We had Lady Ladd at Streatham; Mr. Stephen Fuller, the sensible, but deaf old gentleman I have formerly mentioned, dined here also; as did Mr. R—,[101] whose trite, settled, tonish emptiness of discourse is a never-failing source of laughter and diversion.
“Well, I say, what, Miss Burney, so you had a very good party last Tuesday?—what we call the family party—in that sort of way? Pray who had you?”
“Mr. Chamier."[102]
“Mr. Chamier, ay? Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, that Mr. Chamier is what we call a very sensible man!”
“Certainly. And Mr. Pepys."[103]
“Mr. Pepys? Ay, very good—very good in that sort of way. I am quite sorry I could not be here; but I was so much indisposed—quite what we call the nursing party.”
“I'm very sorry; but I hope little Sharp[104] is well?
“Ma'am, your most humble! you're a very good lady, indeed!—quite what we call a good lady! Little Sharp is perfectly well: that sort of attention, and things of that sort,—-the bow-wow system is very well. But pray, Miss Burney, give me leave to ask, in that sort of way, had you anybody else?”
“Yes, Lady Ladd and Mr. Seward.”
“So, so!—quite the family system! Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, this commands attention!—what we call a respectable invitation! I am sorry I could not come, indeed; for we young men, Miss Burney, we make it what we call a sort of rule to take notice of this sort of attention. But I was extremely indisposed, indeed—what we call the walnut system had quite—-Pray what's the news, Miss Burney?—in that sort of way, is there any news?”
“None, that I have heard. Have you heard any?”
“Why, very bad! very bad, indeed!—quite what we call poor old England! I was told, in town,—fact—fact, I assure you—that these Dons intend us an invasion this very month, they and the Monsieurs intend us the respectable salute this very month;—the powder system, in that sort of way! Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, this is what we call a disagreeable visit, in that sort of way.”
I think, if possible, his language looks more absurd upon paper even than it sounds in conversation, from the perpetual recurrence of the same words and expressions—
Brighthelmstone, October 12.—On Tuesday Mr., Mrs., Miss Thrale, and “yours, ma'am, yours,” set out on their expedition. The day was very pleasant, and the journey delightful.
We dined very comfortably at Sevenoaks, and thence made but one stage to Tunbridge. It was so dark when we went through the town that I could see it very indistinctly. The Wells, however, are about seven miles yet further, so that we saw that night nothing; but I assure you, I felt that I was entering into a new country pretty roughly, for the roads were so sidelum and jumblum, as Miss L— called those of Teignmouth, that I expected an overturn every minute. Safely, however, we reached the Sussex Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells.
Having looked at our rooms, and arranged our affairs, we proceeded to Mount Ephraim, where Miss Streatfield resides. We found her with only her mother, and spent the evening there.
Mrs. Streatfield is very—very little, but perfectly well made, thin, genteel, and delicate. She has been quite beautiful, and has still so much of beauty left, that to call it only the remains of a fine face seems hardly doing her justice. She is very lively, and an excellent mimic, and is, I think, as much superior to her daughter in natural gifts as her daughter is to her in acquired ones: and how infinitely preferable are parts without education to education without parts!
The fair S. S. is really in higher beauty than I have ever yet seen her; and she was so caressing, so soft, so amiable, that I felt myself insensibly inclining to her with an affectionate regard. “If it was not for that little, gush,” as Dr. Delap said, I should certainly have taken a very great fancy to her; but tears so ready—oh, they blot out my fair opinion of her! Yet whenever I am with her, I like, nay, almost love her, for her manners are exceedingly captivating; but when I quit her, I do not find that she improves by being thought over—no, nor talked over; for Mrs. Thrale, who is always disposed to half adore her in her presence, can never converse about her without exciting her own contempt by recapitulating what has passed. This, however, must always be certain, whatever may be doubtful, that she is a girl in no respect like any other.
But I have not yet done with the mother: I have told you of her vivacity and her mimicry, but her character is yet not half told. She has a kind of whimsical conceit and odd affectation, that, joined to a very singular sort of humour, makes her always seem to be rehearsing some scene in a comedy. She takes off, if she mentions them, all her own children, and, though she quite adores them, renders them ridiculous with all her power. She laughs at herself for her smallness and for her vagaries, just with the same ease and ridicule as if she were speaking of some other person; and, while perpetually hinting at being old and broken, she is continually frisking, flaunting, and playing tricks, like a young coquet.
