"
"I repeated," adds Moore, "what Jekyll told the other day of
Bearcroft saying to Mrs. Piozzi, when Thrale, after she had
repeatedly called him Mr. Beercraft: 'Beercraft is not my name,
Madam; it may be your trade, but it is not my name.'" It may always
be questioned whether this offensive description of repartee was
really uttered at the time. But Bearcroft was capable of it. He began
his cross-examination of Mr. Vansittart by--"With your leave, Sir, I
will call you Mr. Van for shortness." "As you please, Sir, and I will
call you Mr. Bear."
Towards the end of 1795, Mrs. Piozzi left Streatham for her seat in
North Wales, where (1800 or 1801) she was visited by a young
nobleman, now an eminent statesman, distinguished by his love of
literature and the fine arts, who has been good enough to recall and
write down his impressions of her for me:
"I did certainly know Madame Piozzi, but had no habits of
acquaintance with her, and she never lived in London to my knowledge.
When in my youth I made a tour in Wales--times when all inns were
bad, and all houses hospitable--I put up for a day at her house, I
think in Denbighshire, the proper name of which was Bryn, and to
which, on the occasion of her marriage I was told, she had recently
added the name of Bella. I remember her taking me into her bed-room
to show me the floor covered with folios, quartos, and octavos, for
consultation, and indicating the labour she had gone through in
compiling an immense volume she was then publishing, called
'Retrospection.
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