We have got him here (Bath) since I
wrote last, and his uncle will take him to school next week; for as
our John has nothing but his talents and education to depend upon, he
must be a scholar, and we will try hard to make him a very good one.
"My poor little boy from Lombardy said as I walked him across our
market, 'These are sheeps' heads, are they not, aunt? I saw a basket
of men's heads at Brescia.'
"As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John
Salusbury, five years ago, when happier days smiled on his family, he
will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is
a foreigner. A lucky circumstance for one who is intended to work his
way among our islanders by talent, diligence, and education."
She thus mentions this event in "Thraliana," January 17th, 1798:
"Italy is ruined and England threatened. I have sent for one little
boy from among my husband's nephews. He was christened John
Salusbury: he shall be naturalised, and then we will see whether he
will be more grateful and natural and comfortable than Miss Thrales
have been to the mother they have at length driven to desperation."
She could hardly have denied her husband the satisfaction of rescuing
a single member of his family from the wreck; and they were bound to
provide handsomely for the child of their adoption. Whether she
carried the sentiment too far in giving him the entire estate (not a
large one) is a very different question; on which she enters
fearlessly in one of the fragments of the Autobiography.
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