Thursday, 1 Feb. 1821.

I like the Tailpiece best, dear Mrs. Pennington, and feel deeper interest in Macready's Acting than in Lord Castlereagh's. For as Dr. Randolph said to our sweet Siddons once, coming out of Laura Chapel, "All are Actors": and I am most contented to hear the Oppositionists are likely to be hissed.

But I want you to tell me a truth before we leave Penzance, a truth of a very different taste. Will it be worth our while (says Bessy,) to send half a doz: hams by the "Happy Return," for which we must give seven pence halfpenny a Pound here?... The Fish would be worth carrying to begin Lent with at the Pope's Court; but fish won't carry. Our oysters are better than those Vitellius sent to Sandwich for; and such Cod, Mullet, and Flat fish of all denominations no tongue can enumerate. Our Crocuses, Primroses, and Honeysuckle leaves, all bursting now every day, are lovely likewise;—but what wretched pens to describe them with!

You are a comical Lady in your fears lest Miss Willoughby should make me a Radical. Salusbury seems, by his letters, to have fears lest she should be hovering over my death-bed, to his disadvantage. I hope to hold fast both life and loyalty one little while longer, and cannot believe she will help hurry either of them away. Poor Miss Willoughby! were it not for her I should not have known Milton from Shakespear by this time: for to no other creature here are those names familiar.

God forgive me! but talking on the subject reminds me of the days when H. L. P. was young, perhaps agreeable, and supposed to have interest among the grave and gay. When I was solicited on behalf of a decayed Gentlewoman, such as H. L. P. may one day become, for aught I know, whose friends wish'd to get her into a then famous refuge for distressed females, Lady Dacre's Workhouse, or rather Almshouse, I tried, and succeeded; but beginning to harangue my Protégée upon the neatness of her new establishment, the decent society she would be introduced to, etc., "Ah! Madam," said she, "but will there be any one there who ever frequented the Opera? For I love musick so, I can talk of nothing but Mingotti." Such a companion in my retirement has been to me Miss Willoughby.

I think the attack upon my property, made with no gentle strokes, will at length be parried, so as to fall on none of us. The dividends remained unclaimed for 25 years, and were often advertised before Mr. Thrale's daughters ever enquired about them. Mrs. Hoare, your namesake, kind Sophia, has written to me very good-naturedly; says it is impossible I should have to refund money I never received; that my name alone was lent for them to receive it; and that my letter to the Claimant was the comicallest thing in the world. But my Correspondent saw no joke in it, and sent it for their perusal to Mr. Merrik Hoare.

Well! sure if I do write funny letters from Penzance, I must borrow the salt from the Sea Tang that they manure their Strawberry Beds with, in this place. Apropos, how do those agreeable Brownes do, that I met once in Dowry Square? I loved Maria for her non-affectation about reading before Conway or Piozzi. She took her book up and began so prettily, and so sensibly, where another Miss would have mimp'd. I valued her.

No Bath news but what the Papers tell. London is in expectation of a new Miss O'Neill of consummate beauty, to draw the world off from The Wilson; whose style of singing—Sophy Hoare says—is like that of Billington. Dear Siddons holds her own I hear. Welcome intelligence! when every day takes some old acquaintance off the Stage of Life, leaving sad, and solitary, and desolate your poor

H. L. P.

Mary Anne Lane made a brilliant début at Drury Lane in 1821, as Mandane in Artaxerxes, but going to Italy for further study, she overtaxed her voice, which never entirely recovered its tone. Regina Mingotti, née Valentini, sang with great success in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and England. She came to London in 1755.

Penzance, February 10, 1821.

Thanks, dearest Mrs. Pennington, for your kind letter, speaking the words of truth and soberness. We will send Hams and Bacon by the Happy Return, most certainly. The Butter here is poyson, whether in pot or pan.

All you can say of poor dear Miss Willoughby is true to a tittle. Sir John is very ill-natured in detesting everybody who contributes to my comfort, and I hope not quite correct in supposing that neither you, nor she, nor Conway would endure my company an hour but for interest. Sophia Hoare's civilities will make him very angry indeed when he hears me say I delight in them: but he deserves such sort of vexation.

So you see Horace Twiss is the man at last, who, when Public Virtue finds herself sick and squeamish, holds the successful smelling bottle to her nose. And are they not all Actors on both sides? Surely they are. That Titmouse began his literary career by criticising and ridiculing H. L. P. in Magazines, Reviews, etc.; and afterwards begged my pardon at a party Mrs. Siddons gave one night at Westbourne. We shook hands and drank each other's health, and I wished him the success his audacity deserved.

