Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  MEETING THE SECOND,

  which took place not long after the First, already recorded in these my elaborate annals.

  “My father invited Mr. Twining, the great Grecian, to said meeting. What a contrast did he form with Mr. Bruce, the great Ethiopian! I have already described Mr. Twining to you, though very inadequately; for he is so full of merits, it is not easy to find proper phrases for him. There is only our dear Mr. Crisp whom we like and love half as well.

  “Mr. Twining, with all his excellencies, — and he is reckoned one of the first scholars living; and is now engaged in translating Aristotle, — is as modest and unassuming as Mr. Bruce is high and pompous. He came very early, frankly owning, with a sort of piteous shrug, that he really had not bronze to present himself when the party should be assembled, before so eminent, but tremendous a man, as report painted Mr. Bruce; though he was extremely gratified to nestle himself into a corner, as a private spectator.

  “Mrs. Strange, with her daughter, arrived next; and told us that his Abyssinian Majesty, as she calls Mr. Bruce, had dined at General Melville’s, but would get away as quickly as possible.

  “We waited tea, in our old-fashioned manner, a full hour; but no Mr. Bruce. So then we — or rather I — made it. And we all united to drink it. There, Sir; there’s another event for you!

  “Mr. Twining entreated that we might no longer postpone the concert, and was leading the way to the library, where it was to be held; but just then, a thundering rap at the door raised our expectations, and stopt our steps; — and Mr. Bruce was announced.

  “He entered the room with the state and dignity of a tragedy giant.

  “We soon found that something had displeased him, and that he was very much out of humour: and when Mrs. Strange inquired after General Melville, he answered her, with a face all made up of formidable frowns, that the General had invited a most stupid set of people to meet him. He had evidently left the party with disgust. Perhaps they had asked him whether there were any real men and women in Abyssinia, or only bullocks and heifers.

  “He took his tea in stern silence, without deigning to again open his lips, till it was to demand a private conference with my father. They then went together to the study, — erst Sir Isaac Newton’s — which is within the library.

  “In passing through the latter, they encountered Mr. Twining, who would hastily have shrunk back; but my father immediately, and with distinction to Mr. Twining, performed the ceremony of introduction. Mr. Bruce gravely bowed, and went on; and he was then shut up with my father at least an hour, in full discussion upon the Theban harp, and the letter for the history.

  “Mr. Twining returned, softly and on tiptoe, to the drawing room; and advancing to Mrs. Strange and my mother, with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaimed, ‘This is the most awful man I ever saw! — I never felt so little in all my life!’

  “‘ Well, troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘ never mind! If you were six feet high he would overlook you; and he can do no more now.’

  “Mr. Twining then, to recover breath he said, sat down, but declared he was in fear of his life; ‘for if Mr. Bruce,’ he cried, ‘ should come in hastily, and, not perceiving such a pitiful Lilliputian, should take the chair to be empty — it will soon be over with me! I shall be jammed in a moment — while he will think he is only dropping down upon a cushion!’

  “As the study confab, seemed to menace duration, Mr. Twining petitioned Mr. Burney to go to the piano-forte; where he fired away in a voluntary with all the astonishing powers of his execution, and all the vigour of his genius.

  “He might well be animated by such an auditor as Mr. Twining, who cannot be a deeper Grecian than he is a refined musician. How happy is my dear father that the three best, and dearest, and wisest, of his friends, should be three of the most scientific judges of his own art, — Mr. Twining, Mr, Bewley, and Mr. Crisp.

  “Dear me! how came that last name into my head? — I beg your pardon a thousand times. It was quite by accident. A mere slip of the pen.

  “Mr. Twining, astonished, delighted, uttered the warmest praises, with all his heart; but that fervent effusion over, dropped his voice into its lowest key, to add, with a look full of arch pleasantry, ‘ Now, is not this better than being tall?’

  “My poor sister, Burney, was not quite well, and had a hurt on one of her fingers. But though she could not exert herself to play a solo, she consented to take her part in the noble duet for the piano-forte of Muthel; and she was no sooner seated, than Mr. Bruce re-appeared in our horizon.

  “You well know that enchanting composition, which never has been more perfectly executed.

  “Mr. Twining was enraptured; Mrs. Strange listened in silent wonder and pleasure; and Mr. Bruce himself was drawn into a charmed attention. His air lost its fierceness; his features relaxed into smiles; and good humour and complacency turned pride, sternness, and displeasure, out of his phiz.

