See _post_, Nov. 16,
1776, July 22, and Sept. 22, 1777, March 18, April 17, 18, and 20,
May 12, and July 3, 1778.
[154] Baretti made a brutal attack on Mrs. Piozzi in the _European Mag_.
for 1788, xiii. 313, 393, and xiv. 89. He calls her 'the frontless
female, who goes now by the mean appellation of Piozzi; La Piozzi, as
my fiddling countrymen term her; who has dwindled down into the
contemptible wife of her daughter's singing-master.' His excuse was
the attacks made on him by her in the correspondence just published
between herself and Johnson (see _Piozzi Letters_, i. 277, 319). He
suspected her, and perhaps with reason, of altering some of these
letters. Other writers beside Baretti attacked her. To use Lord
Macaulay's words, grossly exaggerated though they are, 'She fled from
the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land
where she was unknown.' Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, ed. 1871, p.
393. According to Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary_, p. 33) Baretti flattered
Mrs. Thrale to her face. 'Talking as we were at tea of the magnitude of
the beer vessels, Baretti said there was one thing in Mr. Thrale's house
still more extraordinary; meaning his wife.
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