The Abbé Barruel, Almoner to the Princess of Conti, had written in 1794 a history of the clergy during the French Revolution. In 1797 he published his Mémoires pour servir â l'Histoire du Jacobinisme, designed to show that the Revolution was the work of Voltaire and his friends, and was aimed primarily at religion, and only secondarily at the Government. An English edition, of which Mrs. Piozzi does not seem to have heard, appeared about the same time.
The brothers Montgolfier had discovered the principle of the fire balloon in 1783, and in the same year the brothers Robert (also Frenchmen) inflated a balloon with hydrogen gas. What Mrs. Piozzi no doubt had in her mind was the tragic fate of Pilâtre de Rozier (the first human being to entrust himself to the air), who in 1785 attempted to combine the two systems, with disastrous results. The balloon took fire, and he and his companion lost their lives.
Having humbled Austria, Bonaparte had turned his attention to England. An army was raised and marched to the Channel, to await a convenient moment for crossing, when sufficient transport had been collected. But larger schemes of an Eastern campaign were now occupying his mind, and the project of invasion was not vigorously pushed forward. Indeed it may have been designed rather to draw off attention from the preparations for his Egyptian expedition.
Streatham Park, last Sunday in April 1798.
Well, dearest Mrs. Pennington! we have been to London since I had your last kind letter. And what did we see in London? Why we saw some pictures, the spoil of Italy and Flanders, which the French sell to those who bid highest;—and we saw charming Siddons, the boast of our own Country, more admirable than ever in this new play of the Stranger. She is not cold to her old friends, Heaven knows, yet there is an iciness in the house that I cannot describe. One reason may be that as everybody takes sides now, and many go there that are not on your side and mine, it must be as it is; and I always meet Mr. Twiss there, a fierce man who married her sister, with a brown Brutus Head,—I feel afraid of all the men that wear it.
Have you seen my Three Warnings made political use of in a new Pamphlet? It will soon be at Bristol, no doubt, as it seems a favourite with the Public.
Mr. Whalley will soon leave these busy scenes for his Cottage, and we shall soon get home to Brynbella, I hope. My poor Master is too lame to march in the King's service, but he is a good loyalist, and a better hoper than his wife, though I really do think things are mending. People seem aw'd by the times, without being afraid of the French: and that is exactly the spirit I would have them show. Our sailors and soldiers are true to the cause, and an armed nation (tho' small,) is irresistible. If it should please God that the descent should be made now, and fail, England would be happier, and I fear, prouder than ever; for there is no other place left for France to conquer, and Lord Bridport promises to defend us bravely.
Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn were invited to meet us for a short dinner at Miss Thrale's the day we were all engaged to dear Siddons's Benefit. So we curtsied, and smiled, and drank each others good health, and ran to our separate Boxes at the Theatre, and 'scaped all explanations; and that did nicely.... Lady Derby is so altered you would not know her,—grown so immensely fat, and white, and her hair changed,—but not her sweet character and pleasing manners, which remain still superiorly lovely. Mrs. Holman is grown actually handsome, and seems happiest of human beings; so here are Braave Alteraations, as the Fool said to Mr. Whalley. Mr. Holman is a very pleasing, and very unaffectedly agreeable man.... Your old acquaintance Mr. Rogers remains single yet....
Helen Williams's last Book is beautiful, but she is a wicked little Democrate, and I'm told, lives publickly with Mr. Stone, whose wife is still alive. Nobody tells me anything of Dr. Moore, but Cumberland keeps on writing plays and romances; and I'm in the middle of a big book, Heav'n send it may not for yt reason be a dull one; but I will be a good hoper myself. Harriet Lee never sent me the Heirship of Roselva,—tell her I say so. When come out the next Canterbury Tales? People surprize me by turning their heads so to fancy compositions—I never could do it.
Adieu! We have let this place for £550 per annum for 3 years; and if we beat the French away, and things begin to right again, as the Seaman's phrase is, we will come to Bath and Bristol the very first months of the next New Year....
The Stranger was a spectacular drama adapted from a tragedy by Kotzebue, dealing with the Spaniards and Indians in America, which had a great vogue in England owing to its patriotic sentiments, which were interpreted as bearing on current history. No less than four English translations, one by "Monk" Lewis, appeared in the course of this year. Sheridan's adaptation was not published till 1799.
Francis Twiss, son of an English merchant in Holland, married in 1786 Frances (Fanny), second daughter of Roger Kemble, and sister of Mrs. Siddons, who then retired from the stage and, assisted by her husband, kept a girls' school at Bath. She is described after her marriage as being "big as a house"; while her husband, who took "absolute clouds of snuff," was thin, pale, and stooping, but very dogmatic. He compiled in 1805 the earliest concordance to Shakespeare.
The political version of Mrs. Piozzi's poem was entitled "Three Warnings to John Bull before he dies, by an old Acquaintance of the Public," wherein John is exhorted to show "a unanimous spirit in assisting Government, a just and manly regard for our Established Religion, and an immediate amendment of Manners." The authorship does not seem to have been disclosed.
Helen Williams' latest work was "A Tour in Switzerland, or a view of the present state of the Governments and Manners of those Cantons, with Comparative Sketches of the present state of Paris." The tour was taken in company with Stone, who had been sent thither on a mission by the French Government.
In The Mysterious Marriage, or the Heirship of Rosalva, Harriet Lee introduced what she claimed as an original feature, viz. a female ghost; but this does not help the plot, which the British Critic dismisses as "ordinary," while the characters, whether angelical or diabolical, were but commonplace, and the verses were the worst part of the performance. The Critic allowed, however, that The Canterbury Tales for 1797, published this year, showed much ingenuity and fancy, and expressed a hope for more.
Cumberland's five-act play, False Impressions, appeared in 1797 at Covent Garden, and had a moderate success. The British Critic sums it up as "only a sketch, but a sketch by a master, which might have been worked up into something much better."