This world is made for the bold, daring man,

Who strikes at all, and catches what he can.

Virtue is nice to take what's not her own,

And while she long debates, the glittering prize is gone.

So sung Johnny Dryden, whose family had every claim to match even with a Howard. Addison was Secretary of State, and if his wife was insolent, he needed not to have cared. Would Mr. Canning care? But times have changed.

But there is a passage in the Bath Paper that interests, and ought to interest me much more than Marriages or Merriment. A woman dying in the act of supplication to Almighty God; past 80 years old, found dead at her prayers! I used to say that no death ever pleased me, but here is one at last with which my heart would be content indeed. Why did she not take me with her? If however the next month carries me to Clifton, and treats me with a sight of true friends, I shall think leaving me behind was merciful, and feel replete with gratitude. Conway has written to me very kindly....

If I should live to see a Jeweller's Shop once again, I would evince my gratitude to Sophy Hoare. What she wants is out of my power,—children to enjoy hers and her husband's fortune. Salusbury has got a new Baby—William Edward—I like the name, but have made no offer of Gossiping. Dear Mrs. Pennington is too sharp a discoverer in the Terra Incognita of human hearts. Mahomet says there is a black Bean in that of every one; and that the Angel of Death plucks it in our last agonies. I am trying to loosen mine before the dreadful day arrives, that it may hurt me less at final parting. Poor dear old Cookey! whom I have so much reason to love! Cannot Doctors Dixon or Carrick warm her up again? It is not wholly for interest however that I wish her well. She is going my road, and my heart hopes she will feel it not very rough....

Penzance, Sunday 25 Feb. 1821.

My last letter to dear Mrs. Pennington should be a pretty one, but it will only be dull; replete with Kitchen-griefs, and thanks to Heaven that they are my worst afflictions. Mr. Kenrick's insults have brought me civil letters from Lord and Lady Keith, kind ones from Mr. and Mrs. Hoare, and all will end—in nothing, as they hope, and as I firmly believe. Pray do not suffer your good husband, (so much younger than myself,) to grow old. He and I mean to keep on this many a day, and we will not shew teeth when biting is over with us.

Now for the Kitchen-griefs. James has behaved monstrously ill, "beaten the Maids a row,"[37] like the fierce fellow in Shakespear, and forced reproofs even from my acquaintance by his out-door conduct. This has been going on a long while, but I forbore to speak to you about it, till it suited me to say—do, dear Mrs. Pennington, get me a Footman. Not a fellow to wear his own clothes; I must have a Livery Servant, who will walk before the Chair, and ride behind the Coach, and be an old-fashioned, tho' not ill-looking servant. My little Plate, so small in quantity, is easily clean'd, but clean it must be. For I will not live in a state of disgust when I have a decent mansion over my head, and James was too dirty and slovenly, even for a wretched smoky closet like that I inhabit at Penzance: he is a sad fellow....

& now

Let me tell you the sights that we have seen. I always like them better than the tales that we have heard; and to-day the tales are truly melancholy. Lord Combermere has lost his only child, a son; so his honours and titles are gone, and the estate will fall, I suppose, to Willoughby Cotton, son of the Admiral, my Uncle's second boy. He had nine. This young fellow was a Colonel in what Regiment I know not, and married Lady Augusta Coventry, who brings Babies every year:—but these are not the sights I meant to tell you of.

On last Wednesday then, a memorable day, Mr. George Daubuz John undertook to show us the Land's End, and we did stand upon the last English stone, jutting out from the Cliffs, 300 feet high, into the Atlantick Ocean, which lay in wild expanse before us, tempting our eyes towards the land Columbus first explor'd, Hispaniola. Dinner at a mean house, affording only Eggs and Bacon, gave us spirits to go, not forward, for we could go no further, but sideways to a tin and copper mine under the sea. Aye! 112 fathom from the strange spot of earth we stood on, in a direct line downwards, where no fewer than three score human beings toil for my Lord Falmouth in a submarine dungeon, listening at leisure moments, if they have any, to the still more justly to be pitied Mariner, who is so liable to be wrecked among those horrid rocks, proverbial over all the kingdom,—Cornish rocks! ruinous to approach, as difficult to avoid. The men go up and down in buckets, with two lighted candles each, into a close path, long and intricate. And should their lights go out before their arrival in the open space where their companions work, there they must remain till the hour of relieving one wretched set by another comes to set them free. Billows meanwhile roaring over their heads, upon a stormy day most dreadful, threatening to burst the not very thick partition of solidity that divides them from the light of heaven, bestowed on all but Miners. This place is called Botalloch, whence we drove home our half-broken carriage but not even half-broken bones; having refreshed at the house on which is written "First Inn in England," on one side the Board, and "Last Inn in England" on the other. By "us" and "we" I mean Miss Willoughby and H. L. P., but we took our two Maids, Bell and Hickford, on the Dicky, and James rode. Four horses were not too many for such an exploit, tho' one of them was a Waterloo warrior....

