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dential reasons he assigned for objecting to the marriage, may be inferred from the he used to speak of Piozzi. He told Miss Seward that he was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. This Miss Seward, who afterward made Piozzi's acquaintance, declares was not true. "Mr.

Piozzi," she says, "is a handsome man, in middle life, with gentle, pleasing, and unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession. Though he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings with transcending grace and expression."

Perhaps we may ascribe to the same depreciating spirit the terms in which the Doctor described Mrs. Thrale herself, in his conversations with Boswell. "It is a great mistake," he said, “to suppose that she is above her husband in literary attainments. She is more flippant; but he has ten times her learning he is a regular scholar; but her learning is that of a schoolboy in one of the lower forms." Yet, for all that, he enjoyed her society a great deal more than he did her husband's, and spoke of her colloquial wit as being more brilliant than that of any literary woman of her time. Posterity, that owes so much to the recollections she preserved of the great man whose genius and virtues she held in admiration, will not be disposed to acquiesce in the verdict which places her husband's barren "learning" above her fruitful "flippancy."

Mrs. Piozzi was in person short and plump, and of remarkably lively manners. The vivacity of her conversation is reflected fairly enough in her letters, which appear to have been written off-hand in a glow of new enjoyments. After having been pent up so many years, her excursion on this occasion to the Continent (which had always been a pleasure she yearned for) appears to have liberated her gaiety, and given a free rein to her animal spirits. The intimate and confidential friendship which subsisted between her and Mr. Lysons, comes out agreeably in the unrestrained chatter about her movements, and the frankness with which she confides to him her feelings about her marriage, and the ill-natured criticisms of her acquaint"Few people," she says to Mr. Lysons, love you better than I do-for few people know you so well." As we advance with the publication of these letters (which

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are curious and valuable as illustrations of contemporary literature and biography), the sincerity of this declaration will be abundantly apparent.

In the order of chronology, the subjoined

verses are the first reliques we find in these Piozzi papers.

ODE.

PERMEO terras, ubi nuda rupes Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, Torva ubi rident steriles coloni Rura labores.

Pervagor gentes hominum ferorum, Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu Squallet informis, tigurique fumis Fœda latescit.

Inter erroris salebrosa longi,
Inter ignotæ strepitus loquelæ,
Quot modis mecum quid agat requiro,
Thralia dulcis.

Seu viri cures, pia nupta mulcet, Seu fovet mater sobolem benigna, Sive cum libris novitate pascit Sedula mentem.

Sit memor nostri fideique merces,
Stet fides constans, meritoque blandum,
Thraliæ discant resonare nomen

Littora Sciæ.

Scriptum in Skia, Sept. 6, 1773.

There is no date to the following burst of lively patriotism, but we presume it was written about the year 1777, when there was a general talk of a French invasion. Dr. John

son used to ridicule the notion of such an ineternal allusions to it spoiled all his comfort vasion, and grievously complained that the

in his friend's conversation. WHILST in murder imbued, Our mad neighbors with blood

Delight their own country to drench; Let us British boys sing,

Drink a health to the king,

And ne'er be such fools as the French--the French,

And ne'er be such fools as the French.

If enamour'd they are

Of young Freedom the fair,

Sure they know not the trim of their wench: But think Liberty's joy,

Is sink, burn, and destroy,

Why our fleet may do that for the French, the French,

Our fleet may do that for the French.

What bold Edward begun,
Both father and son,

From their monarch his sceptre to wrench,
These comical elves,

Have now done for themselves,

And imprison'd their King of the French, the French,

And imprison'd their King of the French.

When our brethren and we,
Quarrel'd over our tea,

And Lord North graced the Treasury Bench;
Fomenting vexations,
They injured both nations,

Such traitors and rogues were the French, the
French,

Such traitors and rogues were the French.

Now dank Holland they swear

They will render so bare,

They'll not leave her an ee! nor a tench;
But long live Billy Pitt,
And we hope they'll be bit,

While none fish in foul streams but the French,
the French,

While none fish in foul streams but the French.

For if this way they drag
Rebellion's curst flag,

In our channel their colors we'll quench;
Lest the poison should spread,

Soon cut off the snake's head,

pride of the wealth which they had acquired through an accident and a brewery, they forgot that Mr. Thrale's father had worked for twenty years at six shillings a week amongst the vats from which he afterward derived his enormous fortune, and they remembered only that Mr. Piozzi was poor, and a singer by profession. It mattered nothing that the marriage contributed to the lady's happiness. "But now that the Prince of Sisterna has presented us with his opera-box," says Mrs. Piozzi," perhaps Miss Thrale will write!" She had ample compensation for all this mean and unworthy treatment in her reviving health and spirits, and a contentment she had not enjoyed for many years. 'My husband's kindness," she writes in the fullness of her heart to Mr. Lysons, "makes amends for all I suffered to obtain him."

