“He is a very pleasing man; tall and genteel in his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite; and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; rather than as if he had left the warlike field where he had led his armies to battle.

“When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, though smilingly, and said; ’I am very glad enough to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have wished for long enough.  O charming book!  I give it you my word I have read it often enough.  It is my favourite studioso for apprehending the English language; which is difficult often.  I pray you, Miss Evelina, write some more little volumes of the quickest.’

“I disclaimed the name, and was walking away; but he followed me with an apology.  ’I pray your pardon, Mademoiselle.  My ideas got in a blunder often.  It is Miss Borni what name I meant to accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina.’"-Ed.

236
                                 Section 5
                                (1782-3-4-)

“Cecilia”:  A paean of praise:  Lamentations.

[” This is the last visit remembered, or, at least, narrated, of Streatham.”  With these words Madame D’Arblay concludes the account given in the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” of her meeting with General Paoli.  In the autumn Of 1782 Mrs. Thrale went, with her daughters and Dr. Johnson, to Brighthelmstone, where Fanny joined them.  On their return to London, November 20, the Thrales settled for the winter in Argyle-street, and Fanny repaired to her father’s residence in St. Martin’s-street.  She saw much of Mrs. Thrale during the winter, but in the following April that lady quitted London for Bath, where she resided until her marriage with Signor Piozzi in the summer of 1784.  She maintained an affectionate correspondence with Fanny until after the marriage, but from the date of their parting in London, they saw no more of each other, except for one brief interval in May, 1784, for several years.

We must here give an account, as concise as possible, of the transaction which was so bitterly resented by the friends of Mrs. Thrale, but in which her conduct seems to us, taking all the circumstances fairly into consideration, to have been less deserving of condemnation than their uncharitableness.  She had first seen Piozzi, an Italian singer, at a party at Dr. Burney’s in 1777, and her behaviour to him on that occasion had certainly afforded no premonition of her subsequent infatuation.  Piozzi, who was nearly of the same age as herself, was, as Miss Seward describes him, “a handsome man, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession.”  He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, “knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver.”  However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding the proceed-