Mrs. Thrale, who was walking in her paddock, came to the door of the carriage to receive them; and poured forth a vivacity of thanks to the Doctor for bringing his daughter, that filled that daughter with the most agreeable gratitude; and soon made her so easy and comfortable, that she forgot the formidable renown of wit and satire that were coupled with the name of Mrs. Thrale; and the whole weight of her panic, as well as the whole energy of her hopes, devolved upon the approaching interview with Dr. Johnson.
But there, on the contrary, Dr. Burney felt far greater security. Dr. Johnson, however undesignedly, nay, involuntarily, had been the cause of the new author’s invitation to Streatham, from being the first person who there had pronounced the name of Evelina; and that previously to the discovery that its unknown writer was the daughter of a man whose early enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson had merited his warm acknowledgments; and whose character and conversation had since won his esteem and friendship. Dr. Burney therefore prognosticated, that such a circumstance could not but strike the vivid imagination of Dr. Johnson as a romance of real life; and additionally interest him for the unobtrusive author of the little work, which, wholly by chance, he had so singularly helped to bring forward.
The curiosity of Dr. Johnson, however, though certainly excited, was by no means so powerful as to allure him from his chamber one moment before his customary time of descending to dinner; and the new author had three or four hours to pass in constantly augmenting trepidation: for the prospect of seeing him, which so short a time before would have sufficed for her delight, was now chequered by the consciousness that she could not, as heretofore, be in his presence only for her own gratification, without any reciprocity of notice.
She was introduced, meanwhile, to Mr. Thrale, whose reception of her was gentle and gentlemanlike; and such as shewed his belief in the verity of her desire to have her authorship unmarked.
She saw also Miss Thrale, then barely entered into adolescence, though full of sense and cultivated talents; but as shy as herself, and consequently as little likely to create alarm.
One visitor only was at the house, Mr. Seward, afterwards author of Biographiana; a singular, but very agreeable, literary, and beneficent young man.
The morning was passed in the library, and, to the Doctor and his daughter was passed deliciously: Mrs. Thrale, much amused by the presence of two persons so peculiarly situated, put forth her utmost powers of pleasing; and though that great engine to success, flattery, was not spared, she wielded it with so much skill, and directed it with so much pleasantry, that all disconcerting effects were chased aside, to make it only produce laughter and good humour; through which gay auxiliaries every trait meant, latently, for the fearful daughter, was openly and plumply addressed to the happy father.
“I wish you had been with us last night, Dr. Burney, she said; “for thinking of what would happen to-day, we could talk of nothing in the world but a certain sweet book; and Dr. Johnson was so full of it, that he quite astonished us. He has got those incomparable Brangtons quite by heart, and he recited scene after scene of their squabbles, and selfishness, and forwardness, till he quite shook his sides with laughter. But his greatest favourite is The Holboum Beau, as he calls Mr. Smith. Such a fine varnish, he says, of low politeness! such struggles to appear the fine gentleman! such a determination to be genteel! and, above all, such profound devotion to the ladies, — while openly declaring his distaste to matrimony! — All this Mr. Johnson pointed out with so much comicality of sport, that, at last, he got into such high spirits, that he set about personating Mr. Smith himself! We all thought we must have died no other death than that of suffocation, in seeing Dr. Johnson handing about any thing he could catch, or snatch at, and making smirking bows, saying he was all for the ladies, — every thing that was agreeable to the ladies, &c. &c. &c., ‘except,’ says he, ‘going to church with them! and as to that, though marriage, to be sure, is all in all to the ladies, marriage to a man — is the devil!’ And then he pursued his personifications of his Holbourn Beau, till he brought him to what Mr. Johnson calls his climax; which is his meeting with Sir Clement Willoughby at Madame Duval’s, where a blow is given at once to his self-sufficiency, by the surprise and confusion of seeing himself so distanced; and the hopeless envy with which he looks up to Sir Clement, as to a meteor such as he himself had hitherto been looked up to at Snow Hill, that give a finishing touch to his portrait. And all this comic humour of character, he says, owes its effect to contrast; for without Lord Orville, and Mr. Villars, and that melancholy and gentleman-like half-starved Scotchman, poor Macartney, the Brangtons, and the Duvals, would be less than nothing; for vulgarity, in its own unshadowed glare, is only disgusting.”