When I was introduced to her by Mrs. Thrale, who said, “Give me leave, ma'am, to present to you a friend of your daughter's—Miss Burney,” she advanced to me with a tripping pace, and, taking one of my fingers, said, “Allow me, ma'am, will you, to create a little—acquaintance with you.”
And, indeed, I readily entered into an alliance with her, for I found nothing at Tunbridge half so entertaining, except, indeed, Miss Birch, of whom hereafter.
Tunbridge Wells is a place that to me appeared very singular; the country is all rock, and every part of it is either up or down hill, scarce ten yards square being level ground in the whole place: the houses, too, are scattered about in a strange wild manner, and look as if they had been dropt where they stand by accident, for they form neither streets nor squares, but seem strewed promiscuously, except, indeed, where the shopkeepers live, who have got two or three dirty little lanes, much like dirty little lanes in other places.
In the evening we all went to the rooms. The rooms, as they are called, consisted for this evening, of only one apartment, as there was not company enough to make more necessary, and a very plain, unadorned, and ordinary apartment that was.
The next morning we had the company of two young ladies at breakfast—the S. S. and a Miss Birch, a little girl but ten years old, whom the S. S. invited, well foreseeing how much we should all be obliged to her. This Miss Birch is a niece of the charming Mrs. Pleydell,[105] and so like her, that I should have taken her for her daughter, yet she is not, now, quite so handsome; but as she will soon know how to display her beauty to the utmost advantage, I fancy, in a few years, she will yet more resemble her lovely and most bewitching aunt. Everybody, she said, tells her how like she is to her aunt Pleydell.
As you, therefore, have seen that sweet woman, only imagine her ten years old, and you will see her sweet niece. Nor does the resemblance rest with the person; she sings like her, laughs like her, talks like her, caresses like her, and alternately softens and animates just like her. Her conversation is not merely like that of a woman already, but like that of a most uncommonly informed, cultivated, and sagacious woman; and at the same time that her understanding is thus wonderfully premature, she can, at pleasure, throw off all this rationality, and make herself a mere playful, giddy, romping child. One moment, with mingled gravity and sarcasm, she discusses characters, and the next, with schoolgirl spirits, she jumps round the room; then, suddenly, she asks, “Do you know such or such a song?” and instantly, with mixed grace and buffoonery, singles out an object, and sings it; and then, before there has been time to applaud her, she runs into the middle of the room, to try some new step in a dance; and after all this, without waiting till her vagaries grow tiresome, she flings herself, with an affectionate air upon somebody's lap, and there, composed and thoughtful, she continues quiet till she again enters into rational conversation.
Her voice is really charming—infinitely the most powerful, as well as sweet, I ever heard at her age. Were she well and constantly taught, she might, I should think, do anything,—for two or three Italian songs, which she learnt out of only five months' teaching by Parsons, she sung like a little angel, with respect to taste, feeling, and expression; but she now learns of nobody, and is so fond of French songs, for the sake, she says, of the sentiment, that I fear she will have her wonderful abilities all thrown away. Oh, how I wish my father had the charge of her!
She has spent four years out of her little life in France, which has made her distractedly fond of the French operas, “Rose et Colas,” “Annette et Lubin,” etc., and she told us the story quite through of several I never heard of, always singing the sujet when she came to the airs, and comically changing parts in the duets. She speaks French with the same fluency as English, and every now and then, addressing herself to the S. S.—“Que je vous adore!”—“Ah, permettez que je me mette a vos pieds!” etc., with a dying languor that was equally laughable and lovely.
When I found, by her taught songs, what a delightful singer she was capable of becoming, I really had not patience to hear her little French airs, and entreated her to give them up, but the little rogue instantly began pestering me with them, singing one after another with a comical sort of malice, and following me round the room, when I said I would not listen to her, to say, “But is not this pretty?—and this?—and this?” singing away with all her might and main.
She sung without any accompaniment, as we had no instrument; but the S. S. says she plays too, very well. Indeed, I fancy she can do well whatever she pleases.
We hardly knew how to get away from her when the carriage was ready to take us from Tunbridge, and Mrs. Thrale was so much enchanted with her that she went on the Pantiles and bought her a very beautiful inkstand.
“I don't mean, Miss Birch,” she said, when she gave it her, “to present you this toy as to a child, but merely to beg you will do me the favour to accept something that may make you now and then remember us.”