  “I begin now to think I have perhaps been too criticising upon poor man-mountain; and that, when he is not in the way of provocation to his vanity, he may be an amiable, as well as an agreeable man. But I suppose his giant-form, which makes every thing around him seem diminutive, has given him a notion that he was born to lord it over the rest of mankind; which, peradventure, seems to him a mere huddle of Lilliputians, as unfit to cope with him, mentally, in discourse, as corporeally in a wrestling match.

  “Mr. Twining had been invited to supper; and as it now grew very late, my mother made the invitation general; which, to our great surprise, Mr. Bruce was the first to accept. Who, then, could start any objection?

  “So softened had he been by the music, that he was become all courtesy. Nobody else was listened to, or looked at; and as he scarcely ever deigns to look at any body himself, he is a primary object for peering at.

  “The conversation turned upon disorders of the senses; for Mrs. Strange has a female friend who is seized with them, from time to time, as other people might be seized with an ague. She had been on a visit at the house of Mrs. Strange, the day before, where she had met Mr. Bruce. When it was perceived that a fit of the disorder was coming on, Miss Strange took her home; for which extraordinary courage Mr. Bruce greatly blamed her.

  “‘ How,’ said he, ‘ could you be sure of your life for a single moment? Suppose she had thought proper to run a pair of scissors into your eyes? Or had taken a fancy to cutting off one of your ears?’

  “Miss Strange replied, that she never feared, for she always knew how to manage her.

  “Mr. Bruce then inquired what had been the first symptom she had shewn of the return of her malady?

  “Mrs. Strange answered, that the beginning of her wandering that evening, had been by abruptly coming up to her, and asking her whether she could make faces?

  “‘I wish,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘ she had asked me! I believe I could have satisfied her pretty well that way!’

  “‘O, she had a great desire to speak to you, sir,’ said Miss Strange, ‘she told me she had a great deal to say to you.’

  “‘If,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had come up to me, without any preface, and made faces at me, — I confess I should have been rather surprised!’

  “‘ Troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘ if we are not upon our guard, we are all of us mad when we are contradicted! for we are all of us so witty, in our own ideas, that we think every mon out of his head that does not see with our eyes. But when I tried to hold her, poor little soul, from running into the street, while we were waiting for the coach, she gave me such a violent scratch on the arm, that I piteously called out for help. See! here’s the mark.’

  “‘ Did she fetch blood,’ cried Mr. Bruce, in a tone of alarm; ‘ if she did, you will surely go out of your own senses before a fortnight will be over! You may depend upon that! If you are bit by a wild cat, you will undoubtedly become crazy; and bow much more if you are scratched by a crackbrained woman? I would advise you to go forthwith to the sea, and be well dipped. I assure you fairly I would not be in
your situation.’

  “I thought this so shocking, that I felt a serious impulse to expostulate with his giantship upon it myself, and almost the courage; but, whether perceiving my horror, or only imagining it, I cannot tell; he deigned to turn his magnificent countenance full upon me, to display that he was laughing. And he afterwards added, that he knew there was nothing in this case that was any way dangerous; though how he obtained the knowledge he kept to himself.

  “My mother then expressed her hopes that the poor lady might not, meanwhile, be removed to a private asylum; as in these repositories, the patients were said to be goaded on to become worse, every time a friend or a physician was expected to visit them; purposely to lengthen the poor sufferer’s detention.

  “‘Indeed!’ cried Mr. Bruce, knitting his brows, ‘why this is very bad encouragement to going out of one’s senses!’

  “The rest of the conversation was wholly upon this subject; and so, as I know you hate the horrors, I must bid good night to Meeting the Second with his Abyssinian Majesty.

  “The tête à tête in the study had been entirely upon the two drawings; and in settling the points upon which Mr. Bruce had best expatiate in his descriptive and historical epistle.

  “My father has great satisfaction in being the first to bring forth the drawings and the writings of this far-famed traveller before the public. The only bad thing was, that it kept him away from us all supper-time, to put down the communications he had received, and the hints he wished to give for more.

  “Mr. Twining, too, wrapt himself up in his own observations, and would not speak — except by his eyes, which had a comic look, extremely diverting, of pretended fearful insignificance.

  “Well, now, my dear Sir, to …”

  MEETING THE THIRD.

