Penzance, Wed. 3 August, 1820.

Charming Mrs. Pennington's beautiful letter was indeed most welcome, tho' it does put me a little more out of humour with my run-away frolic than I was before it arrived....

Now for Penzance and its Parties. Mrs. Hill made a splendid one, for me I rather think, and my black satten gown (for no other is yet arrived,) was my best garment. Bessy lent me a cap of hers, and my youthful looks were duly appreciated—my whist-playing applauded. We had two tables, one for shillings, one for sixpences; a profusion of exquisite refreshments, and music in another room. Oh! if I escape all temptations to sensuality, I shall live to see dear Mr. and Mrs. Pennington again, and the Hot Wells, and Clifton Terrace, where I shall surely jump for very joy. But these Red Mullets and Dorees for two pence o' piece will certainly destroy some of us. Poor Bessy has been seriously, I might say dangerously ill, from indulging in a Crab; it made James sick too; all the family half-killed,—for the small price of a groat the fish, and a Pound to the Dr.... a real Physician, thank God, and not a country 'Pothecary....

The people know not how to be civil enough, and if my stomach will reconcile itself to the clouted cream, I shall come home as fat as the pigs of the country, and such pork did I never see. Our own garden affords potatoes for us all, and onions etc., besides the flower plot, perfuming the very air around with carnations of every hue, Myrtles of every form, and exotic shrubs with Linnean names innumerable. The appearance of our Mansion, pleasure ground, and kitchen garden, reminds me of Kingsmead Terrace, Bath; but James says the houses here are by no means so spacious as that where your compassion carried you when our incomparable Conway was so ill. I hope he has proved himself irresistible, and what must the heart be over which he cannot, if he pleases—triumph?... Oh! if I possessed an unappropriated £100 in the world, I would go see him act once again, that I would.... I am glad Mrs. Rudd's heart seems lighter than when we left her; the Rogue has never written to me, no, not a scrap; but she had an earlier pretension to his regard, I think it is scarce a truer.

Meanwhile Sophia Hoare has written me a more good-humour'd letter than usual, and I am so delighted! Maternal love is the only good thing mankind can not throw away. It springs fresh with the least drop of water flung upon it. She wishes her illustrious Neighbour out of Town I see, and says wisely that her present residence being so near the Barracks is unfortunate, because the soldiers' wives and children are among her every night's applauders. The Hoares are used to be violent opposers of the Ministry, but Democrates like to have their property held sacred, as well as you or I; and firing houses will make no sport to the Bankers, I trow.

So now pray accept these not elaborate verses: they will amuse Mr. Pennington's gout.

Around their Queen

Here are seen,

Sharp'ning every sting,

Bees,—alarming

By their swarming

People, Peers, and King.

But in their tricks,

Should they fix

On our property;

They must learn

To discern

That when they sting, they die.

Surely such Cakes, Jellies, etc., as they use here for refreshments, all new and warm, were never seen at Bath or London, so various, so profuse. I never touch them, certainly, but never was so tempted. No Confectioner's shop visible in the place, all made at home.

With regard to rain, we live in a cloud of soft mist, rain, if you please to call it so; certainly a perpetual damp, warm moisture. Lady Jane James said, you know, that she never put on a dry chemise at St. Michael's Mount, and truly did she speak; but nobody ever told me that the sea here is as tame as the country is wild. Wild without sublimity, coarse externally, like other Misers; its riches all concealed underground. I saw Hay carried last night, two months after the environs of Clifton. But I have wrong'd old Neptune; he can roar, I hear him now, thank Heaven. Oh! how much more delightful is the music he now makes than that of the pretty Ladies of the parties, to the rude ears of dearest Mrs. Pennington's everlastingly obliged and faithful

H. L. P.

Aug 3. Fateful month! but no clothes, no books, no Cook, no Conway's portrait yet for poor H. L. P.

Cook, books, and clothes were still in the Port of Bristol, as Mrs. Pennington writes on the 29th, waiting, as it appeared, for the captain to make up his freight; and might then be expected to take from four days to a fortnight—according to the wind—to make Penzance.

The renewed enthusiasm for Queen Caroline was aroused by the anticipation of the Bill of Pains and Penalties, intended to dissolve the marriage, which was brought in on August 14, but proved so unpopular, both in and out of Parliament, that it had to be dropped.

