The incident of the verses is thus narrated in “Thraliana”:  “And this year, 1777[1], when I told him that it was my birthday, and that I was then thirty-five years old, he repeated me these verses, which I wrote down from his mouth as he made them.”  If she was born in 1740-41, she must have been thirty-six in 1777; and there is no perfectly satisfactory settlement of the controversy, which many will think derives its sole importance from the two chief controversialists.

[Footnote 1:  In one of her Memorandum books, 1776.]

The highest authorities differ equally about her looks.  “My readers,” says Boswell, “will naturally wish for some representation of the figures of this couple.  Mr. Thrale was tall, well-proportioned, and stately.  As for Madam, or My Mistress, by which epithets Johnson used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk.”  “He should have added,” observes Mr. Croker, “that she was very pretty.”  This was not her own opinion, nor that of her cotemporaries, although her face was attractive from animation and expression, and her personal appearance pleasing on the whole.  Sometimes, when visiting the author of “Piozziana,"[1] she used to look at her little self, as she called it, and spoke drolly of what she once was, as if speaking of some one else; and one day, turning to him, she exclaimed:  “No, I never was handsome:  I had always too many strong points in my face for beauty.”  On his expressing a doubt of this, and hinting that Dr. Johnson was certainly an admirer of her personal charms, she replied that his devotion was at least as warm towards the table and the table-cloth at Streatham.

[Footnote 1:  “Piozziana; or Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi, with Remarks.  By a Friend.” (The Rev. E. Mangin.) Moxon, 1833.  These reminiscences, unluckily limited to the last eight or ten years of her life at Bath, contain much curious information, and leave a highly favourable impression of Mrs. Piozzi.]

One day when he was ill, exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, she appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an iron-grey. “‘Why do you delight,’ said he, ’thus to thicken the gloom of misery that surrounds me? is not here sufficient accumulation of horror without anticipated mourning?’—­’This is not mourning, Sir!’ said I, drawing the curtain, that the light might fall upon the silk, and show it was a purple mixed with green.—­’Well, well!’ replied he, changing his voice; ’you little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way.  What! have not all insects gay colours?’”