Charles Butler, Mrs. Piozzi's counsel, was a brother of the Rev. Alban Butler, the hagiologist. As Roman Catholics were not permitted to be called to the Bar when he began his professional career, he took up conveyancing business, and helped to edit Coke upon Littleton. Taking advantage of the Enabling Act, he became a Barrister in 1791, and took silk in 1832.

4 Jun. 1800.

... The Book goes on, lamely perhaps, now my better half has the Gout, but it does go. My Master mends too, and everything mends. Miss Thrale withdraws (somewhat disgracefully,) the claim she could not substantiate: a tedious suit against this never-dying Mother would have eaten up all the profits of her hoped-for estate, and nobody would have benefited but the Lawyers. Her friends were therefore persuaded by our friends to give in, as the Boxers say, and so the battle ends; and on the last of May she writes to the Oxfordshire Tenant to pay £400 to us as usual,—that very £400 which, on the first of March, she wrote the same man word—was incontestably her own....

Miss Bayley, a Lady who lives with Mrs. John Hunter, and is related to her, has at length modestly owned herself Author of a Drama that every one would have been most happy to have written: but Mr. Chappelow (no bad mirror of the fashionable world,) says people think it too solemn,—they are not amused. I say they are like old Polonius: see Hamlet's character of him as a Critic.[15]

Kemble is in high favour with the Beau Monde, I am told, and his Sister declines; but she will pick up some more guineas, and then no matter. I reckon her as having only one daughter to portion out; Sally will never marry, I suppose, if half of what I have heard of her ill health be true. Mr. Siddons will be a long-lived man, as sick as he is always said to be; nothing runs on like a life subject to one chronic and regular complaint, Gout, or Rheumatism. Siddons will repeat over to two or three generations the lamenting strains I heard him recite in 1788, and his Daughter will think herself young when everybody else sees her grown old, because she has a father to nurse. There was a Mrs. Shelley in Sussex, her sneering neighbours called her Epistle and Gospel, who had two maiden daughters. One broke her leg, and died at about 40 years old, but the other departed not till 5 years ago. The Doctors informed her Mama there was no hope, and she piously resigned to the loss. "But tell me at least," cried she, "what ails my poor child, and of what can she possibly be dying?" "Of age, dear Madam," answered her Physician. "Miss Shelley was never strong, and 76 years have nearly worne her out." "Oh dear! Is she really? Why I am but 94 myself, and I am not dying of age!" She spoke true, and outlived her little girl, as she called her, six years.

Adieu, dear Mrs. Pennington, and tell my old Friend this story....

[15] "He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps."—Hamlet, II. ii.

The asthmatic complaint from which Sally Siddons had suffered, almost from childhood, proved fatal in 1803, and she died, as Mrs. Piozzi anticipated, unmarried. Though her heart was given to Lawrence, the promise made to her dying sister, and her own strong common sense and knowledge of his character, prevented her from giving her hand. The prognostication respecting her father proved very wide of the mark, as he died at Bath only two years later.

13 June 1800, Brynbella.

My dear Mrs. Pennington is a true friend, and has acute feelings of friendship and of Injury. All is over between me and my beautiful and deserving Daughters—those were Mr. Ray's epithets.... With regard to our cause, mark me! Mr. Gillon, dear creature as he is, did not stop its proceedings by perswasion; it was carried by law, though not by litigation. Mr. Cator and Mr. Richards on Miss Thrale's part, and Mr. Gillon and Mr. Butler on our parts, talked the matter over; and they really withdrew the claim they could not substantiate, or make creditable to carry into a Court of Judicature.

Gillon tells a laughable story of Miss Thrale's standing hard for £10 which he advanced her, of his own money, to stop further absurdity. And now let's hear no more on't, and do not, Sweet Soul! make me in love with resentment; for except in a friend's cause like your own, 'tis an unpleasing quality, and productive of nothing but evil. We must quote our own Book of Knowledge after all, and in the Article "Forgiveness," as I think, you read these words. "A wise man will make haste to forgive, because anger is a painful sensation, and he wishes to be rid on't. A great man will pardon easily, because he finds few things worthy his resentment; and a good man will never resent at all, knowing how much he has himself to be forgiven." I wrote to the girls by yesterday's post, exactly as if no such transactions had passed among us: so long live British Synonymy!

Well! Robinson refuses my labour'd Work. He has been at Bath and Bristol, and cannot recover his health sufficiently to enter upon new engagements: he is going to leave off business, and cannot prevail upon himself to undertake so large a book, he says. Did you see or hear of him? Or did he pass any time at Belvidere House? And does he undertake any smaller works, I wonder? Lesser is a word I will not use, but it would gratify me to know. I sent him a letter to put him in better spirits, if possible, and better humour: for tho' I despair not of selling my stuff, I shall hate hawking it about London, which will at last be the case....

The incomparable Coterie you mention as loving and remembering us with kindness, will make me rich amends in their society if I can wind up my little matters, and come to Bath in Spring. But here is a degree of scarcity and dearness, both present and expected, that worries my Master and his House Book horribly.... Everything costs double, besides double Taxes, double necessity of expence, and so forth. London will be much my terror indeed, but I hope our stay will be a short one.

