We must here give an account, as concise as possible, of the transaction which was so bitterly resented by the friends of Mrs. Thrale, but in which her conduct seems to us, taking all the circumstances fairly into consideration, to have been less deserving of condemnation than their uncharitableness. She had first seen Piozzi, an Italian singer, at a party at Dr. Burney's in 1777, and her behaviour to him on that occasion had certainly afforded no premonition of her subsequent infatuation. Piozzi, who was nearly of the same age as herself, was, as Miss Seward describes him, “a handsome man, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession.” He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, “knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver.” However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding the proceedings dull, was seized with a desire to enliven them. “In a fit of utter recklessness, she suddenly, but softly, arose, and stealing on tiptoe behind Signor Piozzi, who was accompanying himself on the pianoforte to an animated aria parlante, with his back to the company and his face to the wall, she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes, while languishingly reclining her head; as if she were not less enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the transports of harmony than himself.
“But the amusement which such an unlooked-for exhibition-- caused to the party, was momentary; for Dr. Burney, shocked lest the poor signor should observe, and be hurt by this mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something between pleasantry and severity, whispered to her, 'Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?'”[153]
This deserved rebuke the lively lady took in perfectly good part, and the incident passed without further notice. She does not appear to have met with Piozzi again, Until, in July, 1780, she picked him up at Brighton. She now finds him “amazingly like her father,” and insists that he shall teach Hester music. From this point the fever gradually increased. In August, 1781, little more than four months after her husband's death, Piozzi has become “a prodigious favourite” with her; she has even developed a taste for his music, which “fills the mind with emotions one would not be without, though inconvenient enough sometimes.” In the spring Of 1783, soon after her arrival at Bath, they were formally engaged, but the urgent remonstrances of her friends and family caused the engagement to be broken off, and Piozzi went to Italy. Her infatuation, however, was too strong to be overcome. Under the struggle, long protracted, her health gave way, and at length, by the advice of her doctor, and with the sullen consent of Miss Thrale, Piozzi was summoned to Bath. He, too, had been faithful, and he lost no time in obeying the summons. They were married, according to the Roman Catholic rites, in London, and again, on the 25th of July, 1784, in a Protestant church at Bath, her three elder daughters, of whom the eldest, Hester (“Queeny”), was not yet twenty years of age, having quitted Bath before his arrival.