“Ah, ma’am,” said Mrs. Delany, “how hard your grace was upon Mrs. Delvile: so elegant, so sensible, so judicious, so charming a woman.”
“O, I hate her,” cried the duchess, “resisting that sweet Cecilia; coaxing her, too, all the time, with such hypocritical flattery.”
“I shall never forget,” said Mrs. Delany, “your grace’s earnestness when we came to that part where Mrs. Delvile bursts a blood vessel. Down dropped the book, and just with the same energy as if your grace had heard some real and important news, You called out, ‘I’m glad of it with all my heart!’”
“What disputes, too,” said Mrs. Chapone, “there are about Briggs. I was in a room some time ago where somebody said there could be no such character; and a poor little mean city man, who was there, started up and said, ‘But there is though, for I’ve one myself!’”
“The Harrels! — O, then the Harrels!” cried Mrs. Delany.
“If you speak of the Harrels, and of the morality of the book,” cried the duchess, with a solemn sort of voice, “we shall, indeed, never give Miss Burney her due: so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive.”
“Yes,” cried Mrs. Chapone, “let us complain how we will of the torture she has given our nerves, we must all join in saying she has bettered us by every line.”
“No book,” said Mrs. Delany, “ever was so useful as this, because none other that is so good was ever so much read.”
I think I need now write no more. I could, indeed, hear no more; for this last so serious praise, from characters so respectable, so moral, and so aged, quite affected me; and though I had wished a thousand times during the discourse to run out of the room, when they gave me finally this solemn sanction to the meaning and intention of my writing, I found it not without difficulty that I could keep the tears out of my eyes; and when I told what had passed to our sweet father, his cup quite ran over.
The duchess had the good sense and judgment to feel she had drawn up her panegyric to a climax, and therefore here she stopped; so, however, did not we, for our coach was ready.
ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MR. CRISP.
FANNY BURNEY to MR. CRISP
April 12, 1783.
My dearest — dearest daddy,
I am more grieved at the long and most disappointing continuation of your illness than I know how to tell you; and though my last account, I thank heaven, is better, I find you still suffer so much, that my congratulations in my letter to Susan, upon what I thought your recovery, must have appeared quite crazy, if you did not know me as well as you do, and were not sure what affliction the discovery of my mistake would bring to myself. I think I never yet so much wished to be at Chesington, as at this time, that I might see how you go on, and not be kept in such painful suspense from post to post.
Why did you tell me of the Deladys, Portlands, Cambridges, etc., as if any of them came into competition with yourself? When you are better, I shall send you a most fierce and sharp remonstrance upon this subject. At present I must be content with saying, I will undoubtedly accept your most kind invitation as soon as I possibly can. Meantime, if my letters will give you any amusement, I will write oftener than ever, and supply you with all the prog I get myself.
Susan, who is my reader, must be your writer, and let me know if such tittle-tattle as I can collect serves to divert some of those many moments of languor and weariness that creep between pain and ease, and that call more for mental food than for bodily medicine. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern her; and I have no greater pleasure, when absent, than in letting you and my dear Susan be acquainted with my proceedings. I don’t mean by this to exclude the rest of the dear Chesington set — far from it — but a sister and a daddy must come first.
God bless and restore you, my most dear daddy! You know not how kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child, F. B.
[Mr. Crisp’s illness became so alarming, that Miss Burney
hastened to Chesington, where she had been only a few days
when her valued friend breathed his last. In reply to a
letter, in which she had given Dr. Burney an account of Mr.
Crisp’s increasing sufferings, the doctor wrote:
“Ah! my dear Fanny, your last letter has broke all our
hearts! your former accounts kept off despair; but this
brings it back in all its horrors. I wish, if it were
possible, that you would let him know how much I loved him,
and how heavily I shall feel his loss when all this hurry
subsides, and lets me have time to brood over my sorrows. I
have always thought that, in many particulars, his equal was
not to be found. His wit, learning, taste, penetration,
and, when well, his conviviality, pleasantry, and kindness
of heart to me and mine, will ever be thought of with the
most profound and desponding regret.”
After the last mournful duties had been performed at
Chesington, Miss Burney returned to her father’s house
in St. Martin’s-street; but some time elapsed ere she
recovered composure sufficient to resume her journal.]
DR. JOHNSON ATTACKED BY PARALYSIS.
Thursday, June 19. — We heard to-day that Dr. Johnson had been taken ill, in a way that gave a dreadful shock to himself, and a most anxious alarm to his friends. Mr. Seward brought the news here, and my father and I instantly went to his house. He had earnestly desired me, when we lived so much together at Streatham, to see him frequently if he should be ill. He saw my father, but he had medical people with him, and could not admit me upstairs, but he sent me down a most kind message, that he thanked me for calling, and when he was better should hope to see me often. I had the satisfaction to hear from Mrs. Williams that the physicians had pronounced him to be in no danger, and expected a speedy recovery.
