TO SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.,
Chesington.
How sorry am I, my dear Mr. Crisp, that you could not come to Streatham at the time Mrs. Thrale hoped to see you; for when are we likely to meet at Streatham again? And you would have been much pleased, I am sure, with the famous Corsican General, Paoli, who spent the day there, and was extremely communicative and agreeable.
He is a very pleasing man; tall and genteel in his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite; and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; rather than as if he had left the warlike field where he had led his armies to battle.
I will give you a little specimen of his language and discourse, as they are now fresh in my ears.
When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, though smilingly, and said: ‘I am very glad enough to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have wished for long enough. O charming book! I give it you my word I have read it often enough. It is my favourite studioso for apprehending the English language; which is difficult often. I pray you, Miss Evelina, write some more little volumes of the quickest.’
I disclaimed the name, and was walking away; but he followed me with an apology. ‘I pray your pardon, Mademoiselle. My ideas got in a blunder often. It is Miss Borni what name I meant to accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina. I make very much error in my English many times enough.’
My father then lead him to speak of Mr. Boswell, by inquiring into the commencement of their connexion.
“He came,” answered the General, “to my country sudden, and he fetched me some letters of recommending him. But I was of the belief he might, in the verity, be no other person but one imposter. And I supposed, in my mente, he was in the privacy one espy; for I look away from him to my other companies, and, in one moment, when I look back to him, I behold it in his hands his tablet, and one pencil! O, he was at the work, I give it you my honour, of writing down all what I say to some persons whatsoever in the room! Indeed I was angry enough. Pretty much so, I give it you my word. But soon after, I discern he was no impostor, and besides, no espy; for soon I find it out I was myself only the monster he came to observe, and to describe with one pencil in his tablet! O, is a very good man, Mr. Boswell, in the bottom! so cheerful, so witty, so gentle, so talkable. But, at the first, O, I was indeed faché of the sufficient. I was in one passion, in my mente, very well.”
He had brought with him to Streatham a dog, of which he is exceeding fond; but he apologised for being so accompanied, from the safety which he owed to that faithful animal, as a guard from robbers. “I walk out,” he cried, “when I will one night, and I lose myself. The dark it comes on of a blackish colour. I don’t know where I put my foot! In a moment comes behind me one hard step. I go on. The hard step he follow. Sudden I turn round; a little fierce, it may be. I meeted one man: an ogly one. He had not sleeped in the night! He was so big whatsoever; with one clob stick, so thick to my arm. He lifted it up. I had no pistollettos; I call my dog. I open his mouth, for the survey to his teeth. My friend, I say, look to the muzzle! Give me your clob stick at the moment, or he shall destroy you when you are ten! The man kept his clob stick; but he took up his heels, and he ran away from that time to this moment!”
After this, talking of the Irish giant who is now shewn in town, he said, “He is so large, I am as a baby! I look at him, and I feel so little as a child! Indeed my indignation it rises when I see him hold up one arm, spread out to the full, to make me walk under it for my canopy! I am as nothing! and it turns my bile more than whatsoever to find myself in the power of one man, who fetches from me half a crown for looking at his seven feet!”
All this comic English he pronounces in a manner the most comically pompous. Nevertheless, my father thinks he will soon speak better, and that he seems less to want language than patience to assort it; hurrying on impetuously, and any how, rather than stopping for recollection.
He diverted us all very much after dinner, by begging leave of Mrs. Thrale to give “one toast;” and then, with smiling pomposity, pronouncing “The great Vagabond!” meaning to designate Dr. Johnson as “The Rambler.”
This is the last visit remembered, or, at least, narrated, of Streatham.
Streatham thus gone, though the intercourse with Mrs. Thrale, who now resided in Argyle-street, London, was as fondly, if not as happily, sustained as ever, Dr. Burney had again his first amanuensis and librarian wholly under his roof; and the pleasure of his parental feelings doubled those of his renown; for the new author was included, with the most flattering distinction, in almost every invitation that he received, or acquaintance that he made, where a female presided in the society.
Never was practical proof more conspicuous of the power of surmounting every difficulty that rises against our progress to an appointed end, when Inclination and Business take each other by the hand in its pursuit, than was now evinced by the conduct and success of Dr. Burney in his musical enterprize.
