810, and allied himself with Thistlewood and his friends in 1816. He took part in the Spa Fields meeting, presided at the Reform meeting at Smithfield which took place on July 21, and at the "Peterloo" meeting, held on August 16 this year.

Weston-super-Mare,

Saturday Night, 4 Sep. 1819.

Dear Mrs. Pennington's letter came late last night; our poor Postman cannot get his walk finished,—how should he?—till near 12 o'clock, which is one of the discomforts incident to our fav'rite Weston. This morning the Grinfields of Laura Chapel, Bath, left us, and you may have half their house for two guineas and a half o' week. They paid five for the whole, and had 7 or 8 Babies inhabiting it, with a proportionate number of nurses, etc. But send an immediate answer, or it will be gone.... If you come quite alone, our Baker, Mr. Cooper, will accommodate you with one chamber up a ladder-like staircase, and one sitting room: but such a lodging too nearly resembles that in Coleman's Broad Grins;—one guinea and a half is, I think, too much for that, though 'tis struggled for!!...

Oh! what heavenly weather here is! And oh! what fools is it flung away upon! who will not gather up the harvest, but run about reforming errors in the State. They have got a wiser head now, who is better qualified to do mischief, and accordingly we read that yesterday's meeting passed off without any mad frolics on which to fix the stigma of treason or insanity:—two things so difficult to prove they oblige us to adopt Elbow's method in Measure for Measure, who says, "they must continue in their courses till we can tell what they are."[25] ...

[25] "Let him continue in his courses till thou knowest what they are."—Measure for Measure, III. i. 196.

Weston-super-Mare,

Tuesday, 7 Sept. 1819.

Your letter came too late last night, dear Mrs. Pennington, for me to take any measures concerning the House.... You will have it, as a favour, for three Pounds o' week;—cheaper than mine certainly.

The list of things wanted is just everything: knives, forks, spoons, plate, linnen: Weston affords only beds, tables, and chairs. Yes, yes, they do give us crockery, and there were two books in the town when I came, a Bible and a Paradise Lost. They were the best you know.

I am no better pleased with the complexion of the times than you are, but feel much more sympathy with the Mob than with their Galvanizers, who mean to give just the portion of excitement they choose, in order to deplace, displace I mean, one set of Ministers, and put up another set in which they take deeper interest. In this virtuous cause they care not what lives, or whose peace they endanger. But let them be cautious, or the Mob will make them their tools, to help break down the gates which, when thrown back as those of Hell in Milton, they will start to see

Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable Ocean without bound,

Without dimension: where length, breadth, and height,

And time and place are lost.[26]

Noblemen and Gentlemen are of necessity Aristocrates in earnest: and the numbers who now stand aloof, looking how it will end, and being—as we used to say of dear Siddons—no-crates at all, will even die with terror, and the conscious certainty that the great folk who assisted in the work at first, broke open, but to shut excelled their power. An ambitious Sovreign meanwhile, might while his army continues true to him, make them all his tools; suffering them so to destroy the House of Commons that he could reign in future without a Parliament, only just cajoling the Reformers between to-day and the year 1820. And such madmen are those who wish the overturn of constituted authorities....

Poor dear Mrs. Lambart can hardly hear these strange tales, I believe; she is at least seven years older than myself, but does not like, it seems, to tell her age. My Register, clearly written, as Bishop Majendie says, points out 1740.

[26] Paradise Lost, ii. 890.

On September 12 Mrs. Pennington writes to Miss Brown that she is going to Weston. "Dear Mrs. Piozzi is there, we shall be within two or three doors of her. She has been as active and anxious to serve us in this particular as she could have been at any former period.... If the air of that place, the fine weather we seem likely to have, and her charming society, does not restore me to something like health and spirits, I shall give up the point altogether."

The Card Table Riddle, which appears in the next letter, is taken from Mrs. Piozzi's Commonplace Book; where she remarks that "it has been plundered, and played tricks with, and published in Pocket Books, &c., but these are the genuine verses."

Sat. Oct. 17, 1819.

My dear Mrs. Pennington charged me to send her the Riddle, and Miss Camplin asking for commands, I thought it a good opportunity, therefore

A place I here describe, how gay the scene!

Fresh, bright, and vivid with perpetual green.

Verdure attractive to the ravished sight

Perennial joys, and ever new delight,

Charming at noon, more charming still at night,

Fair Pools, where Fish in forms pellucid play,

Smooth lies the lawn, swift glide the hours away.

The Banks with shells and minerals are crown'd,

Hope keeps her court, and Beauty smiles around.

No mean dependance here on Summer skies,

This spot rough Winter's roughest blast defies.

Yet here the Government is curst with change,

Knaves openly on either Party range;

Assault their Monarch, and avow the deed,

While Honour fails, and Tricks alone succeed.

For bold Decemvirs here usurp the sway,

Now all some single Demagogue obey,

False Lights prefer, and curse th' intrusive day.

Oh! shun the tempting shore, the dangerous coast,

Health, Fame, and Fortune, stranded here, are lost.

This Riddle I gave Salusbury when he was a boy, "But what is it, Aunt? What can it be?" "Why, replied I, can't you perceive that

A Card-table's green is perpetual and bright,

A Card-table charms men from morning till night;

Where, angling with skill for some innocent fool,

Their thoughts are still fixed on the Fish and the Pool;

While Guineas and Counters, promiscuously heap'd,

With hope fills those pockets whence pelf has escap'd.

Thro' Winter and Summer and demi-saison,

This occupies Ladies and Lords de Bon Ton.

For Knaves are successful at Limited Loo,

At Whist the odd Trick makes all Honours look blue.

The Ten, at Casino, Decemvir we call,

And Aces, at Commerce, take tribute from all.

Wax Candles superior to Sunshine they boast,

While Time, Fame, and Fortune for ever are lost."

Bath, 29 Oct. 1819.

I certainly do not remember a word about Siddons, and probably I did not get dear Mrs. Pennington's letter. It is no joke that my feelings grow torpid; I have had so much of the torture in my life that it is really a natural consequence, and if some odd things (kindness is one) do keep me awake this year, I shall certainly sleep out the next....

Conway's name is on the Posts as having renew'd his engagements, but he possesses many perfections, and leaves writing letters to you and me. Cecy Mostyn is a most entertaining correspondent. She is at Florence now, making good sport of her Cavaliere Servente, the Marchese Garzoni, but remembers your Mother still, and says I must mind and keep as bright as she did to 90 years old.

All you say of these horrid Blasphemers is said with truth and wisdom, but Dr. Gibbes and Mr. Mangin both protest to me, and they are no strait-laced moralists, that Carlisle and all his crew are white to Lord Byron; whose book is so seducing, so amusing, and so cheap, it will soon be in every hand that can hold one. Upham sent it me, thinking of course it could not hurt an old woman; but I held my crutches fast, for 'tis no fun to have them kicked from under one at fourscore—and the Scriptures are my crutches. If these gay fellows delight in obliterating the direction posts for Youth in the journey through life, they some of them may get into the road again; but as Carter said, my religion is my freehold estate, and whoever tries to shake my title to it is an enemy.

Dr. and Mrs. Whalley seem to have been giving la Comedie gratis here while the Theatres were shut up. Incidents are certainly not wanting, and the Catastrophe kept quite out of sight, as Bayes recommends, for purpose of elevating and surprizing. Those who come to hear what I say on the subject, go home disappointed, for I say nothing, and have indeed nothing to say....

Helen's sinking into oblivion is no proof of the people's good taste, for she is a clever creature, though no one less approved of her Classical Elopement—Helen to Paris—than I did. Is Mr. [Stone] dead, or only his wife? He was a Radical before they had taken root....

Lady Baynton has not improved her beauty by living in France: her son however does surprize me. A Titmouse scarce out of the egg when last we met, a Boy now of elegant carriage and behaviour; not a little manieré, perhaps too much so for rough England....

In this letter occurs the first mention of William Augustus Conway, who engrossed such a large share of Mrs. Piozzi's interest, and even affection, at this period of her life; filling, it may be, to some extent, the place formerly occupied by her adopted son, now launched on an independent career. That she felt a great admiration and real affection for the handsome young actor is obvious, and she set herself to forward his interests with as much assiduity and enthusiasm as if he had been her son. It has been suggested that her feelings towards him were quite other than maternal, and certain "Love Letters," purporting to be written by her, have been adduced in support of this theory. But the way he is spoken of in this and other genuine correspondence of hers should be sufficient to disprove the suggestion. It must be admitted that her admiration led her to credit him with talents which were not obvious to other eyes. He was a man of striking appearance, of gentlemanly and attractive manners, and a tolerably good actor, but gave little indication of the genius which she discerned in him. He had acted with some success at Dublin and Covent Garden before he came to Bath in 1817, where he acted in tragedy and comedy for some three years. Only a few days before her death, according to Macready, she sent him a cheque for £100, but this he returned to the executors. The same year (1821) he left the stage, on account of an attack attributed to Theodore Hook, and sailed for America. He played again at New York in 1824, but seems to have intended to devote himself to the ministry. For some unexplained reason he threw himself overboard, while on a voyage to Charleston, in 1828, but the seven "Love Letters" above referred to were not published till 1843. They are, in the main, undoubtedly from the pen of Mrs. Piozzi, though possibly touched up in places to make them a little more sensational. But, taken by themselves, and without any reference to the circumstances under which they were written, they might easily be misunderstood—as it was perhaps intended they should be. For the editor was either unaware of, or ignored the facts which appear plainly enough in the present correspondence; that Conway was at the time engaged to a lady at Bath; that Mrs. Piozzi was deeply interested in this little romance, and promoted it to the best of her power; and that the most emotional of the letters was written to console him at the moment when the engagement had been broken off. Her attitude all through is that of an anxious mother, seeking to ensure the happiness of a dearly loved son.

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CONWAY (AS HENRY V)

By Rivers after de Wilde, 1814.

From the Collection of A. M.Broadley, Esq.

Doctor, afterwards Sir George Smith Gibbes, physician to Queen Charlotte, and author of a Treatise on the Bath Waters, was one of the first explorers of the Bone Caves of the Mendips. He attended Mrs. Piozzi on her death-bed, as described by Mangin.

The Rev. Edward Mangin, who had been a naval chaplain, and Prebendary of Killaloe and St. Patrick's, was a notable dramatic critic, and at this time a recognised leader of the literary coterie of Bath. He was thus brought into close touch with Mrs. Piozzi, and the result of their intimacy was his Piozziana, published anonymously in 1833, now rather a scarce book, which contains many of her letters as well as his personal recollections of her later years.

Carlisle was the publisher of Tom Paine's Age of Reason, and other works of a like character.

Dr. Whalley's first wife had died in 1801, and two years afterwards he married a Miss Heathcote, who died in 1803. In 1813, when nearly seventy, he made a third venture by marrying the widow of General Horneck. The lady was of extravagant habits, and came to him in debt to the extent of some thousands, for which he found himself responsible. Mutual recriminations followed, and in 1814 he went to France, leaving his wife behind. A formal separation took place in 1819, after which he again went abroad, and died at La Fleche, 1828.

Of Byron she remarks in her Commonplace Book: "My own idea is that he resembles the Dead Man's skull animated by a Toad, and made to hop, in such a manner that it attracted notice from the Lord Chief Justice Willes, enabling him to detect a murder."

Sat. Night, 6 Nov. 1819.

Dear Mrs. Pennington will believe the torpor when I confess the Siddons' story not new to me, and it is quite in his character who once quoted Cowley's verses to me in conversation as descriptive of his wife's person.

Merab with spacious beauty fills the sight,

But too much awe chastis'd the bold delight:

Like a calm sea, which to the enlarged view

Gives pleasure, but gives fear and reverence too.

"Too grand a thing." I hope some one will take your Grand Thing off your hands. We shall be wondrous rich if seven's the main. Your friend's fancies about seven are few in comparison with mine. Why seven is the perfect number, and the word implies and expresses perfection in Hebrew. Everything indeed goes by septenaries among us all day long. At seven years old the Baby becomes a Boy, changes his teeth, and his evidence is taken in a Court of Justice. Two sevens produce the change from Childhood to Youth, and the third emancipates the Minor. Don't ask me to go on; my conjectures would take 7 days writing, and all would not be finished this day seven-night. I enclose a Pound Note, and for the seven shillings it will be good luck to wait.

One would be frighted at your prognostics if you were a seventh son instead of an only daughter,—so sadly have the Rogers family justified your odd predictions.... Conway, poor fellow! will sure enough come to the case you assign for him:—work, and die nobly, or starve, and pine away. Old Bartolozzi, a veteran servant of our English Public, was censured for leaving us in the last years of his life. "It is because I know them," he replied. "Whilst I can work for them, and do what no one else can do, they will pay me liberally, and when my eyes fail, I may retreat to an Hospital erected for the Indigent Blind. I will," continued he, "go to Portugal, and accept a moderate annuity from the Sovreign." So he did, and died there,—out of an Hospital:—but Waltzing is better sport; so

The three black Graces, Law, Physic, and Divinity,

Walk hand in hand along the Strand, and hum la Poule.

Trade quits his Compter, Alma Mater her Latinity,

Proud and vain with Mr. Paine to go to School.

Should you want advice in Law, you'll little gain by asking it,

Your Lawyer's not at Westminster, he's busy Pas-de-Basqu'ing it:

D'ye want to lose a tooth, and run to Waite for drawing it?

He cannot sure attend, he's Demi-queue-de-Chating it.

Run, neighbours, run; all London is Quadrilling it,

While Order and Sobriety dance Dos-a-dos.

Brackley or Brockley Combe I know by heart, and very pretty 'tis, and Cheddar Cliffs: more like good genuine mountains than most British imitations are. For your complaints, I do pronounce them the effect of shocks upon the nerves, and sorry am I that the sea air did you so little good. I certainly liked it, and found Weston very agreable, and 'tis the true Ton to say how the place agreed with Mrs. Piozzi. So it will now become the fashionable retreat for old-age and haggardism,—a new word of my own making.

Mr. Stone was a raging Democrate, an Enragé; so he is not wanted, we have enough such. I fear Helen deserves some whipping, but so we do all: as Hamlet says, "Give us our deserts, and who shall escape whipping?"[27]

What, I wonder, put me in mind of poor old long-dead Demosthenes Taylor, a Doctor in the Commons? The torpor, I suppose, for I can tell but one story of him,—who told no stories at all. Johnson said once, "That man had credit for knowledge, perhaps he possess'd it, but I have dined six times in his company, and never heard him utter but one word, and that word was Richard."

My story must necessarily be this. He lived a Scholar's life, you may conclude, threescore years ago at Amen Corner, near St. Paul's Churchyard; studying Greek books and collating manuscripts all morning; smoking his pipe at night, and indulging in a game at All Fours with a distant and dependant relation,—a young Surgeon in the neighbourhood. One evening they were at play together. "Doctor," exclaims old Taylor, "I have got the Belly-ache so bad, we won't above finish this game." "Right, Sir," was the reply, "take something very hot, and go to bed. If you are worse, call me. If not, I shan't come till Wednesday, for very good reasons." "Ay, ay, my lad; mind thy business," was the monitory answer; and they parted at 10 o'clock Monday night. On Wednesday young Stevens came, according to custom. The pipe was smoked, and the game played, and "Doctor!" exclaims our old Demosthenes, "dost remember how bad my Belly ached o' Monday night?" "Yes, sure, Sir; and I beg'd you to take something hot, and go to bed." "Why so I did, a great rummer-full of hot Brandy." "Heavens!" cried the Surgeon, laughing, "I did not mean so." "Well, young man, it cured me. I went to sleep, and lay very late in the morning, and have no feeling in my Belly now at all: none in the least." "Lord! Sir, how you alarm me! No feeling?" "No, on my honour." "Good God! Let me look at it directly." So he did. The mortification had spread rapidly, and good old Taylor was a corpse in four and twenty hours.

Dr. Whalley has seen me at last, and told his tale. The loss of Mrs. Lutwyche's good opinion hurts him; as to mine, it is nothing impair'd. What astonished me was his saying that he was annoyed by Creditors when we were at Mendip in the year 1813;—living like the Dukes of Bedford or Marlborough. Mr. Arnold or Almond, his fine Man, shewed Bessy and me twenty Pounds worth, not 20 lbs. weight of meat in the Larder one day, design'd, he said, for the stew-pan. Is it not time to beg and pray for torpor? Sensibility would drive one distracted, sure. So good night, and give my true regards to those you love best; believing me your fast-asleep Friend,

H. L. P.

[27] "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"—Hamlet, III. ii. 556.

Francesco Bartolozzi came to London from Florence in 1764, as engraver to the King, and was one of the Foundation Members of the Royal Academy. He left England to take charge of the National Academy at Lisbon, where he died 1815.

The Rev. John Taylor, LL.D., F.R.S., and F.A.S., was the son of a barber at Shrewsbury. He gained a Fellowship at St. John's, Cambridge, and became Chancellor of Lincoln, Archdeacon of Buckingham, and Canon of St. Paul's. His great work, from which he gained his sobriquet, was what was intended to be a complete edition of Demosthenes, published between 1748 and 1757.

The origin of Dr. Whalley's matrimonial troubles has already been explained: it was about this period that the final rupture took place. In the first of the so-called "Love Letters," written 1st September 1819 from Weston, to Conway at Birmingham, she alludes to the recent scandal of "old Mr. Whalley's wife running away from him, and settling in Freshford."

The reference to Helen Williams is no doubt connected with a letter written by her to Mrs. Pennington, dated 26th June 1819, mentioning that Stone was "now reposing in his grave," and giving an account of her life and connection with him, as previously quoted. She then proceeds to refer to the reconciliation of the long-parted friends. "How much in contrast with my sad details is your brilliant account of Mrs. Piozzi;—what a privileged mortal! But really you seem to me to love her much better than she deserves; what excuses the 16 years of separation? The fault must have been hers: she always seemed to me kind and warm-hearted, but with no deep sensibilities."

The lines on dancing are quoted from her Commonplace Book, where she assigns them, on the authority of Mrs. Hoare, to "Smith, author of Rejected Addresses."

4 Dec. 1819.

To no one else in the world would I have written, dearest Mrs. Pennington; but you are so good and so partial. Other friends can find signs enough of torpor. Miss Williams's Beau, as we call him,—Mr. Wickens,—found me fast asleep on the sopha; he is a good creature and was sorry:—said the world was now coming to an end most surely, when such symptoms attacked, in the middle of the day, your H. L. P. If it goes on, my favourites must contrive to do without me. Our old King came into the world but a short time before his dutyful subject who writes this, and who hopes to get away in his train—if possible.

I have little thought to bestow on Dramatick Exhibitions; but Mr. Mangin, who is a classical Scholar, and has leisure to amuse himself with those who provide pastime for the rich and idle, said, when Conway acted Coriolanus here, that he had never seen the Roman Toga worne so gracefully. He has not yet left London. Macready was a fine promising Actor when I saw him last, three or four years ago: a very gentlemanly man too. We dined together at dear Dr. Gibbes's.

Mr. Pennington has, I hope, taken a new lease. Gout is a pledge of long life, if long life be indeed desirable. I begin to find it very burthensome to myself and my attendants, out of whose power it is to alleviate anything I feel. Dr. Whalley will do well enough among nieces and nephews, devoted to him of course, if he has retained any thing to divide among them at the hour of dissolution.

The Dipper at Weston super Mare came here on a visit yesterday, bringing me Fish and Poultry; how good natured! But I hear of a still cheaper and more charming place along the Cornish Coast, where chickens for 6d. each may yet be had, and Fish for almost nothing.

Meanwhile the Great are not exempt from ill-health or cares, any more than we. A general mourning will come, consequent on the Duchess of Gloster's death as on that of the King, and both will alike ruin my wretched Fête;—a foolish promise! but I must keep it now, and it will be the last folly.

With regard to Politics, they go very ill no doubt. My long life can call up but one year in which the machine went so as to please everybody: and there was printed at the beginning of the new Almanacks these words, observed perhaps by no one but myself,

In seventeen hundred and sixty—tis written,

All strife and contention shall cease in Great Britain.