She was much delighted with this present, and told me, in a whisper, that she should put a drawing of it in her journal.
So you see, Susy, other children have had this whim. But something being said of novels, the S. S. said—
“Selina, do you ever read them?”—And, with a sigh, the little girl answered—
“But too often!—-I wish I did not.”
The only thing I did not like in this seducing little creature was our leave-taking. The S. S. had, as we expected, her fine eyes suffused with tears, and nothing would serve the little Selina, who admires the S. S. passionately, but that she, also, must weep—and weep, therefore, she did, and that in a manner as pretty to look at, as soft, as melting, and as little to her discomposure, as the weeping of her fair exemplar. The child's success in this pathetic art made the tears of both appear to the whole party to be lodged, as the English merchant says, “very near the eyes!”
Doubtful as it is whether we shall ever see this sweet syren again, nothing, as Mrs. Thrale said to her, can be more certain than that we shall hear of her again, let her go whither she will.
Charmed as we all were with her, we all agreed that to have the care of her would be distraction! “She seems the girl in the world,” Mrs. Thrale wisely said, “to attain the highest reach of human perfection as a man's mistress!—as such she would be a second Cleopatra, and have the world at her command.”
Poor thing! I hope to heaven she will escape such sovereignty and such honours!
We left Tunbridge Wells, and got, by dinner time, to our first stage, Uckfield. Our next stage brought us to Brighthelmstone, where I fancy we shall stay till the Parliament calls away Mr. Thrale.[106]
The morning after our arrival, our first visit was from Mr Kipping, the apothecary, a character so curious that Foote[107] designed him for his next piece, before he knew he had already written his last. He is a prating, good-humoured old gossip, who runs on in as incoherent and unconnected a style of discourse as Rose Fuller, though not so tonish.
The rest of the morning we spent, as usual at this place, upon the Steyn, and in booksellers' shops. Mrs. Thrale entered all our names at Thomas's, the fashionable bookseller; but we find he has now a rival, situated also upon the Steyn, who seems to carry away all the custom and all the company. This is a Mr. Bowen, who is just come from London, and who seems just the man to carry the world before him as a shop-keeper. Extremely civil, attentive to watch opportunities Of obliging, and assiduous to make use of them—skilful in discovering the taste or turn of mind of his customers, and adroit in putting in their way just such temptations as they are least able to withstand. Mrs. Thrale, at the same time that she sees his management and contrivance, so much admires his sagacity and dexterity, that, though open-eyed, she is as easily wrought upon to part with her money, as any of the many dupes in this place, whom he persuades to require indispensably whatever he shows them. He did not, however, then at all suspect who I was, for he showed me nothing but schemes for raffles, and books, pocket-cases, etc., which weie put up for those purposes. It is plain I can have no authoress air, since so discerning a bookseller thought me a fine lady spendthrift, who only wanted occasions to get rid of money.
Sunday morning, as we came out of church, we saw Mrs. Cumberland, one of her sons, and both her daughters. Mrs. Thrale spoke to them, but I believe they did not recollect me. They are reckoned the flashers of the place, yet everybody laughs at them for their airs, affectations, and tonish graces and impertinences.
In the evening, Mrs. Dickens, a lady of Mrs. Thrale's acquaintance, invited us to drink tea at the rooms with her, which we did, and found them much more full and lively than the preceding night. The folks of most consequence with respect to rank, were Lady Pembroke and Lady Di Beauclerk,[108] both of whom have still very pleasing remains of the beauty for which they have been so much admired. But the present beauty, whose remains our children (i.e. nieces) may talk of, is a Mrs. Musters, an exceedingly pretty woman, who is the reigning toast of the season.
While Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Dickens, and I were walking about after tea, we were joined by a Mr. Cure, a gentleman of the former's acquaintance. After a little while he said—
“Miss Thrale is very much grown since she was here last year; and besides, I think she's vastly altered.”
“Do you, sir,” cried she, “I can't say I think so.”
“Oh vastly!—but young ladies at that age are always altering. To tell you the truth, I did not know her at all.”
This, for a little while, passed quietly; but soon after, he exclaimed,
“Ma'am, do you know I have not yet read 'Evelina?”
“Have not you so, sir?” cried she, laughing.
“No, and I think I never shall, for there's no getting it. The booksellers say they never can keep it a moment, and the folks that hire it keep lending it from one to another in such a manner that it is never returned to the library. It's very provoking.”
