that the Viscountess Keith, Mrs.
Piozzi's eldest daughter, died. She was ninety-five years old. Her long
life connected our generation with that of Johnson and Burke. She was
the last survivor of the Streatham "set,"--for, as "Queeney," she had
held a not unimportant place in it. She was at Johnson's death-bed. At
their last interview he said,--"My dear child, we part forever in this
world; let us part as Christian friends should; let us pray together."

It was in 1808 that Miss Thrale married Lord Keith, a distinguished
naval officer.

In _The Gentleman's Magazine_, for May, 1657, is an interesting notice
of Lady Keith. "During many years," it is there said, "Viscountess Keith
held a distinguished position in the highest circles of the fashionable
world in London; but during the latter portion of her life.... her time
was almost entirely devoted to works of charity and to the performance
of religious duties. No one ever did more for the good of others, and
few ever did so much in so unostentatious a manner."]

In judging her, it is to be borne in mind that the earlier and the later
portions of her life are widely different from each other. As we have
before said, Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Piozzi are two distinct persons. Mrs.
Thrale, whom the world smiled upon, whom the wits liked and society
courted, who had the best men in England for her friends, is a woman who
will always be pleasant in memory. Her unaffected grace, her kindliness,
her good-humor, her talents, make her perpetually charming. She was
helped by her surroundings to be good, pleasant, and clever; and she
will always keep her place as one of the most attractive figures in the
circle which was formed by Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Fanny
Burney, and others scarcely less conspicuous. But Mrs. Piozzi, whom the
world frowned upon, whom the wits jeered at, and society neglected,
whose friends nobody now knows, will be best remembered and best liked
as having once been Mrs. Thrale. There is no great charge against her;
she was more sinned against than sinning; she was only weak and foolish,
only degenerated from her first excellence. And even in her old age some
traits of her youthful charms remain, and, seeing these, we regard
her with a tender compassion, and remember of her only the bright
helpfulness and freshness of her younger days, when Johnson "loved her,
esteemed her, reverenced her, and thought her the first of womankind."

* *