"24th June, 1784.—He is set out sure enough, here are letters from Turin to say so.... Now the Misses must move; they are very loath to stir: from affection perhaps, or perhaps from art—'tis difficult to know.—Oh 'tis, yes, it is from tenderness, they want me to go with them to see Wilton, Stonehenge, &c.—I will go with them to be sure."

"27th June, Sunday.—We went to Wilton, and also to Fonthill; they make an admirable and curious contrast between ancient magnificence and modern glare: Gothic and Grecian again, however. A man of taste would rather possess Lord Pembroke's seat, or indeed a single room in it; but one feels one should live happier at Beckford's.—My daughters parted with me at last prettily enough considering (as the phrase is). We shall perhaps be still better friends apart than together. Promises of correspondence and kindness were very sweetly reciprocated, and the eldest wished for Piozzi's safe return very obligingly.

"I fancy two days more will absolutely bring him to Bath. The present moments are critical and dreadful, and would shake stronger nerves than mine! Oh Lord, strengthen me to do Thy will I pray."

"28th June.—I am not yet sure of seeing him again—not sure he lives, not sure he loves me yet.... Should anything happen now!! Oh, I will not trust myself with such a fancy: it will either kill me or drive me distracted."

"Bath, 2nd July, 1784.—The happiest day of my whole life, I think—Yes, quite the happiest: my Piozzi came home yesterday and dined with me; but my spirits were too much agitated, my heart was too much dilated. I was too painfully happy then; my sensations are more quiet to-day, and my felicity less tumultuous."

Written in the margin of the last entry—"We shall go to London about the affairs, and there be married in the Romish Church."

"25th July, 1784.—I am returned from church the happy wife of my lovely faithful Piozzi ... subject of my prayers, object of my wishes, my sighs, my reverence, my esteem.—His nerves have been horribly shaken, yet he lives, he loves me, and will be mine for ever. He has sworn, in the face of God and the whole Christian Church; Catholics, Protestants, all are witnesses."

In one of her memorandum books she has set down:

"We were married according to the Romish Church in one of our excursions to London, by Mr. Smith, Padre Smit as they called him, chaplain to the Spanish Ambassador.... Mr. Morgan tacked us together at St. James's, Bath, 25th July, 1784, and on the first day I think of September, certainly the first week, we took leave of England."

When her first engagement with Piozzi became known, the newspapers took up the subject, and rang the changes on the amorous disposition of the widow, and the adroit cupidity of the fortune-hunter. On the announcement of the marriage, they recommenced the attack, and people of our day can hardly form a notion of the storm of obloquy that broke upon her, except from its traces, which have never been erased. To this hour, we may see them in the confirmed prejudices of writers like Mr. Croker and Lord Macaulay, who, agreeing in little else, agree in denouncing "this miserable mésalliance" with one who figures in their pages sometimes as a music-master, sometimes as a fiddler, never by any accident in his real character of a professional singer and musician of established reputation, pleasing manners, ample means, and unimpeachable integrity. The repugnance of the daughters to the match was reasonable and intelligible, but to appreciate the tone taken by her friends, we must bear in mind the social position of Italian singers and musical performers at the period. "Amusing vagabonds" are the epithets by which Lord Byron designates Catalani and Naldi, in 1809[1]; and such is the light in which they were undoubtedly regarded in 1784. Mario would have been treated with the same indiscriminating illiberality as Piozzi.

Did those who took the lead in censuring or repudiating Mrs. Piozzi, ever attempt to enter into her feelings, or weigh her conduct with reference to its tendency to promote her own happiness? Could they have done so, had they tried? Rarely can any one so identify himself or herself with another as to be sure of the soundness of the counsel or the justice of the reproof. She was neither impoverishing her children (who had all independent fortunes) nor abandoning them. She was setting public opinion at defiance, which is commonly a foolish thing to do; but what is public opinion to a woman whose heart is breaking, and who finds, after a desperate effort, that she is unequal to the sacrifice demanded of her? She accepted Piozzi deliberately, with full knowledge of his character; and she never repented of her choice.