“But,” said Mrs. Thrale, “what makes you exclaim about it so to me?”
“Why, because, if you recollect, the last thing you said to me when we parted last year, was—be sure you read 'Evelina.' So as soon as I saw you I recollected it all again. But I wish Miss Thrale would turn more this way.”
“Why, what do you mean, Mr. Cure? do you know Miss Thrale now?”
“Yes, to be sure,” answered he, looking full at me, “though I protest I should not have guessed at her had I seen her with anybody but you.”
“Oh ho!” cried Mrs. Thrale, laughing, “so you mean Miss Burney all this time.”
Mr. Cure looked aghast. As soon, I suppose, as he was able, he repeated, in a low voice, “Miss Burney! so then that lady is the authoress of 'Evelina' all this time.”
And, rather abruptly, he left us and joined another party.
I suppose he told his story to as many as he talked to, for, in a short time, I found myself so violently stared at that I could hardly look any way without being put quite out of countenance,—particularly by young Mr. Cumberland, a handsome, soft-looking youth, who fixed his eyes upon me incessantly, though but the evening before, when I saw him at Hicks's, he looked as if it would have been a diminution of his dignity to have regarded me twice. One thing proved quite disagreeable to me, and that was the whole behaviour of the whole tribe of the Cumberlands, which I must explain.
Mr. Cumberland,[109] when he saw Mrs. Thrale, flew with eagerness to her and made her take his seat, and he talked to her, with great friendliness and intimacy, as he has been always accustomed to do,—and inquired very particularly concerning her daughter, expressing an earnest desire to see her. But when, some time after, Mrs. Thrale said, “Oh, there is my daughter, with Miss Burney,” he changed the discourse abruptly,—never came near Miss Thrale, and neither then nor since, when he has met Mrs. Thrale, has again mentioned her name: and the whole evening he seemed determined to avoid us both.
Mrs. Cumberland contented herself with only looking at me as at a person she had no reason or business to know.
The two daughters, but especially the eldest, as well as the son, were by no means so quiet; they stared at me every time I came near them as if I had been a thing for a show; surveyed me from head to foot, and then again, and again returned to my face, with so determined and so unabating a curiosity, that it really made me uncomfortable.
All the folks here impute the whole of this conduct to its having transpired that I am to bring out a play this season; for Mr. Cumberland, though in all other respects an agreeable and a good man, is so notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line, that he is hardly decent in his behaviour towards them.
He has little reason, at present at least, to bear me any ill-will; but if he is capable of such weakness and malignity as to have taken an aversion to me merely because I can make use of pen and ink, he deserves not to hear of my having suppressed my play, or of anything else that can gratify so illiberal a disposition.
Dr. Johnson, Mr. Cholmondeley, and Mr. and Mrs. Thrale have all repeatedly said to me, “Cumberland no doubt hates you heartily by this time;” but it always appeared to me a speech of mingled fun and flattery, and I never dreamed of its being possible to be true.
A few days since, after tea at Mrs. Dickens's, we all went to the rooms. There was a great deal of company, and among them the Cumberlands. The eldest of the girls, who was walking with Mrs. Musters, quite turned round her whole person every time we passed each other, to keep me in sight, and stare at me as long as possible; so did her brother.
I never saw anything so ill-bred and impertinent; I protest I was ready to quit the rooms to avoid them—till at last Miss Thrale, catching Miss Cumberland's eye, gave her so full, determined, and downing a stare, that whether cured by shame or by resentment, she forbore from that time to look at either of us. Miss Thrale, with a sort of good-natured dryness, said, “Whenever you are disturbed with any of these starers, apply to me,—I'll warrant I'll cure them. I dare say the girl hates me for it; but what shall I be the worse for that? I would have served master Dickey[110] so too, only I could not catch his eye.”
Oct. 20—We have had a visit from Dr. Delap. He told me that he had another tragedy, and that I should have it to read.
He was very curious to see Mr. Cumberland, who, it seems, has given evident marks of displeasure at his name whenever Mrs. Thrale has mentioned it. That poor man is so wonderfully narrow-minded in his authorship capacity, though otherwise good, humane and generous, that he changes countenance at either seeing or hearing of any writer whatsoever. Mrs. Thrale, with whom, this foible excepted, he is a great favourite, is so enraged with him for his littleness of soul in this respect, that merely to plague him, she vowed at the rooms she would walk all the evening between Dr. Delap and me. I wished so little to increase his unpleasant feelings, that I determined to keep with Miss Thrale and Miss Dickens entirely. One time, though, Mrs. Thrale, when she was sitting by Dr. Delap, called me suddenly to her, and when I was seated, said, “Now let's see if Mr. Cumberland will come and speak to me!” But he always turns resolutely another way when he sees her with either of us; though at all other times he is particularly fond of her company.
