And here Mrs. Thrale and I were much pleased with our hostess, Mrs. Laurence, who seemed something above her station in her inn. While we were at cards before supper, we were much surprised by the sounds of a pianoforte. I jumped up, and ran to listen whence it proceeded. I found it came from the next room, where the overture to the “Buona Figliuola” was performing. The playing was very decent, but as the music was not quite new to me, my curiosity was not whole ages in satisfying, and therefore I returned to finish the rubber.
Don’t I begin to talk in an old-cattish manner of cards?
Well, another deal was hardly played, ere we heard the sound of a voice, and out I ran again. The singing, however, detained me not long, and so back I whisked; but the performance, however indifferent in itself yet’ surprised us at the Bear however indifferent in itself, yet surprised us at Devizes, and therefore Mrs. Thrale determined to know from whom it came. Accordingly, she tapped at the door. A very handsome girl, about thirteen years old, with fine dark hair upon a finely-formed forehead, opened it. Mrs. Thrale made an apology for her intrusion, but the poor girl blushed and retreated into a corner of the room: another girl, however, advanced, and obligingly and gracefully invited us in and gave us all chairs. She was just sixteen extremely pretty, and with a countenance better than her features, though those were also very good. Mrs. Thrale made her many compliments, which she received with a mingled modesty and pleasure, both becoming and interesting. She was, indeed, a sweetly pleasing girl.
We found they were both daughters of our hostess, and born and bred at Devizes. We were extremely pleased with them, and made them a long visit, which I wished to have been longer. But though those pretty girls struck us so much, the wonder of the family was yet to be produced. This was their brother, a most lovely boy of ten years of age who seems to be not merely the wonder of their family, but of the times, for his astonishing skill in drawing. They protest he has never had any instruction, yet showed us some of his productions that were really beautiful. Those that were copies were delightful, those of his own composition amazing, though far inferior. I was equally struck with the boy and his works.
We found that he had been taken to town, and that all the painters had been very kind to him, and Sir Joshua Reynolds had pronounced him, the mother said, the most promising genius he had ever met with. Mr. Hoare has been so charmed with this sweet boy’s drawings that he intends sending him to Italy with his own son.
This house was full of books, as well as paintings, drawings, and music and all the family seem not only ingenious and industrious, but amiable; added to which, they are strikingly handsome.
LORD MULGRAVE ON THE “SERVICES.”
Bath. — I shall now skip to our arrival at this beautiful city which I really admire more than I did, if possible, when I first saw it. The houses are so elegant, the streets are so beautiful, the prospects so enchanting, I could fill whole pages upon the general beauty of the place and country, but that I have neither time for myself, nor incitement for you, as I know nothing tires so much as description.
Monday. — Lord Mulgrave, Augustus Phipps, Miss Cooper, Dr. Harrington, and Dr. Woodward dined with us.
I like Lord Mulgrave very much. He has more wit, and a greater readiness of repartee, than any man I have met with this age. During dinner he was all brilliancy, but I drew myself into a little scrape with him, from which I much wanted some of his wit to extricate myself. Mrs. Thrale was speaking of the House of Commons, and lamenting that she had never heard any debates there.
“And now,” said she, “I cannot, for this General Johnson has turned us all out most barbarously.”
“General Johnson?” repeated Lord Mulgrave.
“Ay, or colonel — I don’t know what the man was, but I know he was no man of gallantry.”
“Whatever he was,” said his lordship, “I hope he was a land officer.”
“I hope so too, my lord,” said she.
“No, no, no,” cried Mr. Thrale, “it was Commodore Johnson.”
“That’s bad, indeed,” said Lord Mulgrave, laughing. “I thought, by his manners, he had belonged to the army.”
“True,” said I “they were hardly polished enough for the sea.”
This I said a demi-voix, and meant only for Mrs. Thrale, but Lord Mulgrave heard and drew up upon them, and pointing his finger at me with a threatening air, exclaimed,
“Don’t you speak, Miss Burney? What’s this, indeed?”