He vigilantly visited both the Universities, leaving nothing uninvestigated that assiduity or address could ferret out to his purpose. The following account of these visits is copied from his own memorials:
“I went three several years to the Bodleian and other libraries in [Pg 260] that most admirable seminary of learning and science, the Oxford University. I had previously spent a week at Cambridge; and, at both those Universities, I had, in my researches, discovered curious and rare manuscript tracts on Music of the middle ages, before the invention of the press, not mentioned in any of the printed or manuscript catalogues; and which the most learned librarians did not know were in existence, from the several different Treatises in Latin, French, and obsolete English, being bound up in odd volumes, and only the first of them mentioned in the lettering, or title of the volume. At Christ Church, to which Dr. Aldrich had bequeathed his musical library, I met with innumerable compositions by the best Masters of Italy, as well as of our own country, that were then extant; such as Carissimi, Luigi, Cesti, Stradella, Tye, Tallis, Bird, Morley, and Purcel. I made a catalogue of this admirable collection, including the tracts and musical compositions of the learned and ingenious Dean, its founder; a copy of which I had the honour to present to the college.”
The British Museum Library he ransacked, pen in hand, repeatedly: that of Sir Joseph Bankes was as open to him as his own: Mr. Garrick conducted him, by appointment, to that of the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne; which was personally shewn to him, with distinguished consideration, by that literary nobleman. To name every other to which he had access would be prolixity; but to omit that of his Majesty, George the Third, would be insensibility. Dr. Burney was permitted to make a full examination of its noble contents; and to take thence whatever extracts he thought conducive to his design, by his Majesty’s own gracious orders, delivered through the then librarian, Mr. Barnard.
But for bringing these accumulating materials into play, time still, with all the vigilance of his grasp upon its fragments, was wanting; and to counteract the relentless calls of his professional business, he was forced to superadd an unsparing requisition upon his sleep—the only creditor that he never paid.
Immediately after vacating Streatham, Dr. Burney was called upon, by his great and good friend of Bolt Court, to become a member of a club which he was then instituting for the emolument of Samuel, a footman of the late Mr. Thrale. This man, who was no longer wanted for the broken establishment of Streatham, had saved sufficient money for setting up a humble species of hotel, to which this club would be a manifest advantage. It was called, from the name of the honest domestic whom Dr. Johnson wished to serve, Sam’s Club. It was held in Essex-street, in the Strand. Its rules, &c. are printed by Mr. Boswell.
To enumerate all the coteries to which the Doctor, with his new associate, now resorted, would be uninteresting, for almost all are passed away! and nearly all are forgotten; though there was scarcely a name in their several sets that did not, at that time, carry some weight of public opinion. Such of them, nevertheless, that have left lasting memorials of their character, their wit, or their abilities, may not unacceptably be selected for some passing observations.
To begin with what still is famous in the annals of conversation, the Bas Bleu Societies.
The first of these was then in the meridian of its lustre, but had been instituted many years previously at Bath. It owed its name to an apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet, in declining to accept an invitation to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey’s, from not being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper equipment for an evening assembly. “Pho, pho,” cried she, with her well known, yet always original simplicity, while she looked, inquisitively, at him and his accoutrements; “don’t mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!” With which words, humourously repeating them as he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet claimed permission for appearing, according to order. And those words, ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs. Vesey’s associations.[45]
This original coterie was still headed by Mrs. Vesey, though it was transferred from Bath to London. Dr. Burney and this Memorialist were now initiated into the midst of it. And however ridicule, in public, from those who had no taste for this bluism; or envy, in secret, from those who had no admission to it, might seek to depreciate its merit, it afforded to all lovers of intellectual entertainment a variety of amusement, an exemption from form, and a carte blanche certainty of good-humour from the amiable and artless hostess, that rendered it as agreeable as it was singular: for Mrs. Vesey was as mirth-provoking from her oddities and mistakes, as Falstaff was wit-inspiring from his vaunting cowardice and sportive epicurism.
There was something so like the manoeuvres of a character in a comedy in the manners and movements of Mrs. Vesey, that the company seemed rather to feel themselves assembled, at their own cost and pleasure, in some public apartment, to saunter or to repose; to talk or to hold their tongues; to gaze around, or to drop asleep, as best might suit their humours; than drawn together to receive and to bestow, the civilities of given and accepted invitations.