On August 10 Mrs. Pennington is able to announce that the Happy Return had actually sailed, with Mrs. Piozzi's belongings, five days before. Conway had been to see his mother, and had called on herself, rather, she thinks, from civility than from choice. "There was a polite distance assumed, evidently for the purpose of repressing enquiry.... I am persuaded we trouble ourselves much more about his concerns than he either wishes or likes." She gathered, however, that he had secured some sort of recognition from his father. She alludes to the letter of "lovely Mrs. Hoare," whom "I always liked ... because I thought her more personally like you than any of the Ladies."

Penzance, Sunday August 13, 1820.

Come! oh come! dear Mrs. Pennington, I see you half long to be here, and what a relief, what a comfort, would your society afford to your starving H. L. P.? Here is no heat, no dust, no cold: I daresay it is a very negative place, but I must not have you tell tales out of School. Miss Trevenan may justly disapprove my censure on the no picturesque of her native county: and if you read her my letters so, I must grow cautious, à la Conway. I have heard from him, thank God! The rogue told me nothing tho', except how charming you and I were, what admirable letters we wrote, etc. "Yea, and all that did I know before,"[34] as Juliet says. Quere, whether he has anything to tell; unless it be that he has at length calmed his own noble and too-feeling mind, by conduct which himself approves.

But at the same moment with your kind letter comes our long-expected ship. Cook says they have been to Wales; Swansea in Glamorganshire!

The day you receive this one whole month will have elapsed since I left the full moon shining in her brightness on Clifton Terrace. Never have my eyes seen her since. No, nor a starry night. Yet here is sun enough, and the sea so beautifully blue and clear, you would be delighted with it, as one is with a tame Lyon. Will you come?...

Much, meantime, and of much more importance, is crazing all the brain-pans of poor Europe. The revolt at Rome strikes me as very surprising. The same people who defended their Sovereign as long as they could, poor creatures! against French aggression, now fly in the face of his not only Innocent, but innocuous successor: no mortal can guess why. Ay, ay, you used to laugh when I mounted my turnep cart and preached the end of the world. But you don't like witnessing the convulsions that precede it, and which increase in violence visibly every day. Poor Ithaca! whence Ulysses was detained, you know, by the gardens of Alcinous, has been shattered completely to pieces by an earthquake, under the name of St. Mauro; and Inspruck, where I spent a few days, has seen the destruction of her Golden House.

Our Queen Bee, of whom the Radicals have laid hold, will be the instrument of concussion in our Country; and we drones shall suffer, while the stingers go on torturing each other into madness. The Naturalists, Pennant, Linnæus, etc., have long observed that all the Hymenoptera have stings. Yet I suppose that will not deter the hopers from marriage....

Mr. Mangin's Intercepted Letter was a little Pamphlet, censuring some Authors, Actors, etc., commending others; and I got two kind lines, before we were at all acquainted,—so that brought on Library conversation, and he offered his services about the Name-Book;—took it to London for me, where it was rejected, not through any neglect on his part: and I felt myself much obliged by his attentions, and rejoiced in his good fortune when he married....

No particulars are forthcoming respecting the "Name Book," but it was evidently a work on Etymology, written some years before, which was to have been called Lyford Redivivus, for which she was unable to find a publisher. A letter in Mr. Broadley's collection indicates that it was finished about 1816, when she writes to Sir James Fellowes, "I wish Mr. Jenkins had taken the Name Book."

Penzance, Saturday Night,

26 Aug. 1820.

Dear, kind Mrs. Pennington, I love you for wishing that you could come, and you ought to love me for agreeing in the notion that to come would be very foolish. One can hardly save the expences of such a journey by cheap fish, when the water 'tis boyl'd in must, every drop, be paid for. And what an ideot was James not to pay the carriage of the Turbot! When I miss'd it in the weekly account I could have cuff'd him.

The heats are equable, not strong or starvy; but little can be said in praise of the weather. Rain, almost incessant, keeps one at home, and to get at this lovely sea, such stinks must be encounter'd as I never knew but at Rome or Naples. Poor, dear Italy! I did love it however, and hear with unaffected sorrow of the pangs that are tearing it to pieces. In France fire-brands seem the instruments of punishment from on high. In England one female suffices. If nothing can be done without more help, my Paper says that Buonaparte is to be let loose, and that Prince Esterhazy's business here was to solicit his liberation. Hissing the Duke of Wellington is a prelude, a pretty overture to such an Opera. Opera means piece of work, you know. It makes me more willing to quit the world certainly, when I see it rolling downhill so. But the whole of it must be discover'd before it is destroy'd, and the little ship William, a trading vessel from Blythe in Northumberland, has in effect found at last the great Southern Continent, so long supposed to exist, so completely forgotten of late years....