This account is abridged from a long journal letter of the Memorialist; addressed to Mr. Crisp; but she will hazard copying more at length, from the same source, the original narration of her subsequent introduction to the notice of Dr. Johnson; as it may not be incurious to the reader, to see that great man in the uncommon light of courteously, nay playfully, subduing the fears, and raising the courage, of a newly discovered, but yet unavowed young author, by unexpected sallies and pointed allusions to characters in her work; not as to beings that were the product of her imagination, but as to persons of his own acquaintance, and in real life.
“To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.
“Chesington, Kingston, Surrey.
* * * * *
Well, when, at last, we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made my father and myself sit on each side of her. I said, I hoped I did not take the place of Dr. Johnson? for, to my great consternation, he did not even yet appear, and I began to apprehend he meant to abscond. ‘ No,’ answered Mrs. Thrale; ‘he will sit next to you, — and that, I am sure, will give him great pleasure.’
Soon after we were all marshalled, the great man entered. I have so sincere a veneration for him, that his very sight inspires me with delight as well as reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which, as I have told you, he is subject. But all that, outwardly, is so unfortunate, is so nobly compensated by all that, within, is excelling, that I can now only, like Desdemona for Othello, * view his image in his mind.’
Mrs. Thrale introduced me to him with an emphasis upon my name that rather frightened me, for it seemed like a call for some compliment. But he made me a bow the most formal, almost solemn, in utter silence, and with his eyes bent downwards. I felt relieved by this distance, for I thought he had forgotten, for the present at least, both the favoured little book and the invited little scribbler; and I therefore began to answer the perpetual addresses to me of Mrs. Thrale, with rather more ease. But by the time I was thus recovered from my panic, Dr. Johnson asked my father what was the composition of some little pies on his side of the table; and, while my father was endeavouring to make it out, Mrs. Thrale said, ‘Nothing but mutton, Mr. Johnson, so I don’t ask you to eat such poor patties, because I know you despise them.’
‘No, Madam, no!’ cried Doctor Johnson, ‘I despise nothing that is good of its sort. But I am too proud now, [smiling] to eat mutton pies l Sitting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day!’
“If you had seen, my dear Mr. Crisp, how wide I felt my eyes open! — A compliment from Doctor Johnson I ‘ — Miss Burney,’ cried Mrs. Thrale, laughing, ‘you must take great care of your heart, if Mr. Johnson attacks it — for I assure you he is not often successless!’
‘ — What’s that you say, Madam?’ cried the Doctor; ‘are you making mischief between the young lady and me already?’
A littlewhile afterwards, he drank Miss Thrale’s health and mine together, in a bumper of lemonade; and then added: ‘It is a terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies to be well, without wishing them to become old women!’
‘ — If the pleasures of longevity were not gradual,’ said my father, ‘If we were to light upon them by a jump or a skip, we should be cruelly at a loss how to give them welcome!’
“‘But some people,’ said Mr. Seward,
‘are young and old at the same time; for they wear so well, that they never look old.’ —
‘No, Sir, no!’ cried the Doctor; ‘that never yet was, and never will be! You might as well say they were at the same time tall and short. Though I recollect an epitaph, — I forget upon whom, to that purpose.
“‘Miss such a one — lies buried here,
So early wise, and lasting fair,
That none, unless her years you told,
Thought her a child — or thought her old.’
My father then mentioned Mr. Garrick’s epilogue to Bonduca, which Dr. Johnson called a miserable performance; and which every body agreed to be the worst that Mr. Garrick had ever written.
‘ And yet,’ said Mr. Seward, ‘ it has been very much admired. But it is in praise of English valour, and so, I suppose, the subject made it popular.’
‘I do not know, Sir,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘any thing about the subject, for I could not read till I came to any. I got through about half a dozen lines; but for subject, I could observe no other than perpetual dullness. I do not know what is the matter with David. I am afraid he is becoming superannuated; for his prologues and epilogues used to be incomparable.’
‘Nothing is so fatiguing,” said Mrs. Thrale, “as the life of a wit. Garrick and Wilkes are the oldest men of their age that I know; for they have both worn themselves out prematurely by being eternally on the rack to entertain others.”
“David, Madam,” said the Doctor, “looks much older than he is, because his face has had double the business of any other main’s. It is never at rest! When he speaks one minute, he has quite a different countenance to that which he assumes the next. I do not believe he ever kept the same look half an hour together in the whole course of his life. And such a perpetual play of the muscles must certainly wear a man’s face out before his time.”
While I was cordially laughing at this idea, the Doctor, who had probably observed in me some little uneasy trepidation, and now, I suppose, concluded me restored to my usual state, suddenly, though very ceremoniously, as if to begin some acquaintance with me, requested that I would help him to some brocoli. This I did; but when he took it, he put on a face of humorous discontent, and said, Only this, Madam? — You would not have helped Mr. Macartney so parsimoniously!’
