38 JOHNSON. 



friends and exultation of foes,""' are the terms applied to 

 the widow of a wealthy brewer, son of a common porter, 

 because she had lowered herself to contract a second mar- 

 riage with a well educated gentleman, whose circum- 

 stances led him to gain an honest subsistence by teaching 

 the finest music in the world, f 



* " I thought/' said Johnson in a letter to Sir J. Hawkins, " that 

 either her virtue or her vice would have kept her from such a mar- 

 riage ; she is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, 

 and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or to pity." 



f Miss Burney's account of Dr. Johnson's vehement feelings on 

 this occasion, is striking. 



" Scarcely an instant, however, was the latter left alone in Bolt 

 Court, ere she saw the justice of her long apprehensions ; for while 

 she planned speaking upon s'ome topic that might have a chance to 

 catch the attention of the Doctor, a sudden change from kind tran- 

 quillity to strong austerity took place in his altered countenance ; 

 and, startled and affrighted, she held her peace. A silence almost 

 awful succeeded, though previously to Dr. Burney's absence, the 

 gayest discourse had been reciprocated. The Doctor, then, see- 

 sawing violently in his chair, as usual when he was big with any 

 powerful emotion whether of pleasure or of pain, seemed deeply 

 moved ; but without looking at her, or speaking, he intently fixed 

 his eyes upon the fire : while his panic-struck visitor, filled with 

 dismay at the storm which she saw gathering over the character and 

 conduct of one still dear to her very heart, from the furrowed front, 

 the laborious heaving of the ponderous chest, and the roll of the 

 large penetrating wrathful eye of her honoured, but just then, terrific 

 host, sat mute, motionless, and sad ; tremblingly awaiting a men- 

 tally demolishing thunderbolt. Thus passed a few minutes, in which 

 she scarcely dared breathe ; while the respiration of the Doctor, on 

 the contrary, was of asthmatic force and loudness ; then, suddenly 

 turning to her, with an air of mingled wrath and woe, he hoarsely 

 ejaculated: 'Piozzi!' He evidently meant to say more; but the 

 effort with which he articulated that name robbed him of any voice 

 for amplification, and his whole frame grew tremulously convulsed. 

 His guest, appalled, could not speak ; but he soon discerned that it 

 was grief from coincidence, not distrust from opposition of sentiment 



