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A. Hayward, Esq. Q.C. (whoever he was) produced a book, in two volumes, that does two things: #1 Demonstrates that Mrs. Hester Thrale did not jilt or mistreat Dr. Samuel Johnson upon her husband's death and #2 that Mrs. Thrale (to become Mrs. Piozzi) was a delightful and articulate and intelligent diarist and letter-writer.
Volume I, on which I am commenting now, is an extended compilation of extracts from the writings of Mrs. Thrale, Johnson, and others, with extensive editorial commentary that
A. Hayward, Esq. Q.C. (whoever he was) produced a book, in two volumes, that does two things: #1 Demonstrates that Mrs. Hester Thrale did not jilt or mistreat Dr. Samuel Johnson upon her husband's death and #2 that Mrs. Thrale (to become Mrs. Piozzi) was a delightful and articulate and intelligent diarist and letter-writer.
Volume I, on which I am commenting now, is an extended compilation of extracts from the writings of Mrs. Thrale, Johnson, and others, with extensive editorial commentary that focuses most explicitly on #1 above. Implicitly, however, #2 comes into sharp focus, along with a wide range of social questions, chief among them the features of sexism in late 18th, early 19th century England.
James Boswell, Dr. Johnson's best-known biographer, did not like Mrs. Thrale for the transparently obvious reason that he was jealous of how much he thought Dr. Johnson did like Mrs. Thrale. Boswell spent about a half year in Johnson's company, spread over a number of years. Mrs. Thrale had the laborious pleasure of serving as hostess to Johnson for some 18 years because he was given living quarters in the large establishment of the Thrales (which were financed by Mr. Thrale through his successful brewery.) So Boswell worked in a number of digs at Mrs. Thrale, particularly when Mr.Thrale died and he intimated that Mrs.Thrale cast Johnson off (preferring an accomplished Italian musician named Piozzi). Boswell's digs were amplified and extended later on by Lord Macaulay, who knew less about Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson than Boswell and many others--but that didn't stop him from having his opinions.
In this choppy but vivid volume, we meet Hester Thrale in her own words and can't help but be charmed by her spirit and vivacity. She gave birth to 8 children (4 of whom survived) but she managed to be a dazzling, quick-witted hostess who tolerated the brilliant but obnoxious Johnson primarily at her husband's wishes. That is not to say that Mrs. Thrale did not adore Johnson or that Johnson did not adore Mrs. Thrale. It is to say that the key figure in the Thrale household was Mr.Thrale, a quiet but strong-minded man whom Mrs. Thrale also tolerated.
She did not portray or conceive of herself as a martyr, but she was higher born than Thrale or Johnson, smarter than Thrale and at least able to keep up with Johnson, and yet subordinate to male dominance.
Her sin was to follow her heart after Thrale died and marry Piozzi instead of tying herself to another overwhelming husband, i.e., Dr. Johnson.
This presupposes that Mrs. Thrale and Johnson were some kind of love match or secret lovers or burning to have one another once Thrale was out of the way. That clearly was not the case. Johnson was a compassionate egocentric literary genius who suffered endless maladies and was obsessed with the dark consequences of his own death. He had been married to an older woman once, and from all appearances, he dabbled in street women now and then but didn't see himself as a lord and master of the likes of Mrs. Thrale, considerably younger.
Johnson was what we can no longer call a queer bird so we'll have to settle for an odd duck. He is famous for his quips and pronouncements, his practice of speaking his mind, and his dog-like interest in his dinner plate. Having Johnson at your table was a coup, of sorts, because he was a box of verbal fireworks that could go off at any time. He was, to introduce some other animals, like a bear or bull whom people enjoyed baiting, a polymath of the literary style, a killer in argument, and a sad, self-condemning man who always questioned his worth, if not his judgments.
Mrs.Thrale was vivacious, impish, didn't take herself too seriously, and possessed the kind of intellect that is reactive,switch-blade quick. She ultimately, in later life, wrote things that were beyond her capacity, but for the better part of twenty years she served as a kind of foil and intimate friend to the giant Johnson--and then she published some of her memoirs and exchanges with Johnson and fanned the fires of London's resentment that she married an Italian, of all people, and did not sacrifice herself to Johnson.
In one dismaying entry in her diary, she recounts her realization after Mr. Thrale's death that Dr. Johnson depended on him much more than on her and was not affected much at all by the end of his time under their roof. This hurt her, but it did not crush her. Similarly, her daughters' coldness toward her second husband hurt her but did not crush her. She deferred marrying Piozzi for a time and then couldn't bear it any more. She sent to him in Italy, telling him to come get her. There's really no other explanation than the fact that she loved Piozzi madly and ultimately did not care what London thought--she would move to Italy, London be damned.
This is what I mean by spirit. Some, though not all, of us are intrigued by the social structures within which the characters Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Henry James met their fates. Here is a character straight of that literary line who writes herself, can be bowed but not broken, and remains vivid into her eighties, long after the departure of Johnson.
Did Mrs.Thrale have an intimate understanding of Johnson? One can assume that having a bear in the house for 18 years (for months at a time, not the entire year) gives one glimpses of both the bear's body and soul, but that isn't the sort of thing Mrs. Thrale would more than hint at and it is the sort of thing that would mortify Johnson, so we can't know if on certain desperate nights Johnson begged to be tied up and whipped or spanked and Mrs. Thrale complied with his wishes. And if so, that wouldn't form much of a basis for subsequent marriage, would it?
This is by no means a book for everyone. It jumps around; it doesn't always make clear who is being cited or quoted; and it demands a lot of co-writing, which is to say it's not fully realized, not equal to something produced by Austen, Eliot or James. But Mrs. Thrale is a gem of a person. The odds were always against her, men and her daughters freely censured her, and yet she pushes ahead. And her "literary remains" give us a broad picture of her times.