“It would actually serve him right,” says she, “to make Dr. Delap and you strut at each side of me, one with a dagger, and the other with a mask, as tragedy and comedy.”
“I think, Miss Burney,” said the doctor, “you and I seem to stand in the same predicament. What shall we do for the poor man? suppose we burn a play apiece?”
“Depend upon it,” said Mrs. Thrale, “he has heard, in town, that you are both to bring one out this season, and perhaps one of his own may be deferred on that account.”
On the announcement of the carriage, we went into the next room for our cloaks, where Mrs. Thrale and Mr. Cumberland were in deep conversation.
“Oh, here's Miss Burney!” said Mrs. Thrale aloud. Mr Cumberland turned round, but withdrew his eyes instantly; and I, determined not to interrupt them, made Miss Thrale walk away with me. In about ten minutes she left him and we all came home.
As soon as we were in the carriage,
“It has been,” said Mrs. Thrale, warmly, “all I could do not to affront Mr. Cumberland to-night!”
“Oh, I hope not,” cried I, “I would not have you for the world!”
“Why, I have refrained; but with great difficulty.”
And then she told me the conversation she had just had with him. As soon as I made off, he said, with a spiteful tone of voice,
“Oh, that young lady is an author, I hear!”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Thrale, “author of 'Evelina.'”
“Humph,—I am told it has some humour!”
“Ay, indeed! Johnson says nothing like it has appeared for years!”
“So,” cried he, biting his lips, and waving uneasily in his chair, “so, so!”
“Yes,” continued she, “and Sir Joshua Reynolds told Mr. Thrale he would give fifty pounds to know the author!”
“So, so—oh, vastly well!” cried he, putting his hand on his forehead.
“Nay,” added she, “Burke himself sat up all night to finish it!”
This seemed quite too much for him; he put both his hands to his face, and waving backwards and forwards, said,
“Oh, vastly well!—this will do for anything!” with a tone as much as to say, Pray, no more!
Then Mrs. Thrale bid him good night, longing, she said, to call Miss Thrale first, and say, “So you won't speak to my daughter?—why, she is no author.”
October 20.—I must now have the honour to present to you a new acquaintance, who this day dined here.
Mr. B——y,[111] an Irish gentleman, late a commissary in Germany. He is between sixty and seventy, but means to pass for about thirty; gallant, complaisant, obsequious, and humble to the fair sex, for whom he has an awful reverence; but when not immediately addressing them, swaggering, blustering, puffing, and domineering. These are his two apparent characters; but the real man is worthy, moral, religious, though conceited and parading.
He is as fond of quotations as my poor Lady Smatter,[112] and, like her, knows little beyond a song, and always blunders about the author of that. His whole conversation consists in little French phrases, picked up during his residence abroad, and in anecdotes and story-telling, which are sure to be retold daily and daily in the same words.
Speaking of the ball in the evening, to which we were all going, “Ah, madam!” said he to Mrs. Thrale, “there was a time when—fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol [rising, and dancing and Singing], fol-de-rol!—I could dance with the best of them; but now a man, forty and upwards, as my Lord Ligonier used to say—but—fol-de-rol!—there was a time!”
“Ay, so there was, Mr. B——y,” said Mrs. Thrale, “and I think you and I together made a very venerable appearance!”
“Ah! madam, I remember once, at Bath, I was called out to dance with one of the finest young ladies I ever saw. I was just preparing to do my best, when a gentleman of my acquaintance was so cruel as to whisper me—'B——y! the eyes of all Europe are upon you!' for that was the phrase of the times. 'B——y!' says he, 'the eyes of all Europe are upon you!'—I vow, ma'am, enough to make a man tremble!-fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol! [dancing]—the eyes of all Europe are upon you!—I declare, ma'am, enough to put a man out of countenance.”
I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. B——y half convulses me; yet I cannot make you laugh by writing his speeches, because it is the manner which accompanies them, that, more than the matter, renders them so peculiarly ridiculous. His extreme pomposity, the solemn stiffness of his person, the conceited twinkling of his little old eyes, and the quaint importance of his delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old coxcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be betrayed into clapping him for acting so well. As it is, I am sure no character in any comedy I ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly.
