Having run through all he could immediately recollect, he said, with a very droll smile, “Come, now I’ll finish our ode,” and went to my drawer for “Akenside.”
His fears of surprise, however, again came upon him so strongly while reading it, that he flung away the book in the utmost commotion at every sound, lest any one was entering, always saying in excuse, “We must not be called two blue stockings;” and, “They are so glad to laugh; the world is so always on the watch for ridicule.” . . .
I know not by what means, but after this we talked over Mr.
Hastings’s trial. I find he is very much acquainted with Mr.
Windham, and I surprised him not a little, I saw, by what I told
him of part Of My conferences with that gentleman.
This matter having led us from our serious subjects, he took ) up “Akenside” once more, and read to me the first book throughout, What a very, very charming poem is the “Pleasures of the Imagination!” He stayed to the last moment, and left me all the better for the time he thus rescued from feverish lassitude and suffering.
A VISIT TO WORCESTER.
Tuesday, Aug. 5-The journey to Worcester was very pleasant, and the country through which we passed extremely luxuriant and pretty. We did not go in by the Barborne road; but all the road, and all avenues leading to it, were lined with people, and when we arrived at the city we could see nothing but faces; they lined the windows from top to bottom, and the pavement from end to end.
We drove all through the city to come to the palace of Bishop Hurd, at which we were to reside. Upon stopping there, the king had an huzza that seemed to vibrate through the whole town; the princess royal’s carriage had a second, and the equerries a third; the mob then, as ours drew on in succession, seemed to deliberate whether or not we also should have a cheer: but one of them soon decided the matter by calling out, “These are the maids of honour!” and immediately they gave us an huzza that made us quite ashamed, considering its vicinity.
Mr. Fairly and Colonel Goldsworthy having performed the royal attendance, waited to hand us out of the carriage; and then the former said he believed he should not be wanted, and would go and make a visit in the town. I should have much liked walking off also, and going to my cousins at Barborne Lodge; but I was no free agent, and obliged to wait for commands.
The house is old and large; part of it looks to the Severn but the celebrated “Fair Sabrina” was so thick and muddy, that at this time her vicinity added but little to the beauty of the situation.
My bed-room is pleasant, with a view of the distant country and the Severn beneath it; but it is through that of the princess royal; which is an inconvenience her royal highness submits to with a grace that would make me ashamed to call it one to myself. The parlour for our eating is large and dark, and old-fashioned. I made tea in it to-night for Lord Courtown and the two colonels, and Miss Planta, and was so much the better for my journey, that I felt the influenza nearly conquered.
Wednesday, Aug. 6.-I had the pleasure to arrange going to the music meeting with my own family. Notes were immediately interchanged from and to Barborne Lodge, and the queen was very well pleased that I should have this opportunity of joining my friends. Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins and Betsy called for me at the bishop’s.
I was heartily glad to see Betsy and Mrs. Hawkins I introduced Miss Planta to them, who was of our party. We sat in what are called the steward’s places, immediately under their majesties. The performance was very long, and tolerably tedious, consisting of Handel’s gravest pieces and fullest choruses, and concluding with a sermon concerning the institution of the charity, preached by Dr. Langhorne. I was, however, so glad to be with my cousins, that the morning was very comfortable and pleasant to me. Richard and James joined us occasionally.; the rest of the family are at Shrewsbury.
It was over very late, and we then went about the church, to see King John’s tomb, etc, They were very earnest with me to go to Barborne but it was impossible. I promised, however, to accompany them to the concert at night, and be of their party to all the morning meetings at the cathedral.’
My parlour at the bishop’s afforded me a good deal of entertainment, from observing the prodigious concourse of people from all the tops of houses, and looking over the walls to watch his majesty’s entrance into the court-yard. Poor Lord Courtown, on account of his star, was continually taken for the king, and received so many huzzas and shouts, that he hardly dared show himself except when in attendance.
THE QUEEN AND MR. FAIRLY.
Saturday, Aug. 9.-Her majesty this morning a little surprised me by gravely asking me what were Mr. Fairly’s designs with regard to his going away? I could not tell her I did not know what I was really acquainted with; yet I feared it might seem odd to her that I should be better informed than herself, and it was truly unpleasant to me to relate anything he had told me without his leave. Her question, therefore, gave me a painful sensation; but it was spoken with an air so strongly denoting a belief that I had power to answer it, that I felt no choice in making a plain reply. Simply, then, “I understand, ma’am,” I said, “that he means to go to-morrow morning early.”
“Will he stay on to-night, then, at Worcester?”
“N-o, ma’am, I believe not.”
“I thought he meant to leave us to-day? He said so.”
“He intended it, ma’am, — he would else not have said it.”
“I know I understood so, though he has not spoke to me of his designs this great while.”
I saw an air bordering upon displeasure as this was said and how sorry I felt! — and how ashamed of being concluded the person better informed! Yet, as he had really related to me his plan, and I knew it to be what he had thought most respectful to herself, I concluded it best, thus catechised, to speak it all, and therefore, after some hesitation uninterrupted by her, I said, “I believe, ma’am, Mr. Fairly had intended fully to begin his journey to-day, but, as Your majesty is to go to the play to-night, he thinks it his duty to defer setting out till to-morrow, that he may have the honour to attend your majesty as usual.”
