The queen, a few days later, made an entry with almost as little preparation; save that the king, though he had not announced, had preceded her; and that the chairman’s knock at the door had excited some suspicion of her approach; while the king, who came on foot, and quite alone, had only rung at the bell; each of them palpably showing a condescending intention to avoid creating a panic in the new guest; as well as to obviate, what repeatedly had happened when they arrived without these precautions, a timid escape.
To describe what the queen was in this interview, would be to portray grace, sprightliness, sweetness, and spirit, embodied in one frame. And each of these sovereigns, while bestowing all their decided attentions upon their venerable and admirable hostess, deigned to display the most favourable disposition towards her new visitor; the whole of their manner, and the whole tenor of their discourse denoting a curious desire to develope, if traceable, the peculiarities which had impelled that small person, almost whether she would or not, into public notice.
The pleasure with which Dr. Burney received the details now transmitted to him, of the favour with which his daughter was received at Windsor, made a marked period of parental satisfaction in his life; and these accounts, with some others on a similar topic of a more recent date, were placed amongst hoards to which he had the most, frequent recourse for recreation in his latter years.
The incidents, indeed, leading to this so honourable a distinction were singular almost to romance. This daughter, from a shyness of disposition the most fearful, as well as from her native obscurity, would have been the last, in the common course of things, to have had the smallest chance of attracting royal notice; but the eccentricity of her opening adventure into life had excited the very curiosity which its scheme meant to render abortive; and these august personages beheld her with an evident wish of making some acquaintance with her characters They saw her, also, under the auspices of a lady whom they had almost singled out from amongst womankind as an object worthy of their private friendship; and whose animated regard for her, they knew, had set aloof all distance of years, and all recency of intercourse.
These were circumstances to exile common form and royal disciplinarianism from these great personages; and to give to them the smiling front and unbent brow of their fair native, not majestically acquired, physiognomies. And the impulsive effect of such urbanity was facilitating their purpose to its happy, honoured object; who found herself, as if by enchantment, in this’ august presence, without the panic of being summoned, or the awe of being presented. Nothing was chilled by ceremonial, nothing was stiffened by etiquette, nothing belonging to the formulae of royalty kept up stately distance. No lady in waiting exhibited the queen; no equerry pointed out the king; the reverence of the heart sufficed to impede any forgetfulness of their rank; and the courtesy of their own unaffected hilarity diffused ease, spirit, and pleasure all around.
The king, insatiably curious to become still more minutely master of the history of the publication of Evelina, was pointed, though sportive, in question to bring forth that result The queen, still more desirous to develope the author than the book, was arch and intelligent in converse, to draw out her general sentiments and opinions; and both were So gently, yet so gaily, encouraging, that not to have met their benignant openness with frank vivacity,’ must rather have been insensibility than timidity.
They appeared themselves to enjoy the novelty of so domestic an evening visit, which, it is believed, was unknown to their practice till they had settled Mrs. Delany in a private house of their own presentation at Windsor. Comfortably here they now took their tea, which was brought to them by Miss Fort; Mrs. Delany, to whom that office belonged, being too infirm for its performance; and they stayed on, in lively, easy, and pleasant conversation, abandoning cards, concert, and court circle, for the whole evening. And still, when, very late, they made their exit, they seemed reluctantly to depart.
WARREN HASTINGS.
The far and but too deeply, widely, and unfortunately famed Warren Hastings was now amongst the persons of high renown, who courteously sought the acquaintance of Dr. Burney.
The tremendous attack upon the character and conduct of Governor Hastings, which terminated, through his own dauntess appeal for justice, in the memorable trial at Westminster Hall, hung then suspended over his head: and, as Mr. Burke was his principal accuser, it would strongly have prejudiced the Doctor against the accused, had not some of the most respectable connexions of the governor, who had known him through the successive series of his several governments, and through the whole display of his almost unprecedented power, been particularly of the Doctor’s acquaintance; and these all agreed that the uniform tenor of the actions of Mr. Hastings, while he was governor general of India, spoke humanity, moderation, and liberality.