He dines and spends the evening here constantly, to my great satisfaction.
At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a seat next her, he regularly says,
“But where are les charmantes?” meaning Miss T. and me. “I can do nothing till they are accommodated!”
And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never fails to touch either Mrs. Thrale's, or my glass, with “est-il permis?”
But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a most sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks honoured beyond measure by his notice, nay, he does not even look at anybody without evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of his benign condescension, than of any pretension on their part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their existence. But you will think me mad about this man.
Nov. 3—Last Monday we went again to the ball. Mr. B——y, who was there, and seated himself next to Lady Pembroke, at the top of the room, looked most sublimely happy! He continues still to afford me the highest diversion.
As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks upon with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other day, when painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier.
“Did you ever,” said Mrs. Thrale, “see his Nativity?”
“No, madam,—but I know his pictures very well; I knew him many years ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there; and then he knew how to take a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma'am, 'tis scandalous—scandalous indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for scratching out a head!”
“Sir,” cried Dr. Delap, “you must not run down Sir Joshua Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney's friend.”
“Sir,” answered he, “I don't want to run the man down; I like him well enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that sort I ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would not (looking at the poor doctor with an enraged contempt) he would not do your head under seventy guineas!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Thrale, “he had one portrait at the last exhibition, that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I had never done admiring it.”
“What stuff is this, ma'am!” cried Mr. B——y, “how can two or three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?”
“Sir,” said Mr. Selwyn[113] (always willing to draw him out), “you know not how much he is improved since you knew him in Minorca; he is now the finest painter, perhaps, in the world.”
“Pho, pho, sir,” cried he, “how can you talk so? you, Mr. Selwin, who have seen so many capital pictures abroad?”
“Come, come, sir,” said the ever odd Dr. Delap, “you must not go on so undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is a friend of Miss Burney's.”
“Sir,” said Mr. B——y, “I tell you again I have no objection to the man; I have dined in his company two or three times; a very decent man he is, fit to keep company with gentlemen; but, ma'am, what are all your modern dabblers put together to one ancient? nothing!—a set of—not a Rubens among them! I vow, ma'am, not a Rubens among them!”....
To go on with the subject I left off with last—my favourite subject you will think it—-Mr. B——y. I must inform you that his commendation was more astonishing to me than anybody's could be, as I had really taken it for granted he had hardly noticed my existence. But he has also spoken very well of Dr. Delap—that is to say, in a very condescending manner. “That Mr. Delap,” said he, “seems a good sort of man; I wish all the cloth were like him; but, lackaday! 'tis no such thing; the clergy in general are but odd dogs.”
Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular speech about them. “I never,” he says, “go to a tragedy,—it's too affecting; tragedy enough in real life: tragedies are only fit for fair females; for my part, I cannot bear to see Othello tearing about in that violent manner—and fair little Desdemona, ma'am, 'tis too affecting! to see your kings and your princes tearing their pretty locks,—oh, there's no standing it! 'A straw-crown'd monarch,'—what is that, Mrs. Thrale?
'A straw-crown'd monarch in mock majesty.'
“I can't recollect now where that is; but for my part, I really cannot bear to see such sights. And then out come the white handkerchiefs, and all their pretty eyes are wiping, and then come poison and daggers, and all that kind of thing,—O ma'am, 'tis too much; but yet the fair tender hearts, the pretty little females, all like it!”
This speech, word for word, I have already heard from him literally four times.
When Mr. Garrick was mentioned, he honoured him with much the same style of compliment as he had done Sir Joshua Reynolds.
“Ay, ay,” said he, “that Garrick was another of those fellows that people run mad about. Ma'am, 'tis a shaine to think of such things! an actor living like a person of quality scandalous! I vow, scandalous!”
“Well,—commend me to Mr. B——y!” cried Mrs. Thrale “for he is your only man to put down all the people that everybody else sets up.”
“Why, ma'am,” answered he, “I like all these people very well in their proper places; but to see such a set of poor beings living like persons of quality,—'tis preposterous! common sense, madam, common sense is against that kind of thing. As to Garrick, he was a very good mimic, an entertaining fellow enough, and all that kind of thing—-but for an actor to live like a person of quality—oh, scandalous!”
