pain; I could not have borne to reject that counsel it would have killed me to take; and I only tell it you now, because all is irrevocably settled, and out of your power to prevent. I will say, however, that the dread of your disapprobation has given me some anxious moments, and though, perhaps, I am become, by many privations, the most independent woman in the world, I feel as if acting without a parent's consent, till you write kindly to your faithful servant, "H. L. PIOZZI. "To Dr. Johnson." "London, July 8. 1784. "DEAR MADAM,- What you have done, however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me; I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere. "I wish that God may grant you every blessing; that you may be happy in this world for its short continuance, and eternally happy in a better state; and whatever I can contribute to your happiness, I am very ready to repay, for that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched. Do not think slightly of the advice which I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle in England: you may live here with more dignity than in Italy, and with more security: your rank will be higher, and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and interest is for England, and only some phantoms of imagination seduce you to Italy. "I am afraid, however, that my counsel is vain; yet I have eased my heart by giving it. "When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, attempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey; and when they came to the irremediable stream that separated the two king doms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness proportioned to her danger, and his own affection, pressed her to return. The Queen went forward. If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no further! The tears stand in my eyes. "I am going into Derbyshire, and hope to be followed by your good wishes, for I am, with great affection, yours, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON. "Mrs. Piozzi." This was the last communication ever made by Dr. Johnson to his friend Mrs. Piozzi. On the 6th September 1784, Mrs. Piozzi set out with her husband on a continental tour through France, Italy, and Germany, and passing through Calais, Boulogne, Montrieuil, Amiens, Chantilly, &c. arrived at Paris, where they remained, however, but a short time. After having inspected the principal objects of curiosity in the French capital, Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi proceeded to Lyons, Turin, Mont Cenis, Novalesa, Monte Cavale, Novi, Genoa, Pavia, and Milan, where they took up their winter quarters. From this place they passed on to Venice, by way of Padua, Mantua, Verona, &c. From thence, on the 21st of May, 1782, they returned up the Brenta in a barge to Padua. They next visited Ferrara, the city celebrated for the confinement of Tasso, in the hospital for lunatics there; and subsequently Bologna and Florence, where they took up there abode for some time on the banks of the Arno. During her stay here, Mrs. Piozzi formed an acquaintance with several English persons of both sexes; and among others, Messrs. Merry, Parsons, and Greathead, of Della Cruscan notoriety; in conjunction with whom she printed a volume of miscellaneous prose and verse, entitled "The Florence Miscellany," of which a few impressions only were struck off, as presents to the poetical friends of the authors. Specimens of this fantastical production have appeared in a periodical paper, entitled "The World;" the conductorship of which was, it has been said, committed to the subject of the present memoir; but this sample does not appear to have excited any curiosity in the public mind to see more of it. "In 1785," (says Mr. Gifford, in the preface to his Baviad and Mæviad,) "a few English of both sexes, whom chance had jumbled together at Florence, took a fancy to while away their time in scribbling high-flown panegyrics on themselves; and complimentary canzonnettas on two or three Italians, who understood too little of the language in which they were written, to be disgusted with them. In this there was not much harm; nor, indeed, much good; but as folly is progressive, they soon wrought themselves into an opinion that they really deserved the fine things which they mutually said and sung of each other. “Thus persuaded, they were unwilling their inimitable productions should be confined to the little circle that produced them; they, therefore, transmitted them to England; and as their friends were enjoined not to shew them, they were first handed about the town with great assiduity, and then sent to the press. "A short time before the period we speak of, a knot of fantastic coxcombs had set up a daily paper, called 'The World.' It was perfectly unintelligible, and, therefore, much read; it was equally lavish of praise and abuse; (praise of what appeared in its own columns, and abuse of every thing that appeared elsewhere;) and as its conductors were at once ignorant and conceited, they took upon them to direct the taste of the town, by prefixing a short panegyric to every trifle that came before them. "At this auspicious period the first cargo of poetry arrived from Florence, and was given to the public through the medium of this favoured paper. There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics, which dazzled the native grubs, who had scarce ever ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose-tree grove, with an ostentatious display of blue hills' and crashing torrents,' and 'petrifying suns.' From admir ation to imitation is but a step. Honest Yenda tried his hand at a descriptive ode, and succeeded beyond his hopes; Anna Matilda; in a word contagio labem Hanc dedit in plures, sicut grex totus in agris 'While the epidemic malady was spreading from fool to fool, Della Crusca came over, and immediately announced himself by a sonnet to love. Anna Matilda wrote an incomparable piece of nonsense in praise of it; and the two great luminaries of the age,' as Mr. Bell calls them, fell desperately in love with each other. "From that period not a day passed without an amatory epistle fraught with lightning and thunder, et quicquid habent telorum armamentaria coli. The fever turned to a frenzy. Laura Maria, Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, and a thousand other nameless names, caught the infection; and from one end of the kingdom to the other all was nonsense and Della Crusca." Such is Mr. Gifford's account of the origin of this contemptible class of writers. But although Mrs. Piozzi had the misfortune to be a member and almost the founder of the association, it is equally certain that she was by many degrees. the most sensible and well-informed person in this band of affected versifiers. Her admirable tale of the "Three Warnings," is worth all the Della Cruscan fopperies that were ever inflicted upon the public. On September 12th 1785, Mrs. Piozzi and her husband left Florence and its attractions, and visited Lucca, Pisa, Leghorn, and afterwards Rome, where they remained long enough to investigate all the sublime antiquities of that queen of cities. It would be useless to follow her in all her vague descriptions of objects, which have been so frequently and with so much better effect, depicted by modern travellers. Their next place of resort was Naples, where they descended to view the subterranean cities of Herculaneum, Pompeia, and Portici, having first inspected all that was worthy of their notice above ground. They then returned to Rome, and on their way back to England, passed once more through Bologna, Padua, Venice, Verona, Parma, Milan, from which latter place they proceeded to Bergamo, Pavia, and other cities which they had not visited before. Leaving the Italian frontiers by the Tyrolese Alps, they proceeded through Trent, Inspruck, Munich, and Saltzburg, to Vienna. Having remained in that capital a month, they passed along the Danube, and thence to Dresden, Berlin, Potzdam, Hanover, Brussels, Antwerp, Lille, and finally Calais; where Mrs. Piozzi wrote some foolish verses in imitation of the jeu d'esprit left by Dean Swift at the Ship Inn, Dover. He whom fair winds have wafted over, The best he's found since last at Dover." A short time after her return Mrs. Piozzi published an account of these travels in two volumes octavo; but of this work it is not possible to speak in terms of much approbation. The descriptions, indeed, of many of the places which were visited by the authoress and her Italian spouse, are so vague, unsatisfactory, and indefinite, that a stranger to the writer might very reasonably question her ever having seen many of the places she attempts to depict. The reflections which are intermixed are of the same flimsy character with the detail itself, and are more remarkable for their flippancy than either their |