Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy: 

“December 16th, 1786.

“I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi, dated Vienna, November 4, in which she says that, after visiting Prague and Dresden, she shall return home by Brussels, whither I have written to her; and I imagine she will be in London early in the new year.  Miss Thrale is at her own house at Brighthelmstone, accompanied by a very respectable companion, an officer’s widow, recommended to her as such.[1] There is a new life of Johnson published by a Dr. Towers, a Dissenting minister and Dr. Kippis’s associate in the Biographia Britannica, for which work I take it for granted this life is to be hashed up again when the letter ‘J’ takes its turn.  There is nothing new in it; and the author gives Johnson and his biographers all fair play, except when he treats of his political opinions and pamphlets.  I was glad to hear that Johnson confessed to Dr. Fordyce, a little before his death, that he had offended both God and man by his pride of understanding.[2] Sir John Hawkins’ Life of him is also finished, and will be published with the works in February next.  From all these I suppose Boswell will borrow largely to make up his quarto life;—­and so our modern authors proceed, preying on one another, and complaining sorely of each other.”

[Footnote 1:  The Hon. Mrs. Murray, afterwards Mrs. Aust!]

[Footnote 2:  He used very different language to Langton.]

“March 8th, 1787.

“I had a letter lately from Mrs. Piozzi from Brussels, intimating that she should soon be in England, and I expect every day to hear of her arrival.  I do not believe that she purchased a marquisate abroad; but it is said, with some probability, that she will here get the King’s license, or an act of Parliament, to change her name to Salusbury, her maiden name.  Sir John Hawkins, I am told, bears hard upon her in his ‘Life of Johnson.’”

“March 21st, 1787.

“Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi are arrived at an hotel in Pall Mall, and are about to take a house in Hanover Square; they were with me last Saturday evening, when I asked some of her friends to meet her; she looks very well, and seems in good spirits; told me she had been that morning at the bank to get ‘Johnson’s Correspondence’ amongst other papers, which she means forthwith to commit to the press.  There is a bookseller has printed two supplementary volumes to Hawkins’ eleven, consisting almost wholly of the ‘Lilliputian Speeches.’  Hawkins has printed a Review of the ‘Sublime and Beautiful’ as Johnson’s, which Murphy says was his.”

“March 13th, 1787.

“Mrs. Piozzi and her caro sposo seem very happy here at a good house in Hanover Square, where I am invited to a rout next week, the first I believe she has attempted, and then will be seen who of her old acquaintance continue such.  She is now printing Johnson’s Letters in 2 vols. octavo, with some of her own; but if they are not ready before the recess they will not be published till next winter.  Poor Sir John Hawkins, I am told, is pulled all to pieces in the Review.”  Sir John was treated according to his deserts, and did not escape whipping.  One of the severest castigations was inflicted by Porson.