PIOZZI (HESTER LYNCH THRALE)


Autograph note signed ("H:L:T."), to [Samuel] Lysons: "I have regretted of my Promise yet will not break it -- -- -- -- but reading the Book more I like it less; let me have it again o'Wednesday to restore to the Possessor for it is scarce & curious"; integral address leaf ("Mr Lysons/ with a Book"); plus a letter by the recipient's nephew and namesake, sending the letter to a fellow collector, 1 page, tipped onto an album leaf, oblong 8vo, no place or date [first half of 1784]
|'READING THE BOOK MORE I LIKE IT LESS' – a droll, bookish note by Mrs Thrale. Samuel Lysons, afterwards a distinguished archaeologist and Keeper of Records at the Tower of London, had met Mrs Thrale in January of 1784 and was to become one of her closest friends, helping her compile Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786) and Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson (1788). From the signature, it is clear this note predates Mrs Thrale's marriage to Piozzi on 30 June 1784 and estrangement from Johnson; Johnson meeting Lysons only four days earlier (see his letter to Mrs Thrale of 26 June 1784, Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford, iv, 1994, p.336 & n.1). Accompanying our letter is one by Lyson's nephew and heir, the antiquary Samuel Lysons, dated 1842, sending it to a collector "also one of Dr Samuel Johnson"; the latter, assuming it to be to the elder Lysons as well, appears to have since disappeared.