Squalici is also a domestic spy,
and in league with the mother to cheat the daughters of their
patrimony. Mr. Tunskull is a respectable and complacent nonentity.
The dialogue is seasoned with the same malicious insinuations which
mark Baretti's letters in the "European Magazine;" without the saving
clause with which shame or fear induced him to qualify them, namely,
that no breach of chastity was suspected or believed. It is difficult
to imagine who else would have thought of reverting to Thrale's
establishment eight years after it had been broken up by death; and
in one of his papers in the "European Magazine," he holds out a
threat that she might find herself the subject of a play: "Who knows
but some one of our modern dramatic geniusses may hereafter entertain
the public with a laughable comedy in five long acts, entitled, with
singular propriety, 'the _Scientific_ Mother'?"
Mrs. Piozzi had some-how contracted a belief, to which she alludes
more than once with unfeigned alarm, that Mr. Samuel Lysons had
formed a collection of all the libels and caricatures of which she
was the subject on the occasion of her marriage. His collections have
been carefully examined, and the sole semblance of warrant for her
fears is an album or scrap-book containing numerous extracts from the
reviews and newspapers, relating to her books. The only caricature
preserved in it is the celebrated one by Sayers entitled "Johnson's
Ghost." The ghost, a flattering likeness of the doctor, addresses a
pretty woman seated at a writing table:
"When Streatham spread its pleasant board,
I opened learning's valued hoard,
And as I feasted, prosed.
Pages:
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319