He affected to utter this in a whisper; but to see him directly address me, caught the attention of all the table, and every one smiled, though in silence; while I felt so surprised and so foolish! so pleased and so ashamed, that I hardly knew whether he meant my Mr. Macartney, or spoke at random of some other. This, however, he soon put beyond all doubt, by very composedly adding, while con* temptuously regarding my imputed parsimony on his plate: “Mr. Macartney, it is true, might have most claim to liberality, poor fellow! — for how, as Tom Brangton shrewdly remarks, should he ever have known what a good dinner was, if he had never come to England?”
Perceiving, I suppose — for it could not be very difficult to discern — the commotion into which this explication put me; and the stifled disposition to a contagious laugh, which was suppressed, not to add to my embarrassment; he quickly, but quietly, went on to a general discourse upon Scotland, descriptive and political; but without point or satire — though I cannot, my dear Mr. Crisp, give you one word of it: not because I have forgotten it — for there is no remembering what we have never heard; but because I could only generally gather the subject. I could not listen to it. I was so confused and perturbed between pleasure and vexation — pleasure, indeed, in the approvance of Dr. Johnson! but vexation, and great vexation to find, by the conscious smirks of all around, that I was betrayed to the whole party! while I had only consented to confiding in Mrs. Thrale; all, no doubt, from a mistaken notion that I had merely meant to feel the pulse of the public, and to avow, or to conceal myself, according to its beatings: when heaven knows — and you, my dear Mr. Crisp, know, that I had not the most distant purpose of braving publicity, under success, any more than under failure.
From Scotland, the talk fell, but I cannot tell how, upon some friend of Dr. Johnson’s, of whom I did not catch the name; so I will call him Mr. Three Stars, * * *; of whom Mr. Seward related some burlesque anecdotes, from which Mr. * * * was warmly vindicated by the Doctor.
“Better say no more, Mr. Seward,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “for Mr.* * * is one of the persons that Mr. Johnson will suffer no one to abuse but himself! Garrick is another: for if any creature but himself says a word against Garrick — Mr. Johnson will brow-beat him in a moment.”
“Why, Madam, as to David,” answered the Doctor, very calmly, ‘it is only because they do not know when to abuse and when to praise him; and I will allow no man to speak any ill of David, that he does not deserve. As to * * *, — why really I believe him to be an honest man, too, at the bottom. But, to be sure, he is rather penurious; and he is somewhat mean; and it must be owned he has some degree of brutality; and is not without a tendency to savageness, that cannot well be defended.’
We all laughed, as he could not help doing himself, at such a curious mode of taking up his friend’s justification. And he then related a trait of another friend who had belonged to some club that the Doctor frequented, who, after the first or second night of his admission, desired, as he eat no supper, to be excused paying his share for the collation.
“And was he excused, Sir?” cried my father.
“Yes, Sir; and very readily. No man is angry with another for being inferior to himself. We all admitted his plea publicly — for the gratification of scorning him privately! For my own part, I was fool enough to constantly pay my share for the wine, which I never tasted. But my poor friend Sir John, it cannot well be denied, was but an unclubbable man.”
How delighted was I to hear this master of languages, this awful, this dreaded lexiphanes, thus sportively and gaily coin burlesque words in social comicality!
I don’t know whether he deigned to watch me, but I caught a glance of his eye that seemed to shew pleasure in perceiving my surprise and diversion, for with increased glee of manner he proceeded. —
“This reminds me of a gentleman and lady with whom I once travelled. I suppose I must call them gentleman and lady, according to form, because they travelled in their own coach and four horses. But, at the first inn where we stopped to water the cattle, the lady called to a waiter for — a pint of ale! And, when it came, she would not taste it, till she had wrangled with the man for not bringing her fuller measure! Now — Madame Duval could not have done a grosser thing!”
A sympathetic simper now ran from mouth to mouth, save to mine, and to that of Dr. Johnson; who gravely pretended to pass off what he had said as if it were a merely accidental reminiscence of some vulgar old acquaintance of his own. And this, as undoubtedly, and most kindly, he projected, prevented any sort of answer that might have made the book a subject of general discourse. And presently afterwards, he started some other topic, which he addressed chiefly to Mr. Thrale. But if you expect me to tell you what it was, you think far more grandly of my powers of attention without, when all within is in a whirl, than I deserve!