Did you ever read my verses, which this discovery made by the William confirms? "No," is the answer, Well then, here they are, making part of a long poem composed 35 years ago.

Where slowly turns the Southern Pole,

And distant Constellations roll,

A sea-girt Continent lies hurl'd,

And keeps the balance of the World.

But felter'd fogs, and hoary frost

Defend th' inhospitable coast,

Which, veil'd from sight, eludes the Pilot's care,

And leaves him fix'd in ice, a statue of despair.

I hear no more of Salusbury. I never could get him to care about these matters: and after all, does not he act as all parents wish their children to act, soberly and quietly, keeping a steady eye to his interest in this world; not, I hope and trust, forgetful of the next. One must love the creatures for their valuable, or delight in them for their shining qualities, no matter whether they love me or no, and in their way they do love me. Sir James Fellowes has written kindly and good-humouredly, and my heart has entirely made all up with his. Nothing, as you say, ail'd him but jealousy; and I hold that to be what foolish Merlin, the mechanic, called a desagreable compliment....

Miss Willoughby has written from St. Anne's Hill. She says Lord Erskine wishes the illustrious Lady, who causes so much talk, was in the Liturgy and out of the Country. After what past at Ephesus, I see not why one should wish any such thing; but the aggregate of understanding she is tried by will decide rightly, I doubt not....

Well, God mend all; and give us a merry meeting on our Happy Return....

The populace had been exasperated with Wellington over the Peterloo incident, and he was just now sharing the unpopularity of the Ministry, of which he was a member, on account of the Bill of Pains and Penalties designed to effect the Queen's divorce. The exclusion of her name from the Church Services had been one of the first objects of the King on his accession.

Miss Willoughby, who soon afterwards followed Mrs. Piozzi to Penzance, appears to have been a daughter of Charles James Fox.

15 Sep. 1820.

I hope my dear Mrs. Pennington is beginning again to look for an empty letter. Empty it must be of all but good will, badly express'd, for we are still-life people here, who see and hear very little, and reflect less upon what is seen and heard. I think every day more and more with our old Master Shakespear, that "there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."[35] Caroline of Brunswick has surely miss'd her tide. A commotion might have been raised the first week: I now begin to doubt its possibility on her account. Rebellion however is in, as boys say of Cricket and Kite-flying, and any excuse serves in any country. When what is called a Spirit of Liberty seizes the swarthy inhabitants of Morocco, how should their old enemies, the Portuguese, escape? "When Afric recovers, Mundus will end," says an old proverb. And as dear Mrs. Pennington says, "no matter how soon, it should be either ended or mended." The eclipse however did nothing towards its destruction. I saw it here beautifully, but there was little apparent obscuration, tho' the Thermometer sunk two degrees. We shall have an elegant Eclipse of the Moon on our Equinoctial day, the 22d of September: and our tides become even now a little stronger in their flux and reflux. Like other quiet temper'd people, their anger, I understand is dreadful....

Doctor Randolph's state of health grieves me, and the loss of Mr. Bayntom; on whom so many, (and those wise people too,) depended with a very firm reliance. I always wonder at such partiality. It has been my lot to love three or four Medical Men very sincerely, and like them in earnest for companions and friends, but would not give much of preference to any. And 'tis well that such is my humour, in a place where we send to the Tallow chandler's if we want drugs: no Apothecary or Chymist residing near happy Penzance. Fowls we buy in the feathers—and James says every shop in the Town sells Barley to feed them with. There are no more Poulterers than Milliners yet everybody is genteelly drest, and I warrant our Michælmas goose will be good, and cost us scarce half a crown, giblets and plumage. I should like to write you a letter with my own quill....

Well! now I will go work at your Fly; but even that is nonsense, for I cannot frame it, nor line it, nor put it in a box. There are no frames, no boxes, no linings, at Penzance. I cannot make it worth your acceptance; and who dreams of my living till the spring, and bringing it with me to Clifton, when I shall be going on to 82 years old? I must finish, and leave it in charge with Bessy, to save from the hands of my Executors; as I will do by Conway's portrait....

The Harvest here is beautiful and plenteous:—

"Far as the circling eye can range around

Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corn,"

as Thomson says. Industry is a rough power surely, but a kind one; working that you and I may sit idle, ploughing that H. L. P. may have leisure to work Butterflies, and weaving that pretty Mrs. Balhechet may look lovely in her various dresses.