Her fears were so great of the horror, as it was styled, of a circle, from the ceremony and awe which it produced, that she pushed all the small sofas, as well as chairs, pell-mell about the apartments, so as not to leave even a zig-zag path of communication free from impediment: and her greatest delight was to place the seats back to back, so that those who occupied them could perceive no more of their nearest neighbour than if the parties had been sent into different rooms: an arrangement that could only be eluded by such a twisting of the neck as to threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic affection.
But there was never any distress beyond risibility: and the company that was collected was so generally of a superior cast, that talents and conversation soon found—as when do they miss it?—their own level: and all these extraneous whims merely served to give zest and originality to the assemblage.
Mrs. Vesey was of a character to which it is hardly possible to find a parallel, so untrue would it be to brand it with positive folly; yet so glaringly was it marked by almost incredible simplicity.
With really lively parts, a fertile imagination, and a pleasant quickness of remark, she had the unguardedness of childhood, joined to an Hibernian bewilderment of ideas that cast her incessantly into some burlesque situation; and incited even the most partial, and even the most sensitive of her own countrymen, to relate stories, speeches, and anecdotes of her astonishing self-perplexities, her confusion about times and circumstances, and her inconceivable jumble of recollections between what had happened, or what might have happened; and what had befallen others that she imagined had befallen herself; that made her name, though it could never be pronounced without personal regard, be constantly coupled with something grotesque.
But what most contributed to render the scenes of her social circle nearly dramatic in comic effect, was her deafness; for with all the pity due to that socialless infirmity; and all the pity doubly due to one who still sought conversation as the first of human delights, it was impossible, with a grave face, to behold her manner of constantly marring the pleasure of which she was in pursuit.
She had commonly two or three, or more, eartrumpets hanging to her wrists, or slung about her neck; or tost upon the chimney-piece or table; with intention to try them, severally and alternately, upon different speakers, as occasion might arise; and the instant that any earnestness of countenance, or animation of gesture, struck her eye, she darted forward, trumpet in hand, to inquire what was going on; but almost always arrived at the speaker at the moment that he was become, in his turn, the hearer; and eagerly held her brazen instrument to his mouth to catch sounds that were already past and gone. And, after quietly listening some minutes, she would gently utter her disappointment, by crying: “Well! I really thought you were talking of something?”
And then, though a whole group would hold it fitting to flock around her, and recount what had been said; if a smile caught her roving eye from any opposite direction, the fear of losing something more entertaining, would make her beg not to trouble them, and again rush on to the gayer talkers. But as a laugh is excited more commonly by sportive nonsense than by wit, she usually gleaned nothing from her change of place, and hastened therefore back to ask for the rest of what she had interrupted. But generally finding that set dispersing, or dispersed, she would look around her with a forlorn surprise, and cry: “I can’t conceive why it is that nobody talks tonight? I can’t catch a word!”
Or, if some one of peculiar note were engaging attention; if Sir William Hamilton, for example, were describing Herculaneum or Pompeii; or Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Hannah More were discussing some new author, or favourite work; or if the then still beautiful, though old, Duchess of Leinster, was encountering the beautiful and young Duchess of Devonshire; or, if Mr. Burke, having stept in, and, marking no one with whom he wished to exchange ideas, had seized upon the first book or pamphlet he could catch, to soothe his harassed mind by reading—which he not seldom did, and most incomparably, a passage or two aloud; circumstances of such a sort would arouse in her so great an earnestness for participation, that she would hasten from one spot to another, in constant hope of better fare; frequently clapping, in her hurry, the broad part of the brazen ear to her temple: but after waiting, with anxious impatience, for the development she expected, but waiting in vain, she would drop her trumpet, and almost dolorously exclaim: “I hope nobody has had any bad news to night? but as soon as I come near any body, nobody speaks!”
Yet, with all these peculiarities, Mrs. Vesey was eminently amiable, candid, gentle, and even sensible; but she had an ardour to know whatever was going forward, and to see whoever was named, that kept her curiosity constantly in a panic; and almost dangerously increased the singular wanderings of her imagination.
Here, amongst the few remaining men of letters of the preceding literary era, Dr. Burney met Horace Walpole, Owen Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns, who were commonly, then, denominated the old wits; but who rarely, indeed, were surrounded by any new ones who stood much chance of vying with them in readiness of repartee, pith of matter, terseness of expression, or pleasantry in expanding gay ideas.
