While the Piozzis were staying at Denbigh, and superintending the building of Brynbella, Cecilia, still in her teens, met her future husband, John Meredith Mostyn.
Denbigh, March 24, 1795.
My dear Mrs. Pennington will excuse her old Friend if, having long forborne to write because she had nothing to say, she continued that forbearance lately because she had too much. My heart has been very full: Cecilia seems to have seen the man she likes at last, and thinking about them occupies very, very much of my mind. As my Countryman is no Lord, nor no Wit, nor no Beau, nor no man of monstrous Fortune, I know not how the connection will be relished by London Friends, or by Cecy's Sisters, Guardians, the Chancellor, etc. But that she should pitch upon a youth of ancient and respectable family in my own neighbourhood, grandson to an old intimate of my own Father, with a clear estate of £2000 pr. Ann.; independent in mind, manners, and fortune, with a beautiful person, and character highly esteem'd, cannot chuse but be agreeable to me. Meantime the World is so wicked, and one is so terrified at the thoughts of what may happen in it to two creatures, neither of them quite 20 years old, that I live in a fever....
Write soon—directly if you can; we don't go to Streatham till the 14th of April. Adieu! I cannot make my pen obey me, it will neither stop nor run. Cecilia is out on horseback with her Sweetheart, but she bid me tell you all. And now I have forgot to add his name—'tis John Meredith Mostyn—of Segroid. We call the people by the names of their country seats, as in Scotland, 'tis necessary where there are so many old aristocrate families branch'd out into many separate houses and establishments.
Once more Adieu! Give my best regards to your Husband, and pray for a good one to Cecy, or what will become of your H. L. P.?
Mr. Piozzi is out at Brinbella. Building and planting, marrying and giving in marriage, you see we do go on till the very end of the world, undeterred by false Prophets which precede it.
This rascal Brothers will be seriously listen'd to, if the Prince of Wales's match goes off. He rested the truth of his mission upon that event, but we are expressly told that some of them will do signs and wonders; yet are we commanded strictly not to go forth after them,—as I find many do.
The Mostyns of Segroid (now of Llewesog, co. Denbigh) were a branch of the Mostyns of Mostyn, Barts., who claimed descent from Tudor Trevor. In previous generations they had intermarried with the Salusburys and Pennants, and J. M. Mostyn's sister Maria married Colonel Salusbury of Galtfynan. His grandfather, John Mostyn, was of Capel Gwyddelwern, co. Monmouth, and died 1731.
Richard Brothers was originally a Lieutenant R.N., but retired from the service, and set up as a prophet in London about 1787. His vegetarian diet, and conscientious objection to oaths, helped to bring him into notoriety, while his scruples about drawing his pay brought him into the workhouse. But he soon found admirers and supporters, and was enabled to publish his "Revealed Knowledge of Prophecies and Times, wrote under the direction of the Lord God," in 1794. Some of his predictions had a remarkable fulfilment: e.g. in 1792 he foretold violent deaths for the King of Sweden and Louis XVI, but others, such as the destruction of London by fire, were less successful. He now developed megalomania of a religious type, styling himself "Nephew of God" (explained as in virtue of descent from one of the "Brethren of the Lord") and the "Prince of the Hebrews" who was to lead the Jews back to Palestine. Some wild political utterances led to an examination before the Privy Council on suspicion of treason, but the fitting result was his confinement, not in a gaol, but in a lunatic asylum.
Streatham Park, Tuesday, 5 May.
My dear Friend will, I am sure, be pleased to hear that we are safe arrived here, and our children about us: Mr. Mostyn grows every day dearer to me, and the connection with him more desired as we make closer acquaintance. Cecilia seems to resist, for his sake, all temptations from her Sisters to a London Spring; and Mr. Piozzi, in return, treats us all with frequent excursions for amusement, so as to render a week's stay in Town less necessary to her happiness. What a Town 'tis! And what strange events occur in it every hour! Prophets, Traitors, Lunatic Ladies who elope from their husbands, even without Gallants to seduce, or even feigned ill-usage to impell them. They run to Bristol however, you know I say that all the Wonder-doers, Conjurors, Poets, Impostors,—every one have something to do with Bristol.... Mr. Jackson, tho' guilty, is recommended to mercy I perceive, but his condemnation will, in a certain manner, implicate Mr. Stone. Apropos, Helen Williams finds a defender in Col. Barry, who is as amiable, as clever, and as eccentrick as possible. Lovely Siddons is set out for Scotland in this moment, she will have cheated herself of Summer completely....
Whilst I am writing come my three Daughters, two of them at least, from Town, and bring the news of Jackson's suicide. What astonishing times are these! and the World, tho' wicked, is so enraged against my Lady Jersey, that people expect her to be hissed in her carriage, or at the theatres. Our new Princess's popularity daily encreases, I think, and if she should bring us a little boy the World would really be quite charmed with her. Is it not astonishing that she never learned English, when that study is grown even fashionable upon the Continent?
This is one of those days which Brothers pitched on for the Earthquake. Do you take any interest in his abettors and their pamphlets, Wright, Bryan, Halhead?...
William Jackson was an Irish clergyman, who had held a curacy in London, and acted as chaplain to the "amazing" Duchess of Kingston: afterwards, taking up journalism, he was editor of the Public Ledger and the Morning Post. Espousing the cause of the United Irishmen, he went over to France as their envoy, with a view to procure assistance for the projected Irish rising. Being brought to trial and convicted, he took poison, and died in the dock while sentence was being pronounced. His suicide was perhaps designed to save his property, which would have been forfeited to the Crown on conviction for high treason.
Frances, daughter of Dr. Philip Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, and wife of George Bussy, fourth Earl of Jersey, had created considerable scandal, even in that lax age, by her relations with the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. The shameless way in which he forced her into the household of the Princess, was no doubt largely responsible for the sympathy so widely felt for the erring but injured wife. The Prince's marriage took place in April 1795, but the only child, born in 1796, was the Princess Charlotte, who married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards King of the Belgians.
Nathaniel Brassey Halhead, M.P. for Lymington, was a man of considerable attainments, as shown by his Bengali Grammar and "Gentoo Code of Laws"; but his learning did not save him from becoming the disciple, not to say dupe, of the mad prophet, under whose influence he wrote a treatise on the millenium, and a "Testimony to the Authenticity of the Prophecies of R. Brothers."
Streatham Park, Monday, 11 May 1795.
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Mrs. Siddons is gone to work her brother out of a gaol at Edinburgh, and was forced to leave her husband,—who, being security for him, is most deeply interested in his success,—a cripple upon crutches. Such stuff is this world made of, and 'tis time to look sharp about money matters now, when a common fowl is paid seven shillings for in Carnaby Market, and a leg o' mutton at the same place eight pence o' pound. For these uncommon misfortunes I refused to take common report; so left the carriage in Marlborough Street, and walked in my black bonnet and cloke all over that eminently cheap and plentiful market myself, in order to ascertain the real truth, and I now write down what I saw and heard in letters, not figures, to prevent the possibility even of supposed mistake. What however most amazes me is, that our Batchelor Friends say the prices are not raised yet in eating-house or tavern, nor are the dinners worse; and Virgo the poulterer told me he never sold more articles than since they have been at this unexampled price. Make these facts agree as you can.
With regard to Spring, all order and gradation seem as completely abolished as if the Elements had experienced a Revolution. The Walnut is now contemporary with the Primrose, a thing I never saw before, and all our Oaks are in broad leaf, before the Pear trees have shed their blossoms, a circumstance wholly new to me. Not a Blackbird is seen or heard in our desolated shrubbery, which, as you know, used to resound with them: and nobody but myself (who am ever on the watch,) has seen any Swallows. I observed six yesterday. But what strange times are these, with our false Christs too, and false Prophets! Mercy on me! but I do think Cecilia is beginning the World just in the last Act of it. May she at least play her part well! Mostyn and she are trying to get married, if possible, before he comes of age, and so they will amuse the time till he is of age, I suppose....
Apparently the Chancellor proved obdurate in the matter of the marriage of the legal "infants," so the impatient Cecilia indulged in one more characteristic escapade by eloping to Gretna Green; an unnecessary proceeding which must have been very annoying for Mrs. Piozzi, though she makes no allusion to it in the letters. Their married life was but short, as Mostyn died 19th May 1807. His widow survived him just half a century, and died at Silwood House, Brighton, 1st May 1857, æt. eighty.