THE INTIMATE LETTERS OF HESTER PIOZZI AND PENELOPE PENNINGTON 1788-1821

EDITED BY OSWALD G. KNAPP

WITH THIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN. MCMXIV

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

MY WIFE

[vii]

PREFACE

The letters included in this volume have been printed without alteration, except that some of Mrs. Piozzi's redundant initial capitals have been suppressed, and that her somewhat erratic punctuation has been, to a certain extent, systematised. Her spelling, save for the correction of obvious slips, which are very rare, has not been altered. The omitted passages, which have been indicated wherever they occur, mainly consist of formal "compliments" at the beginning or end of letters, to which she was much addicted, unsavoury medical details, or casual allusions to insignificant persons and trivial events of no interest in themselves, and having no direct bearing on the story of her life.

For the outline of her career before her second marriage I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to previous writers, particularly Hayward and Mangin, and the more recent works of Mr. Seeley and Messrs. Broadley and Seccombe; not forgetting the indispensable Dictionary of National Biography, for the identification of many persons incidentally mentioned. I have also to express my thanks to Miss Thrale of Croydon for interesting information respecting her family; and above all to Mr. A. M. Broadley, not only for his generous permission to make use of Mrs. Piozzi's unpublished Commonplace Book, now in[viii] his possession, but also for allowing me to draw freely upon his unrivalled collection of prints, &c., relating to this period, from which the greater part of the illustrations has been taken.

Inwood, Parkstone,

July 1913.

[ix]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[1]

CHAPTER I

Introductory—Mrs. Piozzi and the blue-stockings—Penelope Weston—The Salusbury family—Early years and education—Marriage to Thrale, 1763—Widowhood—Marriage to Piozzi, 1784—Foreign travel—Return to England, 1788.

In the course of the last hundred years the horizon of woman's work and interests has been extended so widely, and in so many directions, religious, educational, political, economic, and social, that already the Blue-Stockings of the eighteenth century seem almost as far removed from us as the Précieuses Ridicules of Molière. The student of the period takes note of them as products of a social and intellectual movement characteristic of their day; and the general reader knows a few of them by name, though chiefly as satellites revolving round the greater luminaries of the age: but their works are, for the most part, unread and forgotten. This is not, perhaps, a matter for surprise, seeing that they were not profound or original thinkers, and even their works of fiction are too stilted and prolix for our impatient age. Indeed their contemporaries were probably less impressed by the learning, even of the leaders of the movement, than by their brilliant conversational powers, in which, perhaps, they have never been surpassed; though this is a matter on which, from the nature of the

case, we have, for the most part, but imperfect materials with which to form a judgment.

If there be an exception, it is to be found in the case of[2] the writer of the following letters. Of the literary society in which she moved she was an acknowledged queen, who hardly yielded precedence on her own ground to Mrs. Montagu herself. Indeed Wraxall was of opinion that she possessed "at least as much information, a mind as cultivated, and even more brilliancy of intellect"; while Madame D'Arblay thought that her conversation was "more bland and more gleeful" than that of either Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Vesey. "To hear you," wrote Boswell (before their great quarrel), "is to hear Wisdom, to see you is to see Virtue." It may be said that this was merely the partiality of friendship, or an example of the mutual admiration which was rather characteristic of the coterie. But Anna Seward, who roundly condemned her literary style, declared that her conversation was "the bright wine of intellect, which has no lees"; and the great Lexicographer himself, who was not wont to be unduly lavish of his praises, vouchsafed on one

occasion to tell her that she had "as much wit, and more talent," than any woman he knew. And what is still more remarkable, her power of pleasing continued, with but little diminution, to the end of her long life. Sir William Pepys, who had known her for many years, writing after her death, says he had "never met any human being who possessed the talent of conversation to such a degree."

And more easily than in the case of most of her contemporaries, the charm of her conversation can be gathered from her letters. To it Fanny Burney's criticism seems to apply as fitly as to the record of her Italian tour, of which it was originally written: "How like herself, how characteristic is every line! wild, entertaining, flighty, inconsistent, and clever!" The spontaneity and freshness of her style is the more remarkable when we remember the taste of the circle in which she moved, and compare her letters with the laboured and formal productions of her friend Anna Seward, the much-admired "Swan of Lichfield," and particularly when we recall her intimate relations with[3] Johnson for a period of nearly twenty years. The fact is that he found her mind already formed, and though it was for a time "swallowed up and lost," as she says, in his vast intellect, it was not absorbed, but emerged later on, strengthened and clarified indeed, but with its original characteristics little changed.

