No one who has had some experience of life will be inclined to condemn Mrs. Thrale for her passion.  Rather the capacity for a passion not excited by an intrinsically unworthy object should increase our esteem for her.  Her marriage with Thrale had been, as has been said, one of convenience; and, though she bore him many children and did her duty faithfully, she never loved him.  Towards the end of his life he had made her jealous by very marked attentions to the pretty and sentimental Sophy Streatfield, which once caused a scene at his table; and during the last two years his mind had been weakened, and his conduct had caused her anxiety and discomfort.  It is not surprising that she should welcome the warm and simple devotion of her new lover, though she was of a ripe age and the mother of grown-up daughters.

It is, however, equally plain that an alliance with a foreign fiddler was certain to shock British respectability.  It is the old story of the quarrel between Philistia and Bohemia.  Nor was respectability without much to say for itself.  Piozzi was a Catholic as well as a foreigner; to marry him was in all probability to break with daughters just growing into womanhood, whom it was obviously her first duty to protect.  The marriage, therefore, might be regarded as not merely a revolt against conventional morality, but as leading to a desertion of country, religion, and family.  Her children, her husband’s friends, and her whole circle were certain to look upon the match with feelings of the strongest disapproval, and she admitted to herself that the objections were founded upon something more weighty than a fear of the world’s censure.

Johnson, in particular, among whose virtues one cannot reckon a superiority to British prejudice, would inevitably consider the marriage as simply degrading.  Foreseeing this, and wishing to avoid the pain of rejecting advice which she felt unable to accept, she refrained from retaining her “friend, father, and guardian” in the position of “confidant.”  Her situation in the summer of 1782 was therefore exceedingly trying.  She was unhappy at home.  Her children, she complains, did not love her; her servants “devoured” her; her friends censured her; and her expenses were excessive, whilst the loss of a lawsuit strained her resources.  Johnson, sickly, suffering and descending into the gloom of approaching decay, was present like a charged thunder-cloud ready to burst at any moment, if she allowed him to approach the chief subject of her thoughts.  Though not in love with Mrs. Thrale, he had a very intelligible feeling of jealousy towards any one who threatened to distract her allegiance.  Under such circumstances we might expect the state of things which Miss Burney described long afterwards (though with some confusion of dates).  Mrs. Thrale, she says, was absent and agitated, restless in manner, and hurried in speech, forcing smiles, and averting her eyes from her friends; neglecting every one, including