The stroke was confined to his tongue. Mrs. Williams told me a most striking and touching circumstance that attended the attack. It was at about four o’clock in the morning: he found himself with a paralytic affection; he rose, and composed in his own mind a Latin prayer to the Almighty, “that whatever were the sufferings for which he must prepare himself, it would please Him, through the grace and mediation of our blessed Saviour, to spare his intellects, and let them all fall upon his body.” When he had composed this, internally, he endeavoured to speak it aloud, but found his voice was gone.
June 20. — I Went in the morning to Dr. Johnson, and heard a good account of him. Dr. Rose, Dr. Dunbar, and Sam Rose, the Doctor’s son, dined with us. We expected the rest of our party early though the absence of Dr. Johnson, whom they were all invited to meet, took off the spirit of the evening.
July 1. — I had the satisfaction to hear from Sir Joshua that Dr. Johnson had dined with him at the Club. I look upon him, therefore, now, as quite recovered. I called the next morning to congratulate him, and found him very gay and very good-humoured.
A PLEASANT DAY WITH THE CAMBRIDGES.
July 15. — To-day my father, my mother, and I, went by appointment to dine and spend the day at Twickenham with the Cambridges. Soon after our arrival Mr. C. asked if we should like to walk, to which we most readily agreed.
We had not strolled far before we were followed by Mr. George. No sooner did his father perceive him, than, hastily coming up to my side, he began a separate conversation with me; and leaving his son the charge of all the rest, he made me walk off with him from them all. It was really a droll manoeuvre, but he seemed to enjoy it highly, and though he said not a word of his design, I am sure it reminded me of his own old trick to his son, when listening to a dull story, in saying to the relator,— “Tell the rest of that to George.” And if George was in as good-humour with his part
y as his father was with his why, all were well pleased. As soon as we had fairly got away from them, Mr. Cambridge, with the kindest smiles of satisfaction, said,— “I give you my word I never was more pleased at any thing in my life than I am now at having you here to-day.”
I told him that I had felt so glad at seeing him again, after so long an absence, that I had really half a mind to have made up to him myself, and shook hands.
“You cannot imagine,” said he, “how you flatter me! — and there is nothing, I do assure you, of which I am prouder, than seeing you have got the better of your fear of me, and feeling that I am not afraid of you.”
“Of me, sir? — but how should you be?”
“Nay, I give you my word, if I was not conscious of the greatest purity of mind, I should more fear you than any body in the world. You know everything, everybody,” he continued, “so wonderfully well!”
We then, I know not how, fell into discussing the characters of forward and flippant women; and I told him it was my fortune to be, in general, a very great favourite with them, though I felt so little gratitude for that honour, that the smallest discernment would show them it was all thrown away.
“Why, it is very difficult,” said he, “for a woman to get rid of those forward characters without making them her enemies. But with a man it is different. Now I have a very peculiar happiness, which I will tell you. I never took very much to a very amiable woman but I found she took also to me, and I have the good fortune to be in the perfect confidence of some of the first women in this kingdom; but then there are a great many women that I dislike, and think very impertinent and foolish, and, do you know, they all dislike me too! — they absolutely cannot bear me! Now, I don’t know, of those two things, which is the greatest happiness.”
How characteristic this! — do you not hear him saying it?
We now renewed our conversation upon various of our acquaintances, particularly Mr. Pepys, Mr. Langton, and Mrs. Montagu. We stayed in this field, sitting and sauntering, near an hour. We then went to a stile, just by the riverside, where the prospect is very beautiful, and there we seated ourselves. Nothing could be more pleasant, though the wind was so high I was almost blown into the water.
He now traced to me great part of his life and conduct in former times, and told me a thousand excellent anecdotes of himself and his associates. He summed them all up in a way that gave me equal esteem and regard for him, in saying he found society the only thing for lasting happiness; that, if he had not met a woman he could permanently love, he must with every other advantage have been miserable — but that such was his good fortune, that “to and at this moment,” he said, “there is no sight so pleasing to me as seeing Mrs. Cambridge enter a room; and that after having been married to her for forty years. And the next most pleasing sight to me is an amiable woman.”
He then assured me that almost all the felicity of his life both had consisted, and did still consist, in female society. It was, indeed, he said, very rare but there was nothing like it.
“And if agreeable women,” cried I, “are rare, much more so, I think, are agreeable men; at least, among my acquaintance they are very few, indeed, that are highly agreeable.”
“Yes, and when they are so,” said he, “it is difficult for you to have their society with any intimacy or comfort; there are always so many reasons why you cannot know them.”
We continued chatting until we came to the end of the meadow, and there we stopped, and again were joined by the company.
Mr. Cambridge now proposed the water, to which I eagerly agreed.