In effect there was but this dispute in Parliament, whether our Success was the cause of our Unanimity, or our Unanimity the cause of our Success. And Garrick's song ending every stanza with

Cheer up, my Lads, with one heart let us sing

Our Soldiers, our Sailors, our Statesmen, and King

shews the same spirit. I believe they were never so praised en masse but that one time, which nobody recollects except—Yours and Mr. Pennington's

H. L. P.

In 1760, the year of George the Third's accession, Pitt's vigorous administration had, for the moment, annihilated party feeling. Wolfe's victory at Quebec had terminated the French rule in Canada; the battle of Plassey had given us Bengal; the French power in Southern India was broken by Coote; the engagement in Quiberon Bay testified to our power at sea; and England stood forth as the first maritime and colonial power in the world.

Tuesday, 7 Dec. 1819.

Threatening me as you do, dear, nervous Mrs. Pennington, I will, I must write directly. But surely we are neither of us such younglings as to fancy things at 80 years old can go on as they did at 40. We might then be shown for a show. It would be silly to believe my inside possessed its pristine strength, and the want of that strength leads to various uneasinesses, ill-described in a letter. We will do as well as we can.

Meanwhile assure yourself that one wonder does wait upon your newly-restored friend. At fourscore years old her outside is the best of her. Dr. Gibbes is too wise a man to wish to attend much; he knows there is nothing to be done, and what would you have him do? Mr. Cam the Baby Catcher would have suited me better to-day. The late Duke of Glo'ster kept one in the house the last six weeks of his wretched life's wretched end.

Weston did me nothing but service; gave a power to the unelastic nerves, and consoled body and mind. All is as it should be, though I do not think Conway's all-expressing countenance showed him contented with the looks of his Patroness yesterday, when he dropped in among other morning callers. I will mind Mr. Pennington's good advice and yours, and not disappoint the Boys and Girls of their Gala.

Salusbury and his wife will soon be here, I hope you will like them....

There is a pretty Book come out, very pretty indeed, against the Blasphemers; but I will not put my feeble hand to the Ark, assure yourself. That women should keep silence in the Church is a good injunction, and should be obeyed now more than ever....

Bath, 10 Dec. 1819.

Well now, dearest Mrs. Pennington, I have got a complaint I can talk of, or write about—a sore throat!—tho' never out of this warm room since Sunday. I fancy it is caused by relaxation,—talking about you to Mr. Conway, who saw your charming letter.... Tho' I did say, in a prudent humour, that he should see as little as possible either of your letters or yourself....

How is your fortune going forward? Smilingly I hope; and how will my Gala get forward if I do nothing but write funny letters to Mrs. Pennington, instead of calling names over to fill up the Cards with, or sit and chat with dear Conway concerning past sorrows and future prospects. He says he is come to act Master Slender: and thin he is most certainly: but so young-looking, never. I hope we shall make a full house to witness his first performance in Coriolanus next Monday. Can't you come over anyhow without serious risque? It would be pity to miss such an exhibition, and your retentive memory has Kemble's mode of acting it well impress'd. Mine reflects back only one Scene, I think, and he never saw Emperor John in his short life.

The Salusburys come next Tuesday sennight, and where shall I get them lodgings? I am all in a fuss, as the Ladies say; and wish you were helping me to do the nothings I busy myself about.

The world looks white, but it is not the robe of innocence; gilt and gloom lie under, and will burst out—upon the thaw. Conway's account of Carlisle's tryal froze me with horror....

The last appearance of John Philip Kemble was at his Benefit at Covent Garden in 1817, so there is no reason why Conway should not have seen him, though perhaps not in the part of Coriolanus.

Fryday night, 17 Dec. 1819.

.... On Wednesday Conway acts Iachimo to Warde's Posthumus. They neither of 'em ever performed the characters, and it will be a pleasure worthy of Mrs. Pennington. How will you manage? Better make business subservient to enjoyment, and come. The Coriolanus electrified us all; and my amiable friend gets admirers and invitations every day. We spent our last evening at the Fellowes's. The Hon. Mr. Burrell there promised to introduce him to some Club of Gentlemen, who will all attend when Benefit time comes on, and will, I hope, compensate him in some measure for his past sufferings....

I suppose [the Salusburys] will just come time enough for my Foolery, which plagues me to death already. "Would it were night, Hal! and all well!"[28]

[28] "I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well."—1 Henry IV, V. i. 125.

John Prescott, who assumed the additional stage-name of Warde, had appeared at Bath in 1813, and till shortly before this date had been acting at the Haymarket. Mrs. Piozzi had a great admiration for his talents, and had helped to organise a Benefit for him in March.

Monday, 20 Dec. 1819.

Well, dearest Friend, I sent your letter to Conway, who is already in love with you, and wishes the impression he has already made not to be taken off by Iachimo. His wishes of being presented to you are most warm and cordial; he thinks you love his little Patroness, and I feel happy in the fancy that you will one day love each other, and talk confidentially concerning your poor H. L. P. when she is supposed to be far out of hearing....

My winter is not tedious for want of engagements. I am torne to pieces with invitations, and am forced to dine at Archdeacon Thomas's on Thursday, when I wished to be in the Theatre: but our Friend says we have time before us. So he has, if it please God, and so have you; but 80 years of my life are past, and I wish this winter was past too, that spring might make our intercourse more easy.

My Ball and Supper begin to be a plague to me, but I somehow hope and fancy that they may be of use to him whose welfare is really very near the heart of yours faithfully,

H. L. Piozzi.

In a note written three days afterwards Mrs. Piozzi announces that she and Conway are hoping to pay Mrs. Pennington a visit the following week, and then goes on: "Mrs. Stratton bore true witness to your impatience of our Separation; and indeed when the fine Statue we disagreed about has been pulled down a dozen years!!! 'tis fit the cobwebs should remain no longer." Can this really have been the origin of a misunderstanding between two sincerely attached friends, which lasted for fifteen years? It seems almost too ridiculous, but is the nearest approach to an explanation of the mystery afforded by the letters.

In spite of a snowstorm, the proposed visit was duly paid, and Mrs. Pennington writes to be assured that Mrs. Piozzi had taken no harm, and to express her pleasure at the meeting. "It was an hour of true, intellectual enjoyment, of real happiness." Conway evidently made a very good impression. "Of your Friend and mine, since so kindly permitted to use the, to me, always sacred distinction, I can only say he appears worthy of all the esteem and regard he has been so fortunate to obtain in your opinion. If that fine, ingenuous countenance, conciliating voice, and gentle, elegant demeanour deceive me, I will never trust to those tokens again. There is a certain something in his appearance that interests me more strongly in his happiness, than I ever felt on so short an acquaintance; and I long for an opportunity of discussing with you, dearest friend, those points that are most immediately connected with this object."

P.M. Dec. 30, 1819.

My dear Mrs. Pennington is a kind and generous friend, but her anxiety was superfluous. We got home without an atom of anything resembling alarm, or cause for it; and found the way short—I speak for myself—it was shorten'd by talking of you. Conway does certainly merit all our care, and all our admiration; may he be as happy as deserving!...

How good Mr. Pennington was to us! and all your friends: and how far from cold it was going home with that Eider Down bag that covered us so. I wonder where such things are to be had!...

The Salusburys will not come this fortnight, the Ladies God knows when....

In a letter, dated "Friday the last of 1819," Mrs. Pennington writes: "Remember me kindly to dear Conway, towards whom I feel disposed to indulge more kindness than I ever thought to entertain again on so slight an acquaintance. I hope personal knowledge has not injured the impression your partial friendship sought to create on my part. On his, the materials, all in prime keeping, are too excellent and admirable to admit any doubt on the subject. But we are, alas! something fallen into 'the sere and yellow leaf,' and cannot cope with these summer blossoms. If however not downright scarecrows to the young, 'the beautiful, and brave,' we may at least be useful land-marks and monitors, if they will permit us. Pray tell him from me, that in the experience of more years than I think it necessary at this moment to enumerate, I never knew either man or woman compleatly ruined until they were married. Observe, I do not say nor always so then, and I heartily wish him the best luck in the world in that fearful and doubtful Lottery. But I entreat him, by the friendship you have united us in, that he will not be hasty in chusing his Ticket, and that he will endeavour, as coolly and dispassionately as possible, to examine the Number before he makes his election.

"The Eider Down that was so comfortable to your dear Friend, I imagine can be procured at any of the capital Furriers, at least in London, tho' I know Paris is the place to get them in perfection. A Lady of my acquaintance purchased a delightful Pillow there, of an immensely large size, which wrapped about her head, or feet, or served her as the warmest and lightest coverlid possible. The Custom House Officers took it from her at one of the Ports, and she was fearful of not getting it again, or at least not without a heavy premium; when, strolling about, she happened to look into the Custom House to make some enquiries. No one being there, and seeing her treasure of a Pillow lying in a corner, she clapped it under her arm, and walked off with it, fortunately unmolested, on the principle that every one had a right to their own."

In a postscript she expresses a wish that "my dear, and pretty Maria Brown ... was rich enough for our Conway, I would trust his happiness with her."

2 Jan. 1820.

No proof more perfect can be given or received, dear Mrs. Pennington, of our hearts being well united once again, than your sudden as surprising impression in favour of our common Friend's happiness. I have studied nothing else since I knew him: yet must confess his power of raising such real interest is a singular one....

I passed yesterday at Mrs. Lutwyche's, and missed the Comus my heart was set upon, but Sir James Fellowes dropt in while I was writing this letter, and said it was inimitable. "Ay," replied I, "the Scholar's correctness, levigated by the Wit's elegant hiliarity." The answer was that Conway should have a patent for acting, and I should have one for praising him....

A few days later Mrs. Pennington paid a visit to Bath, and on her return was escorted home by Conway. She gives her impressions in a letter dated January 17:

"We had as pleasant a ride as it was possible to have on a road that carried me 12 miles from you. So interesting was our conversation that we felt no cold, and were surprised when we reached the end of our little journey. You may easily guess our subjects; but I am sorry to say that in the discussion of certain points, I cannot find reason to think our dear and amiable Friend so near the goal as your ardent and benevolent spirit is disposed to believe. The fair lady is, I have no doubt, as amiable as he conceives her; but the timidity and diffidence which renders her more lovely in his eyes, creates obstacles and difficulties that demand a bolder spirit, and more self-confidence than she possesses, to overcome. Love, all powerful love, which sees in the object the ultimatum of all its wishes, and overlooks all contingent and subordinate circumstances, only can do this. We shall see whether such is hers. Such only, in my opinion, can deserve the man who gains, every hour that I see more of him, such an increasing interest in my regard, that my anxiety for his happiness is become painful. My dear Husband is highly taken with his fine manners and intelligent conversation. He says he has seen no such man since the prime days of his friend, Governor Tryon, who was reckoned the handsomest man and finest gentleman of his time.

"Oh! no Lady need fear she can lose consequence by the side of such a man, who will always cast a lustre about whatever profession he may follow. Perhaps it is the very circumstance of holding the power of decision wholly in her own hands, that renders her so cautious, lest others should suppose she has not used the responsibility wisely. Oh! love, real love, knows no such reasoning as this! you know, dearest friend, it does not.

"I am on very ill terms with myself respecting the silly speech I made about your pretty Silver Tea Pot. You have shown me you cannot leave it me, and I will not deprive you of the use of it. That would be foolish indeed; for I want no remembrancer of you, and have many: besides I do verily believe I am not likely ever to receive it on the terms I asked it. Sincerely and fervently do I pray and believe you have many more years before you, than I have any right, from constitution and the present state of my feelings, to reckon upon. And it would be worse than absurd to rob you of an article of daily use, to throw it into the hands of other people. All I can consent to therefore is, that you continue to use it, dear Friend. Long may you do so, and should the most fatal deprivation I can now ever feel (but one) befall me, desire Betsey to deposit that with dear Conway's watch, and I will drink my tea from it for the rest of my life, and mingle my tears with the fragrant libation."

The teapot was destined to be a source of much heart-burning, as will be seen later on.

Tuesday, 18 Jan. 1820.

Well, dearest Mrs. Pennington, you sent home our favourite Friend ready to cry: he! whose business it is to make us all cry. But he swears you were so pathetic, and your kindness—so kind! His spirits required spurring for the evening at Mrs. Pennell's. I have not seen him since, save on the Stage....

If the Salusburys are not snow'd up upon the road, they will be here to-night: how shall I thaw them? We will make them a little no Party for the 20th....

Conway surpassed himself in Pierre last night; he has long left all others behind. It would grieve me should he meet mortification where he looks for happiness; though such things do befall the wise, the witty, and the beautiful. I wish he would stand prepared for endurance of an evil 'tis possible may be hanging over him. I have no guess how matters stand but as he tells me; and to-day his not calling, added to your letter, gives me apprehension.

Adieu! I have been to the cold Rooms arranging my supper, etc. Oh Heavens! what a foolery! It will utterly ruin your poor

H. L. P.

Something appears to have gone wrong with this letter, as Mrs. Pennington writes on January 20 in an agitated strain to enquire whether Mrs. Piozzi's silence is due to "a return of those frightful Cramps," or some other ailment. "Keep me not [in] suspense," she continues, "it is not wise to indulge so intense an interest as that I feel for you, and all that relates to you. I live on your letters, and literally think of nothing but you, and our common Friend. Would to God he was as deeply seated in the heart of his Beloved as he is in ours! But is it reasonable to expect that a mere girl should be able properly to appreciate the rich treasure of his love. No, it requires something more, rather more mature in judgement, discrimination and feeling. I was willing to be sceptical as long as I could, as to the nature of his attachment, and its extent; but I am convinced it is ardent, pure, and deep-seated.... She cannot know the value of such love by the objections she makes, and the indecision of her conduct. She thinks perhaps that the next Lover will love as well; but if she lets him go she will lose an unique, a noble fellow, and find too late that such love is seldom any woman's lot, and never more than once.

"I cannot think what has created such an interest in my mind;—yes, I can,—it is you, who have been, and are almost (I must not for shame say more) everything to me.... Give my love to the Chevalier [Conway], Did he tell you that after all the confidence reciprocated in our pleasant ride, I sealed the bond of friendship we have sworn with a kiss (as chaste as Dian ever gave) at parting, which he was to leave on your dear hand?"

Mrs. Piozzi's letter, written on Tuesday, did not reach Clifton till Friday, January 21, when Mrs. Pennington writes complaining of the bad management of the Bath Post Office, and then touches on the subject of Mrs. Piozzi's great Birthday Fête.

"I begin to feel considerable uneasiness on the subject of your Gala. I fear indeed, dear Friend, you will be run to an enormous expence.... I have enquired, and know that the thing was done at Clifton, and very handsomely, at half a Guinea per head, wine included: for after all there is very little drank at a Supper where women are the half, or larger proportion of the company." She then returns to Conway's affairs. "Entre nous, I cannot persuade myself the girl has spirit or stamina to set her above, and carry her through those disadvantages which others (called the World) would see and condemn in such a connexion. If she insists on his giving up his profession, he is shorn of half his beams; more especially as her fortune will not supply that independent respectability which would be some compensation for the loss of the eclât he cannot fail of deriving from the exertion of his talents. If she cannot make up her mind to take him as he is, I verily think she does not deserve him. The objections she lays stress upon are not to be found in Love's Calendar...."

The LOWER ROOMS, seen from the NORTH PARADE.

By W. J. White after H. O. Neill.

From the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.

Fryday, Jan. 21, 1820.

.... Don't be alarmed. Our Chevalier will do well; I hope in every sense of the word. But happy or unhappy, he will do right I am sure, and more than well. James Harris says, you know, nothing can happen that shall prevent a wise man from behaving wisely, an honourable man from behaving honourably; and for his conduct I will stake my life.

He must be diligent to-day, for he is to act Mark Antony to-morrow, and you will not see him, which will mortify us both, but he had no notice till this morning....

I am sick of my Foolery before it begins, very sick indeed, tho' people send me kind encouragement too....

James Harris, M.P. for Christchurch, whom Johnson set down as "a prig, and a bad prig," is best known as the author of Hermes, of which he gave Mrs. Piozzi an interleaved copy before her first marriage.

Monday 24.

My dearest Mrs. Pennington must stay over Saturday; our Chevalier comes out in a new character, and seems to like it. His Mark Antony transcended all I ever saw of scenic perfection,—dramatic rather. The tender pathos with which he said, "Oh! pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,"[29] was beyond all praise, and Lady Salusbury liked it. Sir John seems to consider Conway as much inferior to Warde in beauty, voice, and action: and the Chevalier's bright eyes, seeing how opinion goes, drop when he enters the room. They have dined but once together indeed, but both can see into a mill stone as far as most men. We meet at Bourdois' and Burney's to-morrow, and he acts Moranges on Wednesday. He will be introduced to the Masonic Honours on Thursday; and then give you, whom he justly adores, the meeting at my Concert. If he does not dance with the proper Partner, it will vex you and me both: but he will—surely he will. Meanwhile here's a flood to fright one. He, and all the people at the bottom of our town are in real danger....

The weather hurts everybody, and the applications to me for cards make me, like Othello, perplex'd in the extreme.[30] Here comes a tempest of visitants; no gloomy sky keeps them away....

[29] Julius Cæsar, III. i. 254.

[30] Othello, V. ii. 346.

On the following day Mrs. Pennington replies:

.... This weather will thin your room and lessen your expences, notwithstanding the unreasonable demands upon you for additional cards of admission. One half of the people originally invited will be laid up in their beds, as my dear Husband is at this moment with the Gout.... There is not now a chance of his being able to move by Thursday ... I am more than sorry, I am grieved! I feel nobody amongst numbers without my Husband. He will not however hear of my staying at home. He says I must have the satisfaction of seeing you in your glory, surrounded by all those who best love, and most admire you....

Every tribute paid to the dear Chevalier delights me.... I am perfectly up to the preference given to Warde's talents and beauty. I foretold it. Our favourite is so very superior that he is much more likely to excite envy than admiration from his own sex. In this instance it is indeed Hyperion to a Satyr....

Ah! I am just informed of the sad news. The Duke of Kent is no more! What heavy afflictions fall on the House of Coburg! That poor Lady, left a stranger in the land, is much to be pitied! They were happier, as married people, than those of their rank can in general boast of being....

PROGRAMME OF MRS. PIOZZI'S CONCERT, 1820

WITH MS. NOTES BY MRS. PENNINGTON AND MARIA BROWN

Her great fête to celebrate her eightieth birthday passed off most successfully. The concert, ball, and supper drew a crowd of over 600 people to the Assembly Rooms on January 27. Her health was proposed by Admiral Sir James Saumarez, and received by the company with three times three. She opened the ball with Sir John Salusbury, dancing, as Mangin remarks, "with astonishing elasticity," but in spite of her exertions the callers next day found her as well, and as mirthful and witty as usual.

Conway was present among the crowd, but in such a state of suffering, mental and physical, as prevented him from enjoying the entertainment himself, or contributing to the enjoyment of others. A letter from Mrs. Pennington dated Sunday, January 30, gives an account of a visit she had paid him the previous day, just before her return to Clifton, when she found him "like 'mobled Hecuba,'[31] hooded up in handkerchiefs and bandages," suffering from what she calls a tumour.

[31] Hamlet, II. ii.

Sunday, 30 Jan. 1820.

My dearest Mrs. Pennington's sweet silver tongue has done our noble blooded, noble minded Friend more good than all my written wisdom. He promises me now explicitly, (and Conway will keep his word,) that he will in all things take your advice. "Kind, charming Lady!" is his expression, "she has bound me to her with ribs of steel." ...

What a world it is! and you, and I, and he all proud of our talents, if we would confess it. Fine folly!

Is it of intellectual powers,

Which time developes, time devours,

Which forty years we may call ours,

That Man is vain?

Of such the Infant shows no sign,

And Childhood dreads the dazzling shine

Of knowledge, bright with rays divine,

As mental pain.

