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LETTER LXXIII.

REV. T. S. WHALLEY..

Lichfield, Oct. 6, 1787.

MRS PIOZZI completely answers your description; her conversation is that bright wine of the intellects which has no lees.

Your letter, that was to have introduced us to each other, did not reach me till three days after she and Mr Piozzi had left Lichfield. Dr Falconer obligingly called to tell me that she was in our city. I had my doubts whether an unintroduced visit might not be thought a liberty. While I was balancing the idea, Mr Parker came in and laught me out of the scruple.

I shall always feel indebted to him for eight or nine radiant hours of Mr and Mrs Piozzi's society. They passed one evening here, and I the next with them at their inn.

My cousin, Mr H. White, whom Dr Johnson once called "the rising strength of Lichfield," and who, when perfectly awake from an intellectual torpor, which is apt to overcloud him, is very ingenious; and when he rubs his eyes, and

looks, has very distinct perceptions of genius in others; our nabob of lively records, and his relation, Colonel Barry of Worcester, whose military exertions have had eclat; who, in early youth, succeeded the unfortune André in an admiring passion for Honora Sneyd; and, after his sad fate, succeeded that gallant officer in his appointments in America; who has studied politeness from Chesterfield, poetry after our best critics, and moral philosophy and style after Johnson ;→ these personages met your friends at my little sup per. The evening was Attic.

Mr Saville being last week at Birmingham ora→ torios, I could not have the pleasure of introducing him to Mr and Mrs Piozzi; but, as they desired me to bring any of my friends in the afternoon, I took his timid Philomela in my hand. Never had Mr Piozzi two beings of his audience who were more charmed with his perfect expression on his instrument, and with the touching and ever-varying grace with which he sings. Surely the finest sensibilities must vibrate through his frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his song, though his imperfect knowledge of our language prevents their appearing in conversation. I am sure he values, as he ought, the honour and happiness he has obtained, of which the elegances of wealth, and the blessings of independence,

form the smallest part. He seemed much pleased with Mrs Smith's voice, and the melting sweetness of her manner in singing, amidst all the disadvantages of her timidity.

Your letter has this moment reached me. I am concerned for your late illness, and fear that your life is less tranquil, and your sympathy more keen than suits the delicacy of your constitution. Mrs Siddons' and Mrs Jackson's unhappiness have grieved you. That of the former I hope is past. May the life, above all others, precious to Mrs Jackson, and which, when you wrote, hung in fearful balance, have, ere this time, preponderated on the vital side!—that it may not be her fate, "like the weak and widowed vine,

To wind her blasted tendrils o'er the plain !"

I cannot help being glad that Sophia's London: scheme is, at last, realized, whatever clouds and shadows rest upon it. Time, I hope, will disperse them, and cheerfulness, that sun of the mind, gild the long wish of her heart, metropolitan society. She is certainly more formed for that than to muse in silent glades, and court the sylvan pleasures-she wil: not say, apostrophisng them,

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the dusky, noisy, assiduous, and indeed stupendous efforts of art, with romantic nature;-where the Cyclops usurp the dwellings of the Naiads and Dryads, and drown, with their dissonance, the woodland song; light their blazing fires ön each of the many hills, and, with their thick black smoke, shroud, as with a sable crape, the lavish woods and fantastic rocks; sully the pure waters of the Severn, and dim the splendour of the summer's sun; while the shouts of their crouding barges, and the clang of their numerous engines, din through every winding of the valley. In short, we there saw a town, noisy and smouldering, and almost as populous as Birmingham, amidst sylvan hills, lofty rocks, and meandering waters. You have heard of the lately-discovered bituminous fluid, distilling through the subterraneous cliffs. We found the iron bridge very stupendous in the art of its construction, and very beautiful in the grace and lightness of its appearance-but it is represented so exactly in the prints, as to leave the eye little to acquire by actual contemplation. I am become acquainted with Mr and Mrs. Piozzi. Dr Johnson told me truth when he said she had more colloquial wit than most of our literary women. It is indeed a fountain of perpe tual flow; but he did not tell me truth when he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without

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