We had an exceeding pleasant excursion. We went up the river beyond the Duke of Montagu’s, and the water was smooth and delightful. Methinks I should like much to sail from the very source to the mouth of the Thames....
After dinner we again repaired to the lawn, in a general body; but — we — had scarce moved ten paces, before Mr. Cambridge again walked off with me, to a seat that had a very fine view of Petersham wood, and there we renewed our confabulation.
He now shewed me a note from Mr. Gibbon, sent to engage himself to Twickenham on the unfortunate day he got his ducking. It is the most affected little piece of writing I ever saw. He shall attend him, he says, at Twickenham, and upon the water, as soon as the weather is propitious, and the Thames, that amiable creature, is ready, to receive him.
Nothing, to be sure, could be so apt as such a reception as that “amiable creature” happened to give him! Mr. Cambridge said it was “God’s revenge against conceit.”
DR. JOHNSON’s HEROIC FORBEARANCE.
Tuesday, December 9 — This evening at Mrs. Vesey’s, Mr. George Cambridge came, and took the chair half beside me. I told him of some new members for Dr. Johnson’s club!
“I think,” said he, “it sounds more like some club that one reads of in the ‘Spectator,’ than like a real club in these times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a single night in other clubs. Does Pepys belong to it?”
“Oh no! he is quite of another party! He is head man on the side of the defenders of Lord Lyttelton. Besides, he has had enough of Dr. Johnson; for they had a grand battle upon the ‘Life of Lyttelton,’ at Streatham.”
“And had they really a serious quarrel? I never imagined it had amounted to that.”
“Yes, serious enough, I assure you. I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then: and dreadful, indeed, it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale!”
“But how did it begin? What did he say?”
“Oh, Dr. Johnson came to the point without much ceremony. He called out aloud, before a large company, at dinner, ‘What have you to say, sir, to me or of me? Come forth, man! I hear you object to my “Life of Lord Lyttelton. What are your objections? If you have anything to say, let’s hear it. Come forth, man, when I call you!’”
“What a call, indeed! Why, then, he fairly bullied him into a quarrel!”
“Yes. And I was the more sorry, because Mr. Pepys had begged of me, before they met, not to let Lord Lyttelton be mentioned. Now I had no more power to prevent it than this macaroon cake in my hand.”
“It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale, certainly, to quarrel in her house.”
“Yes; but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu, and to refrain was an act of heroic forbearance.”
“Why, I rather wonder he did not; for she was the head of the set of Lytteltonians.”
“Oh, he knows that; he calls Mr. Pepys only her prime minister.”
“And what does he call her?
“Queen,’ to be sure! ‘Queen of the blues.’ She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her. But he had made a promise to Mrs. Thrale to have no more quarrels in her house, and so he forced himself to forbear. Indeed he was very much concerned, when it was over, for what had passed; and very candid and generous in acknowledging it. He is too noble to adhere to wrong.”
“And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?”
“Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courteseying to him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly declared — that she would never speak to him more! However, he went up to her himself, longing to begin! and very roughly said,— ‘Well, madam, what’s become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it.’
“But how did she bear this?”
“Why she was obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened — as everybody else does — that she was as civil as ever.”
He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams, because she had allowed her something yearly, which now ceased. ‘And I had a very kind answer from her,’ said he.
“‘Well then, sir,’
cried I, ‘I hope peace now will be again proclaimed.’”
“‘Why, I am now,’ said he, ‘come to that time when I wish all bitterness and animosity to be at an end. I have never done her any serious harm — nor would I; though I could give her a bite! — but she must provoke me much first. In volatile talk, indeed, I may have spoken of her not much to her mind; for in the tumult of conversation malice is apt to grow sprightly! and there, I hope, I am not yet decrepid!’”
He quite laughed aloud at this characteristic speech.
I most readily assured the doctor that I had never yet seen him limp.
“SWEET BEWITCHING MRS. LOCKE.”
Friday, April 23, 1784. — The sweet and most bewitching Mrs. Locke called upon me in the evening, with her son George. I let her in and did so rejoice I had not gone to Mrs. Vesey’s. But I rejoiced for only a short time; she came but to take leave, for she was going to Norbury the very next morning. I was quite heavy all the evening. She does truly interest both head and heart. I love her already. And she was so kind, so caressing, so soft; pressed me so much to fix a time for going to Norbury; said such sweet things of Mrs. Phillips; and kissed me so affectionately in quitting me, that I was quite melted by her.
What a charm has London lost for me by her departure sweet creature that she is; born and bred to dispense pleasure and delight to all who see or know her! She, Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Delany, in their several ways all excellent, possess the joint powers of winning the affections, while they delight the intellects, to the highest summit I can even conceive of human attraction. The heart-fascination of Mrs. Thrale, indeed, few know — but those few must confess and must feel her sweetness, to them, is as captivating as her wit is brilliant to all.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 544