Brynbella, Fryday 24 Sep. 1798.
My dear Mrs. Pennington was very kind in thinking of old friends, when so much present matter, and so important too, was filling up both mind and time. May all end for the best!
I can no more guess where Mrs. Siddons actually is than where Buonaparte is. The Papers announce her at Drury Lane, acting for Palmer's family. A letter from a friend at Brighthelmstone tells how she is playing Mrs. Beverley for the amusement of the Prince of Wales, Lady Jersey, Lady Deerhurst, and Lady Lade; and how she lives there in a house I often inhabited before I had the pleasure of knowing her. What you say induces me to believe her at the Hot Wells. Wherever she is, there is the best assemblage of beauty, talents, and discretion that ever graced a single female character. She will have much to suffer I'm afraid, but she will suffer with gentleness and submission, propriety and patience. You, my dear Friend, will have your consciousness of well-doing to support you thro' the trying scene: but my heart bleeds for you, and my best comfort lies in the hope that we shall meet soon after Christmas....
Meanwhile 'tis nearly miraculous that 400 sail should thus have slipt unperceived, away from Admiral Nelson and his fleet of observation. The Bishop of S. Asaph says that while we are gazing after them in the Levant, tidings will arrive that they are on the coast of Ireland. He may be right for aught I know; things happen so very wide of all expectation. You remember the meeting at Tyre, where he who first saw the rising sun was to be saluted King. All stared towards the East, of course, except one man, and he, with his back to the rest, first discerned the rays shooting upward against a high tower, in the contrary and opposite direction. We will salute our Bishop wisest of conjecturers if Buonaparte attempts the Sister Kingdom; but I shall not account the Invaders wise in delaying their invasion so long. They would now give Lord Cornwallis a complete triumph, and give us an opportunity of showing the world that France makes no impression upon King George the 3rd's dominions.
Did you read Mr. Siddons's incomparable Ballad upon the Great Nation? 'Tis really excellent in its kind....
If you are all tolerably tranquil at Dowry Square, do ask what became of an agreeable Mr. Crampton, in whose company I supped last Spring in Great Marlbro' Street, who said he was going thither, and gave me the first idea how matters really stood. I concluded him a Lover of one of the young Ladies. Pray present me to them both, if with you, and assure them of my sincerest wishes and prayers, (they are old-fashioned things;) and do, my dear Mrs. Pennington, keep up your own spirits, if possible, for your Mother and your Husband's sake, and a little for the sake of your ever faithful
H. L. Piozzi.
It is clear that Mrs. Pennington had informed Mrs. Piozzi of the grave condition of Maria Siddons, and had let her see something of the anxiety she was suffering; but regarding the principal cause of this anxiety, and the tragedy which was being enacted before her eyes, she evidently maintained a strict silence—even to her most intimate friend—or some mention must have been made in the course of the correspondence of Thomas Lawrence. That artistic but erratic genius, after having been for some time the accepted lover of Sally Siddons, suddenly transferred his affections to Maria, not long before her fatal illness, and what is most remarkable, obtained the consent of all parties concerned. But while Maria was at Clifton he began to realise that he had made a mistake—that his heart was Sally's after all, and the fear that Maria might exact a death-bed promise from Sally (as indeed actually happened) that she would never marry him, for the time being almost overturned his reason. His agitated letters, and still more agitating interviews, did much to add to Mrs. Pennington's anxieties during this trying period. The whole tragedy, as revealed in the letters of the persons most nearly concerned, has been told by the present editor in An Artist's Love Story.
John Palmer, a son of the doorkeeper at Drury Lane, was an actor of some repute. His sudden death in August 1797 while acting at Liverpool in The Stranger, aroused much sympathy for his family, and benefits were arranged for them at Liverpool, the Haymarket, and Drury Lane, at the latter of which Mrs. Siddons seems to have assisted. Sally's letters show that Maria's condition had caused her to abandon her professional engagements and hasten to her daughter's bedside.
The Lady Lade who is included among the Prince's entourage was Thrale's sister, who in the crisis of his affairs, as mentioned in the Introduction, had lent him £5000 to help him to tide over his difficulties. Fanny Burney describes her as having been "very handsome, but now I think getting quite ugly, at least she has the sort of face I like not."
The explanation of the French fleet's escape from Nelson's watchful eye is that it went to the north of Candia, while he took the more direct course to the south of the island, and so arrived first at Alexandria, which he left in pursuit of the French only two days before they arrived.
Lewis Bagot, Bishop of St. Asaph, more successful as a divine than as a prophet, was one of the two whom Cowper (in the Tirocinium) excepts from his scathing condemnation of the episcopal bench.
"For Providence, that seems concerned t' exempt
The hallowed bench from absolute contempt,
In spite of all the wrigglers into place