  “It was produced by a visit from Mrs. Strange, with a petition from his Majesty of Abyssinia for another musical evening; as he had spoken with so much rapture of the last to Mr. Nesbit, a great amateur, ‘that the poor honest lad,’ Mrs. Strange said, ‘ could no’ sleep o’ nights from impatience to be inoculated with the same harmony, to prevent the infection Mr. Bruce carried about with him from doing him a mischief.’

  “Well, the time was fixed, and the evening proved so agreeable, that we heartily and continually wished our dear Mr. Crisp amongst us. Mr. Twining, too, was gone. All one likes best go quickest.

  “The first who arrived was Mr. Solly. He, also, is a great traveller, though not a renowned one; for nothing less than the Nile, and no place short of Abyssinia, will do, at present, for the taste of the public. My father had met with Mr. Solly at four several cities in Italy, and all accidentally; namely, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Since that time, Mr. Solly has been wandering to many more remote places; and at Alexandria, and at Grand Cairo, he had met with Mr. Bruce. He is a chatty, lively man; and not at all wanting in marks of his foreign excursions, i.e. shrugs, jerks, and gestures. John Bull, you know, my dear Mr. Crisp, when left to himself, is so torpid a sort of figure, with his arms slung so lank to his sides, that, at a little distance, one might fancy him without any such limb. While the Italians and French make such a flourishing display of its powers, that I verily believe it quickens circulation, and helps to render them so much more vivacious than philosopher Johnny.

  “Yet I love Johnny best, for all that; as well as honour him the most; only I often wish he was a little more entertaining.

  “Mr. Solly and my father ‘fought all their battles o’er again’ through Italy; and kept fighting them on till the arrival of Dr. Russel, a learned, and likewise a travelled physician, who seems droll and clever; but who is so very short-sighted, that even my father and I see further a-field. He loses nothing, however, through this infirmity, that trouble can supply; for he peers in every body’s face at least a minute, to discover whether or not he knows them; and, after that, he peers a minute or two more, to discover, I suppose, whether or not he likes them. Yet, without boldness. ’Tis merely a look of earnest investigation, which he bestowed, in turn, upon every one present, as they came in his way; never fastening his eyes, even for an instant, upon the ground, the fire, the wainscot, or any thing inanimate, but always upon the ‘ human face divine.’

  “He, also, is another travelled friend of Mr. Bruce, whom he knew at Aleppo, where Dr. Russel resided some years.

  “Then came Mrs and Miss Strange, and his Abyssinian majesty, with his companion, Mr. Nesbit, who is a young Scotchman of distinction, infinitely fade, conceited, and coxcombical. He spoke very little, except to Mr. Bruce, and that, very politely, in a whisper. I cannot at all imagine what could provoke this African monarch to introduce such a fop here. We heartily wished him back in his own quarters; or at least at ‘the Orkneys,’ or at ‘ the Lord knows where.’

  “Mr. Bruce himself was in the most perfect good humour; all civility and pleasantry; and his smiles seemed to give liberty for general ease.

  “Having paid his compliments to my mother, he addressed himself to my sister Burney, inquiring courteously after her finger, which Miss Strange had told him she had hurt.

  “‘ Mrs. Burney’s fingers,’ cried Dr. Russel, snatching at the opportunity for a good gaze, not upon her finger, but her phiz, ‘ ought to be exempt from all evil.’

  “Your Hettina smiled, and assured them it was almost well.

  “‘O, I prayed to Apollo,’ cried Mr. Bruce, ‘for its recovery, and he has heard my prayer.’

  “‘I have no doubt, sir,’ said Hetty, ‘of your influence with Apollo.’

  “‘I ought to have some, Madam,’ answered he grandly, ‘ for I have been a slave to him all my life!”

  “He then came to hope that I should open the concert; speaking to me with just such an encouraging sort of smile as if I had been about eleven years old; and strongly admonishing me not to delay coming forward at once, as he was prepared for no common pleasure in listening to me.

  “Next he advanced to Susanna, begging her to exhibit her talent; and telling her he had had a dream, that if she refused to play, some great misfortune would befal him.

  “When he had gone through this little circle of gallantry, to his own apparent satisfaction, he suffered Mr. Nesbit to seize upon him for another whispering dialogue; in which, as Mrs. Strange has since told my mother, that pretty swain lamented that he must soon run away, a certain lady of quality having taken such an unaccountable fancy to him at the opera of the preceding night, that she had appointed him to be with her this evening à tête!