“Yet, while to Mrs. Vesey, the Bas Bleu society owed its origin and its epithet, the meetings that took place at Mrs. Montagu’s were soon more popularly known by that denomination; for though they could not be more fashionable, they were far more splendid.
Mrs. Montagu had built a superb new house, which was magnificently fitted up, and appeared to be rather appropriate for princes, nobles, and courtiers, than for poets, philosophers, and blue stocking votaries. And here, in fact, rank and talents were so frequently brought together, that what the satirist uttered scoffingly, the author pronounced proudly, in setting aside the original claimant, to dub Mrs. Montagu Queen of the Blues.
This majestic title was hers, in fact, from more flattering rights than hang upon mere pre-eminence of riches or station. Her Essay on the Learning and Genius of Shakespeare; and the literary zeal which made her the voluntary champion of our immortal bard, had so national a claim to support and to praise, that her book, on its first coming out, had gained the almost general plaudits that mounted her, thenceforward, to the Parnassian heights of female British literature.
But, while the same bas bleu appellation was given to these two houses of rendezvous, neither that, nor even the same associates, could render them similar. Their grandeur, or their simplicity, their magnitude, or their diminutiveness, were by no means the principal cause of this difference: it was far more attributable to the Lady Presidents than to their abodes: for though they instilled not their characters into their visitors, their characters bore so large a share in their visitors’ reception and accommodation, as to influence materially the turn of the discourse, and the humour of the parties, at their houses.
At Mrs. Montagu’s, the semi-circle that faced the fire retained during the whole evening its unbroken form, with a precision that made it seem described by a Brobdignagian compass. The lady of the castle commonly placed herself at the upper end of the room, near the commencement of the curve, so as to be courteously visible to all her guests; having the person of the highest rank, or consequence, properly, on one side, and the person the most eminent for talents, sagaciously, on the other; or as near to her chair, and her converse, as her favouring eye, and a complacent bow of the head, could invite him to that distinction.[46]
Her conversational powers were of a truly superior order; strong, just, clear, and often eloquent. Her process in argument, notwithstanding an earnest solicitude for pre-eminence, was uniformly polite and candid. But her reputation for wit seemed always in her thoughts, marring their natural flow, and untutored expression. No sudden start of talent urged forth any precarious opinion; no vivacious new idea varied her logical course of ratiocination. Her smile, though most generally benignant, was rarely gay; and her liveliest sallies had a something of anxiety rather than of hilarity—till their success was ascertained by applause.
Her form was stately, and her manners were dignified. Her face retained strong remains of beauty throughout life; and though its native cast was evidently that of severity, its expression was softened off in discourse by an almost constant desire to please.
If beneficence be judged by the happiness which it diffuses, whose claim, by that proof, shall stand higher than that of Mrs. Montagu, from the munificence with which she celebrated her annual festival for those hapless artificers, who perform the most abject offices of any authorized calling, in being the active guardians of our blazing hearths?[47]
Not to vain glory, then, but to kindness of heart, should be adjudged the publicity of that superb charity, which made its jetty objects, for one bright morning, cease to consider themselves as degraded outcasts from society.
Not all the lyrics of all the rhymsters, nor all the warblings of all the spring-feathered choristers, could hail the opening smiles of May, like the fragrance of that roasted beef, and the pulpy softness of those puddings of plums, with which Mrs. Montagu yearly renovated those sooty little agents to the safety of our most blessing luxury.
Taken for all in all, Mrs. Montagu was rare in her attainments; splendid in her conduct; open to the calls of charity; forward to precede those of indigent genius; and unchangeably just and firm in the application of her interest, her principles, and her fortune, to the encouragement of loyalty, and the support of virtue.
In this house, amongst innumerable high personages and renowned conversers, Dr. Burney met the famous Hervey, Bishop of Derry, late Earl of Bristol; who then stood foremost in sustaining the character for wit and originality that had signalised his race, in the preceding century, by the current phrase of the day, that the world was peopled with men, women, and Herveys.
Here, also, the Honourable Horace Walpole, afterwards Lord Orford, sometimes put forth his quaint, singular, often original, generally sarcastic, and always entertaining powers.
And here the Doctor met the antique General Oglethorpe, who was pointed out to him by Mr. Walpole for a man nearly in his hundredth year; an assertion that, though exaggerated, easily gained credit, from his gaunt figure and appearance. The General was pleasing, well bred, and gentle.
