Streatham Park, Sat. 10 Aug. 1793.
My dearest Mrs. Pennington,—Nothing was ever so well or so truly said as your observation concerning public notions in France, except what you said likewise about private notions in England, and my Husband and your Husband's true taste for an elegant Knick-Knack.
I have had a letter from an old acquaintance, Helen Williams, my eyes could scarce believe it; but she says it was with difficulty she found means to get it over, and certain is the case, it came hither by Penny Post. No tenderness was ever so seducing as her tenderness, no lamentation ever so pathetic; begging and intreating to know how we all do, and whether we still recollect her with kindness, etc. Many sweet words to Harriet, many to Mrs. Siddons, with enquiry if she remains still upon the Stage, "for not even her fame can reach me now at this sad distance," is the expression. Poor soul! she adverts to our felicity at Streatham Park, and says how happy we all are here, (I think so truly,) while she listens only to the sound of the Tocsin, in which "more is meant than meets the ear." Such is her quotation, and it impresses me strongly, for on this very day, the 10th of August, my heart tells me dreadful deeds will be performed in that theatre of massacre and madness—Paris. God keep her in personal safety! Meantime I will not write to her: she has given me directions, but as I told dear Mr. Este the other day, who put me to similar pain by begging letters for Italy, I will not help those forward who are doing, or trying to do, mischief,—
Beyond or love, or friendship's sacred band,
Beyond myself, I prize my Native Land.
And our sweet Master, whom the King has lately been graciously pleased to make an Englishman, in act and effect, as well as in true heart and firm loyalty, says I am in the right....
I shall scold Mr. Pennington if he suffers moody and still pensiveness to petrify your active qualifications, and I understand even the situation of your affairs requires a chearful carriage, and gay manners. Assume them, and they will cling to you. Miss Farren tries that trick, and it succeeds too, notwithstanding her real health and looks are much impaired, but I hope bathing in the sea may in some measure restore them. We hear that Miss Burney has a Tragedy acted,—accepted I mean,—and to be acted by Sheridan's Company, who are all delighted with it. We hear too that she is married to a foreigner of fashion; and we did hear her brother was dead at Bath, but he contradicts the report himself in the Newspapers; so, perhaps will his sister to-morrow. Adieu....
Elizabeth Farren was the daughter of George Farren, a surgeon of Cork, who joined a strolling company of players. After acting at Bath and elsewhere in the provinces, she appeared at the Haymarket and Drury Lane, where she played leading parts till her marriage with Lord Derby.
Fanny Burney had married M. D'Arblay, a French refugee officer, 31st July and 1st August 1793. Her tragedy of Edwy and Elgiva was not acted till 1795, when Mrs. Siddons and her brother assisted at its production. The breach between her and Mrs. Piozzi, which dated from the latter's second marriage, was not healed for many years. The reconciliation is thus recorded in the Commonplace Book. "Madame D'Arblay, always smooth, always alluring, passed two or three hours with me to-day. My perfect forgiveness of l'aimable Traitresse was not the act of Duty, but the impulsion of Pleasure, rationally sought for, where it was at all times sure of being found—in her conversation."
Streatham Park, 19 Sep. 1793.
My dear Friend, and your letter says I must call you my old Friend too. "Ma'am I'm sorry." ...
Helena Williams's situation is a strange one, but though my affection and esteem is all for her, my compassion leans towards the poor Mother and Sister whom she has dragged into this Hornets' nest. Mr. Chappelow is of your mind, that they will never come out on't....
Your namesake was always scrupulously steady never to wear rouge, so that may account for her ill looks,
Though Rouge can never find the way
To stop the progress of decay,
Or mend a ruined face.
Miss Farren alters terribly too, and dear Siddons, after all her lamentations about ill health, looks incomparably handsome, I am told....
Those [events] which occur in this part of the world are not exceedingly important; the best thing I know is dear Siddons's return to it, though for so short a time; the worst is her setting off for Ireland in this stormy season, but it will answer to her husband and family, she has fame and fortune enough without running further hazards. All will go well however, I doubt not, and if they ask why she tears herself to pieces so, she must say with Abigail in the Drummer,
I'll clap my hand upon my purse, and tell 'em
'Twas for a thousand Pounds and Mr. Vellum.
More news from the Continent. Now if the Royal Family can 'scape their murderous pursuers but a few months more, one may pronounce them safe, I think, and they may be permitted to dye in their beds by the effect of past terrors and ill-usage, instead of expiring by the hand of sudden and immediate massacre....
The "namesake" who abjured rouge (which Mrs. Piozzi always used) was very likely Sophia Lee. The Drummer was a play by Addison, otherwise known as The Haunted House.
