Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  It was begun by Mrs. Thrale’s apologising to him for troubling him with some question she thought trifling —— Oh, I remember! We had been talking of colours, and of the fantastic names given to them, and why the palest lilac should be called a soupir etouffe; and when Dr. Johnson came in she applied to him.

  “Why, madam,” said he with wonderful readiness, “it is called a stifled sigh because it is checked in its progress, and only half a colour.”

  I could not help expressing my amazement at his universal readiness upon all subjects, and Mrs. Thrale said to him,

  “Sir, Miss Burney wonders at your patience with such stuff; but I tell her you are used to me, for I believe I torment you with more foolish questions than anybody else dares to.”

  “No, madam,” said he, “you don’t torment me; — you tease me, indeed, sometimes.”

  “Ay, so I do, Dr. Johnson, and I wonder you bear with my nonsense.”

  “No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense, and more wit, than any woman I know.!”

  “Oh,” cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, “it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney!”

  “And yet,” continued the doctor, with the most comical look, “I have known all the wits, from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint!

  “Bet Flint!” cried Mrs. Thrale; “pray who is she?”

  “Oh, a fine character, madam! She was habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot.”

  “And, for Heaven’s sake, how came you to know her?”

  “Why, madam, she figured in the literary world, too! Bet Flint wrote her own life, and called herself Cassandra, and it was in verse; —— it began:

  “When Nature first ordained my birth,

  A diminutive I was born on earth:

  And then I came from a dark abode

  Into a gay and gaudy world.”

  “So Bet brought me her verses to correct; but I gave her half a crown, and she liked it as well. Bet had a fine spirit; —— she advertised for a husband, but she had no success, for she told me no man aspired to her! Then she hired very handsome lodgings and a footboy; and she got a harpsichord, but Bet could not play; however she put herself in fine attitudes, and drummed.”

  Then he gave an account of another of these geniuses, who called herself by some fine name, I have forgotten what. “She had not quite the same stock of virtue,” continued he, “nor the same stock of honesty as Bet Flint; but I suppose she envied her accomplishments, for she was so little moved by the power of harmony, that while Bet thought she was drumming divinely, the other jade had her indicted for a nuisance!”

  “And pray what became of her, sir?”

  “Why, madam, she stole a quilt from the man of the house, and he had her taken up, but Bet Flint had a spirit not to be subdued; so when she found herself obliged to go to jail, she ordered a sedan-chair and bid her footboy walk before her. However, the boy proved refractory, for he was ashamed, though his mistress was not.

  “And did she ever get out of jail again, sir?”

  “Yes, madam, when she came to her trial the judge acquitted her. “So now,” she said to me, “the quilt is my own, and now I”ll make a petticoat of it.” Oh, I loved Bet Mint!”

  Oh, how we all laughed! Then he gave an account of another lady, who called herself Laurinda, and who wrote verses and stole furniture; but he had not the same affection for her, he said, though she too “was a lady who had high notions of honour.”

  Then followed the history of another, who called herself Hortensia, and who walked up and down the park repeating a book of Virgil.

  “But,” said he, “though I know her story, I never had the good fortune to see her.” After this he gave us an account of the famous Mrs. Pinkethman. And she,” he said, “told me she owed all her misfortunes to her wit; for she was so unhappy as to marry a man who thought himself also a wit, though I believe she gave him not implicit credit for it, but it occasioned much contradiction and ill-will.”

  “Bless me, sir!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “how can all these vagabonds contrive to get at you, of all people?”

  “Oh, the dear creatures!” cried he, laughing heartily, “I can’t but be glad to see them!”

  “Why, I wonder, sir, you never went to see Mrs. Rudd among the rest?”

  “Why, madam, I believe I should,” said he, “if it was not for the newspapers; but I am prevented many frolics that I should like very well, since I am become such a theme for the papers.”

  Now would you ever have imagined this? Bet Flint, it seems, once took Kitty Fisher to see him, but to his no little regret he was not at home. “And Mrs. Williams,” he added, “did not love Bet Mint, but Bet Flint made herself very easy about that.”

  How Mr. Crisp would have enjoyed this account! He gave it all with so droll a solemnity, and it was all so unexpected, that Mrs. Thrale and I were both almost equally diverted.

  Place: Streatham, August 26. ——

  My opportunities for writing grow less and less, and my materials more and more. After breakfast, I have scarcely a moment that I can spare all day.

  Mrs. Thrale I like more and more. Of all the people I have ever seen since I came into the “gay and gaudy world,” I never before saw the person who so strongly resembles our dear father. I find the likeness perpetually; she has the same natural liveliness, the same general benevolence, the same rare union of gaiety and of feeling in her disposition. And so kind is she to me! She told me at first that I should have all my mornings to myself, and therefore I have actually studied to avoid her, lest I should be in her way; but since the first morning she seeks me, sits with me, saunters with me in the park, or compares notes over books in the library; and her conversation is delightful; it is so entertaining, so gay, so enlivening, when she is in spirits, and so intelligent and instructive when she is otherwise, that I almost as much wish to record all she says as all Dr. Johnson says. Proceed —— no! Go back, my muse, to Thursday.

  Dr. Johnson came home to dinner.

  In the evening he was as lively and full of wit and sport as I have ever seen him; and Mrs. Thrale and I had him quite to ourselves; for Mr. Thrale came in from giving an election dinner (to which he sent two bucks and six pine apples) so tired, that he neither opened his eyes nor mouth, but fell fast asleep. Indeed, after tea he generally does.

  Dr. Johnson was very communicative concerning his present work of the Lives of the Poets; Dryden is now in the press, and he told us he had been just writing a dissertation upon Hudibras.

