Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/624

616 the first impression of her little book was sold on the first day it was published; 300l. were lying ready for her in her publisher's hands; and her "Anecdotes" were the gossip of the whole town, although Walpole sneered at them, Hannah More yawned, and Peter Pindar grew funny.

During their residence in Italy, the Piozzis visited Salzburg in Bavaria, the ancient seat of the little Welshwoman's race; and the heralds there, examining her "schedule," acknowledged her, "to the triumphant delight of dear Piozzi," a true descendant of their own prince Adam. Mrs. Piozzi, though this was perhaps no great feather in her cap, shone with some eclat among the stars of the Delia Crusca Academy in Florence, and wrote a preface to their "Miscellany" of verses, which Walpole called "short, sensible, and genteel." On their return to London in 1787, Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi lived first in Hanover Square, and afterwards at her old home at Streatham Park. In the mean time her children had become partially reconciled to their Italian stepfather; and Cecilia, the youngest, afterwards Mrs. Mostyn, remained constantly resident with her mother. Mrs. Piozzi's old friends discovered by degrees that her marriage was after all no very dire misfortune to her or to them. Her dinners were as good a formerly, and her drawing-room was as much as ever the resort of notables and eccentrics. After a few years, Piozzi, having become enraptured during a tour with the scenery of North Wales, built an Italian villa on the banks of the Clwydd, near to his wife's ruined mansion of Bachygraig, to which they gave the pretty hybrid~name of Brynbella; and to this spot he and his wife retired in 1795. The French war in Italy in 1799 having involved Piozzi's relations in great difficulties, Mrs. Piozzi rescued from .the general wreck a nephew of her husband, whom his parents had christened John Salusbury, after herself. The little Lombardian, with recollections in his baby head of bloody scenes in fighting cities, was brought to England; and Mrs. Piozzi adopted him as her heir. When he was old enough, she placed him at the school where her own son Henry Thrale had conned his Latin grammar some thirty years before; and the young Salusbury-Piozzi was reared by Henry's mother with exceptional tenderness and care.

Mr. Piozzi died at Brynbella in 1809, and was buried at the little church there. Legends of the courteous Italian linger in the neighbourhood—of his broken English, and gentle, kindly manners. A portrait of him is preserved among the family pictures at Brynbella, which represents him as good-looking, about forty years old, in a straight-cut brown coat, with frill and ruffles, and some leaves of music in his hand; and one wing of the Italian villa which he built is still said to be haunted by the sounds of his violin. During his life Mr. Piozzi had attended with much prudence and economy to the somewhat confused money matters of his little wife. He had steered her safely through her debts; and at his death he left her mistress of everything they possessed, except a few thousands which he had saved before their marriage, and which he bequeathed to his relatives in Italy.

The loss of her husband left Mrs. Piozzi once more solitary in the world; but no sorrow, not even the greatest sorrow of remembering happier things, could quench now the sunshine which filled her life. During the twelve years which remained for her, we see her, in her letters, and in the records of her friends, still happy, still triumphant, still supremely satisfied. For her, old age was no uglier, no sadder, than a plucked flower that lies doomed and sweet in the sunlight. She had had her full share of earthly joy, and the brightest day in her calendar was ever the anniversary of her second marriage. "No, my dear sir," she wrote to a friend from Bath in 1817, "I will not stir from home till after the 25th of July, which day made me happy thirty-three years ago, after the suffering so many sorrows; and here will I keep its beloved anniversary, always remembering

Until 1814 she had continued to live at Brynbella, visiting occasionally both Bath and Streatham. But at this date young Salusbury left the university and married, and Mrs. Piozzi very generously relinquished to him and his young wife her little Welsh estate and its revenue. To compensate her daughters for their loss cff it, she set to work to improve Streatham Park, which they would inherit at her death, and landed herself by this means in new and serious money difficulties. Nevertheless she jogged on, as light-hearted as ever, in her Bath lodging, with her two maids, and with a drawing of Brynbella over her chimney-piece—often, in spite of her 2,000l. a year, without 5l. of ready money to spend on herself. She