[2] "To understand the point of this answer," says Mr. Mackintosh, "it must be known that an old countess is introduced in the novel full of cunning, finessing, and trick, who was intended to represent Talleyrand, and Delphine was intended for herself."—Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 453.
[3] This mot is given to Talleyrand in Lady Holland's Life of Sydney Smith. But it may be traced to one mentioned by Hannah More in 1787, as then current in Paris. One of the notables fresh from his province was teased by two petits maîtres to tell them who he was. "Eh bien donc, le voici: je suis ni sot ni fat, mais je suis entre les deux."—Memoirs of Hannah More, vol. ii. p. 57.
In London she was soon voted a bore by the wits and people of fashion. She thought of convincing whilst they thought of dining. Sheridan and Brummell delighted in mystifying her. Byron complained that she was always talking of himself or herself[1], and concludes his account of a dinner-party by the remark:—"But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner, that we wish her—in the drawing-room." In another place he says: "I saw Curran presented to Madame de Staël at Mackintosh's; it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saône, and they were both so d—d ugly that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and England could have taken up respectively such residences." He afterwards qualifies this opinion: "Her figure was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good: altogether I can conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little imagination for her soul, and so forth. She would have made a great man."
[1] Johnson told Boswell: "You have only two topics, yourself and myself, and I am heartily sick of both."
This is just what Mrs. Piozzi never would have made. Her mind, despite her masculine acquirements, was thoroughly feminine: she had more tact than genius, more sensibility and quickness of perception than depth, comprehensiveness, or continuity of thought. But her very discursiveness prevented her from becoming wearisome: her varied knowledge supplied an inexhaustible store of topics and illustrations; her lively fancy placed them in attractive lights; and her mind has been well likened to a kaleidoscope which, whenever its glittering and heterogeneous contents are moved or shaken, surprises by some new combination of colour or of form. She professed to write as she talked; but her conversation was doubtless better than her books: her main advantages being a well-stored memory, fertility of images, aptness of allusion, and apropos.
Her colloquial excellence and her agreeability are established by the unanimous testimony of her cotemporaries. Her fame in this respect rests on the same basis as that of all great wits, all great actors, and many great orators. To question it for want of more tangible and durable proofs, would be as unreasonable as to question Sydney Smith's humour, Hook's powers of improvisation, Garrick's Richard, or Sheridan's Begum speech. But ex pede Herculem. Marked indications of her quality will be found in her letters and her books. "Both," remarks an acute and by no means partial critic[1], "are full of happy touches, and here and there will be found in them those deep and piercing thoughts which come intuitively to people of genius."
[1] The Athenæum. Jan. 26th, 1861.
Surely these are happy touches:
"I hate a general topic as a pretty woman hates a general mourning when black does not become her complexion."
"Life is a schoolroom, not a playground."