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[PIOZZI, Hester Lynch Thrale (1741-1821)]. Addison

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London: for Messrs. Payne, Rivington, Davis [etc.], 1789. 8 vols. 8vo (218 x 131 mm.). Contemporary sprinkled calf gilt, spines gilt with red morocco gilt title labels and circular black morocco gilt numeral labels (that for vol. 3 a replacement; that for vol. 8 detached but present). Spines of vols. 2 and 8 with central vertical cracks, a few other joints partly cracked, some old repairs to joints and corners. Flyleaves in first three vols. detached. In a red morocco flap-top box within a pull-off red morocco gilt case by The French Binders. Condition: some leaves spotted. hester lunch thrale piozzi's copy with extensive autograph manuscript ink marginalia on 786 pages for a total of over 6,300 lines of varying breadth. Signed "H:L: Piozzi 1794" on front flyleaf of vol. 1 (detached). Piozzi was clearly an admiring and devoted reader of The Spectator, moved at one place to exclaim "Immortal Spectator, praised by the wisest, the wittiest, & the best & never praised enough" (vol. 2, p. 216). Alongside many passages she has added brief encomiums such as "Charming," "That's exquisitely pretty," or simply "Beautiful." Clearly, her extensive and careful annotations attest to multiple readings of this treasured edition from her library. Many of the marginalia are dated by specific years: 1794, 1795, 1796, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809 and 1812. In several places she has added elaborative comments upon her own marginalia of earlier epochs. Every entry is completely intact and legible throughout although the extreme edges of a very few letters have been ever so slightly touched by the binder's knife, indicating that she probably commissioned the binding soon after 1812. Samuel Johnson is referenced eight times in the marginalia. No. 163 contains a letter signed "Leonora," causing Piozzi to comment "Dr. Johnson wd. have said 'Put Leonora into a small retail Shop, & give her a young Child to tend; & She will soon forget her Lover & her Passion. Those who work for their Living says he, know no Sorrow when they can get their Bread [underlined]. Dr. Johnson recommended going to Work [underlined]; & said ye: hard Labour would cure all Affliction for Distresses of Sentiment [underlined]." (vol. 2, pp. 466 and 467). In no. 189, as a riposte to the view of siding with parents in controversies with their children "Dr. Johnson profess'd the direct Contrary--his immediate Prejudice was always in favour of the Young against the Old" (vol. 3, p. 123). Piozzi recollects, in no. 445, "the Luctus et Gaudia published on George the 3: d's Accession, there was a copy of Verses--an Epigram the Writer called it, composed in the Phoenician language, & its meaning Dr. Johnson told me, was simply this. George the second is dead--Jupiter & Juno mourn; George the third lives & reigns, Jupiter & Juno rejoyce." (vol. 7, p. 286). A supernatural narrative in no. 611 prompts her recollection "This very Tale did I hear Mr. Wraxall [probably the author Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall] repeat as having witness'd [underlined] the Transaction: He told it at Mrs. Montague's Table & I asked Mrs. Scott if it was not in the Spectator? To be sure said she it is. Dr. Johnson sate so far off the Narrator he could not hear: but I thought it a shameless endeavour at Imposition, and very unlikely to succeed....it happened very many Years ago." (vol. 8, p. 292). At the end of the small-pox sufferer Monimia's letter concluding no. 613, Piozzi comments, "Johnson's Letters from Victoria in ye Rambler are much improved upon this. The Smallpox being nearly annihilated among us, has taken from our Pleasure in reading these Papers, but cannot take from their Merits." (vol. 8, p. 303). Among Piozzi's references to historical figures and events include humorous comments about the Prince of Wales. In no. 32 she notes that he "likes Corpulent Beauties best they say. So the Girls stuff themselves with Eggs & Chocolate in a Morning for Breakfast; Oysters before Dinner, & Porter to fatten them, in 1798, so that they may emulate lady ample who would have been our Prince's Favourite." (vol. 1, p. 184); in no. 45, she criticizes the unruly behavior of theater audiences in 1711 by exclaiming "all this Impertinence would not now be endur'd: I saw the prince of Wales hissed for chatting too Loud one night...it was at an Opera 1795 "(vol. 1, p. 261); and in no. 569, his tippling elicits the account: "There was a Gentleman in Anglesey who boasted that he had drank as much Liquor as would have floated a 74 Gun Ship. I suppose our Prince of Wales's Quantity would float the Royal George." (vol. 8, p. 72). The achievements of John, Duke of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession are among the topics treated in no. 139, and she notes "The Idea [of glory] was meant to be realized in Churchill and was realized...no Hero ever gave more momentary Lustre to his Country or his Sovereign. This astonishing Little Island has however in these last days produc'd a Naval Hero [underlined] in Lord Nelson who