Some time after the musical tribe was mentioned. He was at cards at the time with Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Delap, and Mr. Thrale, while we “fair females,” as he always calls us, were speaking of Agujari.[114] He constrained himself from flying out as long as he was able; but upon our mentioning her having fifty pounds a song, he suddenly, in a great rage, called out, “Catgut and rosin! ma'am, 'tis scandalous!”...
The other day, at dinner, the subject was married life, and among various husbands and wives Lord L— being mentioned, Mr. B——y pronounced his panegyric, and called him his friend. Mr. Selwyn, though with much gentleness, differed from him in opinion, and declared he could not think well of him, as he knew his lady, who was an amiable woman, was used very ill by him.
“How, sir?” cried Mr. B——y.
“I have known him,” answered Mr. Selwyn, “frequently pinch her till she has been ready to cry with pain, though she has endeavoured to prevent its being observed.”
“And I,” said Mrs. Thrale, “know that he pulled her nose, in his frantic brutality, till he broke-some of the vessels of it, and when she was dying she still found the torture he had given her by it so great, that it was one of her last complaints.”
The general, who is all for love and gallantry, far from attempting to vindicate his friend, quite swelled with indignation on this account, and, after a pause, big with anger, exclaimed,
“Wretched doings, sir, wretched doings!”
“Nay, I have known him,” added Mr. Selwyn, “insist upon handing her to her carriage, and then, with an affected kindness, pretend to kiss her hand, instead of which he has almost bit a piece out of it.”
“Pitiful!—pitiful! sir,” cried the General, “I know nothing more shabby!”
“He was equally inhuman to his daughter,” said Mrs. Thrale, “for, in one of his rages, he almost throttled her.”
“Wretched doings!” again exclaimed Mr. B——y, “what! cruel to a fair female! Oh fie! fie! fie!—a fellow who can be cruel to females and children, or animals, must be a pitiful fellow indeed. I wish we had had him here in the sea. I should like to have had him stripped, and that kind of thing, and been well banged by ten of our clippers here with a cat-o'-nine-tails. Cruel to a fair female? Oh fie! fie! fie!”
I know not how this may read, but I assure you its sound was ludicrous enough.
However, I have never yet told you his most favourite story, though we have regularly heard it three or four times a day—and this is about his health.
“Some years ago,” he says,—“let's see, how many? in the year '71,—ay, '71, '72—thereabouts—I was taken very ill, and, by ill-luck, I was persuaded to ask advice of one of these Dr. Gallipots:—oh, how I hate them all! Sir, they are the vilest pick-pockets—know nothing, sir! nothing in the world! poor ignorant mortals! and then they pretend—In short, sir, I hate them all!—I have suffered so much by them, sir—lost four years of the happiness of my life—let's see, '71, '72, '73, '74—ay, four years, sir!—mistook my case, sir!—and all that kind of thing. Why, sir, my feet swelled as big as two horses' heads! I vow I will never consult one of these Dr. Gallipot fellows again! lost me, sir, four years of the happiness of my life!—why, I grew quite an object!—-you would hardly have known me!—lost all the calves of my legs!—had not an ounce of flesh left!—and as to the rouge—why, my face was the colour of that candle!—those deuced Gallipot fellows!—why, they robbed me of four years—let me see, ay, '71, '72—”
And then it was all given again!
We had a large party of gentlemen to dinner. Among them was Mr. Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech Hamilton, from having made one remarkable speech in the House of Commons against government, and receiving some douceur to be silent ever after. This Mr. Hamilton is extremely tall and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double, and crafty.
The dinner conversation was too general to be well remembered; neither, indeed, shall I attempt more than partial scraps relating to matters of what passed when we adjourned to tea.
Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Selwyn, Mr. Tidy, and Mr. Thrale seated themselves to whist; the rest looked on: but the General, as he always does, took up the newspaper, and, with various comments, made aloud, as he went on reading to himself, diverted the whole company. Now he would cry, “Strange! strange that!”—presently, “What stuff! I don't believe a word of it!”—a little after, “Mr. Bate,[115] I wish your ears were cropped!”—then, “Ha! ha! ha! funnibus! funnibus! indeed!”—and, at last, in a great rage, he exclaimed, “What a fellow is this, to presume to arraign the conduct of persons of quality!”
Having diverted himself and us in this manner, till he had read every column methodically through, he began all over again, and presently called out, “Ha! ha! here's a pretty thing!” and then, in a plaintive voice, languished out some wretched verses.