The Lady Cathcart, whose romantic story is mentioned in "Castle Rackrent," was wont to say:—"I have been married three times; the first for money, the second for rank, the third for love; and the third was worst of all." Mrs. Piozzi's experience would have led to an opposite conclusion. Her love match was a singularly happy one; and the consciousness that she had transgressed conventional observances or prejudices, not moral rules, enabled her to outlive and bear down calumny.[1]

In reference to these passages, the Edinburgh reviewer remarks:

"Nothing can be more reasonable; and we should certainly live in a more peaceful (if not more entertaining) world, if nobody in it reproved another until he had so far identified himself with the culprit as to be sure of the justice of the reproof; perhaps, also, if a fiddler were rated higher in society than a duke without accomplishments, and a carpenter far higher than either. But neither reasoning nor gallantry will alter the case, nor prevail over the world's prejudice against unequal marriages, any more than its prejudices in favour of birth and fashion. It has never been quite established to the satisfaction of the philosophic mind, why the rule of society should be that 'as the husband, so the wife is,' and why a lady who contracts a marriage below her station is looked on with far severer eyes than a gentleman qui s'encanaille to the same degree. But these things are so,—as the next dame of rank and fortune, and widow of an M.P., who, rashly relying on Mr. Hayward's assertion that the world has grown wiser, espouses a foreign 'professional,' will assuredly find to her cost, although she may escape the ungenerous public attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with literary men."

In 1784 they hanged for crimes which we should think adequately punished by a short imprisonment; as they hooted and libelled for transgressions or errors which, whatever their treatment by a portion of our society, would certainly not provoke the thunders of our press. I think (though I made no assertion of the kind) that the world has grown wiser; and the reviewer admits as much when he says that his supposititious widow "may escape the ungenerous public attacks which poor Mrs. Piozzi earned by her connexion with literary men." But where do I recommend unequal marriages, or dispute the claims of birth and fashion, or maintain that a fiddler should be rated higher than a duke without accomplishments, and a carpenter far higher than either? All this is utterly beside the purpose; and surely there is nothing reprehensible in the suggestion that, before harshly reproving another, we should do our best to test the justice of the reproof by trying to make the case our own. Goethe proposed to extend the self-same rule to criticism. One of his favourite canons was that a critic should always endeavour to place himself temporarily in the author's point of view. If the reviewer had done so, he might have avoided several material misapprehensions and misstatements, which it is difficult to reconcile with the friendly tone of the article or the known ability of the writer.

Envy at Piozzi's good fortune sharpened the animosity of assailants like Baretti, and the loss of a pleasant house may have had a good deal to do with the sorrowing indignation of her set. Her meditated social extinction amongst them might have been commemorated in the words of the French epitaph:

Which may be freely rendered:

Madame D'Arblay has recorded what took place between Mrs. Piozzi and herself on the occasion:

Miss F. Burney to Mrs. Piozzi.

"Norbury Park, Aug. 10, 1784.

"When my wondering eyes first looked over the letter I received last night, my mind instantly dictated a high-spirited vindication of the consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the cooler judgment of future reflection. Committing myself, therefore, to that period, I determined simply to assure you, that if my last letter hurt either you or Mr. Piozzi, I am no less sorry than surprised; and that if it offended you, I sincerely beg your pardon.

"Not to that time, however, can I wait to acknowledge the pain an accusation so unexpected has caused me, nor the heartfelt satisfaction with which I shall receive, when you are able to write it, a softer renewal of regard.

"May Heaven direct and bless you!

"F.B.

"N.B. This is the sketch of the answer which F.B. most painfully wrote to the unmerited reproach of not sending cordial congratulations upon a marriage which she had uniformly, openly, and with deep and avowed affliction, thought wrong."

Mrs. Piozzi to Miss Burney.

"'Give yourself no serious concern, sweetest Burney, All is well, and I am too happy myself to make a friend otherwise; quiet your kind heart immediately, and love my husband if you love his and your

"'H.L. PIOZZI.'