  “Mr. Bruce gave so little credit to this bonne fortune, that he laughed aloud in relating it to Mrs. Strange.

  “Mr. Bruce then called upon Dr. Russel to take a violin, saying he was a very fine performer; but adding, ‘We used to disgrace his talents, I own, at Aleppo; for, having no blind fiddler at hand, we kept him playing country dances by the hour.

  “Dr. Russel mentioned some town in those parts, Asia or Africa, where a concert, upon occasion of a marriage, lasted three days.

  “‘ Three days?’ repeated Mr. Bruce; ‘why marriage is a more formidable thing there than even here!’

  “Then came music, and the incomparable duet; which, as they could not forbear encoring, filled up all the rest of the evening, till the company at large departed; for there were several persons present whom I have not mentioned, being of no zest for your notice.

  “Mr. Bruce, however, with the Stranges, again consented to stay supper; which, you know, with us, is nothing but a permission to sit over a table for chat, and roast potatoes, or apples.

  “But now, to perfect your acquaintance with this towering Ethiopian, where do you think he will take you during supper?

  “To the source, or sources, you cry, of the Nile? to Thebes? to its temple? to an arietta on the Theban Haip? or, perhaps, to banquetting on hot raw beef in Abyssinia?

  “No such thing, my dear Mr. Crisp, no such thing. Travellers who mean to write their travels, are fit for nothing but to represent the gap at your whist table at Chesingto
n, when you have only three players; for they are mere dummies.

  “Mr. Bruce left all his exploits, his wanderings, his vanishings, his re-appearances, his harps so celestial, and his bullocks so terrestrial, to plant all our entertainment within a hundred yards of our own coterie; namely, at the masquerades at the Hay-market.

  “Thus it was. He inquired of Mrs. Strange where he could find Mrs. Twoldham, a lady of his acquaintance; a very fine woman, but remarkably dissipated, whom he wished to see.

  “‘Troth,’ Mrs. Strange answered, ‘she did not know; but if he would take a turn to a masquerade or two, he would be sure to light upon her, as she never missed one,’

  “‘What,’ cried he, laughing, ‘ has she not had enough yet of masquerades? Brava, Mrs. Twoldham! I honour your spirit.’

  “He then laughed so cordially, that we were tempted, by such extraordinary good-humour, to beg him, almost in a body, to permit us to partake of his mirth.

  “He complied very gaily. ‘ A friend of mine,’ he cried, ‘before I went abroad, had so often been teazed to esquire her to some of these medleys, that he thought to give the poor woman a surfeit of them to free himself from her future importunity. Yet she was a very handsome woman, very handsome indeed. But just as they were going into the great room, he had got one of her visiting cards ready, and contrived, as they passed through a crowded passage, to pin to the back of her robe, Mrs. Twoldham, Wimpole Street. And not three steps had she tript forward, before some one called out: “Hah! Mrs. Twoldham! how do you do, Mrs. Twoldham?”—” Oho, Mrs. Twoldham, are you here?” cried, another; “Well, Ma’am, and how do all friends in Wimpole Street do?” till the poor woman was half out of her wits, to know how so many people had discovered her. So she thought that perhaps her forehead was in sight, and she perked up her mask; but she did not less hear, “Oh! it’s you, Mrs. Twoldham, is it?” Then she supposed she had left a peep at her chin, and down again was tugged the poor mask; but still, “Mrs. Twoldham!” and, “how do you do, my dear Mrs. Twoldham?” was rung in her ears at every step; till at last, she took it into her head that some one, who, by chance, had detected her, had sent her name round the room; so she hurried off like lightning to the upper suite of apartments. But ’twas all the same. “Well, I declare, if here is not Mrs. Twoldham!” cries the first person that passed her. “So she is, I protest,” cried another; “I am very glad to see you, my dear Ma’am! what say you to giving me a little breakfast to morrow morning? you know where, Mrs. Twoldham; at our old haunt in Wimpole Street.” But, at last, the corner of an unlucky table rubbed off the visiting card; and a waiter, who picked it up, grinned from ear to ear, and asked whether it was hers. And the poor woman fell into such a trance of passion, that my friend was afraid for his eyes; and all the more, because, do what he would, he could not refrain from laughing in her face.’