Charles Shephard has written to me again. He likes the correspondence I suppose, for we are 4000 miles asunder. By dint of industry however, he will come home rich; and seeing 500 people richer than himself, will find he has exchanged honour and distinction for Coffee-house chat and Drawing-room small talk,—the food his fancy now is longing for, but which will grow insipid in six months; and reflection will then inform him that to talk of Rum and Sugar has more spirit and sweetness than to talk of nothing. He begs me to write, not newspaper occurrences, he says, but stuff out of my own head, as they say at Eton School:—the head of an old Haggard, 81 years old!!! But he is consorting with those who never heard tell about the gardens of Alcinous. Some one sung a Ballad in which Lethe was mentioned, not a soul in the company guess'd what was meant, till some very clever fellow found it was a river, running between Leith and Edinburgh....

In Morocco, under Soliman, the Christian slaves were being liberated, and piracy suppressed. In Portugal, after the flight of John VI to Brazil, the government had been in the hands of a Regency, which included Marshal Beresford, who organised the army, but used its power despotically. During a visit he paid to Rio in 1820, insurrections took place at Lisbon and Oporto, the English Officers were expelled, and a Constituent Assembly formed.

The Eclipse of Sep. 7, 1820, was an annular one, well seen over the N. of Europe. Mangin relates how a similar one occurred in Mrs. Piozzi's girlhood, and an astronomical friend told her she might live to see another at 80.

On Sep. 21 Mrs. Pennington writes, much disgusted at the revelations of the Queen's trial, and apprehensive of their effect on public morals. "Not a Boarding School Miss, nor a Parish Girl, that can make out the words, but we see studying these detestable pages, and devouring their contents as they would a new Novel.... The worst part of the business is the little respect, and less approbation, felt even by well disposed and moderate persons for a certain Great Individual. The vices of debauchery offend and disgust more (with many who are not altogether disinclined to the practice,) than the downright wickedness arising from the ambition and tyranny of the worst Monarchs that ever reigned; and prove that the moral virtues are of more value than anything. Our late K—g lost 13 Provinces, and supported a war which was unpopular with a great part of his subjects, and which has ruined the Nation; yet he was loved for his moral excellence, and his memory is revered."

She deprecates precipitancy in the matter of the Butterfly, and suggests that any Carpenter, with 4 strips of wood, might make a rough, but efficient, substitute for the Tambour Frame which she thought Mrs. Piozzi could not procure.

Penzance, Tuesday, Sep. 26, 1820.

In life's last scenes, what prodigies surprize!

Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!

Sam. Johnson.

Poor dear Dr. Randolph! Ay, and poor dear Mr. Chappelow too! The post which brought your letter—charming friend!—brought one from his nephew, son to Soame Jenyns, saying his uncle was dead, and had left my letters carefully tied up, which he would send to Bath immediately. I wrote and beg'd him send the packet to you, where I shall find it safe if I live till May-day; and if not, you will give it to Sir John or Sir James, my Executors. He had lost his head long before he lost his life, I find. Awful reflection! For a pleasant head it was, and a world of pleasant stories were hatched in it. Would not Mr. Pennington be sorry for such a loss to his true servant H. L. P.? I am very sure he would; and vexations at 81 years old cannot contribute much towards holding it in its place....

Of the discovery made by the "William," I think very seriously. It is the last place that has lain concealed, and when the Gospel has been preached there,—Christ does not say obeyed,—"then shall the end come." Distress of nations with perplexity was never, no never so apparent: tho' Dorset Fellowes writes me word that they say not a syllable of their own conspiracy at Paris.... You are right about the tryal ending in smoke. I daresay it will: but the people, falsely called people in power, are afraid of its ending in fire, like myself, and will therefore be glad to compound. It was never a thing of their seeking, and the French are all for la belle Caroline, of course; and threaten their English visitants with the speedy appearance of Monsieur le Baron Bergami. Meanwhile the fashionable joke is to say a noble Marquis, much talked of in London, is like a comb, all back and teeth. Yes, says another wag,—a Horn comb.

My fret about your Fly was for a frame, a picture frame, to hang it up in your boudoir. The only merit in my work is that it is all done upon the hand; I do not know how to use a Tambour. The drawing it is ill executed from represented the Blue-eyed Paris from Chandernagore; a Butterfly of much dignity, according to Linnæus, but you must accept it cover'd with faults. Lady Williams of Bodylwyddan had the Ulysses worked reasonably well,—a dozen years ago,—and Mrs. Rudd has a Moth....