His demeanour and converse were perfectly corroboratory with this praise; and he appeared to Dr. Burney to be one of the greatest men then living as a public character; while as a private man, his gentleness, candour, and openness of discourse, made him one of the most pleasing. He talked with the utmost frankness upon his situation and affairs; and with a perfect reliance of victory over his enemies, from a fearless consciousness of probity and honour.
That Mr. Burke, the high-minded Mr. Burke, with a zeal nearly frantic in the belief of popular rumours, could so impetuously, so wildly, so imperiously, be his prosecutor, was a true grief to the Doctor, and seemed an enigma inexplicable.
But Mr. Burke, with all the depth and sagacity of the rarest wisdom where he had time for consideration, and opportunity for research, had still not only the ardour, but the irreflection of ingenuous juvenile credulity, where tales of horror, of cruelty, or of woe, where placed before him with a cry for redress.
Dr. Burney was painfully and doubly disturbed at this terrific trial, through his esteem and admiration for both parties; and he kept as aloof from the scene of action during the whole of its Trojan endurance, as he would have done from a bull fight, to which both antagonists had been mercilessly exposed. For though, through his transcendent merit, joined to a longer and more grateful connexion, he had an infinitely warmer personal regard for Mr. Burke, he held Mr. Hastings, in this case, to be innocent, and consequently injured: on him, therefore, every wish of victory devolved; yet so high was the reliance of the Doctor on the character of intentional integrity in the prosecutor, that he always beheld him as a man under a generous, however fanatical delusion of avenging imputed wrongs; and he forgave what he could not justify.
STRAWBERRY HILL.
Few amongst those who, at this period, honoured Dr. Burney with an increasing desire of intimacy, stood higher in fashionable celebrity than Horace Walpole, and his civilities to the father were evermore accompanied by an at least equal portion of distinction for his daughter; with whom, after numerous invitations that circumstances had rendered ineffective, the Doctor, in 1780, had the pleasure of making a visit of some days to Strawberry Hill.
Mr. Walpole paid them the high and well understood compliment of receiving them without other company. No man less needed auxiliaries for the entertainment of his guests, when he was himself in good humour and good spirits. He had a fund of anecdote that could provide food for conversation without any assistance from the news of the day, or the state of the elements: and he had wit and general knowledge to have supplied their place, had his memory been of that volatile description that retained no former occurrence, either of his own or of his neighbour, to relate. He was scrupulously, and even elaborately well bred; fearing, perhaps, from his conscious turn to sarcasm, that if he suffered himself to be unguarded, he might utter expressions more amusing to be recounted aside, than agreeable to be received in front He was a witty, sarcastic, ingenious, deeply thinking, highly cultivated, quaint, though evermore gallant and romantic, though very mundane, old bachelor of other days.
But his external obligations to nature were by no means upon a par with those which he owed to her mentally: his eyes were inexpressive; and
his countenance, when not worked upon by his elocution, was of the same description; at least in these his latter days.
Strawberry Hill was now exhibited to the utmost advantage. W
All that was peculiar, especially the most valuable of his pictures, he had the politeness to point out to his guests himself; and not unfrequently, from the deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed; and the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which they were hung, striking recollections were brought to their minds of his gothic story of the Castle of Otranto.
He showed them, also, with marked pleasure, the very vase immortalized by Gray, into which the pensive, but rapacious Selima had glided to her own destruction, whilst grasping at that of her golden prey. On the outside of the vase Mr. Walpole had had labelled,
“’Twas on THIS lofty vase’s side.”
