A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Really one could hardly imagine that in those days, when every week Mr. Boswell had a chance of going to such an entertainment at Tyburn as he had attended forty-eight hours before the opening of the Sessions, the taking of the life of a human being was regarded with such horror. One cannot help recalling the remark made by Walpole a few years later, that, owing to the severity of the laws, England had been turned into one vast shambles; nor can one quite forget the particulars of the case which was quoted as having an intimate bearing upon this contention—the case in which a young wife whose husband had been impressed to serve in His Majesty's Fleet, and who had consequently been left without any means of support, had stolen a piece of bread to feed her starving children, and had been hanged at Tyburn for the crime.

Reading the judge's censure of Baretti, who had, in preventing a contemptible ruffian from killing him, decreased by a unit the criminality of London, the only conclusion that one can come to is that the courts of law were very jealous of their precious prerogative to kill. Looking at the matter in this light, the bombastic phrase of Boswell does not seem so ridiculous after all; the Old Bailey had certainly good reason to be regarded as the “awful Sessions House.” But we are not so fully convinced that it had any right to be referred to as emphatically the Hall of Justice. In the Georgian Pageant the common hangman played too conspicuous a part.

But the unfortunate, if impetuous, Baretti left the court a free man, and we cannot doubt that in the company of his friends who had stood by him in his hour of trial he was a good deal harder upon the judge than the judge had been upon him; and probably he was reproved in a grave and dignified manner by Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds standing by with his ear trumpet, fearful lest a single word of Johnson's wisdom should escape him. Doubtless Mr. Garrick, the moment Johnson's back was turned, gave an inimitable imitation of both Johnson and Baretti—perhaps of the judge as well, and most likely the usher of the court.

Later on, when the avaricious Reynolds had hastened back to his studio in Leicester Fields to daub on canvas the figures of some of his sitters at the extortionate price of thirty-five guineas for a three-quarter length, he and Johnson put their heads together to devise what could be done for Baretti.

For about a year Baretti resumed his old way of living, working for the booksellers and completing his volume of travel through Europe, by which it is said he made £500. It would appear, however, that all his pupils had transferred themselves to the enterprising gentleman who had appealed to him at an inopportune moment for his recommendation, or to some of his other brethren, for by the end of the year he was in needy circumstances. Meantime he had been made by Sir Joshua Reynolds Honorary Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and then Johnson recommended him to the husband of Mrs. Thrale as tutor to her girls at Streatham. This was very kind to Baretti, but it was rather hard on the Thrales. Apparently from the first day he went to Streatham his attitude in regard to the Thrale family was one of spite and malevolence; and there can be no doubt that Johnson bitterly regretted his patronage of a man who seemed never to forgive any one who had done him a good turn.

The agreement made by him with the Thrales was that he should practically be his own master, only residing at Streatham as a member of the family with no fixed salary. He was as artful as an Irish cabman in suggesting this “leave it to your honour” contract. He had heard on all hands of the liberality of Mr. Thrale, and he knew that, in addition to being provided with a luxurious home, he would receive presents from him far in excess of what he could earn. He was extremely well treated for the next three years, though he was for ever grumbling when he had a moment's leisure from insulting the Thrales and their guests. Mrs. Thrale said more in his favour than any one with whom he came in contact. She wrote: “His lofty consciousness of his own superiority which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, is never despicable; but vanity, which he possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty ridiculous.”

Assuredly Mrs. Thrale “let him down” very gently. Dr. Thomas Campbell, a clergyman from Ireland, gives us a glimpse of Baretti's bearing at Streatham. It is clear that Baretti was anxious to impress him with the nature of his position in the house. “He told me he had several families both in town and country with whom he could go at any time and spend a month; he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows how to keep his ground. Talking, as we were at tea, of the magnitude of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing at Mr. Thrale's house still more extraordinary—his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much for Baretti!” wrote the clergyman in a very illuminating account of his visit to Streatham.

But not only did Mrs. Thrale bear with this detestable person for nearly two more years, but she and her husband took him with them and Johnson to Paris, where they lived in a magnificent way, the Thrales paying for everything. It was in a letter to Frank Levet, his domestic apothecary, that Johnson, writing from Paris, said: “I ran a race in the rain this day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.” This is Johnson on Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the Piozzi Letters he wrote: “Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, and the silly madam”—meaning Mrs. Thrale—“never failed to echo that beastly kind of wit.”

It was not, however, until an Italian tour, projected by Mr. Thrale, was postponed, that Baretti became quite unendurable. He had been presented by Mr. Thrale with £100 within a few months, and on the abandonment of the longer tour he received another £100 by way of compensation for the satisfaction he had been compelled to forgo in showing his countrymen the position to which he had attained in England. This was another act of generosity which he could not forgive. He became sullen and more cantankerous than ever, and neglected his duties in an intolerable way. In fact, he treated Streatham as if it were an hotel, turning up to give Miss Thrale a lesson at the most inconvenient hours, and then devoting the most of his time to poisoning the girl's mind against her mother. Upon one occasion he expressed the hope to her that if her mother died Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would, he said, be a pretty companion for her, not tyrannical and overbearing as he affirmed her own mother was! Truly a nice remark for a young lady's tutor to make to her under her mother's roof.

The fact was, however—we have Baretti's own confession for it—that he had been led to believe that after being with the Thrales for a year or two, an annuity would be settled on him by the wealthy brewer, and he grew impatient at his services to the family not obtaining recognition in this way. It is extremely unlikely that Johnson ever even so much as hinted at this annuity, though Baretti says his expectations were due to what Johnson had told him; but it is certain that he had so exalted an opinion of himself, he believed that after a year or two of desultory teaching he should receive a handsome pension. And there the old story of the car-driver who left the nomination of the fare to “his honour's honour” was repeated. Baretti one morning packed up his bag and left Streatham without a word of farewell.