I never heard Miss Stephens sing, and what is much stranger, never heard the famous Mrs. Sheridan. But I have heard old Dr. Burney say she sung "Return, O God of Hosts" better than anybody except Mrs. Cibber the Actress, whose manner of delivering that air was absolute perfection. Miss Sharpe says the Kembles are well and happy at Lausanne.... I hear the Twisses are returned to Bath, meaning Mr. and Mrs. Twiss; the Girls are out, like good girls, getting their living.... Horace has got into Parliament safe and snug.

Poor Mrs. Rudd! I hope she will keep her houses full, and find me a lodging in some of them next Spring, before the 10th of June, that I may bustle and be busy; and get my little things, (as Ladies call everything,) from No. 8 Gay Street to No. 36 Royal Terrace, Clifton. But how hopeless and silly all this is at 81 years old, and dear Chappelow dead of superannuation, six years younger than myself, in whom hope of living six months would be proof of superannuated folly. We must do as well as we can, and wish we could do better. He was as temperate as I am.... But when sickness comes in consequence of drinking some stuff that pretended to be smuggled wine, and was a mess made with sea water in an Alehouse; why then I do despair of ever again seeing any place or people that are dear to your poor

H. L. P.

Mr. Ray has long left Streatham and its neighbourhood. His mother died of cold in a rough winter some years ago. She would go and sort her apples in a loft; where being seized with a shivering fit, she was brought down,—only to expire,—at 92 years old.

Soame Jenyns, who, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, left no issue by either of his wives, was the author of the epitaph on Johnson containing the lines—

Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talk'd, and cough'd, and spit.

The French conspiracy here alluded to was the plot hatched for the murder of the Duc de Berri, son of the Comte d'Artois.

Bartolomeo Bergami, who just now loomed large through the cloud of scandal which surrounded the Queen's trial, was originally engaged by her as a courier, when she retired to the Continent in 1813. His handsome person so commended him to his royal mistress that she speedily promoted him to be her equerry and chamberlain, and treated him as an intimate friend. Through her influence he was made a Baron of Sicily, a Knight of Malta, and several other orders, including one of her own devising, under the patronage of "Saint Caroline": while a number of his relatives were provided with posts in her train.

Catherine Stephens was at this date the leading soprano at Covent Garden, and afterwards sang at Drury Lane, and in the chief concerts and festivals. In 1838 she married the fifth Earl of Essex, then over eighty years of age, and died in 1882. Though she had not a finished style, she sang airs like "Angels ever bright and fair" with much pathos and devotional feeling.

The Mrs. Sheridan here spoken of was the dramatist's first wife, Eliza Ann Linley, who died 1792. Though she was the finest singer of her day, her dislike to appearing in public had much to do with her run-away match with Sheridan.

Of Dr. Burney she writes in her Commonplace Book that he "died at last, I am told, at 89 years old, and in full possession of his faculties. They were extremely good ones. He thought himself my friend once, I believe, whilst he thought the world was so. When the stream turned against the poor straw, he helped its progress with his stick and made his daughter do it with her fingers. The stream however grew too strong, and forced the little straw forward in spite of them."

Mrs. Pennington sends a closely-written foolscap sheet dated October 1, largely taken up with the Queen's trial, a propos of which she says: "We received a comical anecdote in a letter from Town. They say it was a common trick for the little rascally boys, if they could get hold of a stranger in the mob, to offer to shew them the Queen for sixpence! On receiving it they would shout out; on which Her Majesty would immediately appear, and smile and curtesy graciously: and the boy would then add, "I'll have her out again presently!"

Penzance, Sunday Oct. 15, 1820.

A propos to Kingly residence the best joke is that since Her Majesty has possessed herself of all the John Bulls, her husband ran to Cowes by way of retaliation. It would seem by the Papers now, I think, that the Tryal draws near to a conclusion. If any poor Italian should be put in the Pillory, as menaced, he never, no never, would come out alive. When Mr. Thrale and I lived in Southwark, I pass'd a poor creature in that situation, upon St. Margaret's Hill, and could eat no dinner for thinking of his sufferings and danger. "Madam," exclaimed Dr. Johnson, "give yourself no concern about him. My life for it, he is drunk by now." The hapless Lombards have no such resource, and the man I saw died before night. But Miss Willoughby tells of another joke. One says the Queen must be fatigued to death sitting in this room so, without refreshment. "No Sir," is the reply, "the Queen's not nice; she can take a chop at the King's Head";—an Alehouse in the neighbourhood.