A good many of her letters have already seen the light. Those written to Dr. Johnson she herself published after his death. Her friend, the Rev. Edward Mangin, included about thirty, written for the most part to himself, in his Piozziana; while Hayward, in the so-called Autobiography, gives about a hundred and forty, of which a few were written to the brothers Lysons, and nearly all the remainder to Sir James Fellowes. But these differ in some important respects from those in the present volume. They were nearly all written to men, and though they may possibly be somewhat more brilliant, and make rather a greater show of learning, they are hardly so frank and unaffected, and do not reveal the personality of the writer so clearly as those which she wrote to an intimate friend of her own sex; in whose case she had no temptation to pose, even unconsciously, nor any lurking thought of a reputation as a wit to be kept up.

Their recipient was fully alive to their importance, and in a letter in Mr. Broadley's collection, dated 1821, quotes her as saying that she had "a larger and perhaps better collection of dear Mrs. Piozzi's letters than any other correspondent." And she backs her opinion by that of Dr. Whalley, who had probably seen most of them, to the effect that "was any publication intended, they would be a most rich and valuable addition, and altogether form a collection of letters more eagerly sought after, and more agreeable to the general public than any that have been ever published."

The letters in question, some two hundred in number, begin in 1788, not long after Mrs. Piozzi's second marriage,[4] and continue (though with a break of fifteen years) to within a few days of her death in 1821. The friend to whom they were written first appears on the scene as Penelope Sophia Weston, a friend of Mrs. Siddons, Helen Williams, and Anna Seward, whose published letters contain many addressed to "the graceful and elegant Miss Weston," who was then the leading spirit of "a knot of ingenious and charming females at Ludlow in Shropshire," where Anna paid her a visit in 1787. She was then living with her widowed mother, who had not much in common with the literary proclivities of her daughter. She writes in 1782: "My mother is a very good woman, but our minds are, unfortunately, cast in such different moulds—our pursuits and ideas on every occasion are likewise so—that it is of very little moment our speaking the same language. Indeed I see very little of her; for she is either busied in domestic matters, praying, gardening, or gossiping most part of the day; while I sit

moping over the fire with a book or pen in my hand, without stirring (if the weather is unfavourable), for weeks together.... Remember me to your charming Mrs. Siddons." This passage appears in the published correspondence of her "dear cousin Tom," the Rev. T. S. Whalley, D.D., who was not, strictly speaking, related to her at all, but had married her first cousin, Miss Jones of Longford. As he had a house at Bath he may have been the means of making her acquainted with Mrs. Piozzi.

It does not fall within the scope of this work to give a detailed account of Mrs. Piozzi's life: this has been done, though in a somewhat piecemeal manner, by A. Hayward,[1] and more recently by Mr. H. B. Seeley.[2] But for the better understanding of the letters it will be necessary to give a[5] brief outline of her career up to the date at which they begin; and this may fitly be preceded by some account of her family, a matter in which she was keenly interested, and to which she frequently recurs in her correspondence.

[1] Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi, 2 vols., 1861.

[2] Mrs. Piozzi: a Sketch of her Life, and Passages from her Diaries, Letters, &c., 1891.

Mrs. Piozzi was the last of an old knightly Welsh family, Welsh by long residence, if not by blood, called in the early records Salbri or Salsbri, and Englished as Salesbury or Salisbury, and in more recent times as Salusbury. It produced a goodly number of soldiers, scholars, and divines; the latter chiefly in a younger branch seated at Rûg in Merioneth in the sixteenth century. Among these were William Salesbury, "the best scholar among the Welshmen," who compiled a Welsh dictionary, and made the first translation of the New Testament into that language; Henry Salesbury, a noted doctor and grammarian, and John Salesbury, a Jesuit, Superior of the English Province. In the same century the elder or Llewenny line boasted of John Salesbury, a Benedictine monk who forsook his vows and married, but was made by Queen Elizabeth Bishop of Sodor and Man; Foulke Salesbury, first Dean of St. Asaph, and Thomas Salesbury, who was executed for his share in Babington's Plot.