Horace Walpole, sportively desirous, as he whispered to Dr. Burney, that the Doctor’s daughter should see the humours of a man so near to counting his age by a century, insisted, one night at this house, upon forming a little group for that purpose; to which he invited, also, Mr. and Mrs. Locke: exhibiting thus the two principal points of his own character, from which he rarely deviated: a thirst of amusement from what was singular; with a taste yet more forcible for elegance from what was excellent.
At the side of General Oglethorpe, Mr. Walpole, though much past seventy, had almost the look, and had quite the air of enjoyment of a man who was yet almost young: and so skeleton-like was the General’s meagre form, that, by the same species of comparison, Mr. Walpole almost appeared, and, again, almost seemed to think himself, if not absolutely fat, at least not despoiled of his embonpoint; though so lank was his thinness, that every other person who stood in his vicinity, might pass as if accoutred and stuffed for a stage representation of Falstaff.[48]
But—previously to the late Streatham catastrophe—blither, more bland, and more gleeful still, was the personal celebrity of Mrs. Thrale, than that of either Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Vesey. Mrs. Vesey, indeed, gentle and diffident, dreamed not of any competition: but Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Thrale had long been set up as fair rival candidates for colloquial eminence; and each of them thought the other alone worthy to be her peer. Openly, therefore, when they met, they combatted for precedence of admiration; with placid, though high-strained intellectual exertion on one side, and an exuberant pleasantry of classical allusion or quotation on the other, without the smallest malice in either; for so different were their tastes as well as attributes, that neither of them envied, while each did justice to the powers of her opponent.
The blue parties at Mrs. Thrale’s, though neither marked with as much splendour as those of Mrs. Montagu, nor with so curious a selection of distinguished individuals as those of Mrs. Vesey, were yet held of equal height with either in general estimation, as Dr. Johnson, “himself a host,” was usually at Mrs. Thrale’s; or was always, by her company, expected: and as she herself possessed powers of entertainment more vivifying in gaiety than any of her competitors.
Various other meetings were formed in imitation of the same plan of dispensing with cards, music, dice, dancing, or the regales of the festive board, to concentrate in intellectual entertainment all the hopes of the guest, and the efforts of the host and hostess. And, with respect to colloquial elegance, such a plan certainly is of the first order for bringing into play the highest energies of our nature; and stimulating their fairest exercise in discussions upon the several subjects that rise with every rising day; and that take and give a fresh colour to Thought as well as to Expression, from the mind of every fresh discriminator.
And such meetings, when the parties were well assorted, and in good-humour, formed, at that time, a coalition of talents, and a brilliancy of exertion, that produced the most informing dissertations, or the happiest sallies of wit and pleasantry, that could emanate from social intercourse.
One of the most striking parties of this description, after the three chiefs, was at the residence of the Hon. Miss Moncton; where there was a still more resplendent circle of rank, and a more distinguished assemblage of foreigners, than at any other; with always, in addition, somebody or something uncommon and unexpected, to cause, or to gratify curiosity.
Not merely as fearful of form as Mrs. Vesey was Miss Moncton; she went farther; she frequently left her general guests wholly to themselves. There was always, she knew, good fare for intellectual entertainment; and those who had courage to seek might partake of its advantages; while those who had not that quality, might amuse themselves as lookers on. And though some might be disconcerted, no one who had candour could be offended, when they saw, from the sprightly good-humour of their hostess, that this reception was instigated by gay, not studied singularity.
Miss Moncton usually sat about the middle of the room, lounging on one chair, while bending over the back of another, in a thin fine muslin dress, even at Christmas; while all around her were in satins, or tissues; and without advancing to meet any one, or rising, or placing, or troubling herself to see whether there were any seats left for them, she would turn round her head to the announcement of a name, give a nod, a smile, and a short “How do you do?—” and then, chatting on with her own set, leave them to seek their fortune.
To these splendid, and truly uncommon assemblages, Dr. Burney and his daughter accepted, occasionally, some of the frequent invitations with which they were honoured.
And here they had sometimes the happiness to meet, amidst the nobles and dames of the land, with all the towering height of his almost universal superiority, Mr. Burke; who, sure, from the connexions of the lady president, to find many chosen friends with whom he could coalesce or combat upon literary or general topics, commonly entered the grand saloon with a spirited yet gentle air, that shewed him full fraught with the generous purpose to receive as well as to dispense social pleasure; untinged with one bitter drop of political rancour; and clarified from all acidity of party sarcasm.
