"
Her way of life after Piozzi's death may be collected from the
Letters, with the exception of one strange episode towards the end.
When nearly eighty, she took a fancy for an actor named Conway, who
came out on the London boards in 1813, and had the honour of acting
Romeo and Jaffier to the Juliet and Belvidera of Miss O'Neill (Lady
Becher). He also acted with her in Dean Milman's fine play, "Fazio."
But it was his ill fate to reverse Churchill's famous lines:
"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick's six feet high."
Conway was six feet high, and a very handsome man to boot; but his
advantages were purely physical; not a spark of genius animated his
fine features and commanding figure, and he was battling for a
moderate share of provincial celebrity, when Mrs. Piozzi fell in with
him at Bath. It has been rumoured in Flintshire that she wished to
marry him, and offered Sir John Salusbury a large sum in ready money
(which she never possessed) to give up Brynbella (which he could not
give up), that she might settle it on the new object of her
affections. But none of the letters or documents that have fallen in
my way afford even plausibility to the rumour, and some of the
testamentary papers in which his name occurs, go far towards
discrediting the belief that her attachment ever went beyond
admiration and friendship expressed in exaggerated terms.[1]
[Footnote 1: Since the appearance of the first edition of this work,
it has been stated on the authority of a distinguished man of letters
that Conway shewed the late Charles Mathews a letter from Mrs.
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