“If I should have made improper choice of facts, and if I should be found at length most to resemble Maister Fabyan of old, who writing the life of Henry V. lays heaviest stress on a new weathercock set-up on St. Paul’s steeple during that eventful reign, my book must share the fate of his, and be like that forgotten:  reminding before its death perhaps a friend or two of a poor man (Macbean) living in later times, that Doctor Johnson used to tell us of; who being advised to take subscriptions for a new Geographical Dictionary, hastened to Bolt Court and begged advice.  There having listened carefully for half-an-hour, ‘Ah, but dear Sir,’ exclaimed the admiring parasite, ’if I am to make all this eloquent ado about Athens and Rome, where shall we find place, do you think, for Richmond, or Aix La Chapelle?’”

Writing from Bath, December 15th, 1802, she says: 

“The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for July 1801 contained my answer to such critics as confined themselves to faults I could have helped committing—­had they been faults.  Those who merely told disagreeable truths concerning my person, or dress, or age, or such stuff, expected, of course, no reply.  There are innumerable press errors in the book, from my being obliged to print on new year’s day—­during an insurrection of the printers.  These the ‘Critical Review’ laid hold of with an acuteness sharpened by malignity.”

Moore, who was staying at Bowood, sets down in his diary for April, 1823:  “Lord L. in the evening, quoted a ridiculous passage from the Preface to Mrs. Piozzi’s ‘Retrospections,’ in which, anticipating the ultimate perfection of the human race, she says she does not despair of the time arriving when ’Vice will take refuge in the arms of impossibility.’  Mentioned also an ode of hers to Posterity, beginning, ‘Posterity, gregarious dame,’ the only meaning of which must be, a lady chez qui numbers assemble—­a lady at home."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Memoirs, &c., vol. iv. p. 38.]

There is no such passage in the Preface to “Retrospection,” and the ode is her “Ode to Society,” who is not improperly addressed as “gregarious.”

“I repeated,” adds Moore, “what Jekyll told the other day of Bearcroft saying to Mrs. Piozzi, when Thrale, after she had repeatedly called him Mr. Beercraft:  ’Beercraft is not my name, Madam; it may be your trade, but it is not my name.’” It may always be questioned whether this offensive description of repartee was really uttered at the time.  But Bearcroft was capable of it.  He began his cross-examination of Mr. Vansittart by—­“With your leave, Sir, I will call you Mr. Van for shortness.”  “As you please, Sir, and I will call you Mr. Bear.”

Towards the end of 1795, Mrs. Piozzi left Streatham for her seat in North Wales, where (1800 or 1801) she was visited by a young nobleman, now an eminent statesman, distinguished by his love of literature and the fine arts, who has been good enough to recall and write down his impressions of her for me: