ect that it is, and that the solution of the whole
of this little domestic mystery is to be found in a passage in the
'Autobiographical Memoir,' vol. i. p. 277. There were _two_
marriages:--

"'Miss Nicholson went with us to Stonehenge, Wilton, &c., _whence I
returned to Bath_ to wait for Piozzi. He was here on the eleventh day
after he got Dobson's letter. In twenty-six more we were married _in
London_ by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, and returned hither to
be married by Mr. Morgan, of Bath, at St. James's Church, July 25,
1784.'

"Now in order to make this account tally with Baretti's we must allow
for a slight exertion of that talent for 'white lies' on the lady's
part, of which her friends, Johnson included, used half playfully and
half in earnest to accuse her. And we are afraid Baretti's story does
appear, on the face of it, the more probable of the two. It does seem
more likely, since they were to be married in London (of which
Baretti knew nothing), that she met Piozzi secretly in London on his
arrival, than that she performed the awkward evolutions of returning
from Salisbury to Bath to wait for him there, then going to London in
company with him to be married, and then back to Bath to be married
over again. But if this be so, then the London marriage most likely
took place almost immediately on the meeting of the enamoured couple,
and while the 'Correspondence' was going on. In which case the words
in the 'Memoir' 'in twenty-six days,' &c., were apparently intended,
by a little bit of feminine adroitness, to appear to apply to this
first marriage,--of the suddenness of which she may have been
ashamed,--while they really apply to the conclusion of the whole
affair by the _second_. Will any one have the Croker-like curiosity
to inquire whether any record remains of the dates of marriages
celebrated by the Spanish ambassador's chaplain?"[2]

[Footnote 1: These words, italicised by the reviewer, contain the
pith of the charge, which has no reference to her visit to London six
weeks before.]

[Footnote 2: Edinb. Review, No. 230, p. 522.]

Why Croker-like curiosity? Was there anything censurable in the
curiosity which led an editor to ascertain whether a novel like
"Evelina" was written by a girl of eighteen or a woman of twenty-six?
But Lord Macaulay sneered at the inquiry[1], and his worshippers must
go on sneering like their model--_vitiis imitabile_. The certificate
of the London marriage (now before