This, which was the exact truth, evidently pleased her.
Here the inquiry dropped; but I was very uneasy to relate it to Mr. Fairly, that the sacrifice I knew he meant to make of another day might not lose all its grace by wanting to be properly revealed.
MR. FAIRLY MORALIZES.
Our journey back to Cheltenham was much more quiet than it had been to Worcester, for the royal party too], another route to see Malvern hills, and we went straight forward.
Miss Planta having now caught the influenza, suffered very much all the way, and I persuaded her immediately to lie down when we got to Fauconberg Hall. She could not come down to dinner, which I had alone. The Princess Elizabeth came to me after it, with her majesty’s permission that I might go to the play with my usual party; but I declined it, that I might make some tea for poor Miss Planta, as she had no maid, nor any creature to help her. The princess told me they were all going first upon the walks, to promener till the play time.
I sat down to make my solitary tea, and had just sent up a basin to Miss Planta, when, to my equal surprise and pleasure, Mr. Fairly entered the room. “I come now,” he said, “to take my leave.”
They were all, he added, gone to the walks, whither he must in a few minutes follow them, and thence attend to the play, and the next morning, by five o’clock, be ready for his post-chaise. Seeing me, however, already making tea, with his Usual and invariable sociability he said he would venture to stay and partake, though he was only come, he gravely repeated, to take his leave.
“And I must not say,” cried I, “that I am sorry you are going, because I know so well you wish to be gone that it makes me wish it for you myself.”
“No,” answered he, “you must not be sorry; when our friends are going to any joy. We must think of them, and be glad to part with them.”
Readily entering the same tone, with similar plainness of truth I a
nswered, No, I will not be sorry you go, though miss you at Cheltenham I certainly must.”
“Yes,” was his unreserved assent, “you will miss me here, because I have spent my evenings with you; but You Will not long remain at Cheltenham.”
Oim`e!” thought I, you little think how much Worse will be the quitting it. He owned that the bustle and fatigue of this life was too much both for his health and his spirits.
I told him I Wished it might be a gratification to him, in his toils, to hear how the queen always spoke of him; With what evident and constant complacency and distinction. “And you may credit her sincerity,” I added, “Since it is to so little a person as me she does this, and when no one else is present.”
He was not insensible to this, though he passed it over without much answer. He showed me a letter from his second son, very affectionate and natural. I congratulated him, most sincerely, on his approaching happiness in collecting them all together. “Yes he answered, “my group will increase, like a snow-ball, as I roll along, and they will soon all four be as happy as four little things know how to be.”
This drew him on into some reflections upon affection and upon happiness. “There is no happiness,” he said, “without participation; no participation without affection. There is, indeed, in affection a charm that leaves all things behind it, and renders even every calamity that does not interfere with it inconsequential and there is no difficulty, no toil, no labour, no exertion, that will not be endured where there is a view of reaping it.”
He ruminated some time, and then told me of a sermon he had heard preached some months ago, sensibly demonstrating the total vanity and insufficiency, even for this world, of all our best affections, and proving their fallibility from our most infirm humanity.
My concurrence did not here continue: I cannot hold this doctrine to be right, and I am most sure it is not desirable. our best affections, I must and do believe, were given us for the best purposes, for every stimulation to good, and every solace in evil.
But this was not a time for argument. I said nothing, while he, melancholy and moralizing, continued in this style as long as he could venture to stay. He then rose and took his hat, saying, “ Well, so much for the day; what may come to-morrow I know not; but, be it what it may, I stand prepared.”
I hoped, I told him, that his little snowball would be all he could wish it, and I was heartily glad he would so soon collect it.
“We will say,” cried he, “nothing of any regrets,” and bowed, and was hastening off.
The “we,” however, had an openness and simplicity that drew from me an equally open and simple reply. “No,” I cried, “but I will say-for that you will have pleasure in hearing that you have lightened my time here in a manner that no one else could have done, of this party.”
To be sure this was rather a circumscribed compliment, those he left considered - but it was strict and exact truth, and therefore like his own dealing. He said not a word of answer, but bowed, and went away, leaving me firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend, for life.
MAJOR PRICE IS TIRED OF RETIREMENT.
Sunday, Aug. 10.-Major Price was of the breakfast party this morning, to my great contentment. I heartily wish he was again in the king’s household, he is so truly attached to his majesty, and he so earnestly himself wishes for a restoration, not to the equerryship, which is too laborious an office, but to any attendance upon the king’s person of less fatigue.
He opened to me very much upon his situation and wishes. he has settled himself in a small farm near the house of his eldest brother, but I could see too plainly he has not found there the contentment that satisfies him. He sighs for society; he owns books are insufficient for everything, and his evenings begin already to grow wearisome. He does not wish it to be talked of publicly, but he is solicitous to return to the king, in any place attached to his person, of but mild duty. Not only the king, he said, he loved, but all his society, and the way of life in general; and he had no tie whatsoever to Herefordshire that would make him hesitate a moment in quitting it, if another place could be made adequate to his fortune. His income was quite too small for any absence from his home of more than a few weeks, in its present plight; and therefore it could alone be by some post under government that he must flatter himself with ever returning to the scenes he had left.