In the course of centuries a goodly number of romantic legends had attached themselves to the earlier generations, particularly in connection with their armorial bearings, in which Mrs. Piozzi was an enthusiastic believer. As far back as the sixteenth century the Salesburys had claimed as their eponymous ancestor a certain Adam, believed to be a younger son of Alexander, Duke of Bavaria, hence known as Adam de Saltzburg, who made his way to England, and was appointed by Henry II Captain of the castle of Denbigh. Another and less probable version of the story, favoured by Mrs. Piozzi, makes him a follower of William the Conqueror, and gives him a fair estate in Lancashire, on which he built a seat called Saltsbury or Salisbury Court. Of her descent from this Adam she says: "I showed an[6] abstract to the Heralds in Office at Saltzburg, when there, and they acknowledged me a true descendant of their house, offering me all possible honours, to the triumphant delight of dear Piozzi, for whose amusement alone I pulled out the Schedule." This may be satisfactory

evidence for the existence of Adam, but of course the Heralds had to take the descent on trust. The fact appears to be that Adam of Llewenny was an Englishman who settled in Wales after its conquest at the end of the thirteenth century, and was a member of the family of Salesbury of Salesbury, co. Lancs. Adam's descendant, Sir Henry Salesbury "the Black," "having taken three noble Saracens with his own hand on the first Crusade, Cœur de Lion knighted him on the field of battle, and to the old Bavarian lion which adorned his shield added three crescents." This Henry is supposed to have built Llewenny Hall. The name of another Henry, who fought in the Wars of the Roses, "stood recorded on a little obelisk, or rather cippus, by the roadside at Barnet, ... so long that I remember my father taking me out of the carriage to read it, when I was quite a child. He had shown mercy to an enemy on that occasion, who, looking on his device ... flung himself at his feet with these words—'SAT EST PROSTRASSE LEONI.' Our family have used that Leggenda as motto to the coat

armour ever since." The arms of the present Piozzi-Salusbury family are: Gules, a lion rampant argent, ducally crowned or, between three crescents of the last, a canton ermine, with motto as above.

We are on firmer ground when we arrive at Sir John Salesbury of Llewenny, Kt., M.P. for Denbigh in the sixteenth century, and his family of fourteen children, of whom the eldest and youngest sons were the ancestors of Mrs. Piozzi on the maternal and paternal side respectively. John, the eldest, married Catherine of Berain, a lady who deserves a paragraph to herself. Their grandson, Sir Henry Salusbury of Llewenny, was created a Baronet by James I, [7]but this line came to an end with his granddaughter Hester, who married Sir Robert Cotton of Combermere Abbey, co. Chester, Bart., ancester of Lord Combermere. Their granddaughter, Hester Maria Cotton, was Mrs. Piozzi's mother.

CATHERINE OF BERAIN

By W. Bond after J. Allen, 1798

Catherine of Berain above mentioned, called from her numerous descendants Mam y Cymry, or Mam Gwalia, "Mother of Wales," was a great-granddaughter of Fychan Tudor of Berain, a personage claimed by Mrs. Piozzi, though not acknowledged by the genealogists, as a younger son of Sir Owen Tudor, Kt., by Queen Catherine, widow of Henry V. That the Mother of Wales (who would, on this hypothesis, be a cousin of Queen Elizabeth) was a lady of great attractions, both in person and in purse, may be gathered from the story of her four matrimonial ventures, which cannot be better told than in the words of Pennant, the historian and naturalist, who was himself one of her descendants. "The tradition goes that at the funeral of her beloved spouse (Sir John Salesbury), she was led to Church by Sir Richard (Clough), and from Church by Morris Wynn of Gwydyr, who whispered to her his wish of being her second. She refused him with great civility, informing him that she had accepted the proposal of Sir Richard on her way to Church; but assured him—and was as good as her word—that in case she

performed the same sad duty, which she was then about, to the Knight, he might depend on being her third. As soon as she had composed this gentleman, to show that she had no superstition about the number three, she concluded with Edward Thelwall of Plas y Ward, Esq., departed this life Aug. 27, and was interred at Llanivydd on the 1st of Sep. 1591."