Oh! what would have become of my wretched nerves, had I been in the Theatre that awfully impressive night? What would have become of your nerves? of dear Mrs. de Luc's? The tryal would have been too great. Susan and Sophy were there; so was Mr. Gillon. It will go hard with the Traytor, I am told, if the Jury do not find him guilty. The King's Guardian Angel must appear in person to protect him next time, because it will be such encouragement to the Jacobins to attempt his life, that nothing less can save him....

George Robinson, the "King of Booksellers," who had a villa at Streatham, was born in Cumberland, and coming to London in 1755, began his career in the house of Rivington. He set up for himself in Paternoster Row in 1764, and died in 1801. It is somewhat remarkable that Mrs. Piozzi's principles allowed her to patronize him, seeing that he had been fined, not many years before, for selling Tom Paine's Rights of Man.

The King was shot at in his box at Drury Lane on 15th May, but the assailant, James Hatfield, proved to be a lunatic, and the attempt had no political importance.

[July 1800.]

... I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Whalley are declining so; their pretty cottage will be a shady retreat for them this hot weather. We are roasting here on the sunny side of a high hill, but never was such hay made before; 40 acres cut and carried in 12 days is really curious, and without one shower. Did you observe the odd Phænomenon exhibited on Trinity Sunday in the evening? It alarmed those who did observe it, and our Caernarvonshire and Anglesea neighbours, who understand not how many tricks Electricity can play, were frighted to see the sun apparently go back when he set, no fewer than three diameters of himself.

Mr. Lloyd of Wickwar, whom you have heard me mention as an astronomer, and a man well known at Sir Joseph Banks's, etc., said it was a surprizing thing, and, for what he had observed, wholly new: he attributed it to the state of atmosphere. The same appearance was noticed likewise at Shrewsbury. I saw it not; I was not looking....

What is this story of Harry Siddons? Is he really to marry Miss Scott, the great fortune of the North? If he does, the Sun may set in the East if it will, without attracting our charming Friend's attention I suppose, and no wonder. Miss Lees say nothing, perhaps think the more. What a thing it would be!

My Book must go to the public market and take its chance in October. Buonaparte will possibly finish it for me, and destroy the Empire as he did the Papacy. Our Ministry keep feeding Francis with money, for which he will sell, not his birthright, like Esau, but all except his birthright, and content himself with the old Crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, resigning even the name of King of the Romans to those Gauls who invaded 'em 2000 years ago, and have never lost sight of a hope so late to be accomplished as poor Rome's utter destruction. The sun may well be seen to shew signs and wonders when such occurrences are coming forward.

Meanwhile what say you to Bishop Horsley's denouncing the Schools of impiety and sedition? Did even our dear Dr. Randolph think that London was so far advanced in wickedness? or even Hannah More? It is truly dreadful....

Mr. Piozzi and I have been married now 16 years, and we are used to keep our anniversary, but it happened at a perverse time of ye week and month this year. And so instead of feeding the rich, we fed the poor, and every one of our 35 Haymakers had a good noggin of soup, and a lump of beef in it, and a suet dumpling; and they were like the people in The Deserter, who sing—"Joy, joy to the Duchess wherever she goes." And my Master's health was sincerely drank, though not very copiously: for bread and beer are yet considered as luxuries in our poor skin and bone Country; while the Lords and Ladies round the Capital are paying five guineas for a Peach, etc., and Daughters of Liverpool spend, in one entertainment, what frighted all France when requested for a frolick of poor Antoinette,—Daughter of the Cæsars.

Well! Mr. Piozzi has gone to a little—not a very little—expense, in repairing old Bach-y-graig for the new tenant. Our neighbours advised him to tumble the venerable ruin quite down, and build a snug farmhouse with the materials; but he would not. And so, poking about, we found some very curious bricks with stories on them, composed in 1500, and one large one with Catherine de Berayne's arms, derived from Charlemagne. 'Twas she whose husband built ye house, you know, (Sir Richard Clough—see Pennant;) and being descended immediately from fair Catherine of France, whom Shakespear makes us familiar with, and who married Owen Tudor after her first husband's death, heroic Harry the Vth, drew her descent by the Mother's side from Charlemagne. I have set her achievement in front now, and a stone to say the Mansion was repaired and beautified by Gabriel Piozzi Esq. in the year 1800. It will last to the World's end now, I believe.

The dear little boy whom you used to love has spent his vacation time at Streatham again. He will, I hope, be wiser in proportion as he is less happy, and less spoiled: safer he certainly is, and we hear a good character of his scholarship....

The report of Henry Siddons' engagement to Miss Scott seems to have been mere gossip, as he married Miss Murray in 1802.

The account of the surrender of his titles by the Emperor Francis also seems to have been somewhat premature. He proclaimed himself hereditary Emperor of Austria in 1804, and it was not till 1806, after the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, that he formally resigned the imperial crown, and so brought to a close the Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne, and the Kingdom of Germany. Bonaparte, however, had anticipated his resignation, and had himself appointed Emperor by decree of the Senate in 1804.