They all stared, and to be sure I rouged pretty high.
“Miss Burney,” said Mrs. Thrale, “should be more respectful to be sure, for she has a brother at sea herself.”
“I know it,” said he, “and for all her, we shall see him come back from Kamschatka as polished a beau as any he will find.”
Poor Jem! God send him safe back, polished or rough.
Lord Mulgrave’s brother Edmund is just entered into the army.
“He told me t’other day,” said his lordship, “that he did not like the thoughts of being a parson.”
“‘Very well,’ said I, ‘you are old enough to choose for yourself; what will you be then?’
“‘Why, a soldier,’ says he.
“‘A soldier? will you so? Why, then, the best thing you can do is to embark with your brother Henry immediately, for you won’t know what to do in a regiment by yourself.’ Well, no sooner said than done! Henry was just going to the West Indies in Lord Harrington’s regiment, and Edmund ordered a chaise and drove to Portsmouth after him. The whole was settled in half an hour.”
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.
My sister Gast, in her younger days, was a great favourite with an old lady who was a particular crony and intimate of old Sarah Marlborough, who, though much of the jade, had undoubtedly very strong parts, and was indeed remarkably clever. When Mrs. Hinde (the old lady) would sometimes talk to her about books, she’d cry out, “Prithee, don’t talk to me about books; I never read any books but men and cards!” But let anybody read her book, and then tell me if she did not draw characters with as masterly a hand as Sir Joshua Reynolds. — Mr. Crisp to Fanny Burney (April 27.)
THE BYRONS.
Sunday — We had Mrs. Byron and Augusta, and Mrs. Lee, to spend the afternoon. Augusta opened her whole heart to me, as we sat together, and told me all the affairs of her family. Her brother, Captain George Byron, is lately returned from the West Indies, and has brought a wife with him from Barbadoes, though he was there only three weeks, and knew not this girl he has married till ten days before he left it! — a pleasant circumstance for this proud family!
Poor Mrs. Byron seems destined for mortification and humiliation; yet such is her native fire, and so wonderful are her spirits, that she bears up against all calamity, and though half mad one day with sorrow and vexation, is fit the next to entertain an assembly of company; — and so to entertain them as to make the happiest person in the company, by comparison with herself, seem sad.
Augusta is a very amiably ingenuous girl, and I love her the more for her love of her sisters: she talked to me of them all, but chiefly of Sophia, the youngest next to herself, but who, having an independent fortune, has quarrelled with her mother, and lives with one of her sisters, Mrs. Byron, who married a first cousin, And son of Lord Byron.
“Ah, Miss Burney,” she says continually, “if you knew Sophy, you would never bear me! she is so much better than I am, and so handsome, and so good, and so clever, — and I used to talk to her of you by the hour together. She longs so to know you! ‘Come,’ she says, ‘now tell me something more about your darling, Miss Burney.’ But I ought to hope you may never see her, for if you did I should be so jealous.”
MR. HENRY WILL BE SO MORTIFIED.
Friday was a busy and comical day. We had an engagement of long standing, to drink tea with Miss L — , whither we all went, and a most queer evening did we spend.
When we entered, she and all her company were looking out of the window; however, she found us out in a few mi
nutes, and made us welcome in a strain of delight and humbleness at receiving us, that put her into a flutter of spirits, from which she never recovered all the evening.
Her fat, jolly mother took her seat at the top of the room; next to her sat a lady in a riding habit, whom I soon found to be Mrs. Dobson; below her sat a gentlewoman, prim, upright, neat, and mean; and, next to her, sat another, thin, haggard, wrinkled, fine, and tawdry, with a thousand frippery ornaments and old-fashioned furbelows; she was excellently nick-named, by Mrs. Thrale, the Duchess of Monmouth. On the opposite side was placed Mrs. Thrale, and, next to her, Queeny. For my own part, little liking the appearance of the set, and half dreading Mrs. Dobson, from whose notice I wished to escape, I had made up myself to one of the now deserted windows, and Mr. Thrale had followed me. As to Miss L — , she came to stand by me, and her panic, I fancy, returned, for she seemed quite panting with a desire to say something, and an incapacity to utter it.
