re at Streatham. I saw by the letters that Gillow's
bill amounted to near 2,400_l_., and Mr. (the late Sir John) Williams
tells me she had continually very large parties from London. Sir John
Salusbury then came to her, offered to relinquish all her promised
gifts and the dearest wish of his heart, saying he should be most
grateful to her if she would only give him a commission in the army,
and let him seek his fortune. At the same time he added that he made
this offer because all was still in his power, but that from the
moment he married, she must be aware that it would be no longer so,
that he should not feel himself justified in bringing a wife into
distress of circumstances, nor in entailing poverty on children
unborn.[1] She refused; he married; and she went on in her course of
extravagance. She had left herself a life income only, and large as
it was, no tradesman would wait a reasonable time for payment; she
was nearly eighty; and they knew that at her death nothing would be
left to pay her debts, and so they seized the goods."

[Footnote 1: If the estate was settled in the usual manner, he would
have only a life estate; and I believe it was so settled.]

When Fielding, the novelist, rather boastingly avowed that he never
knew, and believed he never should know, the difference between a
shilling and sixpence, he was told: "Yes, the time will come when you
will know it--when you have only eighteen pence left." If the author
of "Tom Jones" could not be taught the value of money, we must not be
too hard on Mrs. Piozzi for not learning it, after lesson upon lesson
in the hard school of "impecuniosity." Whilst Piozzi lived, her
affairs were faithfully and carefully administered. Although they
built Brynbella, spent a good deal of money on Streatham, and lived
handsomely, they never wanted money. He had a moderate fortune, the
produce of his professional labours, and left it, neither impaired
nor materially increased, to his family. With peculiar reference
probably to her habits of profuse expenditure, he used to say that
"white monies were good for ladies, yellow for gentlemen." He took
the guineas under his especial charge, leaving only the silver to
her. This was a matter of notoriety in the neighbourhood, and the
tenants, to please her or humour the joke, sometimes brought bags of
shillings and sixpences in part payment of their rents.

In the Conway Notes she says:

"Our head-quarters were in Wales, where dea