Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury.

There was little gayety in the life at Brynbella, or at Bath,--and the
society that Mrs. Piozzi now saw was made up chiefly of new and for the
most part uninteresting acquaintances. The old Streatham set, with a few
exceptions, were dead, and of the few that remained none retained their
former relations with its mistress. But she suffered little from the
change, was contented to win and accept the flattery of inferior people,
and, instead of spending her faculties in soothing the "radically
wretched life" of Johnson, used them, perhaps not less happily, in
lightening the sufferings of Piozzi during his last years. She tells a
touching story of him in these days.

"Piozzi's fine hand upon the organ and pianoforte deserted him. Gout,
such as I never knew, fastened on his fingers, distorting them into
every dreadful shape. ... A little girl, shewn to him as a musical
wonder of five years old, said,' Pray, Sir, why are your fingers wrapped
up in black silk so?' 'My Dear,' replied he, 'they are in mourning for
my Voice.' 'Oh, me!' cries the child, _'is she dead_?' He sung an easy
song, and the Baby exclaimed, 'Ah, Sir! you are very naughty,--you tell
fibs!' Poor Dears! and both gone now!!"

There were no morbid sensibilities in Mrs. Piozzi's composition. She can
tell all her sorrows without ever a tear. A mark of exclamation looks
better than a blot. And yet she had suffered; but it had been with such
suffering as makes the soul hard rather than tender. The pages with
which she ends this narrative of her life are curiously characteristic.

"When life was gradually, but perceptibly, closing round him [Piozzi] at
Bath, in 1808, I asked him if he would wish to converse with a Romish
priest,--we had full opportunity there. 'By no means,' said he. 'Call
Mr. Leman of the Crescent.' We did so,--poor Bessy ran and fetched him.
Mr. Piozzi received the blessed Sacrament at his hands; but recovered
sufficiently to go home and die in his own house. I sent for Salusbury,
but he came three hours too late,--his master, Mr. Shephard, with him.
In another year he went to Oxford, where he spent me above seven hundred
pounds per annum, and kept me in continual terror lest the bad habits of
the place should ruin him, body, soul, and purse. His old school-fellow,
Smythe Owen,--then. Pemberton,--accompanied him, and to that gentleman's
sister he of course gave his heart. The Lady and her friends took
advantage of m