And here, too, though only latterly, and very rarely, appeared the sole star that rose still higher in the gaze of the world, Dr. Johnson. Miss Moncton had met with the Doctor at Brighton, where that animated lady eagerly sought him as a gem to crown her coteries; persevering in her attacks for conquest, with an enthusiasm that did honour to her taste; till the Doctor, surprised and pleased, rewarded her exertions by a good-humoured compliance with her invitations.
But of these coteries, none surpassed, if they equalled, in easy pleasantry, unaffected intelligence, and information free from pedantry or formality, those of the Knight of Plympton. Sir Joshua Reynolds was singularly simple, though never inelegant in his language; and his classical style of painting could not be more pleasing, however more sublimely it might elevate and surprise, than his manners and conversation.
There was little or no play of countenance, beyond cheerfulness or sadness, in the features of Sir Joshua; but in his eyes there was a searching look, that seemed, upon his introduction to any person of whom he had thought before he had seen, to fix, in his painter’s mind, the attitude, if it may be so called, of face that would be most striking for a picture. But this was rarely obvious, and never disconcerting; he was eminently unassuming, unpretending, and natural.[50]
Dr. Burney has left amongst his papers a note of an harangue which he had heard from Sir Joshua Reynolds, at the house of Dudley Long, when the Duke of Devonshire, and various other peers, were present, and when happiness was the topic of discussion. Sir Joshua for some time had listened in silence to their several opinions; and then impressively said: “You none of you, my lords, if you will forgive my telling you so, can speak upon this subject with as much knowledge of it as I can. Dr. Burney perhaps might; but it is not the man who looks around him from the top of a high mountain at a beautiful prospect on the first moment of opening his eyes, who has the true enjoyment of that noble sight: it is he who ascends the mountain from a miry meadow, or a ploughed field, or a barren waste; and who works his way up to it step by step; scratched and harassed by thorns and briars; with here a hollow, that catches his foot; and there a clump that forces him all the way back to find out a new path;—it is he who attains to it through all that toil and danger; and with the strong contrast on his mind of the miry meadow, or ploughed field, or barren waste, for which it was exchanged,—it is he, my lords, who enjoys the beauties that suddenly blaze upon him. They cause an expansion of ideas in harmony with the expansion of the view. He glories in its glory; and his mind opens to conscious exaltation; such as the man who was born and bred upon that commanding height, with all the loveliness of prospect, and fragrance, and variety, and plenty, and luxury of every sort, around, above, beneath, can never know; can have no idea of;—at least, not till he come near some precipice, in a boisterous wind, that hurls him from the top to the bottom, and gives him some taste of what he had possessed, by its loss; and some pleasure in its recovery, by the pain and difficulty of scrambling back to it.”
Mrs. Reynolds also had her coteries, which were occasionally attended by most of the persons who have been named; equally from consideration to her brother, and personal respect to herself.
Mrs. Reynolds wrote an essay on Taste, which she submitted, in the year 1781, to the private criticism of her sincere friend, Dr. Johnson.
But it should seem that the work, though full of intrinsic merit, was warpt in its execution by that perplexity of ideas in which perpetual ponderings, and endless recurrence to first notions, so subversive of all progression, cloudily involved the thoughts, as well as the expressions, of this ingenious lady; for the award of Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding it contained high praise and encouragement for the revision of the treatise, frankly avows, “that her notions, though manifesting a depth of penetration, and a nicety of remark, such as Locke or Pascal might be proud of, must everywhere be rendered smoother and plainer; and he doubts whether many of them are very clear even to her own mind.”
Probably the task which he thus pointed out to her of development and explanation, was beyond the boundary of her powers; for though she lived twenty years after the receipt of this counsel, the work never was published.
Mrs. Chapone, too, had her own coteries, which, though not sought by the young, and, perhaps, fled from by the gay, were rational, instructive, and social; and it was not with self-approbation that they could ever be deserted. But the search of greater gaiety, and higher fashion, rarely awaits that award.
The meetings, in truth, at her dwelling, from her palpable and organic deficiency in health and strength for their sustenance, though they never lacked of sense or taste, always wanted spirit; a want which cast over them a damp that made the same interlocutors, who elsewhere grouped audiences around them from their fame as discoursers, appear to be assembled here merely for the grave purpose of performing a duty.