Worse still, when passions bear the sway,

Unbridled Youth brooks no delay,

He drives dull Reason far away,

With scorn avow'd.

For forty years she reigns at most,

Labour and study pay the cost;

Just to be raised, is all our boast,

Above the crowd.

Sickness then fills th' uneasy chair,

Sorrow succeeds, with Pain and Care,

While Faith just keeps us from despair,

Wishing to die.

Till the Farce ends as it began,

Reason deserts the dying man,

And leaves,—to encounter as he can

Eternity.

.... Bessy's increasing illness grieves me. Dr. Gibbes tries to save her from Consumption. We could not call him sooner. She is now cover'd with Blisters, after which come Leeches and James's Powder, with orders to eat nothing at all but—Milk.

The noble blood attributed to Conway evidently refers to a story, mentioned later by Mrs. Pennington, that he was a natural son of one of the Marquis of Hertford's family. He appears to have made an attempt to obtain some acknowledgment of his relationship from his putative father, but without much success; and the failure may have had something to do with his determination to leave England.

King George III died on January 29, six days after the Duke of Kent, and the new king, who was too ill to be present at his father's death-bed, nearly followed him to the grave. He had caught a severe chill, and to relieve the inflammation his medical advisers saw fit to relieve him of 130 ounces of blood, which all but killed him. Yet he was convalescent by February 6.

On February 2 Mrs. Pennington writes: "Your verses, my beloved Friend, are above all praise, for yours they must be, as no one else can delineate such profound thinking with the same ease and perspicuity. The late events do indeed give a grave and solemn tone to one's reflections, and these awful death-bells sounding from every quarter in one's ears, fill me with trembling apprehension for everything that is near and dear to me. I rejoice that George IV was not proclaimed on the anniversary of the Martyrdom of Charles the Ist. To my easily alarmed mind it would have seemed frightfully ominous!...

"I do not wish [Conway] to be in too much haste to renew his visits in Camden Place. I would strongly recommend him to play a back game, and see how absence, and some degree of solicitude, which surely his illness must excite, operates there. It is of the first consequence to his and to her future peace and happiness, that she should be able to appreciate, and he to ascertain, the degree of affection existing on her part. If she has mistaken the sentiment, I think she will now be able to detect the mistake; as nothing is more likely to bring out the truth, than any real or imaginary danger respecting the object. And if the same futile objections remain, depend upon it she has mistaken the feeling, whether she knows it or not, and she would do better to put an end at once to all suspense on the subject...."

3 Feb. 1820.

I am glad dear Mrs. Pennington approved my Verses, your taste is so good. They are like lines written in 1712, not at all of a modern sort. You have seen our Chevalier since I did; he keeps close, and Bessy, whom I sent to comfort him in his illness, brings me no good accounts. She is bad enough herself, poor girl, but pities him: I wish they were both at Clifton under your care....

Death is near us all, and after death, judgment. Poor Mr. Eckersall has had a stroke of Apoplexy or Palsy, but the family seem little aware o'nt: and I was seized with such a lethargic stupor after dinner yesterday at Dorset Fellowes's, I was forced to play Loo to keep myself awake, and lost four shillings....

This Recess, shocking as the cause may be, is fortunate for our Chevalier; and I hope he will shine out and dazzle all beholders at his Benefit. Don't you remember Siddons saying she never acted so well as once when her heart was heavy concerning the loss of a child?

I break off to say the present King is dying. God's judgments are abroad. Write to dear Conway, and with your sweet eloquence persuade him to sink all thought of his own calamities in those of the Nation he is an honour to....

On February 5 Mrs. Pennington replies. "Your letter, dearest Friend, nearly paralysed me. Poor Bessy ill!—Dear Conway no better!—Everybody sick or dying! I am absolutely ill with terror and solicitude! I was quite afraid to enquire for the Papers to-day but, thank God! the accounts of the King are more favourable.... The first impressions I had of perfect manly grace, and princely dignity, were drawn from the fine form and gracious manners of our present Sovereign. Early impressions are always the most lasting. Never have I seen, but in our favourite, dear Conway, anything to compare with him, nor ever shall I see his equal again; and I feel that my affliction would be almost personal grief, should anything fatal happen to him at this time.... God, of his mercy, avert this great additional calamity from us, I most heartily pray....

"Everybody was pleased with the respectful and affectionate attention [of Sir John Salusbury] at the Ball.... I was surprised at some hints dropped at the chagrin he felt on the subject of your increased acquaintance; and could not help telling him, tho' in perfect good humour, that my claims in that line were prior to his own. I was sorry I did not recollect to observe to him, that it was a maxim of Dr. Johnson's, whose wisdom no one could question, 'that we should renew, and keep our acquaintance and our friends in repair, as we did our wardrobes, because they would wear out.'"

Bath, Sunday 6 Feb. 1820.

Bessy is safe, dearest Mrs. Pennington, by dint of bleeding, starving, blistering. Bessy is safe, ... and our noble-minded, tender-hearted friend ... is better too; I shall not outlive all that love me. It is a trying time, and some affliction falls on every family, the Royal Family worst.

As if Misfortune made the Throne her seat,

And none could be unhappy,—but the Great.

Of the present Sovereign I know nothing personally. From the old King I got a kiss when presented, and the late Regent made application thro' Murphy, for my acquaintance 20 years ago. But as Mr. Thrale's daughters were then upon a visit to Streatham Park, and not their own Father master of the house, I declined all such honours: and therein acted wisely, which I seldom do....

What you say of an exacting, authoritative friend is most true. One thinks immediately of Marmontel, "Je baisse les liens de l'amitie,—j'en redoute la chaine." I'm willing still to kiss the links of friendship, but from the chain I fly. Those I have never found me exacting, or (without request,) interfering. Friendship is far more delicate than love. Quarrels and fretful complaints are attractive in the last, offensive in the first. And the very things which heap fewel on the fire of ardent passion, choke and extinguish sober and true regard. On the other hand, time, which is sure to destroy that love of which half certainly depends upon desire, is as sure to increase a friendship founded on talents, warm with esteem, and ambitious of success for the object of it. Such feelings depend on the merit of the man or woman that excites them, and can be dull'd only by their conduct.

So here's a fine heap of wise nothings, as you call your own preachments,—which I hope our dear Chevalier will thank you for.

The King is safe,—as well as Bessy. Equal in the sight of Him who created and redeem'd them: very unequal in importance to those who look up to them for support and assistance.

They live however, and so for awhile does dear Mrs. Pennington's poor old Friend

H. L. P.

Mrs. Pennington replies in a long letter dated February 9, from which it appears that Conway's love-affair had come to the conclusion she had anticipated. Miss S[tratton] could not stoop to the position of an actor's wife, and insisted on his abandoning his profession, if he was to aspire to her hand, a step which he could not bring himself to take. While full of sympathy for the suffering this decision had caused him, she is quite convinced that, as far as his career is concerned, it is all for the best, and concludes thus:

"I shall hate a Miss something more to the end of my life for his sake, and what is worse, notwithstanding the just and high regard he entertains for you, and his new liking for me, I fear he will contract a hatred for Bath, and I shall see little more of him for the rest of my life: and then what a silly thing have I done to interest myself thus deeply in his concerns! The most astonishing thing of all is the power he possesses of creating so strong and pure an interest in his favour, especially with me, who have long since ceased to feel the influence of that sort of enthusiasm, and am become fastidious from disappointment. In very few instances have I ever experienced the attachment I feel to him! It seems as if that Girl alone was exempt from the power of the magic he bears about him. Well, let her go!—sit down at ease with a Country Squire, 'suckle fools, and chronicle small Beer.' ... But as you say, while we do right, and honourably, and wisely, (and when he has recovered the proper use of his reason—I am sure he will do,) all will ultimately go well, and better than if it had gone our way, depend upon it."

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The two "Love Letters," so called, written to Conway on February 2 and 3, when read in connection with those to Mrs. Pennington, show not Mrs. Piozzi's doting fondness for the handsome actor (as the Editor evidently desired to insinuate), but her deep concern for his welfare, and her anxiety lest he should damage his professional prospects by giving way to despondency or despair as the result of his rejection. In the first she subscribes herself "your more than Mother, as you kindly call your H. L. P." In the second she mentions having received a call from the Strattons, and that she could not bring herself to touch the hand of Mrs. S., whom she evidently held responsible for the rupture. She refers to them in her Commonplace Book, in a passage evidently written about this date. "Strattons, a family here, pretended passionate love [for Conway,] and I thought them in earnest, ... dined with me yesterday, and said all was over, because the girl's friends would not agree to the connection." The words in brackets have been carefully obliterated, but there is little doubt about them, as Conway's name has been similarly treated in several other places. The last of the "Love Letters" is dated February 28.

Thursday Evening, 10 Feb. 1820.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's prognostics are always wise, lucky, and fulfilled; and I doubt not but we shall lose our accomplished Chevalier,—after this Season,—for ever. Let us get him a good Benefit first, and send him down the wind, with fav'ring gales. I will leave, in the vulgar phrase, no stone unturned to serve him. Meanwhile he is in London, escaping our wise letters of good advice; of which, if now weary, he will on a future day be proud. The world is full of incident, and some good ones may illuminate his Drama.

Yesterday's post brought word that Lady Salusbury's Father was most alarmingly ill. To-day's post said he was dying. Yesterday at dinner Salusbury broke one of his fine teeth. To-day it was drawn, and they are gone to Shropshire. So runs the world away. Jealous of Aunt's favour, and glad to carry little Wifey far from that widely spreading influence which, as you say, throws an attractive halo round us all: which she feels among the rest, for who can 'scape? Sir John's chagrin won't kill him: and he says he will perhaps come again—by himself—but he will find enough to do at home.

Our Benefit will probably take place towards the end of this month. Conway comes back to open the Theatre with a swarthy face on the 18th, in a new Play written by Mr. Dimond;—St. Clara's Eve. That young man's brother, Charles Dimond, who I used to say resembled a Thames Smelt, and who has long been settled in London, marries a girl with £10,000, and pretty besides, a Miss Wood. Leoni Lee too has found a maid with the love-beaming eye; he took her to St. James's Church yesterday.

The King's calling to his bedside the Duke of Sussex is a pretty and a tender anecdote. "My Father and my Brother are lying dead now," said he, "your life, my dear Augustus, is very precarious, my own saved almost by a miracle. Let us not quarrel more with each other, while Death is at hand so to quarrel with us all." Everybody says that Prince's amiable son will marry a daughter of the Duke of Montrose.

I hope you will begin the next month with me, under St. Taffy's influence: and if you invite me early in the Spring, when our tall Beau is gone, or going, I will come to Clifton, and escape visitors. My door never rests here, and when once out of town, they may knock in vain. But till the Theatre is shut, or the great Light of it extinguished, the halo hangs round me, and I shall neither be willing nor able to stir. The less indeed, because persuaded that his return hither, (unless either the Gentleman or Lady is married,) is very unlikely, and would perhaps be imprudent. I mean his professional return, as now, in the character of principal performer.

Adieu, dear Mrs. Pennington, continue to him your regard; do not willingly lose sight of him; your value is by him duly appreciated, and I depend on living long in both your memories. You will often talk together of yours and his true friend and faithful servant

H. L. P.

The "amiable son" of the Duke of Sussex, Augustus Frederick, born 1794, who took the name of d'Este, died unmarried.

---

On February 15 Mrs. Pennington replies in two closely-written sheets, full of indignation at the girl who, she is convinced, could never have felt any real love for Conway, or she could not have dismissed him without "one word of sympathy, one token of pity, or sentence of consolation." ... "It was most silly and illiberal to tell him 'she could not support the idea of being sunk in her rank of life, and looked down, on,' etc." ... "I trust, as Dr. Johnson would have said, he will never think of hunting down a Kitten again."

She goes on to refer to the story of his being the son of William Conway, an old college friend of Sir Walter James, who had remarked on the likeness between them. His reputed father must therefore have been Lord William Seymour Conway, sixth son of Francis, first Marquess of Hertford.

Sir Walter "said of his acting, that he was the best Pierre he ever saw, though he had a perfect recollection of Holland, who was thought perfection in the character. That he would advise him by all means to keep clear of the London Theatres for two or three years, and then burst upon them, a finished actor. He said it was remarkable they never received an Actor as such, whatever his merits, so young, or so young-looking, as Conway, until more matured by experience and knowledge of the business; and instanced Mrs. Siddons's failure in early life, Mr. Young's, etc. It was some years before Kemble made his way to the popularity he at last attained.... Sir Walter says your verses are the best he has seen of modern verses, and like those sterling things of 50 years back....

"I wonder what the generality of people would think if they were to pick up our letters?"

16 Feb. 1820.

Thank you kindly, dear Mrs. Pennington, for your kind letters. Our Chevalier longed to see them whilst in London, and I disappointed him by not sending them forward. It was the first pain I ever put him to, and it shall be the last. Our business is to soothe and solace, not to chide him, or add a particle to what he suffers. If female friendship is worth anything, let us benefit and please him all we can. Your part must be to advise, mine to console; and both of us will try to get him a blazing night, when once the time is appointed.... Sir Walter James is very unwell, and I am sorry for it. He always instinctively loved our friend Conway; and the last time we changed a word about him, his expression to me was, "I think that young fellow is all that a man ought to be." ...

Sir Walter James Head, of Langley Hall, Berks, who assumed the name of James, and was created a Baronet 1791, was the great-grandfather of the present Lord Northbourne.

---

On February 18 Mrs. Pennington writes: "I begin now to get very anxious on the subject of our Benefit. I know, by experience, that only general and simultaneous impulse will fill a Theatre or a Ball Room. The Pit and Galleries are prime objects, a showy play is the best attraction there. The boxes there can be no doubt about, and Bessy must exert all her influence with your tradespeople, not only to take Tickets for the other parts of the House, but to dispose of as many as they can. Not a word however about these sordid matters to our high-minded Friend, whose feelings I would not hurt in any way, intentionally, for the world....

"The King was saved to a minute! Dr. Tierney had the courage to do what others durst not hazard;—but his worst sufferings, I fear, are yet to come with that bad woman,—and what mischief have not such women effected? The Duke of Berri's assassination has congealed us all with horror! It is plain that unfortunate family is to have no successor."

Another letter follows, dated February 22, written in much the same strain, and giving an account of a visit from Conway, who acted as the bearer of Mrs. Piozzi's last.

On the 24th Mrs. Piozzi writes a note to say that the Benefit is fixed for March 11, and to arrange for Mrs. Pennington's visit on the 1st. She concludes: "I hate such short letters, but my goose-quill,—poor old Goosey!—is moulting as it appears. The Pens and Paper are worse than ever I remember. Yours at Bristol are better perhaps, I'm sure it seems so."

Mrs. Pennington replies the next day: "What will the S—ns do on the Night? If they absent themselves, known and marked as they [have] been, as dear Conway's staunch and particular Friends, surely it will excite remark? And yet how can they be there? At any rate, if they are, I trust it will be in a situation not to meet his eyes;—I should dread the consequences, at least I know I shall feel it for him in every Nerve. You talk, (with little reason,) of Bath stationery! I cannot get a sheet of paper that is not greasy and full of hairs, nor a pen that will pass over them without blotting, and when I look at your beautiful writing, I think my own letters only fit to bolster up candles, or for the Pastry Cook's use."

As Mrs. Pennington was staying at Bath, there are no letters to give an account of the Benefit, but there is not much doubt that Mrs. Piozzi made it a success. She evidently returned with Mrs. Pennington to Clifton, and the next letter is written immediately after her return home.

Begun Thursday Night, 24 Mar. 1820.

Dearest Mrs. Pennington will be glad to hear that four horses, and three able-bodied men, brought my little person safe home ... at 9 o'clock last night. Had I died, like Mrs. Luxmore, of cough and strangulation, I should not have seen our tall Beau for 5 minutes after breakfast:—a morning call. He looked in high health and good spirits, said your eloquent praises had produced others, which Miss Williams sends me this moment, and I really think them very good indeed; he does deserve all praise in every situation,—in all situations of life,—and his adoring mother says he was from infancy the best boy upon [earth]. We had no time to talk of plans, present or future, [he] will go to London next week, whether to return again I know not....

Captain Marshall has got what he wished and wanted. How long will he be happy in the Prize he has so contended for? Mr. Mangin said to me once, that if he were to go to Heaven, (unlikely enough, added he,) it would be disagreeable to him for a week at least,—the first week,—but he should grow reconciled to it. Would not that speech make a good note to some of the observations in Johnson's Prince of Abyssinia? It would at least do well for Sophia Lee, whose misanthropism I reverence, while others ridicule it. Why should she let the people in to visit her, as it is called? She knows they come for curiosity, not from affection; and I suppose her means of doing good have been curtailed by accident, her powers of pleasing by infirmity and age. Why should she then exhibit the Skeleton of Wit?—or Beauty, if she ever possessed it? Is there no time when one may be permitted to die in a corner [after] arranging our little matters for the Journey? Lord! I [shall have] to expire in a Curtsey and a Compliment, and request the Spectators [to] honour me with their commands—to the next World....

Mrs. Pennington writes on March 26: "I was indeed glad to get your letter, dearest Friend, for tho' I entertained no fears for your personal safety, I was anxious lest the evening air should increase the choaking, and in great dread of dear Bessy's everlasting displeasure for suffering you to depart at half past 5 o'clock, without anything to sustain you on the way. There was more danger of your dying from inanition than suffocation. Poor Mrs. Luxmore was, I believe, a full liver. You and I shall not hasten the end of life that way. However we certainly carried the starving system to excess the day you honoured Dowry Square with your presence; for if we had had the common sense to have sat down to Dinner an hour sooner, you would have been tempted, from mere good humoured compliance with our wishes, to have taken something and a glass of wine to have supported you. But I was sick at heart, and could feel only regret at parting from you, and the rest of the party lost all their useful recollections in the pleasure of listening to you, and looking at you. They declared they would have gone without dinner for a week to have prolonged the gratification.

"Maria [Brown] is a paintress, and a really good amateur artist;—she says she cannot take her attention from your forehead and eyes,—the unfurrowed smoothness of the one, and the lucid, sweet, and bright lustre of those blue orbs, giving a youthful expression that might pass for 20! It is this that Jagher has hit off so happily, and that Roche could not touch. I must have a copy of that picture some day or other, if I sell my silver spoons, for my Tea Pot I will never part with; but mind, I am not begging, nor whining. I will never have it from your purse." ...

At the close of a long letter she returns to the subject of Conway. "Dare you hint to him before you part our only fear? and venture to tell him that your, and his saucy Friend says that if he goes to that odious Ireland, and pours as much wine down his throat as his strong head will bear, in a few years he will look like a moving steeple, with a blazing Beacon at the top? Oh! if he ever Carbuncles that beautiful nose, or heightens the natural colouring of that charming face, I will never give him another kiss. A tremendous threat, to be sure, considering the time I am looking forward to, especially as I am getting fast to poor Miss Wren's ashey tint: but I intend to be beautiful again one of these days. Ninon was charming at a much more advanced age, and wore spectacles as we do.

"I have been told I have a cast of her in my character, with a total exception, I beg leave to be understood, as to her physical and constitutional propensities, (as also to her erudition,)—but that she was fair and gentle, with my stature and carriage;—often serious;—generally rather tender, interesting, and amusing, than brilliant, tho' sometimes gay and sprightly,—

'From grave to gay,—from lively to severe.'

I wonder how all this nonsense came into my head?... If our dear Chevalier mars what God has made so exquisitely well, and stamped so clearly an impress of the Divinity upon, it will be a great sin."

28 March, 1820.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's gratuitous letter gives me the best certainty of her returning health and spirits. This answer to it will cost no more.

My health has little to do, at 81 years old, with cramming or starving, and if I am to be blest, as you seem to think it, with "second childishness and mere oblivion;"[32] to sit, like old Elspet in her wicker-chair, turned over by kind inquirers, like a last year's Almanack:—why, be it so! This is a week of mortification and resignation, and I will endeavour to endure the degrading idea....

