[Footnote 1:  “The old woman’s fancy for Mr. Conway represents a relation of warm friendship that is of every-day occurrence between youth and age that is not crabbed.”—­The Examiner, Feb. 16, 1861.]

“’Tis not a year and a quarter since, dear Conway, accepting of my portrait sent to Birmingham, said to the bringer, ’Oh if your lady but retains her friendship:  oh if I can but keep her patronage, I care not for the rest.’  And now, when that friendship follows you through sickness and through sorrow; now that her patronage is daily rising in importance:  upon a lock of hair given or refused by une petite Traitresse, hangs all the happiness of my once high-spirited and high-blooded friend.  Let it not be so.  EXALT THY LOVE:  DEJECTED HEART—­and rise superior to such narrow minds.  Do not however fancy she will ever be punished in the way you mention:  no, no; she’ll wither on the thorny stem dropping the faded and ungathered leaves:—­a China rose, of no good scent or flavour—­false in apparent sweetness, deceitful when depended on—­unlike the flower produced in colder climates, which is sought for in old age, preserved even after death, a lasting and an elegant perfume,—­a medicine, too, for those whose shattered nerves require astringent remedies.

“And now, dear Sir, let me request of you—­to love yourself—­and to reflect on the necessity of not dwelling on any particular subject too long, or too intensely.  It is really very dangerous to the health of body and soul.  Besides that our time here is but short; a mere preface to the great book of eternity:  and ’tis scarce worthy of a reasonable being not to keep the end of human existence so far in view that we may tend to it—­either directly or obliquely in every step.  This is preaching—­but remember how the sermon is written at three, four, and five o’clock by an octogenary pen—­a heart (as Mrs. Lee says) twenty-six years old:  and as H.L.P. feels it to be,—­ALL YOUR OWN.  Suffer your dear noble self to be in some measure benefited by the talents which are left me; your health to be restored by soothing consolations while I remain here, and am able to bestow them.  All is not lost yet.  You have a friend, and that friend is PIOZZI.”

Conway’s “high blood” was as great a recommendation to Mrs. Piozzi as his good looks, and he vindicated his claim to noble descent by his conduct, which was disinterested and gentlemanlike throughout.

Moore sets down in his Diary, April 28, 1819:  “Breakfasted with the Fitzgeralds.  Took me to call on Mrs. Piozzi; a wonderful old lady; faces of other times seemed to crowd over her as she sat,—­the Johnsons, Reynoldses, &c. &c.:  though turned eighty, she has all the quickness and intelligence of a gay young woman.”

Nichol, the bookseller, had said that “Johnson was the link that connected Shakespeare with the rest of mankind.”  On hearing this, Mrs. Piozzi at eighty exclaimed, “Oh, the dear fellow, I must give him a kiss for that idea.”  When Nichol told the story, he added, “I never got it, and she went out of the world a kiss in my debt.”