Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  “Whether these stoical sentiments appeased the enraged peruquier, I know not, but the younkers were stript of their honours, and my little monkies were obliged to retreat without beat of drum, or colours flying.”

  STREATHAM.

  From the very day of this happy inauguration of his daughter at Streatham, the Doctor had the parental gratification of seeing her as flatteringly greeted there as himself. So vivacious, indeed, was the partiality towards her of its inhabitants, that they pressed him to make over to them all the time he could spare her from her home; and appropriated an apartment as sacredly for her use, when she could occupy it, as another, far more deservedly, though not more cordially, had, many years previously, been held sacred for Dr. Johnson.

  The social kindness for both father and daughter, of Mrs. Thrale, was of the most endearing nature; trusting, confidential, affectionate. She had a sweetness of manner, and an activity of service for those she loved, that could ill be appreciated by others; for though copiously flattering in her ordinary address to strangers, because always desirous of universal suffrage, she spoke of individuals in general with sarcasm; and of the world at large with sovereign contempt.

  Flighty, however, not malignant, was her sarcasm; and ludicrous more frequently than scornful, her contempt. She wished no one ill. She would have done any one good; but she could put no restraint upon wit that led to a brilliant point, or that was productive of laughing admiration: though her epigram once pronounced, she thought neither of that nor of its object any more; and was just as willing to be friends with a person whom she had held up to ridicule, as with one whom she had laboured to elevate by panegyric.

  Her spirits, in fact, rather ruled than exhilarated her; and were rather her guides than her support. Not that she was a child of nature. She knew the world, and gaily boasted that she had studied mankind in what she called its most prominent school electioneering. She was rather, therefore, from her scoff of all consequences, a child of witty irreflection.

  The first name on the list of the Streatham coterie at this time, was that which, after Dr. Johnson’s, was the first, also, in the nation, Edmund Burke. But his visits now, from whatever cause, were so rare, that Dr. Burney never saw him in the Streatham constellation, save as making one amongst the worthies whom the pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds had caught from all mundane meanderings, to place there as a fixed star.

  Next ranked Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, and Mr. Garrick.

  Dr. Goldsmith, who had been a peculiar favourite in the set, as much, perhaps, for his absurdities as for his genius, was already gone; though still, and it may be from this double motive, continually missed and regretted: for what, in a chosen coterie, could be more amusing, — many as are the things that might be more edifying, — than gathering knowledge and original ideas in one moment, from the man who the next, by the simplicity of his egotism, expanded every mouth by the merriment of ridicule?

  Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Boscowen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord Loughborough, Mr. Dunning, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas and Mr. Pepys t Major Holroyd, Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Mrs. Porteus, Miss Streatfield, Miss Gregory, Dr. Lort, the Bishops of London and Peterborough (Porteus and Hinchcliffe), with a long et caetern of visitors less marked, filled up the brilliant catalogue of the spirited associates of Streatham.

  MR. MURPHY.

  But the most intimate in the house, amongst the Wits, from being the personal favourite of Mr. Thrale, was Mr. Murphy; who, for gaiety of spirits, powers of dramatic effect, stories of strong humour and resistless risibility, was nearly unequalled: and they were coupled with politeness of address, gentleness of speech, and well-bred, almost courtly, demeanour.

  He was a man of great erudition, without one particle of pedantry; and a stranger not only to spleen and malevolence, but the happiest promoter of convivial hilarity.

  With what pleasure, and what pride, does the editor copy, from an ancient diary, the following words that passed between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Murphy, relative to Dr. Burney, upon the first meeting of the editor with Mr. Murphy at Streatham!

  Mrs. Thrale was lamenting the sudden disappearance of Dr. Burney, who was just gone to town sans adieu; declaring that he was the most complete male-coquet she knew, for he only gave just enough of his company to make more desired.

  “Dr. Burney,” said Mr. Murphy, “is, indeed, a most extraordinary man. I think I do not know such another. He is at home upon all subjects; and upon all is so highly agreeable! I look upon him as a wonderful man.” —

  “I love Burney!” cried Dr. Johnson, emphatically: “my heart, as I told him — goes out to meet Burney!”

  “He is not ungrateful, Sir,” cried the Doctor’s bairne, “for heartily indeed does he love you!”

  “Does he, Madam?” said the Doctor, looking at her earnestly: “I am surprised at that!”

  “And why, Sir? — Why should you have doubted it?”

  “Because, Madam,” answered he, gravely, “Dr Burney is a man for every body to love. It is but natural to love him!”

  He paused, as if with an idea of a self-conceived contrast not gaifying; but he soon cheerfully added, “I question if there be in the world such another man, altogether, for mind, intelligence, and manners, as Dr. Burney.”