Yet here were to be seen Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Hannah More, the clever family of the Burroughs, the classically lively Sir William Pepys, and the ingenious and virtuous Mrs. Barbauld.
But though the dignity of her mind demanded, as it deserved, the respect of some return to the visits which her love of society induced her to pay, it was a tête à tête alone that gave pleasure to the intercourse with Mrs. Chapone: her sound understanding, her sagacious observations, her turn to humour, and the candour of her affectionate nature, all then came into play without effort: and her ease of mind, when freed from the trammels of doing the honours of reception, seemed to soften off, even to herself, her corporeal infirmities. It was thus that she struck Dr. Burney with the sense of her worth; and seemed portraying in herself the original example whence the precepts had been drawn, for forming the unsophisticated female character that are displayed in the author’s Letters on the improvement of the mind.
But the meetings of this sort, to which sarcasm, sport, or envy have given the epithet of blueism, that Dr. Burney most frequently and the latest attended, were those at the house of Mr., since Sir William Weller Pepys.
The passion of Sir William for literature, his admiration of talents, and his rapturous zeal for genius, made him receive whoever could gratify any of those propensities, with an enchantment of pleasure that seemed to carry him into higher regions. The parties at his house formed into little, separate, and chosen groups, less awful than at Mrs. Montagu’s, and less awkward than at Mrs. Vesey’s: and he glided adroitly from one of these groups to another, till, after making the round of politeness necessary for the master of the house, his hospitality felt acquitted of its devoirs; and he indulged, without further restraint, in the ardent delight of fixing his standard for the evening in the circle the most to his taste: leaving to his serenely acquiescent wife the more forbearing task of equalizing attention. To do that, indeed, beyond what was exacted by good breeding for the high, and by kindness for the insignificant part of his guests, would have been a discipline to all his feelings, that would have converted those parties, that were his pride and his joy, into exercises of the severest penitence.
But while an animated reciprocation of ideas in conversation, a lively memory of early anecdotes, and a boundless readiness at recital of the whole mass of English poets, formed the gayest enjoyment of his chosen and happiest hours, the voice of justice must raise him still higher for solid worth. His urbanity was universal. He never looked so charmed as when engaged in some good office: and his charities were as expansive as the bounty of those who possessed more than double his income. So sincere, indeed, was his benevolence, that it seemed as much a part of himself as his limbs, and could have been torn from him with little less difficulty. [51]
Amongst the Bouquets, as Dr. Burney denominated the fragrant flatteries courteously lavished, in its day, on the Memoirs of an Heiress, few were more odorous to him than those offered by the famous old Wits, Soame Jenyns and Owen Cambridge.
Soame Jenyns, at the age of seventy-eight, condescended to make interest with Mrs. Ord to arrange an acquaintance for him, at her house in Queen Ann-street, with the father and the daughter.
Soame Jenyns is so well known as an author, and was in his time so eminent as a wit; and his praise gave such pleasure to Dr. Burney, that another genuine letter, written for Mr. Crisp at the moment, with an account of the meeting, will be here abridged, as characteristically marking the parental gratification of the Doctor.
TO SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.
Chesington.
My dear Mr. Crisp will be impatient, I know, for a history of the long-planned re-encounter with the famed Soame Jenyns.
My father was quite enchanted at his request; and no wonder! for who could have expected such civil curiosity from so renowned an old wit?
We were late; my father could not be early: but I was not a little disconcerted to find, instead of Mr. Soame Jenyns all alone by himself, a room full of company; not in groups, nor yet in a circle, but seated square; i.e. close to the wainscot, leaving a vacancy in the middle of the apartment sufficient for dancing three or four cotillons.
Mrs. Ord almost ran to the door to receive us, crying out, “Why have you been so late, Dr. Burney? We have been waiting for you this hour. I was afraid there was some mistake. Mr. Soame Jenyns has been dying with impatience for the arrival of Miss Burney. Some of us thought she was naughty, and would not come; others thought it was only coquetry. But, however, my dear Miss Burney, let us repair the lost time as quickly as we can, and introduce you to one another without further delay.”
You may believe how happy I was at this “some thought,” and “others thought,” which instantly betrayed that every body was apprised they were to witness this grand encounter: And, to mark it still more strongly, every one, contrary to all present custom, stood up,—as if to see the sight!