It proved happy for me that I had taken this place, for in a few minutes the mean, neat woman, whose name was Aubrey, asked if Miss Thrale was Miss Thrale?
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And pray, ma’am, who is that other young lady?”
“A daughter of Dr. Burney’s, ma’am.”
“What!” cried Mrs. Dobson, “is that the lady that has favoured us with that excellent novel?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then burst forth a whole volley from all at once. “Very extraordinary, indeed!” said one;— “Dear heart, who’d have thought it?” said another,— “I never saw the like in my life!” said a third. And Mrs. Dobson, entering more into detail, began praising it through, but chiefly Evelina herself, which she said was the most natural character she had ever met in any book.
Mr. and Mrs. Whalley now arrived, and I was obliged to go to a chair — when such staring followed; they could not have opened their eyes wider when they first looked at the Guildhall giants! I looked with all the gravity and demureness possible, in order to keep them from coming plump to the subject again, and, indeed this, for a while, kept them off.
Soon after, Dr. Harrington arrived, which closed our party. Miss L — went whispering to him, and then came up to me, with a look of dismay, and said,
“O, ma’am, I’m so prodigiously concerned; Mr. Henry won’t come!”
“Who, ma’am?”
“Mr. Henry, ma’am, the doctor’s son. But, to be sure, he does not know you are here, or else — but I’m quite concerned, indeed, for here now we shall have no young gentlemen!”
“O, all the better,” cried I, “I hope we shall be able to do very well without.”
“O yes, ma’am, to be sure. I don’t mean for any common young gentlemen; but Mr. Henry, ma’am, it’s quite another thing; — however, I think he might have come but I did not happen to mention in my card that you was to be here, and so — but I think it serves him right for not coming to see me.”
Soon after the mamma hobbled to me, and began a furious Panegyric upon my book, saying at the same time,
“I wonder, Miss, how you could get at them low characters. As to the lords and ladies, that’s no wonder at all; but, as to t’others, why, I have not stirred night nor morning while I’ve been reading it; if I don’t wonder how you could be so clever!”
And much, much more. And, scarcely had she unburthened herself, ere Miss L — trotted back to me, crying, in a tone of mingled triumph and vexation,
“Well, ma’am, Mr. Henry will be very much mortified when he knows who has been here; that he will, indeed; however, I’m sure he deserves it!”
I made some common sort of reply, that I hoped he was better engaged, which she vehemently declared was impossible.
We had now some music. Miss L — sung various old elegies of Jackson, Dr. Harrington, and Linley, and O how I dismalled in hearing them! Mr. Whalley, too, sung “Robin Gray,” and divers other melancholic ballads, and Miss Thrale Sang “Ti seguiro fedele.” But the first time there was a cessation of harmony, Miss L — again respectfully approaching me, cried,
“O well, all my comfort is that Mr. Henry will be prodigiously mortified! But there’s a ball to-night, so I suppose he’s gone to that. However, I’m sure if he had known of meeting you young ladies here — but it’s all good enough for him, for not coming.”
“Nay,” cried I, “if meeting young ladies is a motive with him, he can have nothing to regret while at a ball, where he will see many more than he could here.”
“O, ma’am, as to that — but I say no more, because it mayn’t be proper; but, to be sure, if Mr. Henry had known — however, he’ll be well mortified!”...
I was not two minutes relieved, ere Miss I — returned, to again assure me how glad she was that Mr. Henry would be mortified. The poor lady was quite heart-broken that we did not meet.
ALL THE BEST FAMILIES IN THE NAVY.
Tuesday. — Lord Mulgrave called this morning. He is returned to Bath for only a few days. He was not in his usual spirits; yet he failed not to give me a rub for my old offence, which he seems determined not to forget; for upon something being said, to which, however, I had not attended, about seamen, he cast an arch glance at me, and cried out,
“Miss Burney, I know, will take our parts — if I remember right, she is one of the greatest of our enemies!”
