Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi , livre ebook

Writers of Wales
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 1 17-Feb-20 3:35:13 PMEditors:
Jane Aaron
M. Wynn Thomas
Andrew Webb
Founding Series Editors:
R. Brinley Jones
†Meic Stephens
Other titles in the Writers of Wales series:
Christopher Meredith (2018), Diana Wallace
B. L. Coombes (2017), Bill Jones and Chris Williams
Owen Rhoscomyl (2016), John S. Ellis
Dylan Thomas (2014), Walford Davies
Gwenlyn Parry (2013), Roger Owen
Welsh Periodicals in English (2013), Malcolm Ballin
Ruth Bidgood (2012), Matthew Jarvis
Dorothy Edwards (2011), Claire Flay
Kate Roberts (2011), Katie Gramich
Geoffrey of Monmouth (2010), Karen Jankulak
Herbert Williams (2010), Phil Carradice
Rhys Davies (2009), Huw Osborne
R. S. Thomas (2006), T ony Brown
Ben Bowen (2003), T. Robin Chapman
James Kitchener Davies (2002), M. Wynn Thomas
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 2 17-Feb-20 3:35:13 PMWriters of Wales
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi
Michael John Franklin
University of Wales Press
2020
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 3 17-Feb-20 3:35:14 PM© Michael John Franklin, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium
by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to
some other use of this publication) without the written permission of
the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright
owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication
should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry,
King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78683-540-6
e-ISBN 978-1-78683-541-3
The right of Michael John Franklin to be identifed as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77, 78 and
79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The publisher acknowledges the fnancial support of the Welsh Books
Council.
Typeset in Wales by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Cardiff
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 4 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMFor Elinor Estelle,
a.k.a. the bilingual ‘Duchess of Dorset’
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 5 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMContents
Acknowledgements ix
List of illustrationsxi
1Hester Lynch Salusbury: ‘a thousand pretty Tricks,
[ . . .] a Thousand pretty Stories and [. . .] a Thousand
pretty Verses’ 1
2 The Two Hesters ‘have murder’d Peace & Happiness
at Home’ 21
3 The Arrivals of Queeney and the Great Cham 29
4 Hester Brewster, or, ‘Women have a manifest
Advantage over Men in the doing Business’ 53
5 ‘Like a Rocket She rises, and leaves us to Stare’ 71
6 ‘To revise my past Life, & resolve upon a new one’ 93
7 ‘To hie home and dye like a Hare upon the old Farm,
near the Place I was kindled at’ 119
8 ‘Each bold Cambrio Briton’s a Stranger to Fear’ 144
Notes 167
Bibliography181
Index187
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 7 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMAcknowledgements
If Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi richly merits an honoured place in
the pantheon of great Welsh writers, she certainly deserves this
belated and slim volume in the UWP series Writers of Wales. To
consider her as a Welsh writer in English has been my aim and has
proved an unalloyed enjoyment; I can only hope that the generous
general reader will derive some pleasure from my attempt. At the
very least, the prodigious range of her innovative writings and
genre experimentation should emerge as impressively apparent.
Immensely proud of her aristocratic Welsh blood, she bravely
refused to accept the restrictions on female authors in her time.
Hester Piozzi’s poems, letters, political pamphlets, journals, hoaxes,
memoirs, marginalia and major published volumes all reveal the
insatiable curiosity of the scholar. It is most encouraging that her
works are receiving renewed critical attention as she is reassessed
by cultural historians and, especially, by contemporary feminism.
I am pleased to record a particular debt to the profound and
pioneering work of William McCarthy in his Hester Thrale Piozzi:
Portrait of a Literary Woman (1985), a most readable model of
precision. In preparing this book I have used the printed materials
of the British Library, the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth,
the New York Public Library, the Beinecke Library at New Haven,
the Houghton Library at Harvard, the John Rylands Library, Swansea
University, and the Firestone Library, Princeton. I am happy to
acknowledge my gratitude to the helpful effciency of the library
staff at all these institutions. I should especially like to register
my thanks to John McCrory of the John Rylands Library, Emma
Butterfeld of the National Portrait Gallery, Céline Gorham, Registrar
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 9 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMAcknowledgements
of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and Rosemary Williams of the
Inter-Library Loan department here at Swansea. For thought ful
and encouraging conversations and camaraderie, I am very grateful
to all my colleagues in Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online:
http://www.elizabethmontagunetwork.co.uk/emco/. For many years
Elizabeth was Hester’s friendly rival for personal celebrity, and
Frances Burney opined: ‘As to Mrs. Montagu, she reasons well,
and harangues well, but wit she has none. Mrs Thrale has almost
too much; for when she is in spirits, it bursts forth in a torrent
almost overwhelming.’ Finally, my sincere thanks, for her cheerful
effciency and helpful kindness, to Sarah Lewis at the University
of Wales Press. As ever, my deepest debt is to Caroline.
x
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 10 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMIllustrations
1 Bodfel Hall, Llannor, Pwllheli, Caernarfonshire. Cofein. NMR
Site Files Catalogue Number: C554943.
