“When life was gradually, but perceptibly, closing round him at Bath, in 1808, I asked him if he would wish to converse with a Romish priest,—­we had full opportunity there.  ‘By no means,’ said he.  ’Call Mr. Leman of the Crescent.’  We did so,—­poor Bessy ran and fetched him.  Mr. Piozzi received the blessed Sacrament at his hands; but recovered sufficiently to go home and die in his own house.”

He died of gout at Brynbella in March 1809, and was buried in a vault constructed by her desire in Dymerchion Church.  There is a portrait of him (period and painter unknown) still preserved amongst the family portraits at Brynbella.  It is that of a good-looking man of about forty, in a straight-cut brown coat with metal buttons, lace frill and ruffles, and some leaves of music in his hand.  There are also two likenesses of Mrs. Piozzi:  one a three-quarter length (kit-kat), taken apparently when she was about forty; the other a miniature of her at an advanced age.  Both confirm her description of herself as too strong-featured to be pretty.  The hands in the three-quarter length are gloved.

Brynbella continued her headquarters till 1814, when she gave it up to Sir John Salusbury.  From that period she resided principally at Bath and Clifton, occasionally visiting Streatham or making summer trips to the seaside.

That she and her eldest daughter should ever be again (if they ever were) on a perfect footing of confidence and affection, was a moral impossibility.  Estrangements are commonly durable in proportion to the closeness of the tie that has been severed; and it is no more than natural that each party, yearning for a reconciliation and not knowing that the wish is reciprocated, should persevere in casting the blame of the prolonged coldness on the other.  Occasional sarcasms no more prove disregard or indifference, than Swift’s “only a woman’s hair” implies contempt for the sex.

Miss Thrale’s marriage with Lord Keith in 1808 is thus mentioned in “Thraliana”: 

“The ‘Thraliana’ is coming to an end; so are the Thrales.  The eldest is married now.  Admiral Lord Keith the man; a good man for ought I hear:  a rich man for ought I am told:  a brave man we have always heard:  and a wise man I trow by his choice.  The name no new one, and excellent for a charade, e.g.

  “A Faery my first, who to fame makes pretence;
  My second a Rock, dear Britannia’s defence;
  In my third when combined will too quickly be shown
  The Faery and Rock in our brave Elphin-stone.”

Her way of life after Piozzi’s death may be collected from the Letters, with the exception of one strange episode towards the end.  When nearly eighty, she took a fancy for an actor named Conway, who came out on the London boards in 1813, and had the honour of acting Romeo and Jaffier to the Juliet and Belvidera of Miss O’Neill (Lady Becher).  He also acted with her in Dean Milman’s fine play, “Fazio.”  But it was his ill fate to reverse Churchill’s famous lines: