The expected meeting was for a time deferred on account of Mrs. Pennington's ill-health. Save for one or two notes of no particular interest, the correspondence ceases till the Piozzis return to Wales.
Brynbella, Sunday 9 Mar. 1800.
I hasten to fulfil my promise to dear Mrs. Pennington. We came home but last night, and I write to say that we are come home well, and find our Household well too, and truly glad of our safe and early return.
The time past at Shrewsbury was full of amusement; Miss Owen feasted and fondled us, and called all the people round to feast us and fondle us, and detain us till Thursday, which had been long bespoke, and Fryday beside, by the charming Cottagers in Llangollen Vale. They asked me much after that Mrs. Pennington who writes such beautiful letters, and insisted on my describing your person to them, and said they knew Miss Seward esteemed you highly, though all intimacy between you was at an end. The unaccountable knowledge those Recluses have of all living books and people and things is like magic; one can mention no one of whom the private history is unknown to them....
Let me therefore talk of Mr. Pennington, and ask how he does. You may be certain how I do, and what I do. Looking out my books, setting my places to rights, ladling out the soup to 30 families round, feeding the dogs with what they leave, mixed up with Potatoe peelings and so forth, is mine and my Master's and Abbiss's employment; whilst Allen blows her nose in consequence of cold catch'd in a damp bed at Worcester—and thanks God the evil ends there.
The little three-legged cur jumps into my lap, licks my face, and runs to his Master to tell the good news, how the family is come home to the Hall, and everybody and everything looks pleased to see us.... I have had a civil letter from Susan Thrale, who bids me direct to Cumberland Street, and makes commonplace lamentations concerning the times, but nothing further, nothing I mean tending towards confidence or communication.
We broke our chaise between Llangollen and Ruthyn,—no wonder! Such roads! 'Tis really frightful: but neither Mr. Piozzi nor I were hurt.
Here are no Members of Parliament, no Franks of course, so I shall write very seldom; for the joke is a good one two or three times o' year, but no oftener, when 14d. is to pay for 44 lines about nothing: and friendship is a fine thing, but so is fourteen Pence....
There is a Lady at Shrewsbury, born the last day of 1699, and she is very well, and plays upon the Piano e forte, as you describe Mr. Whalley's mother to do; but poor Mrs. Montague's sun is setting apace I hear. She has left her fine house, and retired into a smaller, giving up the grandeur to her Nephew, and Lady Oakley said, the estate too, but I hope she has had more wit than that. Lady Oakley is very agreeable.... I saw her in a robe embroider'd (as she said,) with the wings of an Indian Fly; there is no describing its beauty or lustre....
Mrs. Montagu does not appear to have left Montagu House permanently, for she died there the following August. Lady Oakley was the wife of Charles Oakley, Governor of Madras, who was created a Baronet in 1790.
Needless to say Mrs. Piozzi's economical fit in the matter of letters did not last long, the correspondence continues much as usual; but as a matter of fact the letters from Wales to Bristol only cost the recipient 8d., not 1s. 2d.
There is no date or postmark to the next letter, but Mrs. Pennington assigns it to April 1800.
What in the world, dear Mrs Pennington, has been doing at Bath? I wrote to Dr. Randolph about a book of his which I wanted, and his letter in return has affected me very deeply. Yours gave a hint of something like a riot, but nobody seems sensible that we live out of the world here, and know nothing of what passes in it. The newspaper we take, though it swelled and raved so about Mr. King's fire, said nothing of this, or so little we quite disregarded it: and yet Dr. Randolph says that our quarter of the Town was saved by miracle from being even now a heap of cinders.
Thank God we were come home. The slight shock of earthquake that usher'd in our Fast Day here, and frighted many of our neighbours, not us, is a light matter compared with mobs and insurrections. Let us, as King David said of old, fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands of men. The noise accompanying even this trifle of a concussion was such as to alarm Mrs. Griffiths exceedingly. She said it was like a hundred carts of lime stone overturned close by her bed. Mr. Piozzi and I never waked to hear or feel it.