"N.B. To this kind note, F.B. wrote the warmest and most affectionate and heartfelt reply; but never received another word! And here and thus stopped a correspondence of six years of almost unequalled partiality, and fondness on her side; and affection, gratitude, admiration, and sincerity on that of F.B., who could only conjecture the cessation to be caused by the resentment of Piozzi, when informed of her constant opposition to the union."

If F.B. thought it wrong, she knew it to be inevitable, and in the conviction that it was so, she and her father had connived at the secret preparations for it in the preceding May.

A very distinguished friend, whose masterly works are the result of a consummate study of the passions, after dwelling on the "impertinence" of the hostility her marriage provoked, writes: "She was evidently a very vain woman, but her vanity was sensitive, and very much allied to that exactingness of heart which gives charm and character to woman. I suspect it was this sensitiveness which made her misunderstood by her children." The justness of this theory of her conduct is demonstrated by the self-communings in "Thraliana;" and she misunderstood them as much as they misunderstood her. By her own showing she had little reason to complain of what they did in the matter of the marriage; it was what they said, or rather did not say, that irritated her. She yearned for sympathy, which was sternly, chillingly, almost insultingly withheld.

In 1800, she wrote thus to Dr. Gray: "What a good example have you set them (his children)! going to visit dear mama at Twickenham—long may they keep their parents, pretty creatures! and long may they have sense to know and feel that no love is like parental affection,—the only good perhaps which cannot be flung away."[1]

Madame D'Arblay states that her father was not disinclined to admit Mrs. Piozzi's right to consult her own notions of happiness in the choice of a second husband, had not the paramount duty of watching over her unmarried daughters interfered. But they might have accompanied her to Italy as was once contemplated; and had they done so, they would have seen everything and everybody in it under the most favourable auspices. The course chosen for them by the eldest was the most perilous of the two submitted for their choice. The lady, Miss Nicholson, whom their mother had so carefully selected as their companion, soon left them; or according to another version was summarily dismissed by Miss Thrale (afterwards Viscountess Keith), who fortunately was endowed with high principle, firmness, and energy. She could not take up her abode with either of her guardians, one a bachelor under forty, the other the prototype of Briggs, the old miser in "Cæcilia." She could not accept Johnson's hospitality in Bolt Court, still tenanted by the survivors of his menagerie; where, a few months later, she sate by his death-bed and received his blessing. She therefore called to her aid an old nurse-maid, named Tib, who had been much trusted by her father, and with this homely but respectable duenna, she shut herself up in the house at Brighton, limited her expenses to her allowance of 200l. a-year, and resolutely set about the course of study which seemed best adapted to absorb attention and prevent her thoughts from wandering. Hebrew, Mathematics, Fortification, and Perspective have been named to me by one of trusted friends as specimens of her acquirements and her pursuits.

In that solitary abode at Brighton, and in the companionship of Tib, may have been laid the foundation of a character than which few, through the changeful scenes of a long and prosperous life, have exercised more beneficial influence or inspired more genuine esteem. On coming of age, and being put into possession of her fortune, she hired a house in London, and took her two eldest sisters to live with her. They had been at school whilst she was living at Brighton. The fourth and youngest, afterwards Mrs. Mostyn, had accompanied the mother. On the return of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi, Miss Thrale made a point of paying them every becoming attention, and Piozzi was frequently dining with her. Latterly, she used to speak of him as a very worthy sort of man, who was not to blame for marrying a rich and distinguished woman who took a fancy to him. The other sisters seem to have adopted the same tone; and so far as I can learn, no one of them is open to the imputation of filial unkindness, or has suffered from maternal neglect in a manner to bear out Dr. Burney's forebodings by the result. Occasional expressions of querulousness are matters of course in family differences, and are seldom totally suppressed by the utmost exertion of good feeling and good sense.