  Dr. Johnson, at this time, was engaged in writing his Lives of the Poets; a work, to him, so light and easy, that it never robbed his friends of one moment of the time that he would, otherwise, have spared to their society. Lives, however, strictly speaking, they are not; he merely employed in them such materials, with respect to biography, as he had already at hand, without giving himself any trouble in researches for what might be new, or unknown though he gladly accepted any that were offered to him, if well authenticated, The critical investigations alone he considered as his business. He himself never named them but as prefaces. No man held in nobler scorn, a promise that out-went performance.

  The ease and good humour with which he fulfilled this engagement, made the present a moment peculiarly propitious for the opening acquaintance with him of the new, and by no means very hardened author; for whose terrors of public notice he had a mercy the most indulgent. He quickly saw that — whether wise or not — they were true $ and soothed them without raillery or reprehension; though in this he stood nearly alone! Her fears of him, therefore, were soon softened off by his kindness; or dispelled by her admiration.

  The friendship with which so early he had honoured the father, was gently and at once, with almost unparalleled partiality, extended to the daughter: and, in truth, the whole current of his intercourse with both was as unruffled by storm as it was enlightened by wisdom.

  While this charming work was in its progress, when only the Thrale family and its nearly adopted guests, the two Burneys, were assembled, Dr. Johnson would frequently produce one of its proof sheets to embellish the breakfast table, which was always in the library; and was, certainly, the most sprightly and agreeable meeting of the day; for then, as no strangers were present to stimulate exertion, or provoke rivalry, argument was not urged on by the mere spirit of victory; it was instigated only by such truisms as could best bring forth that conflict of pros and cons which elucidates opposing opinions.

  Wit was not flashed with the keen sting of satire; yet it elicited not less gaiety from sparkling with an unwounding brilliancy, which brightened without inflaming, every eye, and charmed without tingling, every ear.

  These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud; and the discussions to which they led were in the highest degree entertaining. Dr. Burney wistfully desired to possess one of them; but left to his daughter the risk of the petition. A hint, however, proved sufficient, and was understood not alone with compliance, but vivacity. Boswell, Dr. Johnson said, had engaged Frank Barber, his negro servant, to collect and preserve all the proof sheets; but though it had not been without the knowledge, it was without the order or the interference of their author: to the present solicitor, therefore, willingly and without scruple, he now offered a
n entire life; adding, with a benignant smile, “Choose your poet!”

  Without scruple, also, was the acceptance; and, without hesitation, the choice was Pope. And that not merely because, next to Shakespeare himself, Pope draws human characters the most veridically, perhaps, of any poetic delineator; but for yet another reason. Dr. Johnson composed with so ready an accuracy, that he sent his copy to the press unread; reserving all his corrections for the proof sheets: and, consequently, as not even Dr. Johnson could read twice without ameliorating some passages, his proof sheets were at times liberally marked with changes; and, as the Museum copy of Pope’s Translation of the Iliad, from which Dr. Johnson has given many examples, contains abundant emendations by Pope, the Memorialist secured at once, on the same page, the marginal alterations and second thoughts of that great author, and of his great biographer.

  When the book was published, Dr. Johnson brought to Streatham a complete set, handsomely bound, of the Works of the Poets, as well as his own Prefaces, to present to Mr and Mrs. Thrale. And then, telling this Memorialist that to the King, and to the chiefs of Streatham alone he could offer so large a tribute, he most kindly placed before her a bound copy of his own part of the work; in the title page of which he gratified her earnest request by writing her name, and “From the Author.” After which, at her particular solicitation, he gave her a small engraving of his portrait from the picture of Sir Joshua Reynolds. And while, some time afterwards, she was examining it at a distant table, Dr. Johnson, in passing across the room, stopt to discover by what she was occupied; which he no sooner discerned, than he began see-sawing for a moment or two in silence; and then, with a ludicrous half laugh, peeping over her shoulder, he called out: “Ah ha! — Sam Johnson! — I see thee! — and an ugly dog thou art!”

  He even extended his kindness to a remembrance of Mr. Bewley, the receiver and preserver of the wisp of a Bolt-court hearth-broom, as a relic of the Author of the Rambler; which anecdote Dr. Burney had ventured to confess: and Dr. Johnson now, with his compliments, sent a set of the Prefaces to St. Martin’s-street, directed, “For the Broom Gentleman which Mr. Bewley received with rapturous gratitude. Dr. Johnson wrote nothing that was so immediately popular as his Lives of the Poets. Such a subject was of universal attraction, and he treated it with a simplicity that made it of universal comprehension. In all that belonged to classical criticism, he had a facility so complete, that to speak or to write produced immediately the same clear and sagacious effect. His pen was as luminous as his tongue, and his tongue was as correct as his pen.

