" He afterwards qualifies this opinion: "Her figure
was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good: altogether I can
conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little
imagination for her soul, and so forth. She would have made a great
man."
[Footnote 1: Johnson told Boswell: "You have only two topics,
yourself and myself, and I am heartily sick of both."]
This is just what Mrs. Piozzi never would have made. Her mind,
despite her masculine acquirements, was thoroughly feminine: she had
more tact than genius, more sensibility and quickness of perception
than depth, comprehensiveness, or continuity of thought. But her very
discursiveness prevented her from becoming wearisome: her varied
knowledge supplied an inexhaustible store of topics and
illustrations; her lively fancy placed them in attractive lights; and
her mind has been well likened to a kaleidoscope which, whenever its
glittering and heterogeneous contents are moved or shaken, surprises
by some new combination of colour or of form. She professed to write
as she talked; but her conversation was doubtless better than her
books: her main advantages being a well-stored memory, fertility of
images, aptness of allusion, and _apropos_.
Her colloquial excellence and her agreeability are established by the
unanimous testimony of her cotemporaries. Her fame in this respect
rests on the same basis as that of all great wits, all great actors,
and many great orators. To question it for want of more tangible and
durable proofs, would be as unreasonable as to question Sydney
Smith's humour, Hook's powers of improvisation, Garrick's Richard, or
Sheridan's Begum speech.
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