He accompanied them to the picturesque villa already mentioned, which had been graced by the residence of Lady Di. Beauclerk; but which, having lost that fair possessor, was now’ destined for two successors in the highly talented Miss Berrys; of whom he was anticipating with delight the expected arrival from Italy. After displaying the elegant apartments, pictures, decorations, and beautiful grounds and views; all which, to speak in his own manner, had a sort of well-bred as well as gay and recreative appearance, he conducted them to a small but charming octagon room, which was ornamented in every pannel by designs taken from his own tragedy of the Mysterious Mother, and executed by the accomplished Lady Di.
Dr. Burney beheld them with the admiration that could not but be excited by the skill, sensibility, and refined expression of that eminent lady artist: and the pleasure of his admiration happily escaped the alloy by which it would have been adulterated, had he previously read the horrific tragedy whence the subject had been chosen; a tragedy that seems written upon a plan as revolting to probability as to nature; and that violates good taste as forcibly as good feeling. It seems written, indeed, as if in epigrammatic scorn of the horrors of the Greek drama, by giving birth to conceptions equally terrific, and yet more appalling.
In the evening, Mr. Walpole favoured them with producing several, and opening some of his numerous repositories of hoarded manuscripts; and he pointed to a peculiar caravan, or strong box, that he meant to leave to his great nephew, Lord Waldegrave; with an injunction that it should not be unlocked for a certain number of years, perhaps thirty, after the death of Mr. Walpole; by which time, he probably calculated, that all then living, who might be hurt by its contents, would be above, — or beneath them.
He read several picked out and extremely clever letters of Madame du Deffand, of whom he recounted a multiplicity of pleasant histories; and he introduced to them her favourite little lap dog, which he fondled and cherished, fed by his side, and made his constant companion. There was no appearance of the roughness with which he had treated its mistress, in his treatment of the little animal; to whom, perhaps, he paid his court in secret penitence, as l’amende honorable for his harshness to its bequeather.
Horace Walpole was amongst those whose character, as far as it was apparent, had contradictory qualities so difficult to reconcile one with another, as to make its development, from mere general observation, superficial and unsatisfactory. And Strawberry Hill itself, with all its chequered and interesting varieties of detail, had a something in its whole of monotony, that cast, insensibly, over its visiters, an indefinable species of secret constraint; and made cheerfulness rather the effect of effort than the spring of pleasure; by keeping more within bounds than belongs to their buoyant love of liberty, those light, airy, darting, bursts of unsought gaiety, yclept animal spirits.
Nevertheless, the evenings of this visit were spent delightfully — they were given up to literature, and to entertaining, critical, ludicrous, or anecdotical conversation. Dr. Burney was nearly as full fraught as Mr. Walpole with all that could supply materials of this genus; and Mr. Walpole had so much taste for his society, that he was wont to say, when Dr. Burney was running off, after a rapid call in Berkeley-square, “Are you going already, Dr. Burney! — Very well, sir? but remember you owe me a visit!”
The pleasure, however, which his urbanity and unwearied exertions evidently bestowed upon his present guests, seemed to kindle in his mind a reciprocity of sensation that warmed him into an increase of kindness; and urged the most impressive desire of detaining them for a lengthened visit. He left no flattery of persuasion, and no bribery of promised entertainment untried to allure their compliance. The daughter was most willing: and the father was not less so; but his time was irremediably portioned out, and no change was in his power.
Mr. Walpole looked seriously surprised as well as chagrined at the failure of his eloquence and his temptations: though soon recovering his usual tone, he turned off his vexation with his characteristic pleasantry, by uncovering a large portfolio, and telling them that it contained a collection of all the portraits that were extant, of every person mentioned in the letters of Madame de Sevigné; “and if you will not stay at least another day,” he said, patting the portfolio with an air of menace, “you shan’t see one drop of them!”
MR. STANLEY.
In May, 1786, died that wonderful blind musician, and hilly worthy man, Mr. Stanley, who had long been in a declining state of health, but who was much lamented by all with whom he had lived in any intimacy.
