PIOZZI, Mns. (nee HESTER LTECII SALUSITLIEY), who cannot be forgotten while the great Dr. Samuel Johnson continues to be remembered, was the daughter of John Sains bury, esq., of Bodvel, in Cacrnarvonshire, where she was born in the year 1739. Early introduced into the fashionable world of London, she charmed by her beauty and her lively manners; and, in 1763, was married to Mr. Henry Thrale, a rich brewer with a recognized position in society, and, at the time, one of the members for the borough of Southwark. Her acquaintance with Dr. Johnson, which speedily became an intimacy of the closest and most affectionate kind, began shortly after. Of all Johnson's many friendships this was perhaps, in certain essential 'respects, the valuable to him To Johnson, widowed and alone, and subject, as he had been through out, to excesses of a frightful gloomy hypochrondria, which made life at times to him an almost intolerable burden, the society of Mrs. nude, and of the circle which she gathered round her, was a source of incalculable solace. Mrs. Thrale in particular, with her warm heart, and bright womanly intelligence, was always a comforting presence; and her unfailing cheerfulness and vivacity enlivened for him many an otherwise cloudy hour. Her married life, though prosperous, was not an eminently happy one, Nr, Henry Thrale, though always a pleasant and kindly gentleman, being no miracle of conjugal virtue. If Johnson owed her much, it may be surmised that the benefit was in some sort reciprocal, and that, by her affectionate reverence and solicitude for her sage, she a little consoled herself for the gentlemanly indifference of her husband. On the death, in 1781, of her husband, Mrs. Thrale retired with her four daughters to Bath, where, in 1784, she married Mr. Gabriel Piozzi, an Italian teacher of music. This mesalliance—as it was held—was•deeply censured by all her friends, and so unreasonably excited the ire of Dr. Johnson in particular, that It rupture of friendly relations was the result. In the correspondence between them on the subject, it must be admitted the lady has much the better of the philosopher, whose tone of unmannerly rudeness gives some countenance to the good-natured suspicion of his friends, that lie had an eye to the widow himself. Though the feud was ostensibly healed, the friends never again met; Mrs. Piozzi leaving England for Italy with liar husband, and 1)r. Johnson dying soon after. Some little time subsequent to his death she published an octavo volume, entitled Anecdotes of Dr. Samuel Johnson during the last Twenty Years of his Dfc, in which it seemed to the indignant Boswell and others, that her main intention was to take her little feminine revenge On the deceased for his outrage in the matter of Piozzi. This work she supple mented in 1788 by a collection of Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Johnson, in 2 vols. five. Of works more properly her own may be mentioned Observations and Reflections made in the Course of a Journey through France, Roby, and Germany (2 vols. 8vo, 1i89); British
Synonymy, or an Attempt at regulating the Choice tg`' Words in Familiar Conversation (2 vols. 8vo, 1794); and Retrospection, or a Review of the most striking and important Events, Characters, Situations, and their Consequences, which the last Eighteen Hundred Years have presented to the View of .3fankind (2 vols. 4to, 1801)—books long since utterly forgotten, if ever they were at all read and remembered. Having survived her second husband, her own celebrity, and almost in some sort that of the great Dr. Johnson, with whom her name remains indissolubly connected, Mrs. Piozzi died at Clifton, near Bristol, on May 2, 1821.
PIP, Cam, or Rour, a disease of poultry, often very fatal, particularly to chickens and turkey poults. It is very frequent also in young pheasants. Adult birds are, how ever liable to it; and when it appears in a poultry-yard it often attacks ninny in rapid succession, so that it is regarded as highly contagious. It most frequently occurs in wet or very cold weather, and is generally described as a kind of catarrh, although perhaps it might more accurately be called a kind of influenza. It begins with a slight hoarse ness and catching in the breath, which is followed by an offensive discharge from the nostrils and eyes, rattling in the throat, and an accumulation of mucus in the mouth, forming a " scale" on the tongue. The communication of the disease from one bird to another is supposed to take place through the contamination of the water in their com mon drinking-vessel, and therefore a bird affected with it should at once be removed from the rest. Castor-oil is freely administered by some poultry-keepers. Mrs. Blair, in The Henwife, recommends a table-spoonful, but without saying whether this dose is for a full-grown fowl or a young chicken. She recommends also a medicine composed of half a drain of dried sulphate of iron, and one dram of capsicum, made into 30 pills with extract of licorice, one pill to be given three times a day. This after a certain lime is to be followed by another compound, of sulphate of iron, cayenne pepper, and butter. The eyes, nostrils, and mouth are to he washed with vinegar. In a work OD poultry published in 1807 (7'he Practical Poultry-keeper, by L. Wright, London), it is especially recommended that the diseased birds should be kept warm: they are to be fed on oat meal mixed with ale, and to get plenty of green food. In other respects, except as to the castor-oil, the treatment recommended nearly agrees with Mrs. Blair's ; but the removal of the "scale" from the tongue is not regarded as necessary, because it will dis appear of itself on the cure of the disease.—It is proper to mention that there is consider able confusion of nomenclature as to the disease of fowls, and that, by some writers, the mere symptomatic affection of the tongue is called pip, and the disease itself coup. The terms, however, are generally used in the same sense.