The loss of his company and talents will be a great privation to me, but on his account my heart feels no fears. Conway's virtues are not, I trust, what Johnson would call ambulatory, meaning dependant upon climate and company. He will come home to you I hope, in seven years time, two or three little children at his side, his own incomparable soul unsullied, his merits unmolested, his beauty unimpair'd....

Mr. Hunt's being elected into Parliament is another tub for the whale; so if old Britannia, like her daughters, must live to be sick and superannuated, why, Henry Hunt and Horace Twiss may hold the smelling bottle to her nose.

I have at last seen a man who profess'd himself happy. It was Captain Marshall. But as he left me, and dress'd for the Member's Dinner, to which he went in a Sedan, a wagon overset his little vehicle, ran over his Chairman, breaking both his thighs, and brought him to the Hall—too late for Dinner.

Those who converse with the Great expect our King to be crowned on his birthday, the 12th of August. My dividends will be come in by then, and Salusbury may have his promised £100, to see the Coronation. I hate being worse than my word. Our friend Fellie may not perhaps find her Grandees so scrupulous. But she has had many assurances of the Herb-woman's place in the Procession, which I have heard was £400 or £500 o' year for life. She is a sweet Lady, but ladies are charming creatures, of course; yours most particularly so surely, when they think it fit to fling so much flattery away upon your poor affection^e Friend,

H. L. P.

[32] As You Like It, II. vi. 165.

Hunt was tried for his share in the Peterloo meeting this year, and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was, however, actually returned to Parliament for Preston in 1830, in which capacity he presented the first petition in favour of Women's Rights.

The actual date of the coronation was 19th July 1821, when "Fellie," otherwise Miss Anne Fellowes, the sister of Mrs. Piozzi's friend and executor, Sir James Fellowes, did officiate as Herb-Woman.

MISS FELLOWES AS HERB-STREWER AT THE CORONATION OF GEO. IV

By M. Gauci after Mrs. Baker.

From the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.

Monday, 10 Apr. 1820.

My dear Mrs. Pennington is but too kind in excusing my peevishness, but this sharp weather freezes all my faculties: it is as cold as January ought to be. You will have a sad loss in Maria Browne, and I have a sad loss in dear Conway; and his steady resolution never to write is such a bad trick. Siddons has the same you know: and Dr. Johnson used to complain, I remember, of David Garrick. "One would believe," said he, "that the little Dog loved one, if it was only by conversation one knew him: but 'out of sight, out of mind,' is an old proverb, and they have all of them so much to do."

If my coming to Clifton depended on my being weary of Bath, you would see me soon indeed: but till July dividends I have no money for move-about. Lord bless me! I wonder how other people's Bank Notes hold out. Mine melt away like butter in the sun. 'Tis a great mercy that the Stocks hold firm with a well organised rebellion in the Island. In my time, had such a state of things existed, people would have laid down knife and fork, and fallen to praying: those I mean who did not fight either on the one side or the other. We do not now lay down even our Cards. My friend Dr. Gray however, whom you do, or you do not remember at Streatham Park, has taken serious fright, and fled to London with his family, from Durham; wishing to change his valuable living for one, even half as profitable, in the South. Altho' Miss Normans told me on Saturday, at Mrs. Pierrepoint's or Mrs. Courtenay's Assembly, that the Bishops were insulted going to Dinner with some of our Ministers of State, last week; and the circumstance created some alarm.

Mr. Eckersall says the Comte d'Artois' life has been attempted, and that it was gave the King of France gout in his stomach. Our gracious Queen's arrival may possibly produce a like effect in the stomach of Louis Dixhuit's personal friend.

... Miss Wroughton, in her zeal for Mr. and Mrs. Ashe, asked half a dozen amateur Gentlemen to mount the Balcony, and sing for their Benefit, because the Theatre supported by Mr. Young took all their best musicians away; just as her friends the Ashes, took away Mr. Windsor, etc.—if you recollect—from my Fête on the 27th of January. And so some laugh, and some are angry, but Miss Wroughton, tho' she cross'd me at every turn this Winter, begs me to take Tickets now for Mr. Ashe!!! I really wonder how she can think of such a thing.

Clifton must be a charming place, sure, where there is no such gossiping nonsense; and all the Devonshire coast too is so quiet, and Penzance in Cornwall will soon be fashionable;—it is so cheap, they say, and so warm....

You do not care much, I think, about these ridiculous reports concerning Queen Caroline; how she is coming—so she is—to do wonders unheard of till now: and Buonaparte!—how he's to be let out, a Bag Fox, for all Europe to hunt again. People find torpor worse than torture 'tis plain. They long for War, a property-tax and a battle in every Newspaper: rebellion and assassination are not hot enough. As Mr. Leo was constrained at last to warm his brandy with Cayenne Pepper before his stomach could feel any effect.

Bath, April 22, 1820.

Dear Mrs. Pennington will be glad to see the spring coming forward so sweetly. She will be glad, too, to hear that her true friends are well; the Little Old Woman, and the Tall Young Beau. She will be glad that the Parties grow hot and disagreeable, and that I feel longing for Clifton and the 10th of June. Whether we are to be glad of the recovery of the Great Lady I know not, for tho' her life does much good, her death—poor Dear!—would have done no harm. Do you remember an impudent Comic Actor on our Bath Stage? A Mr. Edwin, and we said he resembled Dr. Randolph in the face: and how when he was addressing the audience in an epilogue upon his own Night, he suddenly turned to her Stage Box, singing

And the Duchess, who now sits so smiling here

Shall come to our Benefits every year.

Tol ol derol, Lol, etc.

I never saw any fair Female so confounded in my life. You were with me.

How the ground and the trees do sigh and pine for rain! And what a haze this odious North East wind sheds over all my prospect! The people are right enough that go abroad. I would go myself, but that I have an appointment to keep with dear Piozzi, who I brought out of his own sweet Country, to lie in the vault he made for me and my Ancestors at Dymerchion; where I am most willing to keep him company, when I have performed more than all the promises I ever, in any humour, made his Nephew; and when I have, after paying every debt, saved a silver sixpence or two for those who soften and amuse the closing scenes of a life long drawn out,—perhaps for that very purpose. Meanwhile we have a church building here, for my particular friends, the Blackguards and tatter'd Belles of Avon Street, and my Subscription will be soon expected.

Ay, Ay, I see where I shall pass the Winter months escaping frosts, and keeping clear of expences, in a climate better than Paris, the Latitude very little higher. But if you open your lips—Adieu!...

Dear—— says his health was never so perfect, and he uses horse exercise, and sends love to his Friends,—and is a good Boy. I used to bid my children when at distance, only write three words,—safe, well, and happy: his letter is just like theirs.

You are tired, are you not, of the silly talk concerning the Queen and the Radicals. They are like the Statues in the Arabian Nights, who clatter their armour to fright those who go up the hill: but if you walk steadily forward it ends in nothing.

We have an Italian Rope Dancer coming, Diavol Antonio, as they call him. Our shows have been like those in a Magic Lanthorn; so the Devil comes at last to end the whole ado.

Fryday May 5th, 1820.

... We will see a great deal of each other when Clifton becomes my place of residence for six pretty weeks. After them—old Ocean. Can aught else compleatly wash away all recollection of Bath Parties? That fair assemblage of glaring lights, empty heads, aking hearts, and false faces?

Who is it says the conversation of a true friend brightens the eyes? I have enjoy'd two chearful hours talk with our best speaker, best actor, best companion,—Conway. You seem to express yourself as if half sorry you loved him so much. I am only sorry that I can't love him ten times more....

Here is lovely weather for frisking up and down, and my empty pockets will not overload the carriage; altho' the whole family of emigrants will be packed in, and on, and upon, my Post chaise and four....

Salusbury sent me a whimpering letter, and has already got his £100, which Heaven knows I owed, and much more, to the estate of Messrs. Callan and Booth, Lodging House keepers. But if I can get five Guineas o' week for No. 8, during absence, I shall bring matters round in due time: because, as Clarissa says in the Rambler, 'tis well known to all the Beau-Monde that nobody ever dies.

In her next letter Mrs. Piozzi makes arrangements for the accommodation of herself and her household, consisting of her man James, her attendant Bessy, and two other maids at Clifton.

Tuesday, 16 May 1820.

... I can't stir till 10th of June.... I like to be under Mrs. Rudd's roof, and mean to sleep under it next Saturday three weeks, the Pretender's birthday, when old Tories in Wales wore white Roses, the 10th day of June. Sunday's dinner I hope to eat with Mr. and Mrs. Pennington, at their hospitable board, and we will talk of anything and everything but la Partenza, which cannot be before the same day of July, as till then I have ne'er a groat. If life is lent me I will be rich that time twelve-month; and if it is not lent me, I shall want no money.

Meanwhile I expect no letters from our favourite Friend. I have written to him tho', and told him that you and I were his Hephestion and Parmenio; and if he does not laugh at his Blue Ladies, we are surely well off.

Do you remember Charles Shephard, I wonder? and how we petted him? and Piozzi trusted him with all his affairs, and bid me do so; and so I did. The envious and jealous people however, after my husband's death, (people of our mutual acquaintance,) blew coals up between him and me, and parted us with acrimony on his side, mental resentment, very strong, on mine. I express'd none however; only said, "God forgive and prosper you, farewell." Many reports would have been made afterwards concerning his distresses, which I regularly turned a deaf ear to; and for these last 10 years never heard his name, and scarcely ever pronounced it. Last Fryday brought me a beautiful letter from him, dated West India, congratulating me on the gay supper given last January, assuring me of his continued regard, and bidding me direct back to the Hon. C. S. etc. because he is a Privy Councillor, Chief Justice, and Lord knows what besides.

That he retains his confidence in me plainly appears from the tender enquiries he makes after his favourite Lady; of whose attachment to him, and his to her, no one ever knew but myself. So I have lived long enough to have old friends restored, and to have made one new one. I hope dear Conway and he will be acquainted when he comes home rich and—no, not happy, but able to spite the spiters. If I am removed before then, you will remain and introduce them to each other. It will be a mutual pleasure, and you will talk of H. L. P., and Sir John will have my letters to make money of, and give him some compensation for my extravagance in the year 1820.

Callan and Booth, the people I take my house from, have heavy claims on me now; so I have let it to Mr. Iveson for a twelve-month, and mean to be smooth as Oyl'd Silk by July 1821....

There is much for you to do as my Sentimental Executrix, so we will hear of no departure but mine for Marasion, just by Penzance....

George Hammersley has just left me and taken my Banker's Book to Pallmall to be regulated; and gives me great credit for my care and exactness in my Money Matters: bidding me make no scruple with regard to their House, etc., very good-naturedly indeed. But as I told him I never yet overdrew my Banker, and will not (unless something serious happens,) begin to do so in the year 1820. One twelve month's short-biting will set all smooth, and you shall see a merry face once more on the shoulders of yours and dear Mr. Pennington's affectionate,

H. L. P.

A few days afterwards Mrs. Piozzi was much agitated, on Conway's account, by the news of the collapse of the stage of the Birmingham theatre, where it appears he was going to act; but it turned out that it was not during a performance, and the only injury done was to one of the workmen.

Bath, Tuesday 23 May 1820.

... I shall sleep at your Crescent House, Mrs. Rudd's, as we agreed long ago on Saturday night, 10 June, if it pleases God, and go to your Bristol Cathedral on Sunday morning: dine in Dowry Square, chat with you all the evening, and pass a comfortable night,—altho' the Queen is coming near enough to put every one in a heat; if perhaps she may forbear to light up a fire in our Nation for purpose of roasting her own chicken to her own mind.

Public and private villainies on the increase, as Dr. Randolph used to tell us long ago. He did recommend Charles Shephard's father for the education of young Salusbury, and the son recommended himself by his useful talents to dear Piozzi; by his brilliant ones to me. I am happy to find he will be rich and prosperous; happy he scarcely can be from the nature of his attachment; but 'tis happy to feel attachment at all, for when that's over, all's over....

... At a wedding breakfast we were invited to yesterday Dr. Wilkinson harangued in praise of Marazion, and our friend Mr. Gifford said that when he was a young Officer, he treated his brothers of the Corps with a dinner; two dishes of fish, one ham, three chickens, a pigeon pye, and a plum pudding;—the cost, 14 shillings....

Meanwhile Sir Wm. Hotham says the Levee was a Bear Garden. Miss Knight's letter to Mrs. Lutwyche says it was full of Grocers, Silk Dyers, and Upholsterers. And I say it was a Levy-en-Masse.

The Bath people must get substitutes for H. L. P. and W. A. C. as they can. I fancy young Roscius will be the man, the woman is yet to be looked for.

Admiral Sir William Hotham, one of Nelson's officers, was made a K.C.B. in 1815, and became one of the Gentlemen in Waiting to the King.

The young Roscius (William Henry West Betty), whose acting at the age of twelve created such a furore, and whose popularity for a time eclipsed that of Mrs. Siddons, had already appeared at Bath in 1812. He retired from the stage in 1824 and died in 1874.

Bath, Tuesday Night,

6 June, 1820.

... Mr. Ward has taken leave, and all the Ladies wept. Such was the croud, I am told, that James my man could not get in to any place he could stand upon.

The Londoners will have as good food for starers as Mr. Ward can give the Bath folks. Queen Caroline is said to be arrived, and is to inhabit Wanstead House. The rumours and reports are indeed innumerable....

Meanwhile my heart is heavy with affliction at losing an old, tried, and true friend, Archdeacon Thomas. Poor man! and poor Mrs. Thomas! for whom my heart bleeds. He was buried in the Abbey, where he was walking with Dr. Harington, his father-in-law, some few years ago. "Let us look," said they, "for a place where we may lie." "Ay, Thomas, so we will, for

These ancient walls, with many a mouldering bust,

But shew how well Bath Waters lay the dust."

repeated the ever-ready Doctor.

How long, dear Mrs. Pennington, am I to live? How many valuable companions am I to lose? These gentlemen were among the very pleasing ones I have known.... Thank God Salusbury and Conway—dear Lads—are young, and likely to last me out. But when they do not write my foolish heart is fluttering for their safety,—naughty children as they are in neglecting to send me a letter. I have heard but once from Brynbella since my £100 went there....

Mrs. Dimond told [Miss Williams] that Bath would have a sad loss of Mrs. Piozzi; but the Queen will put everything but herself out of everybody's head. The weather is wonderfully dull; so is my letter....

Henry Harington, M.D., Physician to the Duke of York, was a talented musician, and founder of the Bath Philharmonic Society. A letter quoted by Hayward describes him in 1815 as "listening with delight to his own charming compositions. The last Catch and Glee are said to be the best he ever wrote." The incident mentioned above took place the same year. There is a curious little note about him in Mrs. Piozzi's Commonplace Book. "Dr. Harrington, who was then 88 years old, never took any air or exercise that he could possibly avoid, going constantly to his patients in a Sedan; and held a handkerchief before his face to keep the air away."

Another note, dated June 7, 1820, runs as follows: "Am I, H. L. P., sorry to leave Bath? No, but I should be half sorry to think I never should return, which it is most probable I never shall; my age so far advanced. Well, God's will, not mine, be done."

Penzance, Tuesday 25 Jul. 1821.

[clearly a slip for 1820.]

My dearest Mrs. Pennington will be pleased to hear that we arrived safely at Penzance last night.... All we are told about the place seems true.... We shall get a good house, with a sea view ... upon the Regent's Terrace, paying £16 o' month, thro' the whole ten, from 1st of August next to 1st of June 1821....

Our dear Conway's name at length appears in the Morning Post, summoning his troops to meet in the Green Room of the new Theatre, Birmingham. If Mrs. Rudd does not know it, do her the honour to call with the information.

I wish the ship was come with our Cook, and our books, and our luggage. A Mr. Paul shew'd me 4 fine Red Mullets he had just paid a penny each for, this very morning: yet the Inn gave us a stale Soal yesterday, and will charge a shilling at least for it. But Honesty is a shrub harder to raise than Myrtle, which grows here in open air sure enough, and the people are so fond of it that they plant the beautiful Bay out of their sight as much as possible, preferring green trees to blue waves completely.

St. Michael's Mount is a disappointing object, at least to me; and as to the country we came thro', nothing ever looked so poverty-stricken, except the very roughest part of North Wales in rough days, before they had begun enclosing. Goats browsing wild about the rocks, as in some districts of Snowdonia, serve the peasants as good substitutes for cattle, who could not pick a living so as to enable them to give milk for the innumerable children that crowd the cottages. Yet Mrs. Hill complains that they grow saucy, and refuse Barley Bread now, which used to be their regular sustenance. I have not, however, seen a beggar, and the shops are splendid, while the streets are odious,—too filthy, too mean to be endured. Bangor and Beaumaris would be ashamed of them. I might have had a good house for two Guineas o' week, but could not away with the situation, coming from Clifton Hill. Peat stacks at every turn shew what fires they use here in the winter, but till last January snow had not been seen for many years, and it lasted but one day. The tide here is like that in the Mediterranean, just visible the Ebb and Flow; tho' full moon to-day, no rise appears to my eyes that are unused to a land-locked bay, and which, (foolishly enough), expected an open Ocean, such as the Sussex coast exhibits. But old Neptune here puts on a quiet aspect, resembling that he wears at Weymouth or at Tenby. No mud however offends the Bathers, and no Machine assists them.

I saw the Holmes, and pretty Mendip Lodge, as we came along, and fancied I could discern Weston super Mare, whose Sea View Place is just such a row of houses as Regent's Terrace; only we have here such magnificent gardens, and one good house in the middle of the row, looking down with true contempt on the mouse-holes each side it:—and that Mansion I am in chase of, only suspecting that, before we knew it was to be had, I entangled myself in a mouse-hole.

The women here are beautiful. The Lady of Mousetrap Hall, with whom I have entangled myself, has eyes like Garrick's, teeth like Salusbury's, complexion like your own, but cruel as lovely. I fear she will not let me off; and in her house I should regret the ample space of your house, or mine at Weston super Mare.

I have half a mind not to let this go till I have finally settled this great affair. Great indeed just now, for as Goldsmith said

"These little things are great to little men."[33]

And on this 26th—I shall sit, fret, and dine

In a chair-lumber'd closet, just eight feet by nine.

For I feel myself after all condemned to the Mousehole for three months certain; £2, 15s. 0d. per week, with a view of the sea, and then (if we live to see November), Mr. Paul's comfortable Mansion at next door.

[33] The Traveller.

Penzance, Wed. 3 August, 1820.

Charming Mrs. Pennington's beautiful letter was indeed most welcome, tho' it does put me a little more out of humour with my run-away frolic than I was before it arrived....

Now for Penzance and its Parties. Mrs. Hill made a splendid one, for me I rather think, and my black satten gown (for no other is yet arrived,) was my best garment. Bessy lent me a cap of hers, and my youthful looks were duly appreciated—my whist-playing applauded. We had two tables, one for shillings, one for sixpences; a profusion of exquisite refreshments, and music in another room. Oh! if I escape all temptations to sensuality, I shall live to see dear Mr. and Mrs. Pennington again, and the Hot Wells, and Clifton Terrace, where I shall surely jump for very joy. But these Red Mullets and Dorees for two pence o' piece will certainly destroy some of us. Poor Bessy has been seriously, I might say dangerously ill, from indulging in a Crab; it made James sick too; all the family half-killed,—for the small price of a groat the fish, and a Pound to the Dr.... a real Physician, thank God, and not a country 'Pothecary....

