“I did certainly know Madame Piozzi, but had no habits of acquaintance with her, and she never lived in London to my knowledge.  When in my youth I made a tour in Wales—­times when all inns were bad, and all houses hospitable—­I put up for a day at her house, I think in Denbighshire, the proper name of which was Bryn, and to which, on the occasion of her marriage I was told, she had recently added the name of Bella.  I remember her taking me into her bed-room to show me the floor covered with folios, quartos, and octavos, for consultation, and indicating the labour she had gone through in compiling an immense volume she was then publishing, called ‘Retrospection.’  She was certainly what was called, and is still called, blue, and that of a deep tint, but good humoured and lively, though affected; her husband, a quiet civil man, with his head full of nothing but music.

“I afterwards called on her at Bath, where she chiefly resided.  I remember it was at the time Madame de Stael’s ‘Delphine,’ and ‘Corinne,’ came out[1], and that we agreed in preferring ‘Delphine,’ which nobody reads now, to ‘Corinne,’ which most people read then, and a few do still.  She rather avoided talking of Johnson.  These are trifles, not worth recording, but I have put them down that you might not think me neglectful of your wishes; but now j’ai vuide mon sac.”

[Footnote 1:  “Delphine” appeared in 1804; “Corinne,” in 1806.]

Her mode of passing her time when she had ceased writing books, with the topics which interested her, will be best learned from her letters.  Her vivacity never left her, and the elasticity of her spirits bore up against every kind of depression.  A lady who met her on her way to Wynnstay in January, 1803, describes her as “skipping about like a kid, quite a figure of fun, in a tiger skin shawl, lined with scarlet, and only five colours upon her head-dress—­on the top of a flaxen wig a bandeau of blue velvet, a bit of tiger ribbon, a white beaver hat and plume of black feathers—­as gay as a lark.”

In a letter, dated Jan. 1799, to a Welsh neighbour, Mrs. Piozzi says: 

“Mr. Piozzi has lost considerably in purse, by the cruel inroads of the French in Italy, and of all his family driven from their quiet homes, has at length with difficulty saved one little boy who is now just turned of five years old.  We have got him here (Bath) since I wrote last, and his uncle will take him to school next week; for as our John has nothing but his talents and education to depend upon, he must be a scholar, and we will try hard to make him a very good one.

“My poor little boy from Lombardy said as I walked him across our market, ‘These are sheeps’ heads, are they not, aunt?  I saw a basket of men’s heads at Brescia.’

“As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John Salusbury, five years ago, when happier days smiled on his family, he will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is a foreigner.  A lucky circumstance for one who is intended to work his way among our islanders by talent, diligence, and education.”