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Most of her early and closest friends

Nor stand still to be stung by the French, the adopted the same line of conduct toward her, French,

Nor stand to be stung by the French.

From the Tower so high,

Our Red Cross it shall fly,

And about it we'll dig a deep trench;

All shall arm in the cause,

Of Religion and Laws,

and she tells Mr. Lysons that she was obliged to break off her correspondence with Mr. Seward in consequence of the contemptuous tone of his letters. Even her own daughters joined the crusade against her husband. "I correspond," she observes, "constantly and copiously with such of my daughters as are

And down with these leveling French, the willing to answer my letters, and I have at

French,

And down with these leveling French.

Dr. Johnson's name finds its way into every one of her letters, and it is evident from the tone in which she speaks of him, that, whatever she may have secretly suffered from his harshness in reference to her marriage, her admiration and regard for him had undergone no diminution. She desires Mr. Lysons not to neglect him-"You will never," she says, see any other mortal so wise or good-I keep his picture in my chamber, and his works on my chimney." And before this touching remembrance of him could have reached England he was dead.

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The Jameses spoken of in these letters were probably of the family of that Dr. James with whom Dr. Johnson had maintained a long and close intimacy, and to whom many allusions are made in the "Life," by Boswell.

Amongst the most interesting passages, are the references which Mrs. Piozzi makes to her own situation, and the malicious gossip about her marriage. The Thrales, or some of them, appear to have treated her with supercilious indifference. Her union with a singer ruffled their dignity. In the

last received one cold scrap from the eldest, which I instinctively and tenderly replied to." And all this because she formed a connection which in this very letter she describes as making the happiness of her life!

Paris, Friday, 17th Sept., 1784.

DEAR MR. LYSONS,

Though I hear by our friend, Mr. James that you are still at Bath, yet I make use of your own direction, as it is always safest to follow rules exactly, when people are very distant from each other. Was I writing to a person who I thought regardless of me, and only desirous of my letters, I would not begin by saying how well and how happy I find myself; but if that were not the first thing you wished to hear, I would not write to you at all. The second is how, and what, and where, &c., and what do you see with most pleasure? and so forth. Why, then, absolutely I think the Prince of Bourbon's Cabinet afforded me as much pleasure as anything, and that because it put us in mind of you, and we cried out, Lord! if Mr. Lysons did but see these beautiful butterflies!—and here is Hector, I remember him, I am sure, and Achilles, with the broad blue stripe down his wing, and Beau Paris and all! Mr. James will tell you that all

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this is at Chantilly, where the waterfalls are so fine and the fish so tame. Well! but this moment brings me your kind letter, and assures me I am not forgotten. Mercy on me! what wonders Mrs. James has written! God bless you, speak to everybody you know, and protest that I owe nothing; as for the debts incurred by Johnson, her husband must see to them. Let us, however, get rid of the dirty house in Duke Street. I had no letters from Phillips or Coward while at London, but whoever writes now I shall get the intelligence safe enough. I am glad you are sitting for your picture. The portrait of Lysons, Earl of Tetbury, High Chancellor of England, in his youth will be of amazing value two hundred years hence. Meantime, tell me some news, do, of what you hear and and see, do, and study. We find it so very hot, we dare not venture the suffocation of a theatre; but out-door diversions so swarm about this gay town, that there is no need except to put your head out of doors, and you see everything qui respire le plaisir à Paris, comme l'opulence à Londres. Assure yourself, my dear sir, and assure my Bath friends, that it is equally out of the power of both to drive from my mind those who have so long and kindly contributed to its relief. I shall be very studious to execute all your commissions; but that odious Custom House! that foe to friendly intercourse! how shall we charm or stupify that ever-wakeful dragon? Tell Mrs. James that they seized. my flannel petticoats (although made up), which I had provided for winter wear, and upon muslins and dimmities. No nunc dimmities, said they, but detained all they could find.

Well! now am I a professed traveler, and what shall I tell to divert you, of my travels? Dr. Johnson says (you know) that whoever would entertain another by his remarks, must make the object of them human life. Mr. Whalley would, with equal confidence, assert, no doubt, that the voyager should be particularly attentive to the scenery of the places he passes thro'; for both speak of what would most entertain them. I think you would wish to hear a little of each; to be told that the vines clustering up the apple-trees, and mingling their fruits, fill one's eye with elegance and one's heart with comfort, as one drives along the splendid avenues which constitute the approach to this prodigious city, and are called the high-road to if for ten or twenty miles; that your friends lo and Brassica flutter about the Tuillerie Gardens among the two-legged and lesssimply colored butterflies every evening;

that tho' this town seems in some respects bigger than London, ill-built, and crowded to a most disagreeable excess, the air seems always fresh, and the bats fly about the streets as if we all lived in the fields. Nothing, indeed, is a greater proof of the purity of the air here than the healthiness of the