What you observe concerning public and private virtues may be true now in 1820; in 1760 I remember, when Wilkes's moral character was objected to by the Loyalists, the Liberty Boys cried, "What care we whether he be vicious, or the man he insults be virtuous? We look to public, not to private character." In consequence of these opinions the Town was deluged with verses, of which I can call to mind one stanza in praise of the then popular Hero.

'Tis thus that we are told,

The Ægyptians of old

Ador'd their still fouler Ichneumon,

Who alone durst engage

The fell Crocodile's rage,

With courage exceeding the human.

I forget whether the crocodile stood for King George III, or my Lord Mansfield. They equally resembled him, I believe; but 'tis plain men thought little of Jack Wilkes's vartue.

Your Butterfly, which was finished yesterday, is not less fixed in his flights than popular opinion. When Cardinal de Retz was followed up and down by an admiring mob, "Is not this fine?" said a flatterer, "to see your Eminence possess'd of so many friends and followers" "Let anybody ring a dinner-bell," said he, "and see how many would be left me then."

Meanwhile the storm continues very grand indeed, but something very like very dreadful. This bay looks so calm too! But sweetest wines make the sourest vinegar, and no anger is so fierce or fatal as that of gentle natures irritated to frenzy. I begin to wish it was over; as I did travelling among the Alps, which at first enraptur'd, but the third day wearied my very heart. Effect of the true sublime....

[P.M. Nov. 2, 1820.]

This will be a dull letter, dear Mrs. Pennington; I have been very ill, ill in good earnest, the pulse 92. There is a fever in the Town, and Sophy, my stout-looking housemaid, lies cover'd with blisters now....

Let us talk of the storm, it is more entertaining, and tho' death seems, by the describers, to be most dreadful under the form of white breakers, it comes cleanlier, and less to my personal disliking, so, than accompanied with gallipots and all the tribe of sick-bed sorrows; for which, and the talk concerning them, my aversion was ever great....

I continue to do what I came hither to perform, eat cheap fish, and pay old debts. Mr. Pennington will laugh, so will Dr. Randolph, if you tell them Tully's Offices are come to the last chapter, and that I shall write FINIS to that book, if I live the next month through.

Am I, d'ye think, to see the end of 1820? If I am, those who say people of letters are never people of figures, shall find themselves mistaken in H. L. P. Had I dreamed of losing £6000 at a stroke so, I would have been more prudent.

Conway was a good boy to send Partridge and pretty words to dear Clifton: he sends me no such nice things, knowing that my regard is not a ceremonious one. Marcella's speech to her lovers in Don Quixote, when they tax her with ingratitude, has the best common sense I ever read. "You love me," said she, "because I am young and beautiful and attractive by talents and graces. When you are so too I will requite your love, but no gratitude is due for that attention which you all confess to be involuntary. Get you gone, and plague me no more. Should I want your assistance when grown old and ugly, would you give me any? No, I warrant. Then I have nothing to thank you for."[36] ...

Dorset [Fellowes] has been surprisingly kind to me ... for after all, "Age is dark and unlovely, it is like the glimmering light of the Morn, when she shines thro' broken clouds: the blast of the North is on the plain, and the Traveller shrinks on his journey." Well! the people at Penzance do endure the dregs of the Piozzi very good naturedly; and Miss Willoughby grows much a favourite with them all.

What is to be seen at Penzance however, is a storm. The billows most majestic, and the sea spray tossing, foaming, as if to remind me of Brighthelmstone. For there alone does the salt water throw its particles into the air, so as to be carried 9 miles over the Downs to Lewes; where I have been warned to strip the Peaches of their downy coat, because they would taste of the last tempest. The shipwrecks here are shocking, and very frequent. This is no land of felicity to any but starvelings. Bessy buys five such fine Soles as I have partaken of at your table for one shilling, and they feed the family. We had a Turbot larger than that I sent to you for half a crown, a while ago. Miss Willoughby and I dined on the fins. But I scarce believe all fish is wholesome food, the town is full of Typhus now....

My heart tells me that H. L. P. has made her last journey; but 'tis no matter, and will be no loss.