The people know not how to be civil enough, and if my stomach will reconcile itself to the clouted cream, I shall come home as fat as the pigs of the country, and such pork did I never see. Our own garden affords potatoes for us all, and onions etc., besides the flower plot, perfuming the very air around with carnations of every hue, Myrtles of every form, and exotic shrubs with Linnean names innumerable. The appearance of our Mansion, pleasure ground, and kitchen garden, reminds me of Kingsmead Terrace, Bath; but James says the houses here are by no means so spacious as that where your compassion carried you when our incomparable Conway was so ill. I hope he has proved himself irresistible, and what must the heart be over which he cannot, if he pleases—triumph?... Oh! if I possessed an unappropriated £100 in the world, I would go see him act once again, that I would.... I am glad Mrs. Rudd's heart seems lighter than when we left her; the Rogue has never written to me, no, not a scrap; but she had an earlier pretension to his regard, I think it is scarce a truer.

Meanwhile Sophia Hoare has written me a more good-humour'd letter than usual, and I am so delighted! Maternal love is the only good thing mankind can not throw away. It springs fresh with the least drop of water flung upon it. She wishes her illustrious Neighbour out of Town I see, and says wisely that her present residence being so near the Barracks is unfortunate, because the soldiers' wives and children are among her every night's applauders. The Hoares are used to be violent opposers of the Ministry, but Democrates like to have their property held sacred, as well as you or I; and firing houses will make no sport to the Bankers, I trow.

So now pray accept these not elaborate verses: they will amuse Mr. Pennington's gout.

Around their Queen

Here are seen,

Sharp'ning every sting,

Bees,—alarming

By their swarming

People, Peers, and King.

But in their tricks,

Should they fix

On our property;

They must learn

To discern

That when they sting, they die.

Surely such Cakes, Jellies, etc., as they use here for refreshments, all new and warm, were never seen at Bath or London, so various, so profuse. I never touch them, certainly, but never was so tempted. No Confectioner's shop visible in the place, all made at home.

With regard to rain, we live in a cloud of soft mist, rain, if you please to call it so; certainly a perpetual damp, warm moisture. Lady Jane James said, you know, that she never put on a dry chemise at St. Michael's Mount, and truly did she speak; but nobody ever told me that the sea here is as tame as the country is wild. Wild without sublimity, coarse externally, like other Misers; its riches all concealed underground. I saw Hay carried last night, two months after the environs of Clifton. But I have wrong'd old Neptune; he can roar, I hear him now, thank Heaven. Oh! how much more delightful is the music he now makes than that of the pretty Ladies of the parties, to the rude ears of dearest Mrs. Pennington's everlastingly obliged and faithful

H. L. P.

Aug 3. Fateful month! but no clothes, no books, no Cook, no Conway's portrait yet for poor H. L. P.

Cook, books, and clothes were still in the Port of Bristol, as Mrs. Pennington writes on the 29th, waiting, as it appeared, for the captain to make up his freight; and might then be expected to take from four days to a fortnight—according to the wind—to make Penzance.

The renewed enthusiasm for Queen Caroline was aroused by the anticipation of the Bill of Pains and Penalties, intended to dissolve the marriage, which was brought in on August 14, but proved so unpopular, both in and out of Parliament, that it had to be dropped.

On August 10 Mrs. Pennington is able to announce that the Happy Return had actually sailed, with Mrs. Piozzi's belongings, five days before. Conway had been to see his mother, and had called on herself, rather, she thinks, from civility than from choice. "There was a polite distance assumed, evidently for the purpose of repressing enquiry.... I am persuaded we trouble ourselves much more about his concerns than he either wishes or likes." She gathered, however, that he had secured some sort of recognition from his father. She alludes to the letter of "lovely Mrs. Hoare," whom "I always liked ... because I thought her more personally like you than any of the Ladies."

Penzance, Sunday August 13, 1820.

Come! oh come! dear Mrs. Pennington, I see you half long to be here, and what a relief, what a comfort, would your society afford to your starving H. L. P.? Here is no heat, no dust, no cold: I daresay it is a very negative place, but I must not have you tell tales out of School. Miss Trevenan may justly disapprove my censure on the no picturesque of her native county: and if you read her my letters so, I must grow cautious, à la Conway. I have heard from him, thank God! The rogue told me nothing tho', except how charming you and I were, what admirable letters we wrote, etc. "Yea, and all that did I know before,"[34] as Juliet says. Quere, whether he has anything to tell; unless it be that he has at length calmed his own noble and too-feeling mind, by conduct which himself approves.

But at the same moment with your kind letter comes our long-expected ship. Cook says they have been to Wales; Swansea in Glamorganshire!

The day you receive this one whole month will have elapsed since I left the full moon shining in her brightness on Clifton Terrace. Never have my eyes seen her since. No, nor a starry night. Yet here is sun enough, and the sea so beautifully blue and clear, you would be delighted with it, as one is with a tame Lyon. Will you come?...

Much, meantime, and of much more importance, is crazing all the brain-pans of poor Europe. The revolt at Rome strikes me as very surprising. The same people who defended their Sovereign as long as they could, poor creatures! against French aggression, now fly in the face of his not only Innocent, but innocuous successor: no mortal can guess why. Ay, ay, you used to laugh when I mounted my turnep cart and preached the end of the world. But you don't like witnessing the convulsions that precede it, and which increase in violence visibly every day. Poor Ithaca! whence Ulysses was detained, you know, by the gardens of Alcinous, has been shattered completely to pieces by an earthquake, under the name of St. Mauro; and Inspruck, where I spent a few days, has seen the destruction of her Golden House.

Our Queen Bee, of whom the Radicals have laid hold, will be the instrument of concussion in our Country; and we drones shall suffer, while the stingers go on torturing each other into madness. The Naturalists, Pennant, Linnæus, etc., have long observed that all the Hymenoptera have stings. Yet I suppose that will not deter the hopers from marriage....

Mr. Mangin's Intercepted Letter was a little Pamphlet, censuring some Authors, Actors, etc., commending others; and I got two kind lines, before we were at all acquainted,—so that brought on Library conversation, and he offered his services about the Name-Book;—took it to London for me, where it was rejected, not through any neglect on his part: and I felt myself much obliged by his attentions, and rejoiced in his good fortune when he married....

[34] Rom. and Jul., II. v. 47.

No particulars are forthcoming respecting the "Name Book," but it was evidently a work on Etymology, written some years before, which was to have been called Lyford Redivivus, for which she was unable to find a publisher. A letter in Mr. Broadley's collection indicates that it was finished about 1816, when she writes to Sir James Fellowes, "I wish Mr. Jenkins had taken the Name Book."

Penzance, Saturday Night,

26 Aug. 1820.

Dear, kind Mrs. Pennington, I love you for wishing that you could come, and you ought to love me for agreeing in the notion that to come would be very foolish. One can hardly save the expences of such a journey by cheap fish, when the water 'tis boyl'd in must, every drop, be paid for. And what an ideot was James not to pay the carriage of the Turbot! When I miss'd it in the weekly account I could have cuff'd him.

The heats are equable, not strong or starvy; but little can be said in praise of the weather. Rain, almost incessant, keeps one at home, and to get at this lovely sea, such stinks must be encounter'd as I never knew but at Rome or Naples. Poor, dear Italy! I did love it however, and hear with unaffected sorrow of the pangs that are tearing it to pieces. In France fire-brands seem the instruments of punishment from on high. In England one female suffices. If nothing can be done without more help, my Paper says that Buonaparte is to be let loose, and that Prince Esterhazy's business here was to solicit his liberation. Hissing the Duke of Wellington is a prelude, a pretty overture to such an Opera. Opera means piece of work, you know. It makes me more willing to quit the world certainly, when I see it rolling downhill so. But the whole of it must be discover'd before it is destroy'd, and the little ship William, a trading vessel from Blythe in Northumberland, has in effect found at last the great Southern Continent, so long supposed to exist, so completely forgotten of late years....

Did you ever read my verses, which this discovery made by the William confirms? "No," is the answer, Well then, here they are, making part of a long poem composed 35 years ago.

Where slowly turns the Southern Pole,

And distant Constellations roll,

A sea-girt Continent lies hurl'd,

And keeps the balance of the World.

But felter'd fogs, and hoary frost

Defend th' inhospitable coast,

Which, veil'd from sight, eludes the Pilot's care,

And leaves him fix'd in ice, a statue of despair.

I hear no more of Salusbury. I never could get him to care about these matters: and after all, does not he act as all parents wish their children to act, soberly and quietly, keeping a steady eye to his interest in this world; not, I hope and trust, forgetful of the next. One must love the creatures for their valuable, or delight in them for their shining qualities, no matter whether they love me or no, and in their way they do love me. Sir James Fellowes has written kindly and good-humouredly, and my heart has entirely made all up with his. Nothing, as you say, ail'd him but jealousy; and I hold that to be what foolish Merlin, the mechanic, called a desagreable compliment....

Miss Willoughby has written from St. Anne's Hill. She says Lord Erskine wishes the illustrious Lady, who causes so much talk, was in the Liturgy and out of the Country. After what past at Ephesus, I see not why one should wish any such thing; but the aggregate of understanding she is tried by will decide rightly, I doubt not....

Well, God mend all; and give us a merry meeting on our Happy Return....

The populace had been exasperated with Wellington over the Peterloo incident, and he was just now sharing the unpopularity of the Ministry, of which he was a member, on account of the Bill of Pains and Penalties designed to effect the Queen's divorce. The exclusion of her name from the Church Services had been one of the first objects of the King on his accession.

Miss Willoughby, who soon afterwards followed Mrs. Piozzi to Penzance, appears to have been a daughter of Charles James Fox.

15 Sep. 1820.

I hope my dear Mrs. Pennington is beginning again to look for an empty letter. Empty it must be of all but good will, badly express'd, for we are still-life people here, who see and hear very little, and reflect less upon what is seen and heard. I think every day more and more with our old Master Shakespear, that "there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."[35] Caroline of Brunswick has surely miss'd her tide. A commotion might have been raised the first week: I now begin to doubt its possibility on her account. Rebellion however is in, as boys say of Cricket and Kite-flying, and any excuse serves in any country. When what is called a Spirit of Liberty seizes the swarthy inhabitants of Morocco, how should their old enemies, the Portuguese, escape? "When Afric recovers, Mundus will end," says an old proverb. And as dear Mrs. Pennington says, "no matter how soon, it should be either ended or mended." The eclipse however did nothing towards its destruction. I saw it here beautifully, but there was little apparent obscuration, tho' the Thermometer sunk two degrees. We shall have an elegant Eclipse of the Moon on our Equinoctial day, the 22d of September: and our tides become even now a little stronger in their flux and reflux. Like other quiet temper'd people, their anger, I understand is dreadful....

Doctor Randolph's state of health grieves me, and the loss of Mr. Bayntom; on whom so many, (and those wise people too,) depended with a very firm reliance. I always wonder at such partiality. It has been my lot to love three or four Medical Men very sincerely, and like them in earnest for companions and friends, but would not give much of preference to any. And 'tis well that such is my humour, in a place where we send to the Tallow chandler's if we want drugs: no Apothecary or Chymist residing near happy Penzance. Fowls we buy in the feathers—and James says every shop in the Town sells Barley to feed them with. There are no more Poulterers than Milliners yet everybody is genteelly drest, and I warrant our Michælmas goose will be good, and cost us scarce half a crown, giblets and plumage. I should like to write you a letter with my own quill....

Well! now I will go work at your Fly; but even that is nonsense, for I cannot frame it, nor line it, nor put it in a box. There are no frames, no boxes, no linings, at Penzance. I cannot make it worth your acceptance; and who dreams of my living till the spring, and bringing it with me to Clifton, when I shall be going on to 82 years old? I must finish, and leave it in charge with Bessy, to save from the hands of my Executors; as I will do by Conway's portrait....

The Harvest here is beautiful and plenteous:—

"Far as the circling eye can range around

Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corn,"

as Thomson says. Industry is a rough power surely, but a kind one; working that you and I may sit idle, ploughing that H. L. P. may have leisure to work Butterflies, and weaving that pretty Mrs. Balhechet may look lovely in her various dresses.

Charles Shephard has written to me again. He likes the correspondence I suppose, for we are 4000 miles asunder. By dint of industry however, he will come home rich; and seeing 500 people richer than himself, will find he has exchanged honour and distinction for Coffee-house chat and Drawing-room small talk,—the food his fancy now is longing for, but which will grow insipid in six months; and reflection will then inform him that to talk of Rum and Sugar has more spirit and sweetness than to talk of nothing. He begs me to write, not newspaper occurrences, he says, but stuff out of my own head, as they say at Eton School:—the head of an old Haggard, 81 years old!!! But he is consorting with those who never heard tell about the gardens of Alcinous. Some one sung a Ballad in which Lethe was mentioned, not a soul in the company guess'd what was meant, till some very clever fellow found it was a river, running between Leith and Edinburgh....

[35]Timon of Ath., IV. iii. 218.

In Morocco, under Soliman, the Christian slaves were being liberated, and piracy suppressed. In Portugal, after the flight of John VI to Brazil, the government had been in the hands of a Regency, which included Marshal Beresford, who organised the army, but used its power despotically. During a visit he paid to Rio in 1820, insurrections took place at Lisbon and Oporto, the English Officers were expelled, and a Constituent Assembly formed.

The Eclipse of Sep. 7, 1820, was an annular one, well seen over the N. of Europe. Mangin relates how a similar one occurred in Mrs. Piozzi's girlhood, and an astronomical friend told her she might live to see another at 80.

On Sep. 21 Mrs. Pennington writes, much disgusted at the revelations of the Queen's trial, and apprehensive of their effect on public morals. "Not a Boarding School Miss, nor a Parish Girl, that can make out the words, but we see studying these detestable pages, and devouring their contents as they would a new Novel.... The worst part of the business is the little respect, and less approbation, felt even by well disposed and moderate persons for a certain Great Individual. The vices of debauchery offend and disgust more (with many who are not altogether disinclined to the practice,) than the downright wickedness arising from the ambition and tyranny of the worst Monarchs that ever reigned; and prove that the moral virtues are of more value than anything. Our late K—g lost 13 Provinces, and supported a war which was unpopular with a great part of his subjects, and which has ruined the Nation; yet he was loved for his moral excellence, and his memory is revered."

She deprecates precipitancy in the matter of the Butterfly, and suggests that any Carpenter, with 4 strips of wood, might make a rough, but efficient, substitute for the Tambour Frame which she thought Mrs. Piozzi could not procure.

Penzance, Tuesday, Sep. 26, 1820.

In life's last scenes, what prodigies surprize!

Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!

Sam. Johnson.

Poor dear Dr. Randolph! Ay, and poor dear Mr. Chappelow too! The post which brought your letter—charming friend!—brought one from his nephew, son to Soame Jenyns, saying his uncle was dead, and had left my letters carefully tied up, which he would send to Bath immediately. I wrote and beg'd him send the packet to you, where I shall find it safe if I live till May-day; and if not, you will give it to Sir John or Sir James, my Executors. He had lost his head long before he lost his life, I find. Awful reflection! For a pleasant head it was, and a world of pleasant stories were hatched in it. Would not Mr. Pennington be sorry for such a loss to his true servant H. L. P.? I am very sure he would; and vexations at 81 years old cannot contribute much towards holding it in its place....

Of the discovery made by the "William," I think very seriously. It is the last place that has lain concealed, and when the Gospel has been preached there,—Christ does not say obeyed,—"then shall the end come." Distress of nations with perplexity was never, no never so apparent: tho' Dorset Fellowes writes me word that they say not a syllable of their own conspiracy at Paris.... You are right about the tryal ending in smoke. I daresay it will: but the people, falsely called people in power, are afraid of its ending in fire, like myself, and will therefore be glad to compound. It was never a thing of their seeking, and the French are all for la belle Caroline, of course; and threaten their English visitants with the speedy appearance of Monsieur le Baron Bergami. Meanwhile the fashionable joke is to say a noble Marquis, much talked of in London, is like a comb, all back and teeth. Yes, says another wag,—a Horn comb.

My fret about your Fly was for a frame, a picture frame, to hang it up in your boudoir. The only merit in my work is that it is all done upon the hand; I do not know how to use a Tambour. The drawing it is ill executed from represented the Blue-eyed Paris from Chandernagore; a Butterfly of much dignity, according to Linnæus, but you must accept it cover'd with faults. Lady Williams of Bodylwyddan had the Ulysses worked reasonably well,—a dozen years ago,—and Mrs. Rudd has a Moth....

I never heard Miss Stephens sing, and what is much stranger, never heard the famous Mrs. Sheridan. But I have heard old Dr. Burney say she sung "Return, O God of Hosts" better than anybody except Mrs. Cibber the Actress, whose manner of delivering that air was absolute perfection. Miss Sharpe says the Kembles are well and happy at Lausanne.... I hear the Twisses are returned to Bath, meaning Mr. and Mrs. Twiss; the Girls are out, like good girls, getting their living.... Horace has got into Parliament safe and snug.

Poor Mrs. Rudd! I hope she will keep her houses full, and find me a lodging in some of them next Spring, before the 10th of June, that I may bustle and be busy; and get my little things, (as Ladies call everything,) from No. 8 Gay Street to No. 36 Royal Terrace, Clifton. But how hopeless and silly all this is at 81 years old, and dear Chappelow dead of superannuation, six years younger than myself, in whom hope of living six months would be proof of superannuated folly. We must do as well as we can, and wish we could do better. He was as temperate as I am.... But when sickness comes in consequence of drinking some stuff that pretended to be smuggled wine, and was a mess made with sea water in an Alehouse; why then I do despair of ever again seeing any place or people that are dear to your poor

H. L. P.

Mr. Ray has long left Streatham and its neighbourhood. His mother died of cold in a rough winter some years ago. She would go and sort her apples in a loft; where being seized with a shivering fit, she was brought down,—only to expire,—at 92 years old.

---

Soame Jenyns, who, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, left no issue by either of his wives, was the author of the epitaph on Johnson containing the lines—

Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talk'd, and cough'd, and spit.

The French conspiracy here alluded to was the plot hatched for the murder of the Duc de Berri, son of the Comte d'Artois.

Bartolomeo Bergami, who just now loomed large through the cloud of scandal which surrounded the Queen's trial, was originally engaged by her as a courier, when she retired to the Continent in 1813. His handsome person so commended him to his royal mistress that she speedily promoted him to be her equerry and chamberlain, and treated him as an intimate friend. Through her influence he was made a Baron of Sicily, a Knight of Malta, and several other orders, including one of her own devising, under the patronage of "Saint Caroline": while a number of his relatives were provided with posts in her train.

Catherine Stephens was at this date the leading soprano at Covent Garden, and afterwards sang at Drury Lane, and in the chief concerts and festivals. In 1838 she married the fifth Earl of Essex, then over eighty years of age, and died in 1882. Though she had not a finished style, she sang airs like "Angels ever bright and fair" with much pathos and devotional feeling.

The Mrs. Sheridan here spoken of was the dramatist's first wife, Eliza Ann Linley, who died 1792. Though she was the finest singer of her day, her dislike to appearing in public had much to do with her run-away match with Sheridan.

Of Dr. Burney she writes in her Commonplace Book that he "died at last, I am told, at 89 years old, and in full possession of his faculties. They were extremely good ones. He thought himself my friend once, I believe, whilst he thought the world was so. When the stream turned against the poor straw, he helped its progress with his stick and made his daughter do it with her fingers. The stream however grew too strong, and forced the little straw forward in spite of them."

---

Mrs. Pennington sends a closely-written foolscap sheet dated October 1, largely taken up with the Queen's trial, a propos of which she says: "We received a comical anecdote in a letter from Town. They say it was a common trick for the little rascally boys, if they could get hold of a stranger in the mob, to offer to shew them the Queen for sixpence! On receiving it they would shout out; on which Her Majesty would immediately appear, and smile and curtesy graciously: and the boy would then add, "I'll have her out again presently!"

Penzance, Sunday Oct. 15, 1820.