I really felt so abashed at meeting so famous an author with such publicity; and so much ashamed of the almost ridiculously undue ceremony of the rising, that I knew not what to do, nor how to comport myself. But they all still kept staringly upright, till Mr. Jenyns, who was full dressed in a court suit, of apricot-coloured silk, lined with white satin, made all the slow speed in his power, from the less thus urged?—began an harangue the most elegantly complimentary, upon the pleasure, and the honour, and the what not? of seeing, my dear daddy, your very obedient and obsequious humble servant, and spinster,
F. B.
I made all possible reverences, and endeavoured to get to a seat; but Mrs. Ord, when I turned from him, took my hand, and led me, in solemn form, to what seemed to be the group of honour, to present me to Mrs. Soame Jenyns, who, with all the rest, was still immovably standing! The reverences were repeated here, and returned; but in silence, however, on both sides; so they did very well—that is, they were only dull.
I then hoped to escape to my dear Mrs. Thrale, who most invitingly held out her hand to me, and said, pointing to a chair by her own, “Must I, too, make interest to be introduced to Miss Burney?”
This, however, was not allowed; for my dear Lady Clement Cotterel, Mrs. Ord, again taking my hand, and parading me to a sofa, said, “Come, Miss Burney, and let me place you by Mrs. Buller.”
I was glad by this time to be placed any where; for not till I was thus accommodated, did the company, en masse, re-seat themselves!
Mr. Cambridge, senior, then advanced to speak to me; but before I could answer, or, rather, hear him, Mrs. Ord again summoned poor Mr. Jenyns, and made him my right hand neighbour on the sofa, saying, “There, Mr. Jenyns! and there, Miss Burney! now I have put you fairly together, I have done with you!”
This dear, good Mrs. Ord! what a mistaken road was this for bring us into acquaintance! I verily think Mr. Jenyns was almost out of countenance himself; for he had probably said all his say; and would have been as glad of a new subject, and a new companion, as I could have been myself.
To my left hand neighbour I had never before been presented. Mrs. Buller is tall and elegant in her person, genteel and ugly in her face, and abrupt and singular in her manners. She is, however, very clever, sprightly, and witty, and much in vogue. She is, also, a Greek scholar, a celebrated traveller in search of foreign customs and persons, and every way original, in her knowledge and her enterprising way of life. And she has had the maternal heroism—which with me is her first quality—of being the guide of her young son in making the grand tour.
Mr. Soame Jenyns, thus again called upon, resolved, after a pause, not to be called upon in vain; and therefore, with the chivalrous courtesy that he seemed to think the call demanded, began an eulogy unrivalled, I think, in exuberance and variety of animated phraseology. All creation in praise seemed to open to his fancy! No human being had ever begun Cecilia, or Evelina, who had power to lay them down unread: pathos, humour, interest, moral, contrast of character, of manners, of language—O! such mille jolis choses!
I heard, however, but the leading words—which—for I see your arch smile!—you will say I have not failed to retain!—though every body else, the whole room being attentively dumb, probably heard how they were strung together. And indeed, my dear father, who was quite delighted, says the panegyric was as witty as it was flattering. But for myself, had I been carried to a theatre, and perched upon a stool, to hear a public oration upon my simple penmanship, I could hardly have been more confounded. I bowed my head, after the first three or four sentences, by way of marking that I thought he had done: but done he had not the more! I then turned away to the other side, hoping to relieve him as well as myself; for I am sure he must have been full as much worried; but I only came upon Mrs. Buller, who took up the éloge just where Mr. Jenyns, for want of breath, let it drop; splendidly saying, how astonishing it was, that in a nation the most divided of any in the known world, alike in literature and in politics, any living pen could be found to bring about a universal harmony of opinion.
You will only, as usual, laugh, I know, my dear Mr. Crisp, and rather exult than be sorry for my poor embarrassed phiz during this playful duet. So also do I, too, now it is over; and feel grateful to the inflictors: but, for all that, I was tempted to wish either them or myself in the Elysian fields—for I won’t say at Jericho—during the infliction. And indeed, as to this present evening, the extraordinary things that were sported by Mr. Jenyns, and seconded by Mrs. Buller, would have brought blushes into the practised cheeks of Agujari or of Garrick. I changed so often from hot to cold, between the shame of insufficiency, and the consciousness that while they engaged every ear themselves, they put me forward to engage every eye, that I felt now in a fever, and now in an ague, from the awkwardness of appearing thus expressly summoned to