that _she_ was prudent.'

"These objections would increase in strength, too, if my present
state was a happy one, but it really is not. I live a quiet life, but
not a pleasant one. My children govern without loving me; my servants
devour and despise me; my friends caress and censure me; my money
wastes in expences I do not enjoy, and my time in trifles I do not
approve. Every one is made insolent, and no one comfortable; my
reputation unprotected, my heart unsatisfied, my health unsettled. I
will, however, resolve on nothing. I will take a voyage to the
Continent in spring, enlarge my knowledge and repose my purse. Change
of place may turn the course of these ideas, and external objects
supply the room of internal felicity. If he follow me, I may reject
or receive at pleasure the addresses of a man who follows on _no
explicit promise_, nor much probability of success, for I would
really wish to marry no more without the consent of my children (such
I mean as are qualified to give their opinions); and how should _Miss
Thrales_ approve of my marrying _Mr. Piozzi_? Here then I rest, and
will torment my mind no longer, but commit myself, as he advises, to
the hand of Providence, and all will end _all' ottima perfezzione_.

"Written at Streatham, 1st October, 1782."

[Footnote 1: _Note by Mrs. Piozzi_: "He was half a year _older_ when
our registers were both examined."]

"_October, 1782._--There is no mercy for me in this island. I am more
and more disposed to try the continent. One day the paper rings with
my marriage to Johnson, one day to Crutchley, one day to Seward. I
give no reason for such impertinence, but cannot deliver myself from
it. Whitbred, the rich brewer, is in love with me too; oh, I would
rather, as Ann Page says, be set breast deep in the earth[1] and
bowled to death with turnips.

"Mr. Crutchley bid me make a curtsey to my daughters for keeping me
out of a goal (_sic_), and the newspapers insolent as he! How shall I
get through? How shall I get through? I have not deserved it of any
of them, as God knows.

"Philip Thicknesse put it about Bath that I was a poor girl, a mantua
maker, when Mr. Thrale married me. It is an odd thing, but Miss
Thrales like, I see, to have it believed."

[Footnote 1: Anne Page says, "quick in the earth."]

The general result down to this point is that, whatever the
disturbance in Mrs. Thrale's heart and mind, Johnson had no ground of
complaint, nor ever thought he had