"
Nichol, the bookseller, had said that "Johnson was the link that
connected Shakespeare with the rest of mankind." On hearing this,
Mrs. Piozzi at eighty exclaimed, "Oh, the dear fellow, I must give
him a kiss for that idea." When Nichol told the story, he added, "I
never got it, and she went out of the world a kiss in my debt."
One of the most characteristic feats or freaks of this extraordinary
woman was the celebration of her eightieth birthday by a concert,
ball, and supper, to between six and seven hundred people, at the
Kingston Rooms, Bath, on the 27th January, 1820. At the conclusion of
the supper, her health was proposed by Admiral Sir James Sausmarez,
and drunk with three times three. The dancing began at two, when she
led off with her adopted son, Sir John Salusbury, dancing (according
to the author of "Piozziana," an eye-witness) "with astonishing
elasticity, and with all the true air of dignity which might have
been expected of one of the best bred females in society." When fears
were expressed that she had done too much, she replied:--"No: this
sort of thing is greatly in the mind; and I am almost tempted to say
the same of growing old at all, especially as it regards those of the
usual concomitants of age, viz., laziness, defective sight, and
ill-temper."
"So far from feeling fatigued or exhausted on the following day by
her exertions," remarks Sir James Fellowes in a note on this event,
"she amused us by her sallies of wit, and her jokes on 'Tully's
Offices,' of which her guests had so eagerly availed themselves.
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