“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.”

[Footnote 1:  Queen Mary left the Scottish for the English coast, on the Firth of Solway, in a fishing-boat.  The incident to which Johnson alludes is introduced in “The Abbot;” where the scene is laid on the sea-shore.  The unusual though expressive term “irremeable,” is defined in his dictionary, “admitting no return.”  His authority is Dryden’s Virgil: 

  “The keeper dream’d, the chief without delay
  Pass’d on, and took th’ irremeable way.”

The word is a Latin one anglicised: 

  “Evaditque celer ripam irremeabilis undae.”]

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