“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 there by my husband’s old acquaintances.  The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland too paid us a thousand caressing civilities 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 with the key of his box at the opera for the time we stay at Turin.  Here’s honour and glory for you!  When Miss Thrale hears of it, she will write perhaps; the other two are very kind and affectionate.”

In “Thraliana”: 

“3rd November, 1784.—­Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Baretti, full of the most flagrant and bitter insults concerning my late marriage with Mr. Piozzi, against whom, however, he can bring no heavier charge than that he disputed on the road with an innkeeper concerning the bill in his last journey to Italy; while he accuses me of murder and fornication in the grossest terms, such as I believe have scarcely ever been used even to his old companions in Newgate, whence he was released to scourge the families which cherished, and bite the hands that have since relieved him.  Could I recollect any provocation I ever gave the man, I should be less amazed, but he heard, perhaps, that Johnson had written me a rough letter, and thought he would write me a brutal one:  like the Jewish king, who, trying to imitate Solomon without his understanding, said, ’My father whipped you with whips, but I will whip you with scorpions.’”

“Milan, Dec. 7.

“I correspond 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.  Mrs. Lewis too, and Miss Nicholson, have had accounts of my health, for I found them disinterested and 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.”

Miss Nicholson was the lady left with the daughters, and Mrs. Piozzi could have heard no harm of her from them or others when she wrote thus.  The same inference must be drawn from the allusions to this lady at subsequent periods.  After stating that she “dined at the minister’s o’ Tuesday, and he called all the wise men about me with great politeness indeed”—­“Once more,” she continues, “keep me out of the newspapers if you possibly can:  they have given me many a miserable hour, and my enemies many a merry one:  but I have not deserved public persecution, and am very happy to live in a place where one is free from unmerited insolence, such as London abounds with.

  “‘Illic credulitas, illic temerarius error.’