e of black feathers--as gay as a lark."

In a letter, dated Jan. 1799, to a Welsh neighbour, Mrs. Piozzi says:

"Mr. Piozzi has lost considerably in purse, by the cruel inroads of
the French in Italy, and of all his family driven from their quiet
homes, has at length with difficulty saved one little boy who is now
just turned of five years old. We have got him here (Bath) since I
wrote last, and his uncle will take him to school next week; for as
our John has nothing but his talents and education to depend upon, he
must be a scholar, and we will try hard to make him a very good one.

"My poor little boy from Lombardy said as I walked him across our
market, 'These are sheeps' heads, are they not, aunt? I saw a basket
of men's heads at Brescia.'

"As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John
Salusbury, five years ago, when happier days smiled on his family, he
will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is
a foreigner. A lucky circumstance for one who is intended to work his
way among our islanders by talent, diligence, and education."

She thus mentions this event in "Thraliana," January 17th, 1798:

"Italy is ruined and England threatened. I have sent for one little
boy from among my husband's nephews. He was christened John
Salusbury: he shall be naturalised, and then we will see whether he
will be more grateful and natural and comfortable than Miss Thrales
have been to the mother they have at length driven to desperation."

She could hardly have denied her husband the satisfaction of rescuing
a single member of his family from the wreck; and they were bound to
provide handsomely for the child of their adoption. Whether she
carried the sentiment too far in giving him the entire estate (not a
large one) is a very different question; on which she enters
fearlessly in one of the fragments of the Autobiography. In a
marginal note on one of the printed letters in which Johnson writes:
"Mrs. Davenant says you regain your health,"--she remarks: "Mrs.
Davenant neither knew nor cared, as she wanted her brother Harry
Cotton to marry Lady Keith, and I offered my estate with her. Miss
Thrale said she wished to have nothing to do either with my family or
my fortune. They were all cruel and all insulting." Her fits of
irritation and despondency never lasted long.

Her mode of bringing up her adopted nephew was more in accordance
with her ultimate liberality, than with her early intent