SOURCE: "Letters, Diaries, and the Like," in The Peace of the Augustans: A Survey of Eighteenth Century Literature as a Place of Rest and Refreshment, G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1916, pp. 231-35.

In the excerpt below, Saintsbury comments on Piozzi's character and her skills as a letter writer and diarist.

The century is deservedly famous for letters, memoirs, and all the other more or less personal literature which France had initiated in its predecessor, and to give an account of them here from Hervey to Wraxall would be impossible, and at least proportionately out of place. Something, however, may be said, before coming to Gray and Cowper—the chiefs of the department next to or with Horace Walpole—of a personage whom the writer has found it amusing and profitable to study—Mrs. Thrale. Some new Thraliana (though it is believed not all that are or were available...