For the paternal ancestry of Mrs. Piozzi we must return to Roger, the youngest son of Sir John Salesbury, M.P. He married Anne, one of the daughters of Catherine of Berain by her second husband, Sir Richard Clough, Kt., another picturesque figure who deserves a separate mention.[8] He was the youngest son of a Denbigh glover, who became a prosperous merchant, and was a partner of Sir Thomas Gresham, whom he assisted to found the Royal Exchange, and whose continental business he superintended. This necessitated a residence at Antwerp, where he also acted as a kind of unofficial agent of the English Government. His mercantile pursuits were not, however, so absorbing but that he could make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and thereafter bore the five crosses of Jerusalem in his arms. During one of his brief visits to England, about 1567, he married, as we have seen, Catherine of Berain, then widow of Sir John Salesbury of Llewenny, and began building two mansion-houses, one called Plas Clough and the other Bach-y-graig, both in Flintshire, and

both in the Dutch style, perhaps by means of imported workmen. The former was inherited by his son Richard, by a former wife, an Antwerp lady named Van Mildurt, whose descendants still possess it. The latter he bequeathed to Anne Salesbury, one of his daughters by Catherine of Berain. It thus became the seat of the younger line of the family down to the time of John Salusbury, Mrs. Piozzi's father, and came to her on the death of her parents.

Mrs. Piozzi herself was born 16th January 1740 (Old Style), or 27th January 1741 (New Style), at Bodvel, near Pwllheli, and was christened Hester Lynch, the names being derived from her mother, Hester Maria Cotton (granddaughter of Hester Salusbury, the last of the elder line), and from her maternal grandmother, Philadelphia, daughter of Sir Thomas Lynch. Her father, John Salusbury of Bach-y-graig, left an orphan at four years old, was high-spirited and attractive, but careless and extravagant, and even before his marriage had succeeded in heavily encumbering his property. His wife's fortune of £10,000 barely sufficed to pay his debts and to provide a modest cottage in which to start housekeeping. Before long she and her only child found a [9]more comfortable abode at Llewenny Hall with her eldest brother, Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton, who took a great liking for little Hester, and being himself childless, promised to provide for her; but his sudden death before he had carried out his intention left them in great straits. John Salusbury had been sent out by Lord Halifax

to assist in re-settling the colony of Nova Scotia, but it was not a lucrative employment, and his wife sought a home for her child first at East Hyde, Beds., with her own mother, Philadelphia, then the widow of Captain King, and afterwards at Offley Hall, Herts., the seat of her brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Salusbury, Judge of the Admiralty Court.

SIR RICHARD CLOUGH

By Basire after M. Griffith

So far Hester's education had been of a very desultory kind, though she had been well grounded in French by her parents from a very early age. At East Hyde she learnt to love and manage horses, startling, and somewhat shocking her grandmother, by driving two of the "ramping warhorses" who drew the family coach round the courtyard. But her first systematic instruction she received at Offley, where she learnt Italian and Spanish, apparently from her uncle's wife, Anna, daughter of Sir Henry Penrice, and "Latin, Logic, Rhetoric, &c." from a Doctor Collier, for whom she had a warm regard, and who did more, she considered, to form her mind than anyone with whom she afterwards came in contact, Johnson not excepted. Greek she did not learn from him, for she laments her ignorance of it some years later, when, in the course of her Italian tour, she was unable to read an inscription in that language which was shown to her. So Mangin was no doubt unconsciously exaggerating when he wrote that she had "for more than sixty years ... studied the Scriptures ... in the original languages."

But it seems fairly certain that she acquired some knowledge of Greek, and possibly also of Hebrew, in later life, though she makes no parade of her acquirements. The stray words in these languages which[10] are found in her letters are not conclusive evidence, as they may have been merely copied from some work which she had been reading. But in her Commonplace Book, now in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley, and written only for her own amusement, occur several Greek phrases, and an epigram of some length, with a translation, apparently her own. And it is noteworthy that the Greek is written with the breathings and accents, in the clear, firm hand of one well used to the script, very unlike the tentative efforts of a beginner.