realizes the Character again [underlined]; whilst our more than either of them Immortal Spectator, has given a Model here for future Exellence meaning only to record then present Perfection [underlined]." (vol. 2, p. 325). She remarks on the disappearance of sign-posts in no. 28: "Sign Posts [underlined] are no more, and Signs going apace; People begin to write - The Prince's Head, or whatever 'tis in Letters [underlined] ....because more Persons can read now than in former Days. As for the Blue Boars & Black Swans, they were only Devices of Heraldry..." (vol. 1, p. 161); and makes fascinating observations about London in no. 251: "Since shops here have so increased in London, Cries have gone out...our Metropolis infinitely larger & more populous in 1801 than in 1711, is I believe much less noisy...I recollect an acquisition of Stillness to the Town nearly incredible during the half Century I have been acquainted with it." (vol. 3, p. 478). No. 116 concerns hunting and triggers some impatient comments: "Beagles do not hunt Fox" (vol. 2, p. 192) and "It would be better if Writers would confine themselves to what they understand. These dear Spectators knew little of Rural Life, & Miss. Edgeworth knows nothing of School Books when She makes her Boy in the Tale called Barring: out lose his Livy - Livy is not a School book." (vol. 2, p. 195). The many celebrated dramatic and literary figures that feature in her annotations include Addison, Cibber, Colman, Congreve, Dryden, Etheredge (in no. 65, about his ribald comedy The Shoemaker: "The upper Gallery in these days would not endure the Indecencies of this once favourite Comedy...I saw it once, when I was a Child, and recollect Mrs. Cibber who acted Loveit tearing her Fan with Passion, perhaps in 1755." Vol. 1, p. 384); Foote, Garrick, Hobbes, Metastasio, Hannah More, Otway, Psalmanazar, Richardson, Sale (in no. 238: "Sale's Translation of the Koran is a very great work & I believe exquisitely done." Vol. 3, p. 401); Shakespeare (in no. 44: "They have turn'd the Ghost of Banquo out now and Macbeth stares & bounces at an empty chair....I liked the old Way better. 1795." Vol. 1, p. 251); Mrs. Siddons, Swift, Voltaire and Horace Walpole. When the text refers to Handel as "Mynheer" in no. 5, she writes "Handel was no Mynheer at all; he was a native of Saxony, & nearer to Orpheus than any one else ever was, at the worst. The Italians never called him Mynheer. Their Word to him was Caro Sassone, their admiration of him unbounded" (vol. 1, p. 32). In no. 405: "How would ye warm heart have glow'd at hearing Handel's Oratorio called Messiah performed in Westminster Abbey by one Thousand Musicians at once as we heard it near the Close of the 18th Century" (vol. 6, p. 57). In no. 9, about clubs, she laments the burning of the Beef Steak Club together with Covent Garden Theatre in 1808 (vol. 1, p. 54). About art, in no. 416 "...I observed in myself yt. my Love of the Statuary Art kept on increasing while I staid in Italy....The Tribune of Florence exhibiting the Medician Statue of Venus & Titians figure of her Rival Beauty is the fairest Tryal. I was certainly most struck by the Picture but I learned at length to prefer the Work of Praxiteles" (vol. 6, p. 122). Concerning women authors, Piozzi asserts, in no. 11, "The women write enough now themselves but 'tis never as I see in Vindication of our sex....That Nonsense of laying all Ladies' follies to their Sex seems out of Date...We see Fools & Knaves too of every Sex, Age & Climate in 1800." Beneath, she adds "Oh I forgot Mrs. Woolstoncraft...but so I suppose has everybody else." (vol. 1, p. 64). At the end of no. 128 she comments on the change in women's fasions: "The Ladies are shrunk to their mere natural Size & Shape now - scarce any covering at all; & no Hoops to keep as Richardson's Lady G. says, the saucy Fellows at a Distance. Oh no, no. 1800" (vol. 2, p. 261). Almost at the end of The Spectator, in no. 632 [the work was completed by no. 635], as a response to Gregorio Leti's claim that he was author of a book and father of a child for 20 years successively, Piozzi adds "My Great Grandfather who cracked a Peachstone wth. his Teeth on his 80th Birthday--for a frolic; said to his congratulating Friends, 'Ay, Gentlemen! Time was when I could take a Journey to London every Year, get my Wife with Child every year, & save 1000 £ every year, but now God help me I can do none of the Three." (vol. 8, p. 387). Provenance: 1. Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi. 2. "H.R.H. given to him by her Majesty Victoria," ink inscription wirtten on front pastedown of vol. 8, before the addition of two covering bookplates. 3. Thomas Hughes, mid 19th-century engraved armorial bookplate pasted over an earlier bookplate, in vols. 1-7. Whether these volumes bear the "H.R.H." inscription of vol. 1 in not known. 4. The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, amongst a grouop of 18th-century English books acquired by Bernard Quaritch Ltd. and sold in April 1978 to: 5. Dr. Gerald E. Slater, Deephaven, Minnesota (sale, Christie's New York, 12 Februrary 1982, lot 127, $12,000, C.A. Stonehill).(8)

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