CHAPTER V
Adoption of John Salusbury Piozzi—The Canterbury Tales—Bath Riots, 1800—Chancery suit with Miss Thrale—Bach-y-graig restored—Retrospection published, 1801—The Blagdon controversy—Political epigram.
The Piozzis were at Bath on Christmas Day, when she invites Mrs. Pennington to their lodgings for the New Year. The date of the next letter indicates that their visit lasted about four months.
Brynbella, Sunday, Mar. 10, 1799.
First of friends in every sense of the word, dear and kind Mrs. Pennington! what a charming letter have you written me! and how consoling it was to receive such a compensation—although a small one—for the converse I have so great reason to regret.
Our journey was excellent, and mended on us ev'ry Stage, till the sun lighted up our lovely Vale of Clwydd, and never seen before ascending the last hill, has smiled upon us ever since.
I shall not begin work till after Easter, we have enough to employ us now in surveying our sweet place, and recounting the Braave alteraations, as the Fool said to Mr. Whalley....
Are not you sorry for the poor tricked and betrayed, but ever courageous Neapolitans; of which those were happiest who left their dead bodies in the street, defending their lovely city to the last? Vesuvius seems to have half a mind to save further disgrace on that country, and will perhaps swallow it up, from the French, or with the French; who knows?
Well! I got dear Dr. Randolph's blessing, and a kind squeeze by the hand of his amiable Lady, before we left Bath: and then I resolved to mind my own business, and let the Public think of its own affairs. They mingle so with mine however, that I cannot separate them, as Siddons does. Her little girl seemed bent upon shewing me, that day we dined at Miss Lee's, and made our Partenza, how well you were versed in the knowledge of her family character. She is sure enough no common child, no healthy child, and no good-humoured child. If she remains at Belvedere House, she will not long be a spoiled child; for those Ladies have the way, and will make her a charming creature. We parents meantime seldom think our nestlings can be improved. It is therefore very seldom, (never I think,) that we feel obliged to those who bring our Babies into what the world calls good order. I should think it happiness for Cecilia to remain where she is, and felicity for Miss Lees to return her safe home again in April....
Mrs. Mostyn sent the old Nurse I told you of, over here in a Post Chaise, to see Brynbella while we were away. "What a place!" exclaimed she, "and what fools the builders to plan a thing it is impossible they should live to finish. But they have an heir now, come from Italy I find." This is the only domestic news which could interest you; and I know Mr. Pennington is kind enough to care about whatever concerns us and our little boy....
As far back as October 1798 King Ferdinand of Naples had raised an army to act under the Austrian General Mack, for the expulsion of the French. Nelson's arrival in December encouraged him to make an expedition against Rome which was, for the moment, successful; but in a short time the French retook it, and marched on Naples, which they occupied in January, after sixty-four hours street fighting with the Lazzaroni, the regular troops being away. The King took refuge on Nelson's ship and escaped to Palermo, General Mack and the army had to surrender, and the territory became, for a short time, the Parthenopean Republic.
The Rev. Francis Randolph, D.D., Prebendary of Bristol, and afterwards Vicar of Banwell, was a preacher of some note, and for some time acted as chaplain and tutor in English to the Duchess of Kent, at the little Court of Amorbach, shortly before the birth of the Princess Victoria.
One result of the disturbances in Italy was the bringing over to England and adoption of a son of Mr. Piozzi's brother Gianbatista, merchant of Brescia, born in 1783, and christened John Salusbury. He assumed the additional surname of Salusbury in 1813, and was knighted while High Sheriff of Denbigh a few years later. On his marriage Mrs. Piozzi gave him Brynbella and her Welsh estate, a proceeding which probably completed the estrangement of her daughters, though they had been well provided for by their father's will, and Miss Thrale had declined the offer of it as a dowry for herself.
Brynbella, 5 Apr. 1799.
My dear Mrs. Pennington's letters are always delightful, and the little gleam of sunshine given by the Archduke's victory strikes across the middle of your last so prettily! So like the darling brightness that illuminates our valley just now, with gloom and gathering storm all round it....
You see [Mrs. Jackson's] conjectures about the Play were right after all. Mrs. Radcliffe owns herself Author, as Susan Thrale writes me word, and Jane de Montfort will come out immediately. She says not a syllable of Mr. Whalley's performance. Lord bless me, my dear! His unfortunate niece, cydevant Fanny Sage, sent to me yesterday for £20; and said she was detain'd, (for debt I trow,) at our poor, petty town of St. Asaph, two miles off. A tall, ill-looking man on horseback brought the letter, but will not, I hope, revenge my refusal of his Lady's request, when Dumouriez shall have set all the wild Irish at full liberty. I was half afraid, sure enough, yet little disposed to give what would make 40 honest cottagers happy, to a gay lass whom I never liked in her best days, and who never had any claims on my friendship, which she now talks so loudly of.
Well! and your little favourite John Salusbury! Susanna Thrale has been to Streatham on purpose, I fancy, to gratify hers and her family's curiosity. So she saw a little boy with my name, and my husband's face; and I know not which was the greatest recommendation of the two—to her....
With regard to public affairs, our domestic traytors terrify me most; but if French valour should, by this late victory, get into discredit abroad, perhaps it would not be so much the Ton to imitate their proceedings here at home, and we should remember Hannah More's prediction of the Crane-neck-turn. If they can be made to run they will find no place that will receive them I believe. All honest men, and women too, are their natural enemies: and a Grison girl said to a gentleman I know something of—"Why, dear Sir, what should we sit still for, like figures made of Papier-machée, till our houses are burned down, our parents mangled and our free will violated? Better go out with the troops, and sell our lives at least at as high a price as we can." The same gentleman wrote his sister word that the high roads were covered with female corpses, which he gallop'd over. These are, far as my reading goes, new notions, and new occurrences....
The victory was no doubt that won against Jourdan and the French army of the Rhine, by a vastly superior force under the Archduke Charles, at Stockach. His despatch is dated 25th March, but the full account did not reach England till April.