A new book called Nicholle's Reflexions, or Recollections, will amuse you. His opinions of the late King run parallel with yours. But I, who remember caricatures of Charlotte toasting the muffin, and George the third reaching the Tea-kettle, can never be made believe that modern Reformers sigh for moral Princes. How did Louis 16^ze please the people with his morality? Calling his present Majesty Nero, is to me comical. Carleton House may indeed be termed Nerot's Hôtel, because the Master of it is kept, like the people of a bagnio, in hot water. And it seems that's the true London joke. Adieu....

The £6000, as appears from subsequent letters, had been given to Sir John Salusbury.

From a caricature by Gillray, 1791.
From the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.]

The joke about "Tully's Offices" evidently relates to her paying off the expenses of her birthday fête. The supper was provided by a celebrated Bath pastrycook named Tully, and the jest originated with Mrs. Piozzi, who, addressing her guests, bade them do justice to "Tully's Offices," the name by which Cicero De Officiis was commonly known in the eighteenth century.

On November 17 Mrs. Pennington, who has herself been ill, writes in great agitation about the Typhus, entreating Mrs. Piozzi, if she will not return to Clifton, to fly to Torquay. The Randolphs report it to be a terrestrial Paradise;—the scenery exquisitely beautiful, the air pure, mild, and dry, the town clean and neat, the living cheap, (the best possible meat 6d. per lb.,) and no lack of good society. Mrs. Randolph considered that Mrs. Piozzi might keep a carriage and live there elegantly within £1000 per annum.

Of the caricatures she remarks that "they were no proofs of the people not loving George the 3rd as a good man, a good husband, and good father, but merely the result of that spirit of persiflage to which the people of this country are said to be so much addicted. The simultaneous expressions of joy which you and I witnessed in the Streets and Theatres of the Metropolis on his recovery, could only have been the effects of genuine love and affection. It is in the failure of these virtues that the present K—g has lost the warm hearts of so many worthy subjects."

Penzance, Sunday, 12 Nov. 1820.

I am very sorry, dear Mrs. Pennington, that I said anything about this odious Fever; it will perhaps hurt the place, and in no wise benefit me.... We are surely in the hands of the same God at Penzance as at Torquay; and when he calls, go we must.

I cannot leave my habitation, which I have taken for a term, and must abide in till the term is over, nor will I go back without having done what I came hither to do. My friends are but too, too solicitous. They have all heard of this nonsensical story, and every day brings me letters full of pathetic, and I believe, sincere admonitions.... I wish you would all be more moderate in your kindnesses. My establishment is not a little Cloke-bag to put on my shoulder, and carry away from one place to another.... Be quiet, dear Friend, so I say to Miss Williams and Conway, who are half wild, God bless them!—and their loss would be nothing to what they fancy it. Yet 'tis all I can do to keep them from my door.

The world is all unhappy. This vexatious affair of the Queen has been a Tryal to everybody. I wish to know how the Bishops of Salisbury, Bangor, and St. Asaph give their votes. Lord Liverpool's observations are the best. If there was nothing wrong between the Lady and the Courier, what was there? Conversation was difficult, and talents there were none.

No letter has come from Brynbella this long time, but I know from Miss Williams there is nothing wrong there; meaning as to health and happiness. As to pelf I will be more prudent in future; indeed the danger is over when the money is all gone....

Bessy and I are engaged far differently from trimming hats for parties. Housework, and nursing, and crying, and clinging about Dr. Forbes and Mr. Moyle, an intelligent Surgeon, is all we have been doing a long time.... I do believe there is always Fever of this sort in these low situations, and when we do move, if it be not to Dymerchion's burying ground, it shall be to the lofty Crescent at Clifton. Torquay may do for some of those future years dear Mrs. Pennington talks of....

If you like to tell Mrs Rudd I still hope to come early in spring, do tell her so. Her son is a good child, and will ever be an honour and a comfort to her and to your really obliged and troublesome

H. L. Piozzi.

Her anxiety had not been all on account of Sophy the housemaid. Her attendant Bessy was the mother of a small boy named Angelo, a great pet of Mrs. Piozzi's, who accompanied them, and whom the Fever had brought to death's door, but who was now beginning to mend. She herself had only had a feverish cold.

The Bill of Pains and Penalties, reluctantly introduced by Lord Liverpool, then Prime Minister, though it passed the third reading, was abandoned by the Government on November 10, and the next letter gives a lively picture of the demonstrations which ensued.

Penzance, Nov. 15, 1820.

