But the octogenarian egotist has something to tell about beside herself.  Here is a passage of interest to the student of Shakspearian localities, and bearing on a matter in dispute from the days of Malone and Chalmers.

“For a long time, then,—­or I thought it such,—­my fate was bound up with the old Globe Theatre, upon the Bankside, Southwark; the alley it had occupied having been purchased and thrown down by Mr. Thrale to make an opening before the windows of our dwelling-house.  When it lay desolate in a black heap of rubbish, my Mother, one day, in joke, called it the Ruins of Palmyra; and after they had laid it down in a grass-plot, Palmyra was the name it went by, I suppose, among the clerks and servants of the brew-house; for when the Quaker Barclay bought the whole, I read that name with wonder in the Writings.”—­“But there were really curious remains of the old Globe Playhouse, which, though hexagonal in form without, was round within, as circles contain more space than other shapes, and Bees make their cells in hexagons only because that figure best admits of junction.  Before I quitted the premises, however, I learned that Tarleton, the actor of those times, was not buried at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, as he wished, near Massinger and Cower, but at Shoreditch Church. He was the first of the profession whose fame was high enough to have his portrait solicited for to be set up as a Sign; and none but he and Garrick, I believe, ever obtained that honour.  Mr. Dance’s picture of our friend David lives in a copy now in Oxford St.,—­the character, King Richard.”

Somewhat more than three years after her first husband’s death, Mrs. Thrale, in spite of the opposition of her friends, the repugnance of her daughters, and the sneers of society, married Piozzi.  He was a poor Italian gentleman, whose only fortune was in his voice and his musical talent.  He had been for some time an admired public singer in London and Paris.  There was nothing against him but the opinion of society.  Mrs. Thrale set this opinion at defiance:  a rash thing for a woman to do, and hardly an excusable one in her case; for she was aware that she would thus alienate her daughters, and offend her best friends.  But she was in love with him; and though for a time she tried to struggle against her passion, it finally prevailed over her prudence, her pride, and such affections as she had for others.  Her health suffered during the struggle, the termination of which she thus narrates in her “Abridgment.”  The account differs in some slight particulars from that in her “Autobiographical Memoirs”; but a comparison between the two serves rather to confirm than to impugn her general accuracy.