Be it, however, what it might, the next time there was a pause, we all observed a sudden play of the muscles in the countenance of the Doctor, that shewed him to be secretly enjoying some ludicrous idea: and accordingly, a minute or two after, he pursed up his mouth, and, in an assumed pert, yet feminine accent, while he tossed up his head to express wonder, he affectedly minced out, “La, Polly! — only think! Miss has danced with a Lord!”
This was resistless to the whole set, and a general, though a gentle laugh, became now infectious; in which, I must needs own to you, I could not, with all my embarrassment, and all my shame, and all my unwillingness to demonstrate my consciousness, help being caught — so indescribably ludicrous and unexpected was a mimicry of Miss Biddy Brangton from Dr. Johnson!
The Doctor, however, with a refinement of delicacy of which I have the deepest sense, never once cast his eyes my way during these comic
traits; though those of every body else in the company had scarcely for a moment any other direction.
But imagine my relief and my pleasure, in playfulness such as this from the great literary Leviathan, whom I had dreaded almost as much as I had honoured! How far was I from dreaming of such sportive condescension! He clearly wished to draw the little snail from her cell, and, when once she was out, not to frighten her back. He seems to understand my queeralities — as some one has called my not liking to be set up for a sign-post — with more leniency than any body else.”
* * * * * * *
This long article of Evelina, will be closed by copying a brief one upon the same subject, written from memory, by Dr. Burney, so late in his life as the year 1808.
Copied, from a Memorandum-book of Dr. Burney’s, written in the year 1808, at Bath.
“The literary history of my second daughter, Fanny, now Madame d’Arblay, is singular. She was wholly unnoticed in the nursery for any talents, or quickness of study: indeed, at eight years old she did not know her letters; and her brother, the tar, who in his boyhood had a natural genius for hoaxing, used to pretend to teach her to read; and gave her a book topsy-turvy, which he said she never found out! She had, however, a great deal of invention and humour in her childish sports; and used, after having seen a play in Mrs. Garrick’s box, to take the actors off, and compose speeches for their characters; for she could not read them. But in company, or before strangers, she was silent, backward, and timid, even to sheepishness: and, from her shyness, had such profound gravity and composure of features, that those of my friends who came often to my house, and entered into the different humours of the children, never called Fanny by any other name, from the time she had reached her eleventh year, than The Old Lady.
Her first work, Evelina, was written by stealth, in a closet up two pair of stairs, that was appropriated to the younger children as a play room. No one was let into the secret but my third daughter, afterwards Mrs. Phillips; though even to her it was never read till printed, from want of private opportunity. To me, nevertheless, she confidentially owned that she was going, through her brother Charles, to print a little work, but she besought me never to ask to see it. I laughed at her plan, but promised silent acquiescence; and the book had been six months published before I even heard its name; which I learnt at last without her knowledge. But great, indeed, was then my surprise, to find that it was in general reading, and commended in no common manner in the several Reviews of the times. Of this she was unacquainted herself, as she was then ill, and in the country. When I knew its title, I commissioned one of her sisters to procure it for me privately. I opened the first volume with fear and trembling; not having the least idea that, without the use of the press, or any practical knowledge of the world, she could write a book worth reading. The dedication to myself, however, brought tears into my eyes; and before I had read half the first volume I was much surprised, and, I confess, delighted; and most especially with the letters of Mr. Villars. She had always had a great affection for me; had an excellent heart, and a natural simplicity and probity about her that wanted no teaching. In her plays with her sisters, and some neighbour’s children, this straightforward morality operated to an uncommon degree in one so young. There lived next door to me, at that time, in Poland street, and in a private house, a capital hair merchant, who furnished peruques to the judges, and gentlemen of the law. The merchant’s female children and mine, used to play together in the little garden behind the house; and, unfortunately, one day, the door of the wig magazine being left open, they each of them put on one of those dignified ornaments of the head, and danced and jumped about in a thousand antics, laughing till they screamed at their own ridiculous figures. Unfortunately, in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten guineas — in those days a price enormous — fell into a tub of water, placed for the shrubs in the little garden, and lost all its gorgon buckle, and was declared by the owner to be totally spoilt. He was extremely angry, and chid very severely his own children; when my little daughter, the old lady, then ten years of age, advancing to him, as I was informed, with great gravity and composure, sedately says; “What signifies talking so much about an accident? The wig is wet, to be sure; and the wig was a good wig, to be sure; but its of no use to speak of it any more; because what’s done can’t be undone.”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 404