We will go to Conway's Benefit certainly, if I get home time enough: Miss Willoughby will wish herself of the party most truly. But for her I should have pass'd many a dreary hour....

[37] Comedy of Errors, V. i. 170.

With regard to Lord Combermere's son, Mrs. Piozzi's information was evidently mistaken. Field-Marshal Sir Stapleton Cotton, Bart., G.C.B., Commander-in-Chief in India, grandson of her uncle, Sir Lynch Cotton, Bart., was created Viscount Combermere in 1814. He married thrice, and by his second wife had two daughters and a son, Wellington Henry, born 1818. The latter did not die in 1821, but succeeded to the title, and was grandfather of the present Viscount. His cousin, General Sir Willoughby Cotton, G.C.B., was Colonel of the 32nd Regiment of Foot.

Sunday, 4 March 1821.

I swear I think my dear Mrs. Pennington is one of the very best subjects the King has in his dominions, which contain very strange and contradictory people and things. Battling now about the tenets of Romanism, when Rome is itself in danger of almost immediate destruction from those who know no other tenets but hers. Well! you know I was always mounting a Turnep Cart to predict the end of the world, (not, I hope, forgetting my own all the time). It will vex me, in the last stage of life, to see the death and downfall of the Bourbons, but so it must be, without doubt, if they can live till I get safe to Clifton. Dubious enough, poor Souls! for the plot thickens apace, and Sovereigns have hourly more reason to fear the loss of all that's dear to them. Authority melted from their grasp long ago, and influence is sliding down the hill, of course.

Mr. Pennington must try keep up his spirits. So must we all, but mine often prove false ones, as when I took Geneva for Brandy; but the people here are such knaves!...

The day of our arrival how can I certify? My hope is to see you sometime on Tuesday 13; but Lord! I was so ill on Fryday night I hardly felt anything like certainty of ever seeing myself out of Penzance alive. Never mind that tho'; and say nothing about it; for the people make such an ado I dare not confess that anything ails me, like other old women. It is really troublesome to excess.

We have got Kenilworth among us, everybody admiring and even extolling it. Your strange book has a rival, Mr. Pascoe says, in Anastatius, but I have seen neither. Clifton will be nearer both to books and men. Dr. Randolph must be careful of his highly valued life. No one respects his abilities, or would regret the loss of them more sincerely than H. L. Piozzi, whose comfort it is, that she is likely soon to escape the truly uneasy sensation of outliving friends and enemies, and standing alone upon the Stage of Life, till hiss'd off for being able to furnish no further amusement. After having been at home on the Boards, like Matthews the Buffoon, so many silly years. Bear me however witness, that [I am] all but weary, and only kept from confessing myself so because I think it wrong. What however must this world be that even a Frenchman should leap into Vesuvius to get rid on't; and he did not get rid on't as he expected; the very Mountain vomited him back, and reproached his unrepented suicide.... Everybody seems to approve my sitting down at Clifton, as neither in the blaze of Society nor the obscurity of Solitude. We will make out the close of the Game as chearfully as we can; and if you ask me to dinner on Wednesday the 14th, a refusal need not be apprehended from your poor

H. L. P.

The allusion to the danger of Rome appears to relate to the insurrection in Piedmont, where the King was driven to abdicate on March 13. Later on other revolts broke out in Naples and Palermo. In France plots were being hatched against the life of the Duc de Bordeaux (afterwards Comte de Chambord), posthumous son of the Duc de Berry, and grandson of Charles X.

The Memoirs of Anastatius, an autobiography of a Greek renegade, was a novel by Thomas Hope, and was considered his masterpiece. It appeared in 1819.