Glimpses of Italian Society in the Eighteenth Century. From the Journey of Mrs Piozzi. With an Introduction by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco. London, 1892. Extracts from the Observations and Reflections with an Introduction on Mrs Piozzi's continental travels. Doctor Johnson and the Fair Sex. A Study of Contrasts. By W. H. Craig, M.A., of Lincoln's Inn. London, 1895. For Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale, see pp. 49–69. Dr Johnson's Mrs Thrale. Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs Piozzi. edited by A. Hayward, Q.C. Newly selected and edited with introduction and notes by J. H. Lobban. 1909. A much-needed attempt to put Hayward's material in proper order (see Mr Lobban's Preface). Doctor Johnson and Mrs Thrale: including Mrs Thrale's unpublished Journal of the Welsh Tour made in 1774 and much hitherto unpublished correspondence of the Streatham coterie. By A. M. Broadley with an introductory essay by Thomas Seccombe. London, 1910. As the title-page indicates, much new and valuable material is contained in this book and the introductory essay includes a vigorous defence of Mrs Thrale. Mrs Piozzi's Thraliana with numerous extracts hitherto unpublished. By Charles Hughes. London, 1913. Mr Hughes had the good fortune to be lent the MS of The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Letters to Penelope Weston, afterwards Mrs Pennington. I N the long catalogue of Johnsoniana, no volume has aroused more controversy than the Anec dotes of Mrs Piozzi. Did Mrs Thrale cultivate Johnson as a literary lion while her husband lived and afterwards show him that he was not wanted? Or, on the other hand, did Johnson presume too far upon his friendship with Thrale and attempt to exercise an intolerable tyranny over his widow? It is doubtful whether the truth can be found in a categorical answer to either question. Certainly the material for even a partial answer must be sought in an appreciation of Mrs Thrale and the Streatham milieu. ¶ Mrs Thrale, afterwards Mrs Piozzi Hester Lynch Salusbury, the daughter of the ‘rakish' John Salusbury of Bachygraig, was born 16 January 1741 at Bodvel in Carnarvonshire. She was, she says, the joint plaything of her parents and, "although education was a word then unknown as applied to females," she was taught to read and speak and think and translate from the French until she was "half a prodigy." Famous people petted her at an early age; she sat on Garrick's knee and was taught by Quin to recite passages from Paradise Lost. While her father continued his rakish career in Nova Scotia under the patronage of Lord Halifax, quarrelling and fighting and fretting his friends at home," Hester and her mother lived with relatives-first with "Grandmamma Cotton" at East Hyde, near Luton, and afterwards with her uncle, Sir Thomas Salusbury, at Offley Place. At East Hyde the girl learned to love horses: "When my mother hoped I was gaining health by the fresh air, I was kicking my heels on a corn binn, and learning to drive of the old coachman." Study, however, was equally delightful to her, and from the age of thirteen she was instructed in Latin, logic, rhetoric and other subjects by her dear Dr Collier, afterwards the preceptor of Sophy Streatfield. Suitors for Miss Salusbury's hand came quickly. Each one of them was made to understand her extraordinary value: "Those who could read were shown my verses; those who could not were judges of my prowess in the field." One of the disappointed suitors lived to be master of a Cambridge college. This was Dr James Marriott, at that time a lawyer of Doctors Commons and afterwards Master of Trinity Hall. John Salusbury's treatment of Dr Marriott as a possible son-in-law was in the true Squire Western manner: Should you continue to insult my poor child...I shall take the Insult to myself; be then most certainly assured that I will be avenged on you, much to the detriment of your person. So help me God1. One day Sir Thomas Salusbury (now a widower 1 Quoted in Broadley, Doctor Johnson and Mrs Thrale, p. 105. and himself planning a second marriage) returned from London with news of a suitor of exceptional eligibility, "an incomparable young man...a model of perfection, and a real sportsman." When the young man arrived in person, he began, after the manner of wise suitors, by paying compliments to the mother and with good effect: "There was little doubt of her approving the pretensions of so very showy a suitor." But Hester herself received no such favourable impression: "Nothing resembled love less than Mr Thrale's behaviour"; and her father was almost as violent in his opposition to the new suitor as he had been against the unfortunate Dr Marriott. He would not, he swore, have his daughter exchanged for a barrel of porter. Under these doubtful auspices did Henry Thrale enter Hester Salusbury's life; but the situation was changed by the sudden death of John Salusbury in 1762. Ten months later Mr Thrale accepted what his bride declares to have been her undesired hand. Born in 1728, Henry Thrale was the son of > Ralph Thrale, the wealthy Southwark brewer. His education had been that which befitted an eighteenth-century gentleman-Eton, Oxford, the grand tour with a Lyttelton as companion. His allowance after he left college, says Boswell (perhaps with a touch of envy), was splendid—not less than a thousand a year. Probably it was an allowance which Henry Thrale, a gay man of the town and the boon companion of Arthur Murphy, was quite capable of spending. At the age of thirty he succeeded his father as head of the brewery. No wonder that he should appear to Sir Thomas Salusbury as a paragon amongst suitors. To a person of keener sensibility the only ground of offence was his occupation. He had offered his hand and his fortune to several ladies before he came to Offley Place, but all had refused to live in the Borough. Nonne olet? was the attitude of the more fastidious. The story of Mrs Thrale's married life is a curious one. From the familiar passage in Boswell we receive an impression of a scholarly gentleman, an able man of business, a good husband and father who kept a quietly firm hand upon a somewhat frivolous wife: Johnson had a very sincere esteem for Mr Thrale, as a man of excellent principles, a good scholar, well skilled in trade, of a sound understanding, and of manners such as presented the character of a plain independent English Squire.... I know no man (said he) who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale. If he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed........' Side by side with this there may be quoted part of the Character of Thrale, of remarkable but characteristic objectivity, written by his wife: Mr Thrale's person is manly, his countenance agreeable, his eyes steady and of the deepest blue; his look neither soft nor severe, neither sprightly nor gloomy, but thoughtful and intelligent; his address is neither caressive nor repulsive, but unaffectedly civil and decorous; and his |