Streatham Park, 4 of Nov. Monday, 1793.
My dear Mrs. Pennington's handwriting always gives me pleasure.... We shall surely come to you, at least I doubt it not, the end of next Autumn, and shall visit the Cottage, and see how like Streatham Park is to Longford Court, etc.... We shall by then, I fear, have to talk of poor Helen Williams in a way that shocks me. She said here she could dye with pleasure for French Liberty, but she will fall by French Tyranny at last. I verily think when those wretches have spilt all the Blood Royal, they will call out our Country Folks to feed the popular fury and turn the current of it from themselves.... The Queen's murder has some circumstances of horror belonging to it which I fancy you have not heard, and which I will not be the first to tell. I gained them by conversing with the foreigners. My imagination often leads me to think that matters are tending forward towards some great event, interesting to all the Christian world, which is almost in serious danger now by the Turk's preparation for assisting these Atheists to destroy us....
You will have my Book soon, Mr. Robinson and I are bargaining for it now, but they shall pay me a just price; I have enlarged it considerably. Dear Marquis Trotti will come home to his English friends again; I am glad on't. He is at Warsaw this moment by what appears, and after a Polar winter will find Bath a nice warm place, and old Belvedere House will look so pretty after Petersburg, and he and Harriet may read my Synonymes of Love and Friendship together. I told you he had the arrow fast in his heart. I told you so....
All the neighbourhood borrow Helen's last publication from me, so that I scarce have read it, but 'tis as you say. Come what will, dear Friend, let you and I hold fast by our Christian principles, assuring ourselves that this is not the world for remuneration, but for tryal; and satisfied that happiness will, in the next state of things, be consequent upon Virtue. Let every misfortune it meets with here, strengthen our assurance that there it will be finally and lastingly rewarded. I verily and from my soul believe that admirable girl will lose her life by violence among those cruel creatures. They have abolished Sunday now, and every sign and form of worship in France is at an end. In that frantic Nation chaos is come again....
It is not quite clear what work by Helen Williams is here referred to. She does not seem to have written anything of importance since her Letters written in France in the summer of 1790, which were published the same year, and would probably have reached Mrs. Piozzi long before this date.
Streatham Park, 2 Dec. 1793.
My dear Friend,—Having got a Frank by chance, I sit by Mr. Piozzi's bedside, and tell you, for my own amusement, how ill he is. Lame, hand and foot, with Gout, and torne with spasms beside, which we know not exactly on what account to place.... You can probably give me as good and chearful a history of your Husband's case, possibly too, from the same cause—a Ball. Our Royal Surrey Bowmen gave a grand one at Richmond, where Cecilia danced till five o'clock in the morning, and whence, of course, we came not home till seven. A member of that Club being also a member of some other Club, we had another invitation for Fryday in the same week, and were at home by six, which I believe we thought too late, and Cecy too early. So differs the appearance of things between Spring and Autumn.
Well! we have had a crazy man in our neighbourhood lately, who imitates Goldfinch in the Road to Ruin: talks precisely his dialect, and drives four thoroughbred horses of different colours in hand, with six lamps to the Phaeton. He is a Welch Baronet of good family; we dined with him at my Lord Deerhurst's, and whilst all the world was interesting themselves about the present state of Europe, he raved about his Phaeton, and talked of the Tipee, the Stare, the Go, and a heap of jargon such as one never heard.
How like you Madame D'Arblay's Book? Pray tell what is said of it. Mine is in good forwardness, I am only afraid the title may prove a millstone round its neck: no one will think of looking for Politics in a volume entitled British Synonymy.
Can you figure to yourself a more execrable triumph than that of the Convention in this forced disgrace put upon the old House of Bourbon by connecting the last Princess of it with a brutal soldier, and proclaiming her pregnancy—poor child!—amidst the hootings of the Jacobins. Has not her aunt, the virtuous and hapless Elizabeth, now lived too long, and do you not wish her dismission to the brother she so justly loved? We are all gasping with hope of charming Lord Moyra's Expedition. I think he will bring the rogues to terms by cutting off internal communication with their Provinces through means of the Seine, and when they are starving, submit they must....
Lord and Lady William Russell make us pretty neighbours enough, but Mr. Chappelow is always in Norfolk, and we have no Whist Players....
The Road to Ruin, by Thomas Holcroft, who shared Horne Tooke's prosecution, appeared in 1792. Its hero, Goldfinch, thus describes himself: "Father was a Sugar Baker, Grandfather a Slop Seller, and I'm a Gentleman."
Madame D'Arblay's "Book," which would be more correctly described as a Pamphlet, was on the subject of the French emigrant clergy.