How rarely does a plan of retirement answer the expectations upon which it is raised! He fears having this suspected, and therefore keeps the matter to himself; but I believe he so much opened it to me, in the hope I might have an opportunity to make it known where it might be efficacious; for he told me, at the same time, he apprehended his majesty had a notion his fondness for Herefordshire, not his inability to continue equerry, had occasioned his resignation.
I shall certainly make it my business to hint this to the queen. So faithful and attached a servant ought not to be thrown aside, and, after nine years’ service, left unrewarded, and seem considered as if superannuated.
MR. FAIRLY’S LITTLE NOTE.
When I came from her majesty, just before she went down to dinner, I was met by a servant who delivered me a letter, which he told me was just come by express. I took it in some alarm, fearing that ill news alone could bring it by such haste, but, before I could open it, he said, “’Tis from Mr. Fairly, ma’am.”
I hastened to read, and will now copy it:-
“Northleach, Aug. 10, 1788. “Her majesty may possibly not have heard that Mr. Edmund Waller died on Thursday night. He was master of St. Catherine’s, which is in her majesty’s gift. It may be useful to her to have this early intelligence of this circumstance, and you will have the goodness to mention it to her. Mr. W. was at a house upon his own estate within a mile and a half of this place, Very truly and sincerely yours, “S. Fairly.” “Miss Burney, Fauconberg Hall. How to communicate this news, however, was a real distress to me. I know her majesty is rather scrupulous that all messages immediately to herself should be conveyed by the highest channels, and I feared she would think this ought to have been sent through her lady then in waiting, Lady Harcourt. Mr. Fairly, too, however superior to such small matters for himself, is most punctiliously attentive to them for her. I could attribute this only to haste. But my difficulty was not alone to have received the intelligence-the conclusion of the note I was sure would surprise her. The rest, as a message to herself, being without any beginning, would not strike her; but the words “very truly and sincerely yours,” come out with such an abrupt plainness, and to her, who knows not with what intimacy of intercourse we have lived together so much during this last month, I felt quite ashamed to show them.
While wavering how to manage, a fortunate circumstance seemed to come to my relief; the Princess Elizabeth ran up hastily to her room, which is just opposite to mine, before she followed the queen down to dinner; I flew after her, and told her I had just heard of the death of Mr. Waller, the Master of St. Catherine’s, and I begged her to communicate it to her majesty.
She undertook it, with her usual readiness to oblige, and I was quite delighted to have been so speedy without producing my note, which I determined now not even to mention unless called upon, and even then not to produce; for now, as I should not have the first telling, it might easily be evaded by not having it in my pocket.
The moment, however, that the dinner was over, Princess Elizabeth came to summon me to the queen. This was very unexpected, as I thought I should not see her till night; but I locked up my note and followed.
She was only with the princesses. I found the place was of importance, by the interest she took about it. She asked me several questions relative to Mr. Waller. I answered her all I could collect from my note, for further never did I hear; but the moment I was obliged to stop she said, “Pray have you known him long?”
“I never knew him at all, ma’am.”
“No? Why, then, how came you to receive the news about his death?”
/> Was not this agreeable? I was forced to say, “I heard of it only from Mr. Fairly, ma’am.” Nothing Could exceed the surprise with which she now lifted up her eyes to look at me. “From Mr. Fairly? — Why did he not tell it me?”
O, worse and worse! I was now compelled to answer, “He did not know It when he was here, ma’am; he heard it at Northleach, and, thinking it might be of use to your majesty to have the account immediately, he sent it over express.”
A dead silence so uncomfortable ensued, that I thought it best presently to go on further, though unasked. “Mr. Fairly, ma’am, wrote the news to me, on such small paper, and in such haste, that it is hardly fit to he shown to your majesty; but I have the note upstairs.”
No answer; again all silent; and then Princess Augusta said,
“Mamma, Miss Burney says she has the note upstairs.”
“If your majesty pleases to see it” —
She looked up again, much more pleasantly, and said, “I shall be glad to see it,” with a little bow.
Out I went for it, half regretting I had not burned it, to make the producing it impossible. When I brought it to her, she received it with the most gracious smile, and immediately read it aloud, with great complacency, till she came to the end and then, with a lowered and somewhat altered tone, the “very truly and sincerely yours,” which she seemed to look at for a moment with some doubt if it were not a mistake, but in returning it she bowed again, and simply said, “I am very much obliged to Mr. Fairly.”
You will be sure how much I was pleased during this last week to hear that the place of the Master of St. Catherine’s was given by her majesty to Mr. Fairly. It is reckoned the best in her gift, as a sinecure. What is the income I know not: reports differ from 400 to 500 per annum.
THE RETURN TO WINDSOR.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 588