Johnson's idolised wife was, at the lowest estimate, twenty-one years older than himself when he married her; and her sons were so disgusted by the connection, that they dropped the acquaintance. Yet it never crossed his mind that "Hetty" had as much right to please herself as "Tetty." Of the six letters that passed between him and Mrs. Piozzi on the subject of the marriage, only two (Nos. 1 and 5) have hitherto been made public; and the incompleteness of the correspondence has caused the most embarrassing confusion in the minds of biographers and editors, too prone to act on the maxim that, wherever female reputation is concerned, we should hope for the best and believe the worst. Hawkins, apparently ignorant that she had written to Johnson, to announce her intention, says, "He was made uneasy by a report" which induced him to write a strong letter of remonstrance, of which what he calls an adumbration was published in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December 1784. Mr. Croker, avoiding a similar error, says:—"In the lady's own (part) publication of the correspondence, this letter (No. 1) is given as from Mrs. Piozzi, and is signed with the initial of her name: Dr. Johnson's answer is also addressed to Mrs. Piozzi, and both the letters allude to the matter as done; yet it appears by the periodical publications of the day, that the marriage did not take place until the 25th July. The editor knew not how to account for this but by supposing that Mrs. Piozzi, to avoid Johnson's importunity, had stated that as done which was only settled to be done."

The matter of fact is made plain by the circular (No. 2) which states that "Piozzi is coming back from Italy." He arrived on July 1st, after a fourteen months' absence, which proved both his loyalty and the sincerity of the struggle in her own heart and mind. Her letter (No. 1) as printed, is not signed with the initial of her name; and both Dr. Johnson's autograph letters are addressed to Mrs. Thrale. But she has occasioned the mistake into which so many have fallen, by her mode of heading these when she printed the two-volume edition of "Letters" in 1788. By the kindness of Mr. Salusbury I am now enabled to print the whole correspondence, with the exception of her last letter, which she describes.

No. 1.

Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson.

"Bath, June 30.

"My Dear Sir,—The enclosed is a circular letter which I have sent to all the guardians, but our friendship demands somewhat more; it requires that I should beg your pardon for concealing from you a connexion which you must have heard of by many, but I suppose never believed. Indeed, my dear Sir, it was concealed only to save us both needless pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would have killed me to take, and I only tell it you now because all is irrevocably settled and out of your power to prevent. I will say, however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some anxious moments, and though perhaps I am become by many privations the most independent woman in the world, I feel as if acting without a parent's consent till you write kindly to

"Your faithful servant."

No. 2. Circular.

"Sir,—As one of the executors of Mr. Thrale's will and guardian to his daughters, I think it my duty to acquaint you that the three eldest left Bath last Friday (25th) for their own house at Brighthelmstone in company with an amiable friend, Miss Nicholson, who has sometimes resided with us here, and in whose society they may, I think, find some advantages and certainly no disgrace. I waited on them to Salisbury, Wilton, &c., and offered to attend them to the seaside myself, but they preferred this lady's company to mine, having heard that Mr. Piozzi is coming back from Italy, and judging perhaps by our past friendship and continued correspondence that his return would be succeeded by our marriage.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant.

"Bath, June 30, 1784."

No. 3.[1]

"MADAM,—If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married: if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you, and served you[1], I who long thought you the first of womankind, entreat that, before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you. I was, I once was, Madam, most truly yours,

"SAM. JOHNSON.

"July 2, 1784.

"I will come down, if you permit it."

No. 4.

"July 4, 1784.

"SIR,—I have this morning received from you so rough a letter in reply to one which was both tenderly and respectfully written, that I am forced to desire the conclusion of a correspondence which I can bear to continue no longer. The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first; his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner, and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which he has been always a zealous adherent will, I hope, teach him to forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable me to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect it.

"I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent your coming hither. Perhaps by my fame (and I hope it is so) you mean only that celebrity which is a consideration of a much lower kind. I care for that only as it may give pleasure to my husband and his friends.

"Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard; but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi, let us converse no more. God bless you."

No. 5.

To Mrs. Piozzi.

"London, July 8, 1784.

"DEAR MADAM,—What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me: I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere.

"I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that you may be happy in this world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.

"Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security; your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to Italy.

"I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by giving it.

"When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable stream[1] that separated the two kingdoms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness proportioned to her danger and his own affection pressed her to return. The Queen went forward.—If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther.—The tears stand in my eyes.