A propos to Kingly residence the best joke is that since Her Majesty has possessed herself of all the John Bulls, her husband ran to Cowes by way of retaliation. It would seem by the Papers now, I think, that the Tryal draws near to a conclusion. If any poor Italian should be put in the Pillory, as menaced, he never, no never, would come out alive. When Mr. Thrale and I lived in Southwark, I pass'd a poor creature in that situation, upon St. Margaret's Hill, and could eat no dinner for thinking of his sufferings and danger. "Madam," exclaimed Dr. Johnson, "give yourself no concern about him. My life for it, he is drunk by now." The hapless Lombards have no such resource, and the man I saw died before night. But Miss Willoughby tells of another joke. One says the Queen must be fatigued to death sitting in this room so, without refreshment. "No Sir," is the reply, "the Queen's not nice; she can take a chop at the King's Head";—an Alehouse in the neighbourhood.

What you observe concerning public and private virtues may be true now in 1820; in 1760 I remember, when Wilkes's moral character was objected to by the Loyalists, the Liberty Boys cried, "What care we whether he be vicious, or the man he insults be virtuous? We look to public, not to private character." In consequence of these opinions the Town was deluged with verses, of which I can call to mind one stanza in praise of the then popular Hero.

'Tis thus that we are told,

The Ægyptians of old

Ador'd their still fouler Ichneumon,

Who alone durst engage

The fell Crocodile's rage,

With courage exceeding the human.

I forget whether the crocodile stood for King George III, or my Lord Mansfield. They equally resembled him, I believe; but 'tis plain men thought little of Jack Wilkes's vartue.

Your Butterfly, which was finished yesterday, is not less fixed in his flights than popular opinion. When Cardinal de Retz was followed up and down by an admiring mob, "Is not this fine?" said a flatterer, "to see your Eminence possess'd of so many friends and followers" "Let anybody ring a dinner-bell," said he, "and see how many would be left me then."

Meanwhile the storm continues very grand indeed, but something very like very dreadful. This bay looks so calm too! But sweetest wines make the sourest vinegar, and no anger is so fierce or fatal as that of gentle natures irritated to frenzy. I begin to wish it was over; as I did travelling among the Alps, which at first enraptur'd, but the third day wearied my very heart. Effect of the true sublime....

[P.M. Nov. 2, 1820.]

This will be a dull letter, dear Mrs. Pennington; I have been very ill, ill in good earnest, the pulse 92. There is a fever in the Town, and Sophy, my stout-looking housemaid, lies cover'd with blisters now....

Let us talk of the storm, it is more entertaining, and tho' death seems, by the describers, to be most dreadful under the form of white breakers, it comes cleanlier, and less to my personal disliking, so, than accompanied with gallipots and all the tribe of sick-bed sorrows; for which, and the talk concerning them, my aversion was ever great....

I continue to do what I came hither to perform, eat cheap fish, and pay old debts. Mr. Pennington will laugh, so will Dr. Randolph, if you tell them Tully's Offices are come to the last chapter, and that I shall write FINIS to that book, if I live the next month through.

Am I, d'ye think, to see the end of 1820? If I am, those who say people of letters are never people of figures, shall find themselves mistaken in H. L. P. Had I dreamed of losing £6000 at a stroke so, I would have been more prudent.

Conway was a good boy to send Partridge and pretty words to dear Clifton: he sends me no such nice things, knowing that my regard is not a ceremonious one. Marcella's speech to her lovers in Don Quixote, when they tax her with ingratitude, has the best common sense I ever read. "You love me," said she, "because I am young and beautiful and attractive by talents and graces. When you are so too I will requite your love, but no gratitude is due for that attention which you all confess to be involuntary. Get you gone, and plague me no more. Should I want your assistance when grown old and ugly, would you give me any? No, I warrant. Then I have nothing to thank you for."[36] ...

Dorset [Fellowes] has been surprisingly kind to me ... for after all, "Age is dark and unlovely, it is like the glimmering light of the Morn, when she shines thro' broken clouds: the blast of the North is on the plain, and the Traveller shrinks on his journey." Well! the people at Penzance do endure the dregs of the Piozzi very good naturedly; and Miss Willoughby grows much a favourite with them all.

What is to be seen at Penzance however, is a storm. The billows most majestic, and the sea spray tossing, foaming, as if to remind me of Brighthelmstone. For there alone does the salt water throw its particles into the air, so as to be carried 9 miles over the Downs to Lewes; where I have been warned to strip the Peaches of their downy coat, because they would taste of the last tempest. The shipwrecks here are shocking, and very frequent. This is no land of felicity to any but starvelings. Bessy buys five such fine Soles as I have partaken of at your table for one shilling, and they feed the family. We had a Turbot larger than that I sent to you for half a crown, a while ago. Miss Willoughby and I dined on the fins. But I scarce believe all fish is wholesome food, the town is full of Typhus now....

My heart tells me that H. L. P. has made her last journey; but 'tis no matter, and will be no loss.

A new book called Nicholle's Reflexions, or Recollections, will amuse you. His opinions of the late King run parallel with yours. But I, who remember caricatures of Charlotte toasting the muffin, and George the third reaching the Tea-kettle, can never be made believe that modern Reformers sigh for moral Princes. How did Louis 16^ze please the people with his morality? Calling his present Majesty Nero, is to me comical. Carleton House may indeed be termed Nerot's Hôtel, because the Master of it is kept, like the people of a bagnio, in hot water. And it seems that's the true London joke. Adieu....

[36] Don Quixote, Bk. II., Chap. xiv.

The £6000, as appears from subsequent letters, had been given to Sir John Salusbury.

"FRYING SPRATS" (Q. CHARLOTTE)

"TOASTING MUFFINS" (K. GEO. III)

From a caricature by Gillray, 1791.
From the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.]

---

The joke about "Tully's Offices" evidently relates to her paying off the expenses of her birthday fête. The supper was provided by a celebrated Bath pastrycook named Tully, and the jest originated with Mrs. Piozzi, who, addressing her guests, bade them do justice to "Tully's Offices," the name by which Cicero De Officiis was commonly known in the eighteenth century.

On November 17 Mrs. Pennington, who has herself been ill, writes in great agitation about the Typhus, entreating Mrs. Piozzi, if she will not return to Clifton, to fly to Torquay. The Randolphs report it to be a terrestrial Paradise;—the scenery exquisitely beautiful, the air pure, mild, and dry, the town clean and neat, the living cheap, (the best possible meat 6d. per lb.,) and no lack of good society. Mrs. Randolph considered that Mrs. Piozzi might keep a carriage and live there elegantly within £1000 per annum.

Of the caricatures she remarks that "they were no proofs of the people not loving George the 3rd as a good man, a good husband, and good father, but merely the result of that spirit of persiflage to which the people of this country are said to be so much addicted. The simultaneous expressions of joy which you and I witnessed in the Streets and Theatres of the Metropolis on his recovery, could only have been the effects of genuine love and affection. It is in the failure of these virtues that the present K—g has lost the warm hearts of so many worthy subjects."

Penzance, Sunday, 12 Nov. 1820.

I am very sorry, dear Mrs. Pennington, that I said anything about this odious Fever; it will perhaps hurt the place, and in no wise benefit me.... We are surely in the hands of the same God at Penzance as at Torquay; and when he calls, go we must.

I cannot leave my habitation, which I have taken for a term, and must abide in till the term is over, nor will I go back without having done what I came hither to do. My friends are but too, too solicitous. They have all heard of this nonsensical story, and every day brings me letters full of pathetic, and I believe, sincere admonitions.... I wish you would all be more moderate in your kindnesses. My establishment is not a little Cloke-bag to put on my shoulder, and carry away from one place to another.... Be quiet, dear Friend, so I say to Miss Williams and Conway, who are half wild, God bless them!—and their loss would be nothing to what they fancy it. Yet 'tis all I can do to keep them from my door.

The world is all unhappy. This vexatious affair of the Queen has been a Tryal to everybody. I wish to know how the Bishops of Salisbury, Bangor, and St. Asaph give their votes. Lord Liverpool's observations are the best. If there was nothing wrong between the Lady and the Courier, what was there? Conversation was difficult, and talents there were none.

No letter has come from Brynbella this long time, but I know from Miss Williams there is nothing wrong there; meaning as to health and happiness. As to pelf I will be more prudent in future; indeed the danger is over when the money is all gone....

Bessy and I are engaged far differently from trimming hats for parties. Housework, and nursing, and crying, and clinging about Dr. Forbes and Mr. Moyle, an intelligent Surgeon, is all we have been doing a long time.... I do believe there is always Fever of this sort in these low situations, and when we do move, if it be not to Dymerchion's burying ground, it shall be to the lofty Crescent at Clifton. Torquay may do for some of those future years dear Mrs. Pennington talks of....

If you like to tell Mrs Rudd I still hope to come early in spring, do tell her so. Her son is a good child, and will ever be an honour and a comfort to her and to your really obliged and troublesome

H. L. Piozzi.

Her anxiety had not been all on account of Sophy the housemaid. Her attendant Bessy was the mother of a small boy named Angelo, a great pet of Mrs. Piozzi's, who accompanied them, and whom the Fever had brought to death's door, but who was now beginning to mend. She herself had only had a feverish cold.

The Bill of Pains and Penalties, reluctantly introduced by Lord Liverpool, then Prime Minister, though it passed the third reading, was abandoned by the Government on November 10, and the next letter gives a lively picture of the demonstrations which ensued.

Penzance, Nov. 15, 1820.

I feel terribly afraid, dear Mrs. Pennington, that my state of anxiety when I wrote last, betrayed my pen into some impatience of expression; ... and the interest Dr. and Mrs. Randolph were obliging enough to take in my concerns, deserved more thanks and compliments than I had, at that moment, leisure to pay.... The weather is changed, and the Fever quenched, ... and H. L. Piozzi become less a nuisance to her active Friends....

This town may defy any place of its size, or twice its size, for a burst of real feeling displayed in honour of the late event. All the ships in the harbour have flags flying during day time, lamps blazing thro' most of the long night. "Queen Caroline for ever" round every head in ribbons, while Laurel, Myrtle, every blooming shrub, decorates the houses that would not wish to be pulled down. And no bustle you and I witnessed in 1788, could in any degree equal the spread of influence shown on this occasion by Britons in love with morality, from Scarborough to Penzance. Popularity may be outlived indeed, as her uncle learned I trust, when shot at twice in one day, and nearly torne to pieces on another; when Cecil Forester, passing by accident, called up the Guards, and saved George the third's life, in his own Park, from the fury of a Mob, joined in deliberate design to murder him. I was in Wales, but could not doubt a fact so well attested. The State Coach, in which he had ridden that morning, was demolished, and he nearly dragged from his own private carriage. My wonder is he escaped so often, and died in his bed at last.

Our Horse's Mother, (Mr. Pennington remembers the story,) sent to me to bid me not to be frighted into illuminating my house. The Peuple Souverain say "Light your windows, or we will break them." My answer is the same to both. "We will do as our neighbours do."

16th. Wish'd morning's come. The windows unbroken. The gay fellows from Newlyn and Mousehole, (who increased our mob,) all gone home to bed, after drinking "The Queen and Count Bergami for ever," till they could scarcely reel to their wretched habitations. But St. Michael's Mount was the beautiful sight to see. Lamps in a pyramidal form to the top, where Tar Barrels were placed, and gave a glowing light to the whole scene, resembling the Bay of Naples.

Well! the wife of George the second was just dead when my poor eyes and ears opened on talk and show. She was a writing and reading woman, who respected herself, and half ador'd her husband. She died detested of the people, and derided by the wits. Our next was Charlotte of Mecklenburg. "Poor ugly Pug!" cried the populace, who crowded about her Chair, as she went to the Theatres on her first arrival. Poor Pug indeed! when the mob met her suddenly a few years after, at St. James's Gate, with a bier and mourning apparatus; "Young Allen's body" written on it. "Young Allen, murder'd by your husband's soldiers." The Queen fainted, miscarried, and lived thirty years, when she died. The people swung a Cat about the Palace, and sung "Old Tabby's departed." This Lady is a favourite; but sure the others were not hated on account of their immorality. I never heard a fault but avarice laid to their charge, and that has been disproved....

Oh! these are pretty times in which to be caring for a lengthen'd stay: but I have not that folly to answer for. May you, dearest Mrs. Pennington, be as willing to lay down the burden of life, when the Angel of release comes to cut the last thread it hangs by, as is your truly sincere and faithful

H. L. P.

November 16, 1820, is the last date in her Commonplace Book which she notes was begun at Brynbella 1809, thrown aside for some years, begun again at Streatham 1814, and continued at Bath 1815.

In 1794, a year of great scarcity, as the King went to open Parliament on October 29, his carriage was surrounded by a mob crying "Bread," and "Down with George!" and stones were thrown through the window. A somewhat similar attack was made on the Queen's carriage in 1796, when she herself was hit by a stone.

In a letter dated November 17, Mrs. Pennington replies. "In an early stage of our acquaintance, speaking of you to Mr. Greatheed, I recollect his exclaiming, 'Oh! if you like her so much now, what will you do when you see her miserable? She is so comical then, that she is quite too charming.' And comical you are, sure enough, my dearest Mrs. Piozzi! You scare one with ugly words, and then are half-angry that one is frightened. At above 200 miles distance, was it possible to hear of 'Fever and Typhus' in the town, and even in your house, and not be alarmed?" ...

"All the Bishops voted for the Bill, (with the exception of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Tuam,) tho' they divided on the divorce clause.... And all (with the above exceptions,) declared their perfect conviction that her Majesty was guilty, to the full extent of the charges." ...

"You remember, I daresay, Mr. Dennam's concluding sentence, in his address to the Lords, conjuring them to imitate the beneficent spirit of the Saviour, and to say to her, 'Go, and sin no more.' A blunder certainly, if he had taken the proper inference into account, worthy of Paddy himself, from a man advocating her innocence. The following lines are, I think, neat enough on the subject.

Go, Caroline, we thee implore,

And sin, (if it be possible,) no more.

But if that effort be too great,

For God's sake, go—at any rate."

Penzance, Fryday 24 Nov. 1820.

· · · · · · ·

The oldest friend I have in N. Wales, poor dear Mr. Lloyd of Pontriffeth, is dying; and my earliest playfellow and cousin, Tom Cotton, is dead. We never met, of course, since my second marriage, and he was saucy. But I am sorry, for he will be saucy no more. So if my death prevents me from returning to No. 36, you must not wonder, tho' I will not say you must not cry.... Conway writes the kindest of letters: but Newton is tardy in his payments, and I am as low-spirited as a cat.

It would however have made me laugh to see Miss Hudson illuminating her windows, and it does not make me weep to observe that the Brynbella people never write. Tom Cotton's death is a bad thing for Salusbury, his life is in all our leases. Mr. Thrale had a proper notion of that man's longævity. He lived 77 years. Lady Keith and I are the other two. Dearest Piozzi enjoyed the estate and improved it, and never had a life to renew,—never cost him a penny. Those who do right get a little reward for it, even here; and now that my heart feels itself on the brink of eternity, how daily and nightly do I thank God and my parents that in my gayest hours I never did forget it....

Lieutenant Parry's voyage might supply much food for thought and chat. He has surrounded the Pole, and found the seas more open than was expected. I do not understand that we are brought nearer to America, but we are near enough to them for the love they bear us. 'Tis pity he lost sight of the red snow, and the savages who took our ships for animated creatures, fancying, like the Mexicans in Dryden's "Indian Emperor," that

They turned their sides, and to each other spoke,

We saw their words break forth in fire and smoke, etc.

It was so pretty to see his fine ideas realised.

Miss Willoughby and your most humble servant have been at a Penzance Ball, the first, (as we were told,) illuminated by Wax Candles; and the Ladies led our admiration to the lustres. They had better have led it to their own beauty, for we had seen lighter rooms often, seldom such pretty women; and all like one another....

I will live, if I can, but every day counts now, aye, and every pulse too, and 'twere a folly not to feel it. Were a soldier to sleep sound in a besieged town, Mr. Pennington would count him lethargic. But he that sleeps during the attack, can only be compared to that man or woman who does not prepare for death at 81 years old, but just tries to keep him out of sight....

It is not because I think better of Mortal Man than you do, dear friend; worse probably of men and morals, having seen more. But then I am contented with less, and ever thankful when things and people are no worse, surrounded with temptations as the poor creatures are, and filled with snares, holes, gins, rotten planks, etc., as we all find the bridge that carries us from this world to the other. Fools flapping their umbrellas in our faces all the way, hiding the light from us at every step, and triumphing in slips made by their neighbours, whilst tottering along themselves, scarce able to stand or go. Do not be sorry that I have arrived at more than three-quarters over, but pity those that have many arches to pass, with broken battlements on either side, enough to giddy their brains. Salusbury's path seems clearest of difficulties, but he is in danger of drowsiness; Conway's walk is above all men's dangerous. And neither of them, poor dears! have, in their early stages, experienced the advantage of an authorised hand to lead or guide them. Yet you will see them both—good fellows in their way—whether they love me enough or not, I'm sure you will. Conway certainly, I believe both, do think better than she deserves of theirs and your

H. L. P.

... I am sitting without a fire, it is so warm and damp, and soft an atmosphere, we are all relaxed to rags. No sunshine.

Thomas Cotton was the fourth of the six sons of Mrs. Piozzi's maternal uncle, Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, Bart., and almost the only one of that large family to whom she ever alludes.

Lieutenant Parry had commanded the Brig Alexander in the expedition of Captain Ross to the Polar regions in 1818. In 1819 he sailed in command of the Hecla to discover the N.W. passage, and reached Melville Island. He returned in the autumn of this year, landing at Peterhead on October 30, and posted to town. His despatches reached the Admiralty on November 4, and he was shortly afterwards promoted to the rank of Commander.

The latter part of the letter is of course based on Steele's "Vision of Mirza," published in the Spectator, No. 159.

Penzance, Thursday, 30 Nov. 1820.

... This morning, all agree, is to exhibit a new procession through the streets of the Metropolis, which, with its consequences, may justly fill thinking people with alarm. How much benefit can result from invective meanwhile, I see not. Insult is harder to forgive than injury, and for the best reason, it does the insulter no good. A man may fill his purse by robbing me, while he who flings dirt sometimes forgets that there's a pebble lodg'd within, which cuts so sharp as to excite lasting hatred; and all for what? Reformation never yet was effected by scurrility. And if the Fourth Estate of the Nation, as some Member of Parliament called the newspapers, were less violent on both sides, it would be better. Irritating an already much offended and dangerous enemy is, surely, not prudent. Better get rid of such a one without submission, but without harsh language.

If then we fail, the world will only find

Rage has no bounds in slighted womankind.

Dryden.

When the Orientals go out Tyger hunting, they try to finish, not to wound the creature. But I am wearied with conjecture, and must wait the result as I can....

No new book has reached us but the Abbot, an odd novel enough, but to me a dull one. The Edgeworths have always humour, and often some good information.

Jeffrey Crayon's Sketch Book is pretty enough. How oddly the things come round! There was just such an out-of-the-way writer entertained the Town about 66 or 67 years ago. He called his book Sketches, and assumed the name himself of Lancelot Temple. But 'tis strange how names are left behind, when the books are forgotten that first used them. John Bull is in every mouth, and every Pamphlet, yet people do not seem to know who first called Old England by that very appropriate appellation. Mr. Pennington, I dare say, well recollects that it was Dean Swift: when, to reconcile the Nation to Harley's Peace of Utrecht, and the loss of their Bonfires for Marlboro's victories, he and Arbuthnot planned a little work called Law is a bottomless Pit; in which he represents Great Britain as engaged in a litigious quarrel with Lewis Baboon, by which name he designates Louis Quatorze, and shows how we were cheated by our Allies, Nic: Frog for Holland, my Lord Strut, for the Emperor of Germany, and so on. Of all this rubbish, composed of wit and malice and mummery, little now sticks in any but such memories as mine; remembering old stuff better than new....

The invention of the phrase "Fourth Estate" is attributed to Burke, who, referring to the Reporters' Gallery, said, "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, more powerful than them all."

Mrs. Piozzi was not much interested by Scott's earlier productions. Mangin notes that she thought Rob Roy a dull book; but adds that "no one could be more ready than she to applaud the unknown author as a man of Genius." Her admiration was excited mainly by his poetry, on which the Commonplace Book contains some verses which end as follows:

So may posterity bestow the praises which to thee we owe,

And never be the Lay forgot of our Last Minstrel, Walter Scott.

