ADTOBIOGEAPHY, LETTERS, AND LITERARY REMAINS OF

nits. PIOZZI.* THIS work is intended as a defence of Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Thrale —" the bright papilionaceous creature," to borrow Mr. Carlyle's brief account of her, whom the elephant loved to play with, " and wave to and fro upon his trunk." In editing her literary re- mains, Mr. aayward tells us that he does not set up Mrs. Piozzi as a model letter writer, eminent author, pattern of domestic vir- tue or " fitting object of hero or heroine worship in any capacity." As one of the " Associate Towns" that belong to the living pic- ture, in which the surly Saint Samuel formed the central figure ; as an accomplished, learned, and upright woman, Mrs. Piozzi is, in her editor's judgment, entitled to better treatment than she has yet received. To vindicate her against unjust reproach is his object ; and in this object, we think, he largely succeeds. The bead and front of her offending lies in her second marriage, with the Italian musician, Piozzi, a respectable, civil, good-humoured man, of about the same age as herself, something over forty, and who, far from being the ugly dog that Johnson called him, was, according to Miss Seward, a handsome man, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manner. The alliance was, no doubt, one that could hardly prove acceptable to her friends. Piozzi was a foreigner, " a Radler," and a Papist. We are not surprised that Dr. Johnson, and the Johnsonian circle in general should disapprove of the marriage. It had not, in truth, any adventitious recommenda- tions. Still, on the whole, we are inclined to agree with Dr. Burney that Mrs. Thrale had a " right to consult her own notions of happiness in the choice of a second husband, had not the para- mount duty of watching over her unmarried daughter interfered." Without pronouncing an absolute opinion on this point, we must acknowledge that we are not satisfied that Mrs. Thrale was duly impressed with a sense of her maternal obligations. The arrange- ment she made for her children's well-being, during the wedding tour, had an unfortunate termination. Of her four daughters, one alone accompanied her. The eldest, on coming of age, hired a, house in London, and took her two eldest sisters to live with ber. On the return of Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi, however, Miss Thrale showed them every attention ; nor do any of the sisters appear to be " open to the imputation of filial unkindness." Thus, if the marriage was somewhat indiscreet, it was surely not disgraceful ; and if some blame attaches to Mrs. Thrale, for a partial derelic- tion of parental duty, she scarcely deserved the vehement assaults of the press of her own day, or the rhetorical invective of genius in ours.

Another accusation, brought against Mrs. Piozzi, relates to her literary veracity and trustworthiness. In some of the instances eelected. by Mr. Hayward, we think, he succeeds in reestablishing the lady's character, on this score. We agree with him, for example, in his comment on Malone's remark. In a somewhat different case, too, we think Mr. Hayward more nearly correct than Mr. Forster, in his interpretation of the Goldsmith's anec- dote.

It was at once Mrs. Piozzi's privilege and her glory that she Was the tender and sympathizing friend of a true-hearted and great, if in some respects a much over-rated, man. It was her kindness that, in Johnson's own words, soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched. That she was not a noble or a high- minded woman; that she had not any supreme intellectual power ; that she possessed no exact or extraordinary erudition, would be readily admitted by her most ardent admirers—if she had any. But she was kind, charitable, and generous ; she had a fine intelligence, a fair share of learning, even for a man ; some fancy, some conversational talent, a retentive and ready memory, and an unexampled vivacity. We have not much to say in commendation of her literary

compositions. They are all slight, fugitive, and superficial. But some of her remarks are amusing ; and she now and then relates an anecdote worth hearing% She has also some skill in rhyming ; and her fable of "The Three Warnings," evinces re- flection and ingenuity. Among the numerous versions of the dying Hadrian's address to his soul, we know not of any superior to hers, with all its shortcomings.

" Gentle Soul, a moment stay ! Whither would'st thou wing thy way ? Cheer once more thy house of clay, Once more prattle and be gay, See, thy fluttering pinions play; Gentle soul ; a moment stay !"

Her letters are not of a high order. Many of them, however,

• Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozsi (Thrale). Edited, with Notes and an Introductory Account of her Life and Writings, by A,. Hayward, Esq., Q.C. In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co.

contain some droll and slightly humorous passages, with an coca- sional bit of learning or common sense, and some wrongheaded- ness. The following remark, though in antiquated dialect, is characteristic. Mrs. Piozzi, it must be remembered, was all for " Church and King "-

" 1819. Llewenny Hall pulled down, too ! and its forests. Alta cadit quercus. But schools are made of the bricks, and teacher,/, as I call it in a word of my i own inventing, goes on at a famous rate ; yet one does not re- member it s ever said in the Old or New Testament, If you study my ways, and learn my commandments, but If you walk in my ways, and observe my commandments to do them ;' which was surely never no little practised as now. Well, the work of reformation runs forward apace. Fe- male associations are forming every day and everywhere. They come into your kitchens, instruct your servants, tell them how their masters and ladies run to perdition, give them books against tyranny, and tell them they are all slaves."