"I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good wishes, for I am, with great affection,

"Your, &c.

"Any letters that come for me hither will be sent me."

In a memorandum on this letter, she says:—"I wrote him (No. 6) a very kind and affectionate farewell."

Before calling attention to the results of this correspondence, I must notice a charge built upon it by the reviewer, with the respectable aid of the foul-mouthed and malignant Baretti:

"This letter is now printed for the first time by Mr. Hayward. But he has omitted to notice the light which is thrown on it by Baretti's account of the marriage. That account is given in the 'European Magazine' for 1788. It is very circumstantial, and too long to transcribe, but the upshot is this: He says that, in order to meet her returning lover, she left Bath with her daughters as for a journey to Brighton; quitted them on some pretence at Salisbury, and posted off to town, deceiving Dr. Johnson, who continued to direct to her at Bath as usual.[1] 'In London she kept herself concealed for some days in my parish, and not very far distant from my own habitation, ... in Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital.' 'In a few weeks,' he adds, 'she was in a condition personally to resort to Mr. Greenland (her lawyer) to settle preliminaries, then returned to Bath with Piozzi, and there was married.' Now Baretti was a libeller, and not to be believed except upon compulsion; but if he does speak the truth, then the date, 'Bath, June 30,' of her circular letter, is a mystification; so is the passage in her letter to Johnson of July 4, about 'sending it by the coach to prevent his coming.' Of course she was mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming, for if he had come he would have found her flown. According to this supposition, she did not return to Bath at all, but remained perdue in London, with her lover, during the whole 'Correspondence.' Is it the true one?

"We cannot but suspect that it is, and that the solution of the whole of this little domestic mystery is to be found in a passage in the 'Autobiographical Memoir,' vol. i. p. 277. There were two marriages:—

"'Miss Nicholson went with us to Stonehenge, Wilton, &c., whence I returned to Bath to wait for Piozzi. He was here on the eleventh day after he got Dobson's letter. In twenty-six more we were married in London by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, and returned hither to be married by Mr. Morgan, of Bath, at St. James's Church, July 25, 1784.'

"Now in order to make this account tally with Baretti's we must allow for a slight exertion of that talent for 'white lies' on the lady's part, of which her friends, Johnson included, used half playfully and half in earnest to accuse her. And we are afraid Baretti's story does appear, on the face of it, the more probable of the two. It does seem more likely, since they were to be married in London (of which Baretti knew nothing), that she met Piozzi secretly in London on his arrival, than that she performed the awkward evolutions of returning from Salisbury to Bath to wait for him there, then going to London in company with him to be married, and then back to Bath to be married over again. But if this be so, then the London marriage most likely took place almost immediately on the meeting of the enamoured couple, and while the 'Correspondence' was going on. In which case the words in the 'Memoir' 'in twenty-six days,' &c., were apparently intended, by a little bit of feminine adroitness, to appear to apply to this first marriage,—of the suddenness of which she may have been ashamed,—while they really apply to the conclusion of the whole affair by the second. Will any one have the Croker-like curiosity to inquire whether any record remains of the dates of marriages celebrated by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain?"[2]

Why Croker-like curiosity? Was there anything censurable in the curiosity which led an editor to ascertain whether a novel like "Evelina" was written by a girl of eighteen or a woman of twenty-six? But Lord Macaulay sneered at the inquiry[1], and his worshippers must go on sneering like their model—vitiis imitabile. The certificate of the London marriage (now before me) shews that it was solemnised on the 23rd July, by a clergyman named Richard Smith, in the presence of three attesting witnesses. This, and the entries in "Thraliana," prove Baretti's whole story to be false. "Now Baretti was a libeller, and not to be believed except upon compulsion;" meaning, I suppose, without confirmatory evidence strong enough to dispense with his testimony altogether. He was notorious for his black lies. Yet he is believed eagerly, willingly, upon no compulsion, and without any confirmatory evidence at all.