Miss Thrale had not then (as now,) kept our eyes wholly sleepless by a new and violent attack on our feelings and property: sending, without notice or introduction, to our Oxfordshire Tenant, a requisition to pay her the rent I have hitherto received for 19 years since my first husband's death, in consequence of the Marriage Settlement signed by him in 1763, confirmed again by Will in 1781, and claim'd now, A.D. 1800, with threats (to our afflicted friend Mr. Gillon,) of making me refund all I have unjustly taken from my daughters. It will be soon refunded. No ass, as Moses says, of theirs did I ever take, nor no present at their hands for bribe. How cruel 'tis to sit down and accuse me so! Miss Thrale says Streatham was given me to make up £400 o' year, but that Crowmarsh is not liable. Now it will turn out upon examination that Crowmarsh is first liable, and that if my due from that estate is not paid me, I have a right to make forcible entry, and take it, without impeachment of waste. This, being provided in the Marriage Settlement, I understand must be secure, so do not you nor dear Mr. Pennington be uneasy; we shall lose nothing but appetite and sleep. And I was so well after the Bath waters! and proposed being so diligent at the Book: and now nothing but law, and letters, and Chancery suits, and false accusations and every evil plague.
No news from abroad yet that we can depend upon. Will it be good when it arrives? The times, as Dr. Randolph says, are signally aweful, and I verily think that Daemons are roaming about among us, with enlarged permission both to tempt and terrify. God preserve us! even from our own bad passions, He only can. Mine are sometimes ready to run away with me now, for Welsh blood heats over a fire of sharp thorns thus, till it boyls again. Oh dear! how dreadful are these days! A Lady in this neighbourhood made a grand entertainment on the Fast appointed by Government, by way of spiting that Government. They must leave off appointing such solemnities: the time is over when they did any good....
I wish Miss Case would tell me what they have suffer'd at Bath, and what they have escaped, for I cannot now make it clearly out. If harm comes to Hannah More we are all undone, her health is a public concern....
This earthquake was not so slight a thing as I thought it; some houses at Conway and Caernarvon were much injured, and it spread a general alarm from the unfrequency of the thing. Yet to people who have lived much in Italy, an earthquake that did not wake one seems laughable enough....
Much may, and probably much will happen this summer, to give us a little further insight into what's coming in earnest. The best is our seasonable and salutary change of weather; had we corn to sow, the ground will be in fine order for putting it in. I am glad Buonaparte sends us no corn, I was afraid of contagion in the sacks; and the thought of an expedition to Egypt and Syria frights me, lest some pestilential disease should be brought home from places so constantly infected....
Brynbella, 1st May 1800.
My dear Mrs. Pennington is too apt to be right. You do not, I perceive, think us safe from this new attack upon our property, and we are not safe....
Thus it stands. If we litigate, such is the dubious position of Mr. Thrale's words in my old Marriage Settlement, that years will roll away, and Empires be overthrown, before the affair can be decided, and in the meantime Crowmarsh rents will be retained till the decision. A circumstance very unpleasing to us for every reason; the strongest of all, because to Miss Thrale the estate must go at my death, so that unless my life is prolonged beyond the usual limits of humanity, Mr. Piozzi can hope for nothing from a law dispute, except Attorney's Bills to pay with a diminished income. Of all this our fair enemy cannot be ignorant, and does not profess to desire anything but profit from the contest; so we may be sure she will make great terms for herself. The parley of eloquence on Mr. Gillon's side, supported by Butler's Opinion concerning our Case, is held to-day I think. The best thing is that Mr. Thrale confirmed his Marriage Settlement by his Will, adding the bequests in that Will to what formerly was provided in the other Instrument; but nothing has been worded so as to preclude discussion among eager disputants, diligent to catch and cavil, and endowed with Marianne's powers and delight in wrangling. We are in a Wasps' nest, and must make haste out, and be stung as little as we can. Resistance is vain, and will be impolitic, in my mind....
That people are quiet, and the fires accidental, I would willingly perswade myself, but cannot. That your friend Paul, Emperor of all the Russias, is a true friend and firm ally, may now reasonably enough be doubted. He wants an excuse for falling upon Turkey, and takes that of quarrelling with Great Britain. It is exceedingly offensive to be forced into submission to his caprices; but I suppose George the III at close of life will not find new enemies a good thing any more than poor H. L. P. does, or will be able, any better than H. L. P., to find supplies for a new contest which, like her's, can terminate in no advantage, and will be attended with certain loss abroad, increase of poverty, and of course ill-humour, at home. You may see how spiteful the people are, even by their opposition to his private conveniency in making a new road to Windsor from London. No want of spite in this world, I'll warrant, either to princes or to people; my Book will have proved that new and wise remark by this time next year. If we go to London with it, I shall vote for an apartment in the Adelphi Hotel; such a place will do well enough for November, and our income must be reduced, and I will not suffer my business or pleasures to retard my husband's long projected happiness of not having a debt in the world. The very journey is expense enough. We shall be near Mr. Gillon there, and I shall not have an acquaintance in London but Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Holman, perhaps not the first even of those, as the seasons seem to change so; everybody makes it Summer till after Christmas, and Winter to July.
There is great talk of a new book written by Hannah More, The Progress of Pilgrim Good-intent through the Land of Jacobinism; have you read it? and is it charming?...
The Rheumatism has caught my shoulder before Gout seized my Master's toe this year. I was to have gone in the Cold Bath this morning, but the pain prevents me....
After the battle of the Nile, England, Russia, and Turkey had entered into an alliance against France. But the Emperor Paul, annoyed at his treatment by Austria, and accusing the allies of treachery, came to terms with Bonaparte, with whom he concerted a plan for a joint invasion of India.
Sat. 16 May, Brynbella.
My last letter was a wretch: how could you, dearest Friend, commend it so? If I remember anything about it, it was low, cold, and flat. The usage I had received sunk my nerves down, they were not irritated. Use of the cold bath, meant to strengthen them, threw me all out in nettle-stings. And now, for crowning of all, my poor Master's torment, villainous Gout, has, as you once observed of Mr. Pennington's, watched the due time, and thrown in his assistance to the fair Ladies' cause. Their cause is cold though, and notwithstanding our defenders cannot bring matters to a decision yet, they give us hopes that little will be lost, except the arrears, worth, Mr. Gillon says, £1000. He has behaved divinely to be sure, and deserves all your generous praises of him. Nobody applauds Miss Thrale's proceedings I think. Mrs. Holman and you inveigh loudest against her, and it was a cruel thing to fly so upon that estate, which her Father would never have left her at all, had I not so requested him, because I thought it was unfair that, from accumulation of fortune after they lost him, the youngest daughter would be richer than the eldest: but I meant her to have Crowmarsh after my death, and so he meant it too. Well! one has always heard some nonsense how two negatives make an affirmative, so I suppose in Law, when a man gives a thing twice over, it turns out no gift at all. Mr. Thrale tried three times to secure his Oxfordshire property for me, and if I miss it at last, no blame can attach to him. The flaw was in the Settlement you see, and the Will confirms the Settlement, so God knows how 'twill end at last. The Mr. Butler employed on our side has a high character in his profession as Chamber Council, etc. Being a Roman Catholic he cannot reach the honours of his calling, but rests contented with the profits....
Here's much to do with Hate and more with Love,[14] as Juliet says in Shakespear. Apropos to Hatred, I am delighted that we know the author of De Montfort: she must be a fine creature, and will excite no small share of the hatred she describes. I felt it was a woman's writing, no man makes female characters respectable—no man of the present day I mean, they only make them lovely. We must except Dr. Moore: his Mrs. Barnett and his Laura Sedlitz are all that women ought to wish to be.
Don't you admire at my sitting here to criticize Plays and Novels, like Miss Seward, while my Husband is lame, my fortune is crippled, and my favourite dog has but three legs?
Farewell, dear Friend, ... 'tis five o'clock in the morning, I was up at four, shall call the men and maids at six, send away this scrawl at seven, jump into the bath at 8, breakfast at 9, work at the book till 1, walk till 3, have dined by 4, fret over Gillon's dispatches and Piozzi's misery all the rest of the day: a pretty biographical sketch of your literally poor H. L. P.
[14] "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."—Romeo and Juliet, I. i. 181.