MADAME PIOZZI.

“What was my marriage, Sir, to you or him? He tell me what to do!—­a pretty whim! He, to propriety, (the beast) resort! As well might elephants preside at court.  Lord! let the world to damn my match agree; Good God!  James Boswell, what’s that world to me? The folks who paid respects to Mistress Thrale, Fed on her pork, poor souls! and swill’d her ale, May sicken at Piozzi, nine in ten—­ Turn up the nose of scorn—­good God! what then?  For me, the Dev’l may fetch their souls so great; They keep their homes, and I, thank God, my meat.  When they, poor owls! shall beat their cage, a jail, I, unconfin’d, shall spread my peacock tail; Free as the birds of air, enjoy my ease, Choose my own food, and see what climes I please. I suffer only—­if I’m in the wrong:  So, now, you prating puppy, hold your tongue.”

[Footnote 1:  This evidently referred to the “adumbration” of Johnson’s letter (No. 4), ante, p. 239.]

Walpole’s opinion of the book itself had been expressed in a preceding letter, dated March 28th, 1786: 

“Two days ago appeared Madame Piozzi’s Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.  I am lamentably disappointed—­in her, I mean:  not in him.  I had conceived a favourable opinion of her capacity.  But this new book is wretched; a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish in a very vulgar style, and too void of method even for such a farrago. . .  The Signora talks of her doctor’s expanded mind and has contributed her mite to show that never mind was narrower.  In fact, the poor woman is to be pitied:  he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out[1], but have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his brutalities as wit, and his worst conundrums as humour.  Judge!  The Piozzi relates that a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he replied:  ‘In Ireland:  it was a bog planted with palm trees.’”

[Footnote 1:  See ante, p. 202 and 270.]

Walpole’s statement, that the whole first impression was sold the first day, is confirmed by one of her letters, and may be placed alongside of a statement of Johnson’s reported in the book.  Clarissa being mentioned as a perfect character, “on the contrary (said he) you may observe that there is always something which she prefers to truth.  Fielding’s Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances; but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, which, being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night.”

When the king sent for a copy of the “Anecdotes” on the evening of the publication, there was none to be had.

In April, 1786, Hannah More writes: 

“Mrs. Piozzi’s book is much in fashion.  It is indeed entertaining, but there are two or three passages exceedingly unkind to Garrick which filled me with indignation.  If Johnson had been envious enough to utter them, she might have been prudent enough to suppress them.”