I feel terribly afraid, dear Mrs. Pennington, that my state of anxiety when I wrote last, betrayed my pen into some impatience of expression; ... and the interest Dr. and Mrs. Randolph were obliging enough to take in my concerns, deserved more thanks and compliments than I had, at that moment, leisure to pay.... The weather is changed, and the Fever quenched, ... and H. L. Piozzi become less a nuisance to her active Friends....

This town may defy any place of its size, or twice its size, for a burst of real feeling displayed in honour of the late event. All the ships in the harbour have flags flying during day time, lamps blazing thro' most of the long night. "Queen Caroline for ever" round every head in ribbons, while Laurel, Myrtle, every blooming shrub, decorates the houses that would not wish to be pulled down. And no bustle you and I witnessed in 1788, could in any degree equal the spread of influence shown on this occasion by Britons in love with morality, from Scarborough to Penzance. Popularity may be outlived indeed, as her uncle learned I trust, when shot at twice in one day, and nearly torne to pieces on another; when Cecil Forester, passing by accident, called up the Guards, and saved George the third's life, in his own Park, from the fury of a Mob, joined in deliberate design to murder him. I was in Wales, but could not doubt a fact so well attested. The State Coach, in which he had ridden that morning, was demolished, and he nearly dragged from his own private carriage. My wonder is he escaped so often, and died in his bed at last.

Our Horse's Mother, (Mr. Pennington remembers the story,) sent to me to bid me not to be frighted into illuminating my house. The Peuple Souverain say "Light your windows, or we will break them." My answer is the same to both. "We will do as our neighbours do."

16th. Wish'd morning's come. The windows unbroken. The gay fellows from Newlyn and Mousehole, (who increased our mob,) all gone home to bed, after drinking "The Queen and Count Bergami for ever," till they could scarcely reel to their wretched habitations. But St. Michael's Mount was the beautiful sight to see. Lamps in a pyramidal form to the top, where Tar Barrels were placed, and gave a glowing light to the whole scene, resembling the Bay of Naples.

Well! the wife of George the second was just dead when my poor eyes and ears opened on talk and show. She was a writing and reading woman, who respected herself, and half ador'd her husband. She died detested of the people, and derided by the wits. Our next was Charlotte of Mecklenburg. "Poor ugly Pug!" cried the populace, who crowded about her Chair, as she went to the Theatres on her first arrival. Poor Pug indeed! when the mob met her suddenly a few years after, at St. James's Gate, with a bier and mourning apparatus; "Young Allen's body" written on it. "Young Allen, murder'd by your husband's soldiers." The Queen fainted, miscarried, and lived thirty years, when she died. The people swung a Cat about the Palace, and sung "Old Tabby's departed." This Lady is a favourite; but sure the others were not hated on account of their immorality. I never heard a fault but avarice laid to their charge, and that has been disproved....

Oh! these are pretty times in which to be caring for a lengthen'd stay: but I have not that folly to answer for. May you, dearest Mrs. Pennington, be as willing to lay down the burden of life, when the Angel of release comes to cut the last thread it hangs by, as is your truly sincere and faithful

H. L. P.

November 16, 1820, is the last date in her Commonplace Book which she notes was begun at Brynbella 1809, thrown aside for some years, begun again at Streatham 1814, and continued at Bath 1815.

In 1794, a year of great scarcity, as the King went to open Parliament on October 29, his carriage was surrounded by a mob crying "Bread," and "Down with George!" and stones were thrown through the window. A somewhat similar attack was made on the Queen's carriage in 1796, when she herself was hit by a stone.

In a letter dated November 17, Mrs. Pennington replies. "In an early stage of our acquaintance, speaking of you to Mr. Greatheed, I recollect his exclaiming, 'Oh! if you like her so much now, what will you do when you see her miserable? She is so comical then, that she is quite too charming.' And comical you are, sure enough, my dearest Mrs. Piozzi! You scare one with ugly words, and then are half-angry that one is frightened. At above 200 miles distance, was it possible to hear of 'Fever and Typhus' in the town, and even in your house, and not be alarmed?" ...

"All the Bishops voted for the Bill, (with the exception of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Tuam,) tho' they divided on the divorce clause.... And all (with the above exceptions,) declared their perfect conviction that her Majesty was guilty, to the full extent of the charges." ...

"You remember, I daresay, Mr. Dennam's concluding sentence, in his address to the Lords, conjuring them to imitate the beneficent spirit of the Saviour, and to say to her, 'Go, and sin no more.' A blunder certainly, if he had taken the proper inference into account, worthy of Paddy himself, from a man advocating her innocence. The following lines are, I think, neat enough on the subject.