inhabitants, in spite of dirt, poverty, and pressure of one family against another, in houses eight story high, and streets so narrow that every noise is echoed and detained below, in such a manner as to stun a person who has lived fifteen months in the tranquil city of Bath; which is, to our town here, like a new shilling shining from the Mint, compared to a hundred pounds' worth of old but good half-pence, with here and there a bright broad piece of Portugal gold among them; for you have heard, with truth, that the palaces at Paris are magnificent; . . . and for the rest I refer you to every penny book, which can tell you better than I all that I have to tell, except that I am, with unalterable regard and real esteem, Dear Mr. Lysons' faithful

and affectionate sister,

H. L. PIOZZI. My husband sends you a thousand_compliments. You must now direct to Lyons, but write soon; or if you write late, direct to Turin.

A Monsieur, Monsieur Samuel Lysons,
John Jeffries's, Esq., Bath.

Turin, 19th Oct. Your letter, dear Mr. Lysons, was the first thing I found after my passage of the mountains; and my desire to oblige you by complying with your request, was naturally the second sensation. I have inquired out Dr. Allioni, and shall have leave to see his collection to-morrow, my letter shall lie open till I can give you an account of my success. Meantime, you ask me what I think of Savoy and its Alps! Shall I protest to you that I have not yet arranged the ideas with which they crowded my mind; and that although I have now been here six days, staring every instant at some work of art, the least of which would serve for a wonder in England

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my eyes turn perpetually toward those glorious productions of Nature, and I half scorn to think of anything but them. Why, what monkeys were we all at last to titter at Mr. Whalley's descriptions? Those four days' journey from Pont Bon Voisin to Novalesa, would be enough, I should think, to make a coxcomb of Dr. Johnson, or a pedant of Mr. James. We often wished for your

company, and said how you would sit upon this rock and that rock, taking views of the country: I jumped out of the coach myself at one place to drink at a beautiful cascade that came foaming down the side of the hill, all tufted with various colored greens, where I followed Hyale among the bushes (the yellow butterfly with brown-edged wings), but could not catch her. This city is the most symmetrical, the most delicate, and the most tranquil I have ever seen-London is dirty, and Bath heavy, compared with it. 'Tis like a model of a town exhibited in white wax for a show; I did not know till now that the metropolis of a nation could be a pretty thing, But I do not wish for you here; I wish you fast shut up with piles of law-books all the week, to dig fame and fortune out of black letters, and blacker recitals of injury, fraud, and ruin; then to taste fresh air at Sheen from Saturday to Monday, in the more pleasing contemplation of God's works unperverted by man.

We are going to Alexandria, Genoa, and Pavia, and then to Milan for the winter, as Mr. Piozzi finds friends everywhere to delay us; and I hate hurry and fatigue; it takes away all one's attention. Lyons was a delightful place to me, and we were so feasted and adored there by my husband's old acquaintance. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, too, paid us a thousand caressing civilites where we met with them, and we had no means of musical parties neither. The Prince of Sisterna came yesterday to visit Mr. Piozzi, and present me the key of his box at the Opera for the time we stay at Turin. Here's honor and glory for you! when Miss Thrale hears of it all-she will write, perhaps; the other two are very kind and affectionate. My health and spirits mend every day, thank God, and my husband's kindness makes me amends for all I suffered to obtain him. We mean to go quietly forward in the spring, but there is no joke at all in passing the Appenines at Christmas, so you will only have accounts of the north of Italy from me this year; let me add how much more magnificent the Rhone appeared to me than the Po, and then lay by my paper till after my visit to Dr. Allioni.

Well! I have seen the good old man and his collection, but could not coax him out of anything really curious-as for trash, one would not be plagued with them. The specimens of petrified wood and marbles of this country are exceedingly fine indeed, and I longed to buy, or change, or procure them for you by some method; the fossil fish in

slate, too, are admirable, and there is one flat stone with a fish in it, so perfect on both sides, that it seems a Cameo and Intaglio. I will not rest, however, till I can obtain you something. He is good-natured and communicative, and will publish his book upon Botany next January, but being nearly blind, the pleasure once produced to him is lost, and he means to sell all his rarities together. The hortus siccus," I fancy, is a very good one, but you know how little a way my skill reaches in such matters. I was glad to see Atlas and Antenor again, though, God bless you, and be very wise, and very good, and very happy, and do not forget your mother's preachments, nor those of your ever sincere and faithful,

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Milan, 7th Dec. 1784.