Geoffrey Crayon was the pseudonym used by Washington Irving, when he published his Sketch Book in 1820. Lancelot Temple was the nom de plume of John Armstrong, whose Sketches or Essays on Various Subjects appeared in 1758. Wilkes is said to have assisted in their production.

The procession to St. Paul's on November 30 to celebrate the Queen's acquittal, passed off without any serious disturbance. No escort of troops was permitted, but she was received as usual by the city authorities, who accompanied her to the cathedral.

[Dec. 14, 1820.]

My dear Mrs. Pennington says her letters are mere commentaries upon mine. What text shall I find next to excite her eloquent flattery? Lord Kirkwall's death is what most readily presents itself to a woman just twice his age, who little dreamed of living to lament him. Poor dear K! My heart is very heavy at the thought. And when recollection, or retrospection places him before my mind's eye, it is with a pint of curious Constantia wine under his coat, or shooting dress, to please dear Piozzi in his last illness. So kind! Well! sure the people will have done dying some day! Never was sight so wearied as my own is by reading Newspaper lists.

Mrs. Mostyn writes chearfully. Living abroad loosens all old attachments, and gives no opportunity of forming new ones. 'Tis the true mode of keeping the mind free; but then I mean roving from place to place, not being shut in an angle of the world, of which, as a Turk once said, the only merit is that Suspicion herself could not throw any light into corners.

Tell me sometimes about the weather—in the world. Here it is mild, soft, and just now silent; stormy enough at times, but never clear. 'Tis the anger of a puzzle-headed fellow, which elicits no spark of brilliant fire; and the inhabitants of Penzance speak of lightning as a most unusual phenomenon.

I have the comfort to hear my fair daughters praised, even in this odd place. They patronized some poor families, when such philanthropy was less common than now, and are remember'd with grateful tenderness. Such recollections are among the Hot-house plants which bloom in the open air of Penzance. Rough winds break, and heavy snows chill the remembrance of what is merely ornamental, producing, like Oak and Ash, no lasting utility....

I can really bear a good fire with difficulty, but the smoke is scarcely lessen'd by endurance of the cold. The houses here are so constructed that, except in one particular wind, we live smother'd. Coals are however not cheaper than elsewhere; meat and fish bear no price, but we pay for every drop of water—salt or fresh—because it must be carried. The place is replete with objects of curiosity nevertheless, and Lady Keith gained immortal fame here, by descending 35 ladders, of 35 steps each, into a tin mine. Not the most extraordinary of all the tin mines, for there is one under the sea: a submarine residence of many wretched mortals, who seldom see light, (save such as their patron Sir Humphry Davy supplies them with,) but often hear old Ocean roaring over their heads. A wonderful situation surely! and clear of worldly contamination. They are innocent of all that we are saying and doing.

Meanwhile I am glad you have been amused by Matthews. Even I, who naturally hate buffoonery, was much diverted by his story of the Yellow Soap, which dear Sir George Gibbes never wearied himself with repeating. My heart tells me that Matthews has a brother, who wrote a Pamphlet called the Nutcracker, meant as a sort of mathematical puzzle; that he planned the new fine Bedlam Hospital, just off Westminster Bridge, and requested a particular apartment for himself, conscious of his own infirmity; that he actually resides there, much respected and visited by the great Mechanics, who do nothing without consulting him. The Comic Actor calls him cousin, but the relationship is nearer....

Sir Humphry Davy, who was born at Penzance, invented his safety lamp in 1815, and was created a Baronet in 1818. He had just been elected President of the Royal Society.

Charles Matthews the actor was now giving his "At Homes." The Sketch Mrs. Pennington saw was probably that entitled Country Cousins, produced in 1820.

John, Viscount Kirkwall, born 1778, was the only son of the Countess of Orkney, who was still living.

On December 23 Mrs. Pennington writes: "As you say, the Abbot is indeed a very dull book. I begin to question whether a well-known point in History can be a good foundation for a Novel. There can be little interest where the event is more than anticipated, and if extraneous characters and circumstances are too freely introduced, we quarrel with them, as interfering with the truth.

"There is some pretty writing in the first volume of the Sketches, but the second falls off lamentably, and is downright stuff....

"You will be shocked on seeing, in the Bath papers, the entire destruction of the Kingston Rooms by fire!!! No one seems to know by what means. Those very rooms in which, near to the same time last year, you made above six hundred people so happy! Everybody, I believe, but me and Conway, who you certainly desired should have been most so: but he was wretched, and infected me with his misery, so perversely does everything go in this world."

Master of the Ceremonies,

BALL

LATE KINGSTON-ROOMS.

Tuesday 6th February 1821.

THE BURNING OF THE KINGSTON ROOMS

From a ball ticket, 1821, in the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.

Mrs. Piozzi, requests the honor of Mr. and Mrs. Penningtons company to a Concert, Ball, and Supper, at 9 o'Clock, on Thursday Evening, 27th January next, at the Lower Rooms.

Being her 80th Birth-Day.

TICKET FOR MRS. PIOZZI'S FÊTE

Penzance, 27 Dec. 1820.

· · · · · · ·

Well! at 82 years old, and my 81st Birthday is hard at hand, one is easily convinced of money's importance to felicity. No suicide, or comparatively none, is committed but for lack of pelf. Yet money, if people are stuffed with it, like a Fillet of Veal, does not keep them alive. Do you remember a comely Mrs. Taylor, who had married an old man, and possessed herself of his riches to an immense amount? She sent dear Conway £5 for a Benefit Ticket, tho' being just left a widow she could not go to the Play. She is dead: a woman about 40 years old, I suppose, apparently strong and healthy.

This is stranger, though not so dreadful, as the fire, of which your kind letter gave me the first account. I suppose it was occasion'd by some of these new devices to snuff candles by conjuration, or fill your teapots by steam. They cook their dinners by stratagem, and assassinate those whose talents lighten the cares of life, best illuminated by genius, like that of unfortunate Naldi, charming creature as he was!!—and to die such a death! My heart bleeds for his handsome wife and pretty daughter,—highly accomplished both; and left to starve on the remembrance of his unrivalled powers.

Cruel reflexion! But all reflexion is cruel, and so we run to get rid of it. My own conscience however congratulates me that I had discharged Upham's long Bill; so if he had suffer'd it would not have been by my fault or folly. I have not lived on fish in a foggy atmosphere and smoky house for nothing, when comforts like those come smiling to my heart....

Miss Willoughby is in the highest favour here. She plays Country Dances, Waltzes, etc. for the boys and girls to dance, after winning their money—or that of their parents—at sixpenny whist; and she makes riddles and charades to amuse us all, and is very entertaining.

Adieu! Here is no room to tell of a shipwreck and a Parrot, with two other two-legged creatures, saved out of thirty eight, coming from Surinam. Wretched Sailors! now begging their way to London, with only what they sold the bird for in their pockets....

Guiseppe Naldi, who had distinguished himself in Italy and London as an Actor, Singer, and Musician, had lately met his death in Paris, by the explosion of a newly invented Cooking Kettle, which he had been invited to inspect at the house of a friend.

---

On January 8, 1821, Mrs. Pennington writes to report an unexpected visit from Conway, on his way to take up another engagement at Bath, in spite of the ill-treatment he considered he had received from the Management of the Theatre before he left. But he had not fared much better, pecuniarily, at Birmingham, where he had been a leading Actor and Stage Manager for four months, but was only given £106 as his share of his own Benefit. "Detestable Mechanics! I hope he will waste no more such powers on them." This short interview, however, served to re-instate him in Mrs. Pennington's favour, and she writes of him with all her old enthusiasm. "Anything so noble! so manly! so graceful! so handsome as his figure at this time I really never saw."

Penzance, Cornwall Saturday, 13 Jan. 1821.

· · · · · · ·

'Tis a cordial to hear about Conway. My heart entertains no fears for his reception among old acquaintance, and I can't cry because his Benefit brought only £106. The people in London get very little. Mrs. Hoare says she saw excellent acting to completely empty benches: I forget at which Theatre. Indeed my mind has been so taken up by a new attack upon my property, that I have thought on nothing else. A Mr. Kenrick, of whose name or situation in life I am totally ignorant, writes to ask me very peremptorily what I did with the stock of some Mr. Giffard, who died he tells me, before Mr. Thrale did!! Lord! what should I do with the man's money? His name is new to me now, but he says it stands joined with that of my first husband, to whom I am executrix. No sum is specified, but 'tis probably a large one; and I am a bad Lawyer, and easily alarmed. I was so bad a self-carer, that when the death of my four Coadjutors left me alone to manage the Trust Money as I pleased, I begged of my Lord and Lady Keith to name those that should be substituted in their places; and I think, but have forgotten, whether Mr. Hoare, Sophia's husband, is one. Surely they should bear me out harmless, but God knows whether they will or no; and you know I have parted with my patrimony and my savings to Sir John Salusbury, who always complains for want of money, and I daresay justly enough. Mr. Thrale's estate is doubtless chargeable with any mistakes of this sort; but I should hope the Widow's jointure is guarded from such attacks. Nevertheless my spirits are flutter'd and affected, and I am as hoarse with nervousness as if I had caught twenty colds....

Miss Willoughby dined with me yesterday. She says Coriolanus is an unfavourable character for Actors to appear in just now, when insulting language to our Peuple Souverain will perhaps be treated as it was in Rome. I shall be happier when I see the Newspaper, and learn how our Friend has been received; but do not fright Mrs. Rudd about it, perhaps she may get good intelligence before the common Prints of the Day come out. If the Play should be disapproved, every kind, good-natured acquaintance will inform her....

How is poor dear Mr. Pennington? Better, I'm sure, and always kind to me. I used the word Joynture improperly; tell him so: £800 pr. ann. was appointed me by Marriage Settlement, in return for Ten Thousand Pounds I brought with me to Southwark. The rest was hard worked for, and left me by Will, in consideration of my Welsh estate, enjoyed by Mr. Thrale for 9 years, and offer'd him for ever had he wanted it. That money may be liable for ought I know, but I hope not....

Thursday, 1 Feb. 1821.

I like the Tailpiece best, dear Mrs. Pennington, and feel deeper interest in Macready's Acting than in Lord Castlereagh's. For as Dr. Randolph said to our sweet Siddons once, coming out of Laura Chapel, "All are Actors": and I am most contented to hear the Oppositionists are likely to be hissed.

But I want you to tell me a truth before we leave Penzance, a truth of a very different taste. Will it be worth our while (says Bessy,) to send half a doz: hams by the "Happy Return," for which we must give seven pence halfpenny a Pound here?... The Fish would be worth carrying to begin Lent with at the Pope's Court; but fish won't carry. Our oysters are better than those Vitellius sent to Sandwich for; and such Cod, Mullet, and Flat fish of all denominations no tongue can enumerate. Our Crocuses, Primroses, and Honeysuckle leaves, all bursting now every day, are lovely likewise;—but what wretched pens to describe them with!

You are a comical Lady in your fears lest Miss Willoughby should make me a Radical. Salusbury seems, by his letters, to have fears lest she should be hovering over my death-bed, to his disadvantage. I hope to hold fast both life and loyalty one little while longer, and cannot believe she will help hurry either of them away. Poor Miss Willoughby! were it not for her I should not have known Milton from Shakespear by this time: for to no other creature here are those names familiar.

God forgive me! but talking on the subject reminds me of the days when H. L. P. was young, perhaps agreeable, and supposed to have interest among the grave and gay. When I was solicited on behalf of a decayed Gentlewoman, such as H. L. P. may one day become, for aught I know, whose friends wish'd to get her into a then famous refuge for distressed females, Lady Dacre's Workhouse, or rather Almshouse, I tried, and succeeded; but beginning to harangue my Protégée upon the neatness of her new establishment, the decent society she would be introduced to, etc., "Ah! Madam," said she, "but will there be any one there who ever frequented the Opera? For I love musick so, I can talk of nothing but Mingotti." Such a companion in my retirement has been to me Miss Willoughby.

I think the attack upon my property, made with no gentle strokes, will at length be parried, so as to fall on none of us. The dividends remained unclaimed for 25 years, and were often advertised before Mr. Thrale's daughters ever enquired about them. Mrs. Hoare, your namesake, kind Sophia, has written to me very good-naturedly; says it is impossible I should have to refund money I never received; that my name alone was lent for them to receive it; and that my letter to the Claimant was the comicallest thing in the world. But my Correspondent saw no joke in it, and sent it for their perusal to Mr. Merrik Hoare.

Well! sure if I do write funny letters from Penzance, I must borrow the salt from the Sea Tang that they manure their Strawberry Beds with, in this place. Apropos, how do those agreeable Brownes do, that I met once in Dowry Square? I loved Maria for her non-affectation about reading before Conway or Piozzi. She took her book up and began so prettily, and so sensibly, where another Miss would have mimp'd. I valued her.

No Bath news but what the Papers tell. London is in expectation of a new Miss O'Neill of consummate beauty, to draw the world off from The Wilson; whose style of singing—Sophy Hoare says—is like that of Billington. Dear Siddons holds her own I hear. Welcome intelligence! when every day takes some old acquaintance off the Stage of Life, leaving sad, and solitary, and desolate your poor

H. L. P.

Mary Anne Lane made a brilliant début at Drury Lane in 1821, as Mandane in Artaxerxes, but going to Italy for further study, she overtaxed her voice, which never entirely recovered its tone. Regina Mingotti, née Valentini, sang with great success in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and England. She came to London in 1755.

Penzance, February 10, 1821.

Thanks, dearest Mrs. Pennington, for your kind letter, speaking the words of truth and soberness. We will send Hams and Bacon by the Happy Return, most certainly. The Butter here is poyson, whether in pot or pan.

All you can say of poor dear Miss Willoughby is true to a tittle. Sir John is very ill-natured in detesting everybody who contributes to my comfort, and I hope not quite correct in supposing that neither you, nor she, nor Conway would endure my company an hour but for interest. Sophia Hoare's civilities will make him very angry indeed when he hears me say I delight in them: but he deserves such sort of vexation.

So you see Horace Twiss is the man at last, who, when Public Virtue finds herself sick and squeamish, holds the successful smelling bottle to her nose. And are they not all Actors on both sides? Surely they are. That Titmouse began his literary career by criticising and ridiculing H. L. P. in Magazines, Reviews, etc.; and afterwards begged my pardon at a party Mrs. Siddons gave one night at Westbourne. We shook hands and drank each other's health, and I wished him the success his audacity deserved.

This world is made for the bold, daring man,

Who strikes at all, and catches what he can.

Virtue is nice to take what's not her own,

And while she long debates, the glittering prize is gone.

So sung Johnny Dryden, whose family had every claim to match even with a Howard. Addison was Secretary of State, and if his wife was insolent, he needed not to have cared. Would Mr. Canning care? But times have changed.

But there is a passage in the Bath Paper that interests, and ought to interest me much more than Marriages or Merriment. A woman dying in the act of supplication to Almighty God; past 80 years old, found dead at her prayers! I used to say that no death ever pleased me, but here is one at last with which my heart would be content indeed. Why did she not take me with her? If however the next month carries me to Clifton, and treats me with a sight of true friends, I shall think leaving me behind was merciful, and feel replete with gratitude. Conway has written to me very kindly....

If I should live to see a Jeweller's Shop once again, I would evince my gratitude to Sophy Hoare. What she wants is out of my power,—children to enjoy hers and her husband's fortune. Salusbury has got a new Baby—William Edward—I like the name, but have made no offer of Gossiping. Dear Mrs. Pennington is too sharp a discoverer in the Terra Incognita of human hearts. Mahomet says there is a black Bean in that of every one; and that the Angel of Death plucks it in our last agonies. I am trying to loosen mine before the dreadful day arrives, that it may hurt me less at final parting. Poor dear old Cookey! whom I have so much reason to love! Cannot Doctors Dixon or Carrick warm her up again? It is not wholly for interest however that I wish her well. She is going my road, and my heart hopes she will feel it not very rough....

Penzance, Sunday 25 Feb. 1821.

My last letter to dear Mrs. Pennington should be a pretty one, but it will only be dull; replete with Kitchen-griefs, and thanks to Heaven that they are my worst afflictions. Mr. Kenrick's insults have brought me civil letters from Lord and Lady Keith, kind ones from Mr. and Mrs. Hoare, and all will end—in nothing, as they hope, and as I firmly believe. Pray do not suffer your good husband, (so much younger than myself,) to grow old. He and I mean to keep on this many a day, and we will not shew teeth when biting is over with us.

Now for the Kitchen-griefs. James has behaved monstrously ill, "beaten the Maids a row,"[37] like the fierce fellow in Shakespear, and forced reproofs even from my acquaintance by his out-door conduct. This has been going on a long while, but I forbore to speak to you about it, till it suited me to say—do, dear Mrs. Pennington, get me a Footman. Not a fellow to wear his own clothes; I must have a Livery Servant, who will walk before the Chair, and ride behind the Coach, and be an old-fashioned, tho' not ill-looking servant. My little Plate, so small in quantity, is easily clean'd, but clean it must be. For I will not live in a state of disgust when I have a decent mansion over my head, and James was too dirty and slovenly, even for a wretched smoky closet like that I inhabit at Penzance: he is a sad fellow....

& now

Let me tell you the sights that we have seen. I always like them better than the tales that we have heard; and to-day the tales are truly melancholy. Lord Combermere has lost his only child, a son; so his honours and titles are gone, and the estate will fall, I suppose, to Willoughby Cotton, son of the Admiral, my Uncle's second boy. He had nine. This young fellow was a Colonel in what Regiment I know not, and married Lady Augusta Coventry, who brings Babies every year:—but these are not the sights I meant to tell you of.

On last Wednesday then, a memorable day, Mr. George Daubuz John undertook to show us the Land's End, and we did stand upon the last English stone, jutting out from the Cliffs, 300 feet high, into the Atlantick Ocean, which lay in wild expanse before us, tempting our eyes towards the land Columbus first explor'd, Hispaniola. Dinner at a mean house, affording only Eggs and Bacon, gave us spirits to go, not forward, for we could go no further, but sideways to a tin and copper mine under the sea. Aye! 112 fathom from the strange spot of earth we stood on, in a direct line downwards, where no fewer than three score human beings toil for my Lord Falmouth in a submarine dungeon, listening at leisure moments, if they have any, to the still more justly to be pitied Mariner, who is so liable to be wrecked among those horrid rocks, proverbial over all the kingdom,—Cornish rocks! ruinous to approach, as difficult to avoid. The men go up and down in buckets, with two lighted candles each, into a close path, long and intricate. And should their lights go out before their arrival in the open space where their companions work, there they must remain till the hour of relieving one wretched set by another comes to set them free. Billows meanwhile roaring over their heads, upon a stormy day most dreadful, threatening to burst the not very thick partition of solidity that divides them from the light of heaven, bestowed on all but Miners. This place is called Botalloch, whence we drove home our half-broken carriage but not even half-broken bones; having refreshed at the house on which is written "First Inn in England," on one side the Board, and "Last Inn in England" on the other. By "us" and "we" I mean Miss Willoughby and H. L. P., but we took our two Maids, Bell and Hickford, on the Dicky, and James rode. Four horses were not too many for such an exploit, tho' one of them was a Waterloo warrior....

We will go to Conway's Benefit certainly, if I get home time enough: Miss Willoughby will wish herself of the party most truly. But for her I should have pass'd many a dreary hour....

[37] Comedy of Errors, V. i. 170.

With regard to Lord Combermere's son, Mrs. Piozzi's information was evidently mistaken. Field-Marshal Sir Stapleton Cotton, Bart., G.C.B., Commander-in-Chief in India, grandson of her uncle, Sir Lynch Cotton, Bart., was created Viscount Combermere in 1814. He married thrice, and by his second wife had two daughters and a son, Wellington Henry, born 1818. The latter did not die in 1821, but succeeded to the title, and was grandfather of the present Viscount. His cousin, General Sir Willoughby Cotton, G.C.B., was Colonel of the 32nd Regiment of Foot.

