We had a little chat together about
the Thrales. In mentioning our former intimacy with them, 'Ah,
those,' she cried, 'were happy times!' and her eyes glistened. Poor
thing! hers has been a lamentable story!--Imprudence and vanity have
rarely been mixed with so much sweetness, and good-humour, and
candour, and followed with more reproach and ill success. We agreed
to renew acquaintance next winter; at present she will be little more
in town."
In a letter to Madame D'Arblay, Oct. 20, 1820, Mrs. Piozzi says:
"Fell, the bookseller in Bond Street, told me a fortnight or three
weeks ago, that Miss Streatfield lives where she did in his
neighbourhood, Clifford Street, S.S. still." On the 18th January,
1821: "'The once charming S.S. had inquired for me of Nornaville and
Fell, the Old Bond Street book-sellers, so I thought she meditated
writing, but was deceived."
The story she told the author of "Piozziana," in proof of Johnson's
want of firmness, clearly refers to this lady:
"I had remarked to her that Johnson's readiness to condemn any moral
deviation in others was, in a man so entirely before the public as he
was, nearly a proof of his own spotless purity of conduct. She said,
'Yes, Johnson was, on the whole, a rigid moralist; but he could be
ductile, I may say, servile; and I will give you an instance. We had
a large dinner-party at our house; Johnson sat on one side of me, and
Burke on the other; and in the company there was a young female (Mrs.
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