I THANK you very kindly, dear Mr. Lysons, for your attention, which I value exccedingly, and beg you to continue. The attention and politeness with which I am treated here is really prodigious; and I did not expect anything like it. What shall I tell you to compensate for the length and good nature of your last letter. I must begin with Genoa, I believe, and rejoice that my paper is long and wide, if I propose to describe either its elegance or splendor; the entrance of the city, so justly called la Superba, or the magnificence of the gulf it overlooks and appears to command. Ob! if one was enthusiastically fond of natural beauties, one certainly should never quit the Bocchetta of Genoa, where the clouds veil the hill, and the strawberry-trees, growing wild like our furze bushes, help to adorn it; where balm and rosemary perfume the road, and fill the little ditches, that in England are deformed by nettles, thistles, &c., (not one of which have I seen since I left France,) where standard, fig-trees spread fig-trees spread their great leaves, and hold out their delicious fruits like oaks and acorns in our country; while oranges and lemons flourish over every wall

that encloses a pleasure-ground belonging to the numberless palaces scattered up and down for a few miles round the city. Two days ago I received a box of roses and carnations from thence; all of which blew out in the open air, at this time of the year when the people on the other side the Strand can scarcely see the scarlet pocket-books, which shine in your landlord's shop window for fog, I trow. Poor Sammy, said your mother, when first you described your situation to her, I'm sure; if he should lose either health or his disposition to virtue in that nasty town, I should wish he had never seen it, let him grow as rich and as fortunate as he will. You know I used to preach to you like your mother, and press you lose no ground in the great race by following golden apples. I still continue to take the same liberty, and often fancy a young man committed so to the wide world like a fine picture painted in enamel, and put into the furnace-from whence if it comes out with the likeness fixed and the colors firm, all agree to admire and strive to possess it--if they run!! But my sermon is at an end, and we will begin a new subject. Mr. Piozzi is much pleased with your letter, which I translated my best; and bids me send you a copy of a sonnet written in my praise already, as I have made no verses myself, and as you will like these better than any I should have written. Everybody here says they are very good onesgive a copy of them to dear Mr. James, who reads this language as well as his own, or nearly:

to Mr. James, for I have been too much persecuted in England by public notice, and if one cannot trust any friend with one's vanity 'tis very hard: the truth is, I do send few letters to England: who is there that have not been busily spiteful, or spitefully busy about our affairs except yourself? Mr. Seward perhaps meant, and I believe he did, more to divert himself than to offend me by the ludicrous and contemptuous manner with which he thought proper to treat a connechistion which has made the happiness of my life; but though I value his virtues exceedingly, and think society both benefited and blest by his long continuance as a member of it-you would not blame my putting an end to the correspondence which produced me such letters as I received from him this time twelvemonth, and ever since that time till I left Bath in August last, if you saw 'em. I corresponded constantly and copiously with such of my daughters as are willing to answer my letters, and I have at last received one cold scrap from the eldest, which I instantly and tenderly replied to. Dear Sir Lucas Pepps, who saved my life before I came to Bath, where the waters and your friendship preserved it-assisted by Mr. James's amiable family, and uncommon talents, sweetened by cordial kindness, has never been neglected, and I shall write to him again in a day or two. Mrs. Lewis, too, and Miss Nicholson, have had accounts of my health, for I found them disinterestedly attached to me; those who led the stream, or watched which way it ran, that they might follow it, were not, I suppose, desirous of my correspondence; and till they are so, shall not be troubled with it. I ventured a letter to Dr. Lort, though by the Abate Boccheti, who wanted recommendatory letters to learned men: since I received yours it pleases me that I did write to him, but I had no heart of it at the time. Adieu my dear friend, and continue your partial regard for me, who have for you a true and affectionate esteem; let me hear what, and how, and where, and when; and believe me ever, most faithfully,

Al merito impareggiabile dell' ornatissima Signo ra Donna Ester Thrale,

Inglese, condotta sposa in Milano dal Signor Don

Gabriele Piozzi.

SONETTO.

D'insubria el genio, licto oltre l'usato,
Per le vie di Milan giva sclamando;
Agli affanni si dia eterno bando,
Che un raro Don dan cielo a noi rien dato.
Infelice Israel saria, pur stato

Se dell' empio Amano al fatal commando,
Tospeso de Persi impazienti il Brando,
La bella Ebrea non avesse ostato.
Nurva Estera dall' Anglia a noi qui scese
Per mano di Gabriel cui l'alme Imene
Avvinse gia d'amore un tempo acuse,
Ah! fia sempre che con tal donna a lato,
Lo sposo e Milan giviscan d'un Bene,
Cui non asi larbar avverso fato.

Now don't put this in the newspapers, for if you do, I will never write to you another word while I live, and send the same charge

Your friend and obedient servant,
H. L. PIOZZI.

My husband sends his kind compliments; he studies English while you work at the Italian, so the conversation will do excellently when you meet next. I dined at the ministers on Tuesday, and he called all the wise men round me with great politeness indeed. You must like the new Venetian Resident when

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