Sunday, 4 March 1821.

I swear I think my dear Mrs. Pennington is one of the very best subjects the King has in his dominions, which contain very strange and contradictory people and things. Battling now about the tenets of Romanism, when Rome is itself in danger of almost immediate destruction from those who know no other tenets but hers. Well! you know I was always mounting a Turnep Cart to predict the end of the world, (not, I hope, forgetting my own all the time). It will vex me, in the last stage of life, to see the death and downfall of the Bourbons, but so it must be, without doubt, if they can live till I get safe to Clifton. Dubious enough, poor Souls! for the plot thickens apace, and Sovereigns have hourly more reason to fear the loss of all that's dear to them. Authority melted from their grasp long ago, and influence is sliding down the hill, of course.

Mr. Pennington must try keep up his spirits. So must we all, but mine often prove false ones, as when I took Geneva for Brandy; but the people here are such knaves!...

The day of our arrival how can I certify? My hope is to see you sometime on Tuesday 13; but Lord! I was so ill on Fryday night I hardly felt anything like certainty of ever seeing myself out of Penzance alive. Never mind that tho'; and say nothing about it; for the people make such an ado I dare not confess that anything ails me, like other old women. It is really troublesome to excess.

We have got Kenilworth among us, everybody admiring and even extolling it. Your strange book has a rival, Mr. Pascoe says, in Anastatius, but I have seen neither. Clifton will be nearer both to books and men. Dr. Randolph must be careful of his highly valued life. No one respects his abilities, or would regret the loss of them more sincerely than H. L. Piozzi, whose comfort it is, that she is likely soon to escape the truly uneasy sensation of outliving friends and enemies, and standing alone upon the Stage of Life, till hiss'd off for being able to furnish no further amusement. After having been at home on the Boards, like Matthews the Buffoon, so many silly years. Bear me however witness, that [I am] all but weary, and only kept from confessing myself so because I think it wrong. What however must this world be that even a Frenchman should leap into Vesuvius to get rid on't; and he did not get rid on't as he expected; the very Mountain vomited him back, and reproached his unrepented suicide.... Everybody seems to approve my sitting down at Clifton, as neither in the blaze of Society nor the obscurity of Solitude. We will make out the close of the Game as chearfully as we can; and if you ask me to dinner on Wednesday the 14th, a refusal need not be apprehended from your poor

H. L. P.

The allusion to the danger of Rome appears to relate to the insurrection in Piedmont, where the King was driven to abdicate on March 13. Later on other revolts broke out in Naples and Palermo. In France plots were being hatched against the life of the Duc de Bordeaux (afterwards Comte de Chambord), posthumous son of the Duc de Berry, and grandson of Charles X.

The Memoirs of Anastatius, an autobiography of a Greek renegade, was a novel by Thomas Hope, and was considered his masterpiece. It appeared in 1819.

Penzance, 5 Mar. 1821, Monday.

... This is a short letter, but I am on the eve of a long journey, and the kind friends here require many visits, and notes, and thanks, and so forth: and some of them have lent me Kenilworth, so that must be galloped through. Forgive me therefore, and accept my positive answer by securing me this good lad, who I like the better for his name, Sam. I had once a Footman so called, who could not, and would not be spoiled. He is dead, and poor Hodgkins too, that said he was going to take places for me, with his last breath. He was Sam at the first. I shall be glad to see them both, and remain meanwhile dear Mrs. Pennington's and her good husband's ever obliged and faithful

H. L. P.

Mrs. Piozzi evidently left Penzance in the course of the week. On Saturday she was at Exeter, and after sitting up writing letters till the small hours of the morning, retired to rest, using a light chair to climb up into the bed, which was a high one. But the chair slipped, and gave her a violent blow on the leg, causing a severe bruise and a slight wound. However, she attended the cathedral service next day, though she could hardly kneel, and in due course reached Clifton; taking up her quarters at 10 Sion Row till Mrs. Rudd should be ready to receive her at the Crescent. The accident caused some alarm to her friends, but according to Mrs. Pennington's account, the wound healed rapidly and no evil consequences ensued. But internal troubles followed which neither physicians nor surgeons could overcome. The few short notes which follow, mostly undated, were written during her illness, of which no one for some time anticipated a fatal termination.

Sion Row, No. 10,

Tuesday, 10 Apr. 1821.

Addressed—

Mrs. Pennington, Dowry Square

With 1000 Com^s—Sickly ones—from a Taker of Castor Oyl.

(She encloses a letter from Conway).

I got a letter from Mr. Roberts, the Curate of Dymerchion, begging me to make the Parish the present of a Bier, to carry the dead Poor. So I finished my Epistle to Salusbury, which you saw, with letting him know the request; and "tell Roberts," said I, "the favour is immediately granted"; for this is a debt I cannot, surely, be blamed for; and if I am, dear Salusbury must at last be contented to consider me as his unaccountable, no less than his Affec^te Aunt,

H. L. P.

Sion Row, No. 10,

Thursday, 11 Apr. 1821.

'Tis I shall be made happy, dear Mrs. Pennington. Our kind and skilful Dickson is just gone. He only waited till things were in the state they should be, I perceive; and to day he brought the tall man again, who performed the operation, and praised my courageous endurance. This for your own kind heart's private information. Mine is completely satisfied of their skill and management.

A thousand respectful compliments await Mr. Davenport, love to Mr. Pennington, threats of ruin at Cards to Mrs. Bellhatchet, and humble service to Miss Wren.

All that was done yesterday and to-day, (rough usage on the whole,) has raised, not lowered the spirits of your ever obliged and faithful

H. L. P.

Undated, on a Visiting Card.

I have been to the Crescent by the Surgeon's permission, and now comes the Doctor to insist upon my eating. I must obey you all, or I should deserve to be neglected by every living creature; and so far as I can, I will obey you.

Poor dear Dr. Dickson! he is as low spirited as myself, he has been among the Lunatics.

On miniature notepaper.

Dated Tuesday.

Very little better, dearest Friend, but certainly not worse, and though unmoved by all the new things swallow'd,—dying for a Paper. Can you direct James where to find one? Shame and Bessy have struggled all night, and the first gets the better. She cannot go to dear Mrs. Pennington without me to help her,—to words, I suppose.

Mrs. Pennington to Mrs. Brown

3 Jun. 1821.

... I knew you would feel for my loss, an irreparable one to me, for if twenty years ago I could find nothing to replace it, I am not likely, in the winter of life, and more particularly after two years of almost daily intercourse, which, by the endearing restoration of more than former kindness and confidence, doubled its value....

At present I can think of nothing, talk of nothing, nor dream of anything but my lost friend....

My best comfort is that I attended my beloved friend to the last moment. For three days and nights I never quitted her bedside, where, at my summons, I had the satisfaction to see her attended by her three charming daughters, and more charming women I know not. Oh! what a sum of happiness did she throw from her, through the misapprehensions, etc., which separated her from them! But in this respect Retrospection is both useless and painful. She was absolutely lost from inanition! She either could not eat enough to support nature, or had brought herself to it from a mistaken system; till, on a slight disorder, a sudden prostration of strength took place, and nothing could be done! She had her wish, however, which was never to live to support the mere dregs of life; and would have made, I think, rather an impatient invalid, under the suppression, or deprivation, of those uncommon powers which rendered her the delight of every one that came near her, to the last. I hope you saw my character of her in the Papers. I should not have had the temerity to have attempted it, but at the earnest request of her daughters, who feared it might be attempted by some one who did not know her as well, and might not have written so much to their satisfaction. It has answered the purpose by silencing all other scribblers on the subject, and met with much more general praise and approbation than it deserves....

Mrs. Pennington to Maria Brown

23 Jun. 1821.

... It is a new thing to me, dearest Maria, to feel reluctance in addressing you. But such is the effect of a late melancholy event, that I shrink from all exertion. It has impressed a languor on my spirits more fatal than grief, and more distressing than positive pain. It was a blow for which I could not be prepared, if indeed we are ever prepared for the loss of those we love; as only ten days before, she had dined with us in a party of ten or twelve persons, and was, as usual, the delight and soul of the company. And the sudden reverse appears to me, even now, at times, more like a frightful dream than a fact! I actually detect myself expecting to see or hear from her, until the sad reality forces itself upon me, and convinces me that time does not lessen those regrets, that time only more clearly and strongly discovers to us the value of what we have lost....

If twenty years ago I could find no substitute, I am less likely when two years of almost daily association, with, as it should seem, increased affection and renewed confidence, gave additional interest to our connexion. While the apparent, but deceptive vigour of her corporal powers, held out a promise of many years of future enjoyment. I firmly believe she fell a victim to the extreme abstemiousness of her habits; actually sunk under inanition! Attacked by a slight disease, there was no reaction in the system. She suffered little and died easy. So far she had her wish, which was always to escape the tedium and imbecility of invalidism, and to preserve her faculties unimpaired while life remained. I had the mournful satisfaction of ministering to her last hours, and of seeing her close those brilliant eyes in the presence of her children; their tears I trust embalmed, and their affectionate attention soothed her last moments. But from better acquaintance with these ladies a new source of regret has opened upon me: that through some strange misconstruction of circumstances, and perversion of mind, my beloved friend should have lost such a sum of happiness, as, but for some most mistaken conclusions, these daughters (the most charming women I have almost ever met with,) could not fail to have imparted. But Retrospection is useless as painful, and it is best to draw an indulgent veil over the imperfections of poor human nature on all sides. They remained at Clifton a week, during which time I was almost constantly with them. It was only from me, they said, that they could gain any accurate idea of their departed Mother's habits and connexions. They were never weary of the interesting subject, and unbounded in their acknowledgments to me for affording them, by timely information, an opportunity of performing their last duty to their parent. I have had the kindest and most flattering letters from them since their return to Town, with an elegant remembrance, from each sister, of my dear deceased friend. It was at their earnest request I had the temerity to give to the Public the last tribute I could pay, which probably you have seen, as it was copied into all the London Papers, and has had much more praise than it deserved. That it answered the end proposed, by silencing certain writers, who, these Ladies were apprehensive, might have given "the Celebrated Mrs. Piozzi's Character" in a manner less agreeable to their feelings, is indeed highly satisfactory to me; and their warm approbation the best recompense and sweetest incense I could receive....

The Obituary Notice, by Mrs. Pennington, mentioned above, ran as follows:

Death of Mrs. Piozzi.—Died at Clifton on Wednesday night, the 2d of May, in the 82d year of her age, after a few days' illness, Hester Lynch Piozzi, the once celebrated Mrs. Thrale, descended both on the paternal and maternal side from the ancient and respectable families of the Salisburys and Cottons, baronets in North Wales, but still more distinguished as the intimate friend and associate of Doctor Johnson, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick, Goldsmith, Murphy, and most of those literary constellations who formed the Augustan galaxy of the last century. The world has long known in what estimation her society was held in that circle where these illustrious men, with Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Carter, Vesey, Boscawen, and many others, formed a coterie never surpassed in talent and acquirement, in this or any other country. The vivacity of this lamented lady's mind was a never-failing source of pleasure to all who had the good fortune to enjoy her society, while the brilliancy of her wit, tempered by invariable good-humour and general benevolence, delighted all who approached her, and offended none. Her manners were highly polished and graceful—her erudition, the result of a regularly classical education, under the learned Dr. Collyer, was much more profound than those who only conversed with her superficially were likely to discover; for, wisely considering the line usually prescribed in such pursuits to her sex, she made no display of scholarship, yet was always ready to give her testimony when properly called out; indeed, on those occasions, it was impossible altogether to conceal the rich and rare acquirements in various sciences which she possessed. Her writings are many of them before the public, and if some incline to condemn a colloquial style, which perhaps she was too fond of indulging, all must admire the power of genius and splendour of talent she displayed. She was particularly happy in jeux d'esprits, numbers of which lie scattered amongst her friends, and we hope will be collected. Her Three Warnings have long been enshrined, and held in universal admiration as a specimen of the precocity of her talents; on graver subjects, those who knew her best will say she most excelled. Her religion was pure, free from all wild speculative notions—her faith was built on the Scriptures—that rock of our salvation, the continual perusal of which was her delight. She knew "in whom she trusted," and in the fullest conviction of those sacred truths, she closed a various life, declaring to a friend, who watched over her last moments, that she quitted the world in the fear and trust of God, the love of her Saviour, and in peace and charity with her neighbours and with all mankind. Her fine mental faculties remained wholly unimpaired; her memory was uncommonly retentive on all subjects;—enriched by apt quotations, in which she was most happy, and her letters and conversation to the last had the same racy spirit that made her the animating principle and ornament of the distinguished society she moved in, at a more early period of her life. Those who have to regret the loss of such a friend and companion, though continued to them beyond the usual date of human existence, will feel persuaded that as this admirable Lady was unique in the acquirements and combinations that formed her character, so are they sure that they shall never "look upon her like again."

Mrs. Pennington reverts to the same topic in a letter written to Miss Brown on December 3, 1821, in which she regrets that time, and care, and various other circumstances have dulled her powers to render her correspondence interesting and amusing.

"My dear, lost Friend possessed that talent in a wonderful degree. Her letters, however frequent, never ran into commonplace, but were always novel, and had the peculiar tact of always supplying matter for a reply. Never was there a mind of such varied resource as hers! The more I think of it, the more I am astonished that it was not even more appreciated and valued. Because I am persuaded, as Dr. Carrick said, when she lay, an inanimate corpse, before our eyes, that 'the world had nothing to compare with her. She had left no equal.' And that having again found her, she is lost to me for ever, is a subject of regret that no time, during the short remainder of my pilgrimage, will ever lessen. Her advanced age was no preparation to me, because wholly exempt from all those infirmities which usually attend that stage of our existence, and prepare others, if not ourselves, to look to the end. Appearing to have as much the advantage of me in vigour of constitution as in intellect, I looked forward to a few years of cordial and rational enjoyment, and really expected we should have run our race on nearly equal terms, happy to think it would be together. The change was so sudden, that at times I can scarcely persuade myself it is not a dream! and the disappointment so severe it seems to have annihilated all capacity for enjoyment or pleasure in anything...."

Among the friends to whom Mrs. Pennington wrote an account of Mrs. Piozzi's death, was Helen Williams, who replied in a letter dated October 28, 1822: "I read with warm interest all you wrote of the last scene of Mrs. Piozzi, and above all, your article, which is admirable; full of judgment as well as feeling, neither saying too little nor too much, in short, worthy of your pen: but I think you are too indulgent in respect of her daughters. I never could be satisfied with people who testify their tenderness to their friends only when they are at the last gasp. Above all, in the sacred relation which exists between a parent and a child, I think reconciliation and pardon should precede the act of dying: and Mrs. Piozzi being eighty years of age, her daughters must have known there was no time to lose, even before you summoned them to receive her last breath. They had reason to be offended at her second marriage, but life is too short for eternal resentments. Why do you not become her biographer? I am sure no one would write her memoirs half so well as yourself. I shall always love her memory, tho' she never forgave me for coming to France, and severed me from her affections because we differed in politics. If she could have known all I have suffered amid the convulsions of States, her good-natured heart would have been more disposed to pity than condemn."

Soon after the loss of her friend, Mrs. Pennington came into collision with her executors, Sir John Salusbury and Sir James Fellowes. By her will, dated March 29, 1816, she had left everything to Sir John, except legacies of £100 each to her maid Bessy, her old steward Leak, and his son, and one of £200 to Sir James. But outside the formal bequests of her will, she had intended that certain articles should be given as memorials to Conway and Mrs. Pennington. The former was to have her watch, and an annotated copy of Malone's Shakespeare, and the latter the silver teapot and stand which she habitually used, and which is referred to in Mrs. Pennington's letter of 17th January 1820, quoted above. What became of the watch does not appear, but letters in Mr. Broadley's collection show that Conway got his Shakespeare from Sir John, who may have been the more inclined to regard his claim with favour if, as is stated, Conway had just returned the £100 which Mrs. Piozzi had given him just before her death. Mrs. Pennington could offer no such inducement to favourable consideration, and perhaps her remark at the Bath Fête, that her claims to Mrs. Piozzi's friendship were of longer standing than his own, had not been forgotten or forgiven. It appears from Mr. Broadley's letters that she had applied in the first instance to Sir James Fellowes, urging her right to the teapot in somewhat strong terms, on the ground that her friend had actually given it to her, though it had not been handed over, and that she could produce witnesses to that effect, whose testimony would be accepted in any Court. Sir James no doubt referred her to his co-executor, to whom she next applied, though in a more humble strain, asking for it not as a right, but as a favour; reminding him that she had a larger collection of dear Mrs. Piozzi's letters than any other correspondent, and was in fuller possession of her opinions on all subjects, private, public, and literary, possibly than any other person in the Kingdom, which she should carefully preserve. This, she hints, would be practically indispensable to any intending biographer. But Sir John was not to be tempted or cajoled, and returned only three curt lines, declining to discuss the matter at all; while he told Sir James that he should hand over any future letter on the subject to be dealt with by his lawyer. So neither her long friendship nor her loving care for his aunt were deemed worthy of even this not very extravagant recognition.

Her relations with the daughters were far more cordial. In the summer of 1824 she paid a visit to London, where, she tells Miss Brown, "I experienced much kindness, and more attention than I had any right to expect; chiefly indeed from my late dear lamented Friend's three charming daughters, who seemed as if they never could do enough to prove the sense they entertained of my true friendship to their mother. In Town they assisted me to see everything that time and circumstances would permit; and I spent ten delightful days at Miss Thrale's beautiful Villa in Kent, surrounded by Nobleman's Seats, which we visited in our daily morning drives. Knowle Park, the residence of the Duchess of Dorset, is the finest specimen, I believe, of Baronial grandeur in the Kingdom; and the Park (fourteen miles in extent) they say has the noblest Timber of any in England. She kindly carried me to Tunbridge, where we spent two days very agreeably, and we parted with (I am persuaded) mutually increased esteem, and sensible regret."

THOMAS SEDGWICK WHALLEY, D.D.

By J. Brown after Sir Joshua Reynolds

From a print in the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.

The following winter Mr. Whalley (as appears from his published Letters) spent in her house. Writing to him in October with regard to his proposed visit, she tells him that she has for some time given up public and private parties. Pennington is tolerably well, "but we are both fallen into the sere and yellow leaf. I do not find my mind get older in proportion to my body. I have as keen a relish for intellectual enjoyments as ever I had. My spirits are rising in anticipation" of the visit and conversations to which she was looking forward with great pleasure. Her subsequent letters to Maria Brown are full of laments for the loss of such intellectual enjoyments, owing to the continual growth of Bristol, and the gradual decay of the Hot Wells as a health resort. The last of them was written in April 1827, when she had just had a severe illness, and on 1st August she died, aged seventy-five years, as stated on her mourning ring.

It is somewhat remarkable that neither her children, who showed so much attention to their mother's oldest friend, nor her heir, who handsomely acknowledged on paper his obligations to his aunt, cared to perpetuate Mrs. Piozzi's memory by any kind of monument. Perhaps they thought it needed no such artificial aid. It was reserved for the present century, and for a descendant of her other executor, to erect a simple white marble slab in Tremeirchion (formerly Dymerchion) Church, with the following inscription:

NEAR THIS PLACE ARE INTERRED THE REMAINS OF

HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI,

"DOCTOR JOHNSON'S MRS. THRALE."

BORN 1741. DIED 1821.

WITTY, VIVACIOUS AND CHARMING, IN AN AGE OF GENIUS

SHE EVER HELD A FOREMOST PLACE.

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BY ORLANDO BUTLER FELLOWES,

GRANDSON OF SIR JAMES FELLOWES, THE INTIMATE FRIEND

OF MRS. PIOZZI, AND HER EXECUTOR,

ASSISTED BY SUBSCRIPTIONS,

28TH APRIL, 1909.

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