  Yet those — and there are many — who estimate these Prefaces as the best of his works, must surely so judge them from a species of mental indolence, that prefers what is easiest of perusal to what is most illuminating: for rich as are these Prefaces in ideas and information, their subjects have so long been familiar to every English reader, that they require no stretch of intellect, or exercise of reflection, to lead him, without effort, to accompany the writer in his annotations and criticisms. The Rambler, on the contrary, embodies a course equally new of Thought and of Expression; the development of which cannot always be foreseen, even by the deepest reasoner and the keenest talents, because emanating from original genius. To make acquaintance, therefore, with the Rambler, the general peruser must pause, occasionally, to think as well as to read; and to clear away sundry mists of prejudice, or ignorance, ere he can keep pace with the sublime author, when the workings of his mind, his imagination, and his knowledge, are thrown upon mankind.

  MR. CRISP.

  The warm and venerating attachment of Dr. Burney to Mr. Crisp, which occasional discourse and allusions had frequently brought forward, impressed the whole Thrale family with a high opinion of the character and endowments of that excelling man. And when they found, also, that Mr. Crisp had as animated a votary in so much younger a person as their new guest; and that this enthusiasm was general throughout the Doctor’s house, they earnestly desired to view and to know a man of such eminent attraction; and gave to Dr. Burney a commission to bring on the acquaintance.

  It was given, however, in vain. Mr. Crisp had no longer either health or spirit of enterprise for so formidable, however flattering, a new connexion; and inexorably resisted every overture for a meeting.

  But Mrs. Thrale, all alive for whatever was piquant and promising, grew so bewitched by the delight with which her new young ally, to whom she became daily more attached and more attaching, dilated on the rare perfections of Daddy Crisp; and the native and innocent pleasures of Liberty Hall, Chesington, that she started the plan of a little excursion for taking the premises by surprise. And Dr. Burney, certain that two such singularly accomplished persons could not meet but to their mutual gratification sanctioned the scheme; Mr. Thrale desired to form his own judgment of so uncommon a Recluse; and the Doctor’s pupil felt a juvenile curiosity to make one in the group.

  The party took place; but its pleasure was nearly marred by the failure, of the chief spring which would have put into motion, and set to harmony, the various persons who composed its drama.

  Dr. Burney, from multiplicity of avocations, was forced, when the day arrived, to relinquish his share in the little invasion; which cast a damp upon the gaiety of the project, both to the besieged and the besiegers. Yet Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Thrale met with mutual sentiments of high esteem, though the genius of their talents was dissimilar; Mrs. Thrale delighted in bursting forth with sudden flashes of wit, Which, carelessly, she left to their own consequences; while Mr. Crisp, though awake to her talents, and sensible of their rarity and their splendour, thought with Dr. Fordyce, that in woman the retiring graces are the most attractive.

  Nevertheless, in understanding, acuteness, and parts, there was so much in common between them, that sincere admiration grew out of the interview; though with too little native congeniality to mellow into confidence, or ripen into intimacy.

  Praise, too, that dangerous herald of expectation, is often a friend more perilous than any enemy; and both had involuntarily looked for a something indefinable which neither of them found; yet both had too much justness of comprehension to conclude that such a something did not exist, because no opportunity for its development had offered in the course of a few hours.

  What most, in this visit, surprised Mrs. Thrale with pleasure, was the elegance of Mr. Crisp in language and manners; because that, from the Hermit of Chesington, she had not expected.

  And what most to Mr. Crisp caused a similar pleasure, was the courteous readiness, and unassuming good-humour, with which Mrs. Thrale received the inartificial civilities of Kitty Cooke, and the old-fashioned but cordial hospitality of Mrs. Hamilton; for these, from a celebrated wit, moving in the sphere of high life, he also in his turn had not expected.

  The Thrales, however, were all much entertained by the place itself, which they prowled over with gay curiosity. Not a nook or corner; nor a dark passage “leading to nothing;” nor a hanging tapestry of prim demoiselles, and grim cavaliers; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to the ceiling; nor japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of different dimensions; nor an oaken corner cupboard, carved with heads, thrown in every direction, save such as might let them fall on men’s shoulders; nor a window stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a lofty slip of a room; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some quaint unfrequented apartment; nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in diamonds, squares, and round nobs, surmounting another of blue and white tiles, representing, — vis, a dog and a cat, as symbols of married life and harmony — missed their scrutinizing eyes.