“All the sea captains,” said Mrs. Thrale, “fall upon Miss Burney: Captain Cotton, my cousin, was for ever plaguing her about her spite to the navy.”
This, however, was for the character of Captain Mirvan, which, in a comical and good-humoured way, Captain Cotton pretended highly to resent, and so, he told me, did all the captains in the navy.
Augusta Byron, too, tells me that the admiral, her father, very often talks of Captain Mirvan, and though the book is very high in his favour, is not half pleased with the captain’s being such a brute.
However, I have this to comfort me — that the more I see of sea captains, the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan; for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief — to roasting beaus, and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I showed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character. Some time after, while Lord Mulgrave was talking of Captain G. Byron’s marrying a girl at Barbadoes, whom he had not known a week, he turned suddenly to me, and called out,
“See, Miss Burney, what you have to expect — your brother will bring a bride from Kamschatka, without doubt!”
“That,” said I, “may perhaps be as well as a Hottentot, for when he was last out, he threatened us with a sister from the Cape of Good Hope.”
Thursday, — Lord Mulgrave and Dr. Harrington dined here. Lord Mulgrave was delightful; — his wit is of so gay, so forcible, so splendid a kind that when he is disposed to exert it, he not only engrosses attention from all the rest of the company, but demands the full use of all one’s faculties to keep pace in understanding the speeches, allusions, and sarcasms which he sports. But he will never, I believe, be tired of attacking me about the sea; “he will make me ‘eat it that leak,” I assure you.
During dinner he was speaking very highly of a sea officer whose name, I think, was Reynolds.
“And who is he?” asked Mrs. Thrale, to which his lordship answered, “Brother to Lord — something, but I forget what;” and then, laughing and looking at me, he added, “We have all the great families in the navy — ay, and all the best families, too, — have we not, Miss Burney? The sea is so favourable an element to genius, that there all high-souled younger brothers with empty pockets are sure of thriving: nay, I can say even more for it, for it not only fosters the talents of the spirited younger brothers, it also lightens the dullness even of that poor animal — an elder brother; so that it is always the most desirable place both for best and worst.”
“Well, your lordship is always ready to praise it,” said Mrs. Thrale, “and I only wish we had a few more like you in the service, — and long may you live, both to
defend and to ornament it!”
“Defence,” answered he with quickness, “it does not want, and, for ornament, it is above all!”
THE LADY OF BATH EASTON.
Saturday. — In the afternoon we all went to the Whalleys, where we found a large and a highly dressed company, at the head of which sat Lady Miller.
As soon as my discourse was over with Mr. Whalley, Lady Miller arose, and went to Mrs. Thrale, and whispered something to her. Mrs. Thrale then rose, too, and said,
“If your ladyship will give me leave, I will first introduce my daughter to you” — making Miss Thrale, who was next her mother, make her reverences.
“And now,” she continued, “Miss Burney, Lady Miller desires to be introduced to you.”
Up I jumped and walked forward; Lady Miller, very civilly, more than met me half way, and said very polite things, of her wish to know me, and regret that she had not sooner met me, and then we both returned to our seats.
Do you know now that notwithstanding Bath Easton is so much laughed at in London, nothing here is more tonish than to visit Lady Miller, who is extremely curious in her company, admitting few people who are not of rank or of fame, and excluding of those all who are not people of character very unblemished.
Some time after, Lady Miller took a seat next mine on the sofa, to play at cards, and was excessively civil indeed — scolded Mrs. Thrale for not sooner making us acquainted, and had the politeness to offer to take me to the balls herself, as she heard Mr. and Mrs. Thrale did not choose to go.
After all this, it is hardly fair to tell you what I think of her. However, the truth is, I always, to the best of my intentions, speak honestly what I think of the folks I see, without being biassed either by their civilities or neglect; and that you will allow is being a very faithful historian.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 532