2 Bachegraig House, Tremeirchion, Flintshire, 1776, by Richard
Bernard Godfrey, engraver (b. 1728). National Library of Wales,
Aberystwyth.
3 Portrait of Hester Thrale and her daughter Hester, c.1777,
by Joshua Reynolds (1723–92). By kind permission of the
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
4 ‘The Southwark Macaroni’, cartoon of Henry Thrale. Published
according to the Act of 24 August 1772, by M. Darly, 39 Strand,
London. Etching 1915, 0313.163 © The Trustees of the British
Museum.
5 Samuel Johnson (1709–84), engraved by William Holl, after
Joshua Reynolds, and published in The Gallery of Portraits with
Memoirs, vol. 7 (London: Knight, 1837).
6 Thrale Place, otherwise known as Streatham Place or
Streatham Park, drawn and engraved by William Ellis, published
1 August 1792, by Harrison & Co., 18 Paternoster Row, London,
Copperplate Magazine, or Monthly Cabinet of Picturesque Prints,
Consisting of Views in Great Britain and Ireland, 5 vols (Harrison
and Co., London, 1792–1802), vol. 1, print 14. 1862,0712.924.
© The Trustees of the British Museum.
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 11 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PMIllustrations
7 Hester Lynch Piozzi (née Salusbury, later Mrs Thrale) by
unknown Italian artist; oil on canvas 1785–6. NPG 4942. ©
National Portrait Gallery, London.
8 ‘Frontispiece for the second edition of Dr Johnson’s Letters’
by James Sayers; etching, published by Thomas Cornell
7 April 1788. NPG D9898. © National Portrait Gallery, London.
9 Portrait; half length, seated to left; elbow resting on ledge;
wearing hat and cloak tied around neck, vignette. Engraved
by Henry Meyer from an original Drawing by John Jackson
in 1811. Stipple. A, 2.50. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
10 Brynbella, the Seat of G. Piozzi Esqr., engraved by J. Bluck (f.
1791–1819); J. Baker, artist, Tremeirchion, Flintshire. National
Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
xii
00 Prelims Hester 2020_2_17.indd 12 17-Feb-20 3:35:15 PM1
‘a thousand Hester Lynch Salusbury:
pretty Tricks, [. . .] a Thousand
pretty Stories and [. . .] a
Thousand pretty Verses’
A failed adventure park three miles west of Pwllheli – ‘Bodvel
Hall means a fun day out for the family, with an Animal Farm­
yard, [. . .]’ – was the birthplace of our writer of Wales. In the
sixteenth century, Bodvel had been the home of a real adventurer,
John Wynn, who used Ynys Enlli as a piratical base while employed
as County Commissioner for the Suppression of Piracy. But by
1739 it had become haven to a young couple whose marriage
reinforced the familial ties between the Salusburys of Bachegraig
and Lleweni and the Cottons of Combermere. Tall, dark and
handsome, with a quick wit and a quicker temper, John Salusbury
was himself something of an adventurer. Although in many ways
a gigolo and sponger par excellence, his thoughtful generosity
was acknowledged by his kinsman Thomas Pennant, whose love
of natural history was frst stimulated by Salusbury’s gift of
1Francis Willoughby’s Ornithology (1678). John’s cousin and wife,
Hester Maria, was ‘for all personal and mental Excellence the most
accomplished’ and virtuous of women, with the most beautifully
2piercing eyes. She was the toast of the Denbigh Assembly Rooms,
but, hopelessly fascinated by him, had married for love. However,
the relationship of this spirited couple was strained and tem­
pestuous. Hester’s daughter would later describe it as physically
abusive:
01 Main Hester 2020_2_17.indd 1 17-Feb-20 3:35:42 PMHester Lynch Thrale Piozzi
for a Woman to contend with a Man She is shut up with at a Distance
from Society, where the natural Roughness of the Sex is not restrained;
& Gallantry can obtain no Reputation; is so dangerous, that I wonder
almost how She escaped with her Life [. . .] after several Miscarriages
from Frights, Contests, Falls &c my Mother did produce a live Child.
(Thraliana, 1: 281)
‘After