With reform and reforming politicians, Mrs. Piozzi had no sympathy. If, however, she is often unjust to " the Russells," " the Burdetts " did perhaps deserve her rebuke. " Fools !" she exclaims, " teaching English boys to sing ' Ca ira,' when they don't know nor can guess what it means." In a livelier way, she writes—" Our demagogues are to make a grand push for triennial Parliaments, they say. People are in such haste to be happy, they play short whist, short commerce, tke. ; but, after all, these complaints of bad harvests, I did not expect them to cry for short commons."

Of Mr. Hayward's own literary skill, we cannot make any satis- factory report. His " Introduction " relates to Dr. Johnson rather than to Mrs. Thrale ; and, though there is no doubt amusing matter in it, is scarcely necessary. A brief matter-of-fact state- ment of the various events in Mrs. Piozzi's life, with due attention paid to chronological order, would have been more to the purpose. It would be difficult to find a less felicitously written paragraph than that with which the first volume opens. Dr. Johnson here appears as the " literary colossus of an epoch when the galaxy of

British authorship sparkled, ; " as the sun of the idolatry of attendant satellites ; and as the magnolia grandiflora of the humble companions who gathered and preserved the choicest of its flowers Those who can read this page with pleasure, will be content to read many more. There is nothing more falsely fine in the whole of the book.

We shall make but one more remark on Mr. Hayward's own part of the performance. Commenting on Piozzi's imputed want of youth and good looks, he says, that Johnson's knowledge of womankind should have prevented him from urging this as an objection, or as an aggravation of her offence. To illustrate this position, he quotes a passage from Spenser, in which female pre- dilections are severely handled, and refers us to "the Roman matron, in Juvenal, who considers the world well lost for an old and disfigured pre-lighter ; " with a singular unconsciousness that in suggesting the parallel, he is not vindicating, but rather incriminating his fair client.

Among the curious assertions to be found in these volumes is Mrs. Piozzi's assertion, that Sterne borrowed the character of Vuele Toby, the behaviour of Corporal Trim, even the name of Tristram itself, from a stupid history of Corporal Bates. Is such a book extant, and is the allegation well founded ? It may be well to note here, that Piozzi behaved with affection and honour, as the husband of the "rich widow," who was, how- ever, embarrassed with temporary debt, when he married her. He died of gout at his pretty villa in North Wales. Mrs. Piozzi

survived him many years. One of the most characteristic feats or freaks of this extraordinary woman, was the celebration of her eightieth birthday by a concert, ball, and supper, to between six and seven hundred people on the 27th of January, 1820." Her death, which took place in May, 1821, was due, not to natural decay, but "to the effects of a fall in a journey from Penzance to Clifton."

We subjoin two extracts from these volumes. One enables us to realize the " outward woman" of the " bright papilionaceous Thralia" (then Piozzi), in 1803. The other is too good an anec- dote to be omitted- " It would seem that she had adopted Dr. Johnson's theory of dress for little women by this time, for a lady who met her on the way, describes her as skipping about like a kid, quite a figure of fun, in a tiger-skin shawl, lined with scarlet, and only five colours upon her head-dress--on the top of a flaxen wig a bandeau of blue velvet, a bit of tiger ribbon, a white beaver hat, and plume of black feathers—as gay as a lark.' "

NOTE ON GEORGE THE THIRD.

When the present King was quite a lad, there was a young fellow about the Prince's Court, who, being thought natural son to my uncle Robert, was petted and provided for in some manner by the family and used to visit familiarly at my mother's; who said that he told her how one day the two eldest boys were playing in the Princess's apartment, when the second said suddenly, " Brother, when you and I are own grown, you shall marry a wife, and I'll keep .a mistress."

"What you say there ? you naughty boy," exclaimed the brother, " Ton'd better to learn your pronouns as preceptor bid you; I believe you do not know what it is—a pronoun." " Be quiet, Eddy," says the King, " we shall have anger presently for

your nonsense. Fletcher, (to my courtier cousin) give us the books." Let them alone," cries Prince Edward, " I know what it is without a book ; a pronoun is to a noun what a mistress is to a wife—a substitute and a repre- sentative." The Princess burst out a-laughing, and turned them all out of the room.

Prince Edward was the Duke of York, who died at Monaco in Italy."