The internal evidence of the improbability of the story has disappeared in the reviewer's paraphrase. Baretti says that at Salisbury "she suddenly declared that a letter she found of great importance demanded her immediate presence in London.... But Johnson did not know the least tittle of this transaction, and he continued to direct his letters to Bath as usual, expressing, no doubt, an immense wonder at her pertinacious silence." So she told her daughters that she was going to London, whilst she deceived Johnson, who was sure to learn the truth from them; and he was wondering at her pertinacious silence at the very time when he was receiving letters from her, dated Bath! Why, having formally announced her determination to marry Piozzi, she should not give him the meeting in London if she chose, fairly passes my comprehension.

Whilst the reviewer thinks he is strengthening one point, he is palpably weakening another. She would not have been "mortally afraid of the Doctor's coming," if she had already thrown him off and finally broken with him? That she was afraid, and had reason to be so, is quite consistent with my theory, quite inconsistent with Lord Macaulay's and the critic's. Johnson's letter (No. 3) is that of a coarse man who had always been permitted to lecture and dictate with impunity. Her letter (No. 4) is that of a sensitive woman, who, for the first time, resents with firmness and retorts with dignity. The sentences I have printed in italics speak volumes. "Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish, nor can your unmitigated severity itself lessen my regard." There is a shade of submissiveness in her reply, yet, on receiving it, he felt as a falcon might feel if a partridge were to shew fight. Nothing short of habitual deference on her part, and unrepressed indulgence of temper on his, can account for or excuse his not writing before this unexpected check as he wrote after it. If he had not been systematically humoured and flattered, he would have seen at a glance that he had "no pretence to resent," and have been ready at once to make the best return in his power for "that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched." She wrote him a kind and affectionate farewell; and there (so far as we know) ended their correspondence. But in "Thraliana" she sets down:

"Milan, 27th Nov. 1784.—I have got Dr. Johnson's picture here, and expect Miss Thrale's with impatience. I do love them dearly, as ill as they have used me, and always shall. Poor Johnson did not mean to use me ill. He only grew upon indulgence till patience could endure no further."

In a letter to Mr. S. Lysons from Milan, dated December 7th, 1784, which proves that she was not frivolously employed, she says:

"My next letter shall talk of the libraries and botanical gardens, and twenty other clever things here. I wish you a comfortable Christmas, and a happy beginning of the year 1785. Do not neglect Dr. Johnson: you will never see any other mortal so wise or so good. I keep his picture in my chamber, and his works on my chimney."

What he said of her can only be learned from her bitter enemies or hollow friends, who have preserved nothing kindly or creditable.

Hawkins states that a letter from Johnson to himself contained these words:—"Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice (meaning her love of her children or her pride) would have saved her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or pity."

Madame D'Arblay gives two accounts of the last interview she ever had with Johnson,—on the 25th November, 1784. In the "Diary" she sets down:

"I had seen Miss T. the day before."

"'So,' said he, 'did I.'

"I then said, 'Do you ever, Sir, hear, from her mother?'

"'No,' cried he, 'nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly.[1] I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her name. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind.'"

In the "Memoirs," describing the same interview, she says:—"We talked then of poor Mrs. Thrale, but only for a moment, for I saw him greatly incensed, and with such severity of displeasure, that I hastened to start another subject, and he solemnly enjoined me to mention that no more."

This was only eighteen days before he died, and he might be excused for being angry at the introduction of any agitating topic. It would stain his memory, not hers, to prove that, belying his recent professions of tenderness and gratitude, he directly or indirectly encouraged her assailants.

"I was tempted to observe," says the author of "Piozziana," "that I thought, as I still do, that Johnson's anger on the event of her second marriage was excited by some feeling of disappointment; and that I suspected he had formed some hope of attaching her to himself. It would be disingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer. I forget it; but the impression on my mind is that she did not contradict me." Sir James Fellowes' marginal note on this passage is: "This was an absurd notion, and I can undertake to say it was the last idea that ever entered her head; for when I once alluded to the subject, she ridiculed the idea: she told me she always felt for Johnson the same respect and veneration as for a Pascal."[1]