When she first resolved to marry him, Miss Burney (the authoress) lived with her, or was there on a visit; and on being consulted, remonstrated strongly on the impropriety of such a step. At length a promise was solemnly given that she would relinquish all thoughts of it. In a day or two afterwards she acted like a bedlamite, tore her hair, knocked her head against the wall, &c., and told Miss Burney she could not survive unless she had Piozzi. Soon afterwards she married him; and Miss Burney and she are now entirely alienated. She is now wholly unconnected with all her former friends.
Mr. Lysons, though a great friend of hers, showed Dr. Laurence who dined with us this day, a little account of her pretty poem, The Three Warnings. Of this piece, Lysons said, from some information he had got, that “the first hint was given to her by Johnson; that she brought it to him very incorrect; and that he not only revised it throughout, but supplied several new lines.” Under this account, which was written by Lysons and shown to Mrs. Piozzi, she had added with respect to the statement of its being suggested by Johnson, “That is not true,” acknowledging by the exception that the rest was true. But she was careless about truth, and therefore not to be trusted.
Dr. Akenside, as Sir J. Reynolds told me, soon after the publication of Goldsmith’s Traveller, was very liberal in its praise. A report then prevailed that it was in fact written by Johnson; but Akenside maintained that it was impossible, and he par-