Once more a vacancy opened to Dr. Burney of the highest post of honour in his profession, that of master of the King’s Band; a post which in earlier life he had been promised, and of which the disappointment had caused him the most cruel chagrin.
He had now to renew his application. But the chamberlain was changed; and he was again defeated.
MR. SMELT.
Very shortly after this most undeserved disappointment, the memorialist — who must still, perforce, mingle, partially, something of her own memoirs with those of her father, with which, at this period, they were indispensably linked — met, by his own immediate request, Mr. Smelt, at the house of Mrs. Delany, who was then at her London dwelling, in St James’s place.
He expressed the most obliging concern at the precipitancy of the lord chamberlain, who had disposed, he said, of the place before be knew the king’s pleasure; and Mr. Smelt scrupled not to confess that his majesty’s own intentions had by no means been fulfilled.
As soon in the evening as all visiters were gone, and only himself and the memorialist remained with Mrs. Delany, Mr. Smelt glided, with a gentleness and delicacy that accompanied all his proceedings, into the subject that led him to demand this interview. And this was no other than the offer of a place to the memorialist in the private establishment of the queen.
Her surprise was considerable; though by no means what she would have felt had such an offer not been preceded by the most singular graciousness. Nevertheless, a mark of personal favour so unsolicited, so unthought of, could not but greatly move her: and the moment of disappointment and chagrin to her father at which it occurred; with the expressive tone and manner in which it was announced by Mr. Smelt, brought it close to her heart, as an intended and benevolent mark of goodness to her father himself, that might publicly manifest how little their majesties had been consulted, when Dr. Burney had again so unfairly been set aside.
But while these were the ideas that on the first moment awakened the most grateful sensations towards their majesties, others, far less exhilarating, broke into their vivacity before they had even found utterance. A morbid stroke of sickly apprehension struck upon her mind with forebodings of separation from her father, her family, her friends; a separation which, when there is neither distress to enforce, nor ambition to stimulate a change, can have one only equivalent, or inducement, for an affectionate female; namely, a home of her own with a chosen partner; and even then, the filial sunderment, where there is filial tenderness, is a pungent drawback to all new scenes of life.
Nevertheless, she was fully sensible that here, though there was not that p
otent call to bosom feelings, there was honour the most gratifying in a choice so perfectly spontaneous; and favour amounting to kindness, from a quarter whence such condescension could not but elevate with pleasure, as well as charm and penetrate with gratitude and respect Still — the separation, — for the residence was to be invariably at the palace; — the total change of life; the relinquishing the brilliant intellectual circle into which she had been so flatteringly invited —
She hesitated — she breathed hard — she could not attempt to speak.
But she was with those to whom speech is not indispensable for discourse; who could reciprocate ideas without uttering or hearing a syllable; and to whose penetrating acumen words are the bonds, but not the revealers of thoughts.
They saw, and understood her conflict; and by their own silence showed that they respected hers, and its latent cause.
And when, after a long pause, ashamed of their patience, she would have expressed her sense of its kindness, they would not hear her apology. “Do not hurry your spirits in your answer, my dear Miss Burney,” said Mrs. Delany; “pray take your own time: Mr. Smelt, I am sure, will wait it.”
“Certainly he will,” said Mr. Smelt; he can wait it even till to-morrow morning; for he is not to give his answer till tomorrow noon.” — .
“Take then the night, my dear Miss Burney,” cried Mrs. Delany, in a tone of the softest sympathy, “for deliberation; that you may think every thing over, and not be hurried; and let us all three meet here again to-morrow morning at breakfast.”
“How good you both are!” the memorialist was faintly uttering, when what was her surprise to hear Mr. Smelt, who, with a smile, interrupted her, say: “I have no claim to such a panegyric! I should ill execute the commission with which I have been entrusted, if I embarrassed Miss Burney; for the great personage from whom I hold it, permitted my speaking first to Miss Burney alone, without consulting even Dr. Burney; that she might form her own unbiassed determination.”
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