"
[Footnote 1: This evidently referred to the "adumbration" of
Johnson's letter (No. 4), _ante_, p. 239.]
Walpole's opinion of the book itself had been expressed in a
preceding letter, dated March 28th, 1786:
"Two days ago appeared Madame Piozzi's Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. I am
lamentably disappointed--in her, I mean: not in him. I had conceived
a favourable opinion of her capacity. But this new book is wretched;
a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish in a very vulgar style,
and too void of method even for such a farrago. . . The Signora talks
of her doctor's _expanded_ mind and has contributed her mite to show
that never mind was narrower. In fact, the poor woman is to be
pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out[1], but
have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his
brutalities as wit, and his worst conundrums as humour. Judge! The
Piozzi relates that a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he
replied: 'In Ireland: it was a bog planted with palm trees.'"
[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 202 and 270.]
Walpole's statement, that the whole first impression was sold the
first day, is confirmed by one of her letters, and may be placed
alongside of a statement of Johnson's reported in the book. Clarissa
being mentioned as a perfect character, "on the contrary (said he)
you may observe that there is always something which she prefers to
truth. Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the
romances; but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of
perhaps the only book, which, being printed off betimes one morning,
a new edition was called for before night.
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