  He gave us an account of Mrs. Lennox. Her Female Quixote is very justly admired here. But Mrs. Thrale says that though her books are generally approved, nobody likes her. I find she, among others, waited on Dr. Johnson upon her commencing writer, and he told us that, at her request, he carried her to Richardson.

  “Poor Charlotte Lennox!” continued he; “when we came to the house, she desired me to leave her, “for,” says she “I am under great restraint in your presence, but if you leave me alone with Richardson I”ll give you a very good account of him”; however, I fear poor Charlotte was disappointed, for she gave me no account at all!”

  He then told us of two little productions of our Mr. Harris, which we read; they are very short and very clever: one is called Fashion, the other Much Ado, and they are both of them full of a sportive humour, that I had not suspected to belong to Mr. Harris, the learned grammarian.

  Some time after, turning suddenly to me, he said, “Miss Burney, what sort of reading do you delight in? History? —— travels? —— poetry? —— or romances?”

  “Oh, sir!” cried I, “I dread being catechised by you. I dare not make any answer, for I fear whatever I should say would be wrong!”

  “Whatever you should say —— how’s that?”

  “Why, not whatever I should —— but whatever I could say.”

  He laughed, and to my great relief spared me any further questions upon the subject. Indeed, I was very happy I had the pr
esence of mind to evade him as I did, for I am sure the examination which would have followed, had I made any direct answer, would have turned out sorely to my discredit.

  “Do you remember, sir,” said Mrs. Thrale, “how you tormented poor Miss Brown about reading?” “She might soon be tormented, madam,” answered he, “for I am not yet quite clear she knows what a book is.”

  “Oh, for shame!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “she reads not only English, but French and Italian. She was in Italy a great while.”

  “Pho!” exclaimed he; “Italian, indeed! Do you think she knows as much Italian as Rose Fuller does English?”

  “Well, well,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Rose Fuller is a very good young man, for all he has not much command of language, and though he is silly enough, yet I like him very well, for there is no manner of harm in him.

  Then she told me that he once said, “Dr. Johnson’s conversation is so instructive that I”ll ask him a question. “Pray, sir, what is Palmyra? I have heard of it often, but never knew what it was.” “Palmyra, sir?” said the doctor; “why, it is a hill in Ireland, situated in a bog, and has palm-trees at the top, when it is called palm-mire.”

  Whether or not he swallowed this account, I know not yet.

  “But Miss Brown,” continued she, “is by no means such a simpleton as Dr. Johnson supposes her to be; she is not very deep, indeed, but she is a sweet, and a very ingenuous girl, and nobody admired Miss Streatfield more. But she made a more foolish speech to Dr. Johnson than she would have done to anybody else, because she was so frightened and embarrassed that she knew not what she said. He asked her some questions about reading, and she did, to be sure, make a very silly answer; but she was so perplexed and bewildered, that she hardly knew where she was, and so she said the beginning of a book was as good as the end, or the end as good as the beginning, or some such stuff; and Dr. Johnson told her of it so often, saying, “Well, my dear, which part of a book do you like best now?” that poor Fanny Brown burst into tears!”

  “I am sure I should have compassion for her,” cried I; “for nobody would be more likely to have blundered out such, or any such speech, from fright and terror.”

  “You?” cried Dr. Johnson. “No; you are another thing; she who could draw Smiths and Branghtons, is quite another thing.”

  Mrs. Thrale then told some other stories of his degrading opinion of us poor fair sex; I mean in general, for in particular he does them noble justice. Among others, was a Mrs. Somebody who spent a day here once, and of whom he asked, “Can she read?”

  “Yes, to be sure,” answered Mrs. Thrale; “we have been reading together this afternoon.”

  “And what book did you get for her?” “Why, what happened to lie in the way, Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty.”

  “Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty! What made you , choose that?”

  “Why, sir, what would you have had me take?”

  “What she could have understood —— Cow-hide, or Cinderella!”

  “Oh, Dr. Johnson!” cried I; “’tis not for nothing you are feared!”

  “Oh, you rogue!” cried he, laughing, “and they would fear you if they knew you!

  “That they would,” said Mrs. Thrale; “but she’s so shy they don’t suspect her. Miss P —— gave her an account of all her dress, to entertain her, t’other night! To be sure she was very lucky to fix on Miss Burney for such conversation! But I have been telling her she must write a comedy; I am sure nobody could do it better. Is it not true, Dr. Johnson?”

  I would fain have stopt her, but she was not to be stopped, and ran on saying such fine things! though we had almost a struggle together; and she said at last:

  “Well, authors may say what they will of modesty; but I believe Miss Burney is really modest about her book, for her colour comes and goes every time it is mentioned.” I then escaped to look for a book which we had been talking of, and Dr. Johnson, when I returned to my seat, said he wished Richardson had been alive.

  “And then,” he added, “she should have been introduced to him —— though I don’t know neither —— Richardson would have been afraid of her.”

  “Oh yes! that’s a likely matter,” quoth I.

  “It’s very true,” continued he; “Richardson would have been really afraid of her; there is merit in Evelina which he could not have borne. No; it would not have done! unless, indeed, she would have flattered him prodigiously. Harry Fielding, too, would have been afraid of her; there is nothing so delicately finished in all Harry Fielding’s works, as in Evelina!” Then shaking his head at me, he exclaimed, “Oh, you little character- monger, you!”

  Mrs. Thrale then returned to her charge, and again urged me about a comedy; and again I tried to silence her, and we had a fine fight together; till she called upon Dr. Johnson to back her.

  “Why, madam,” said he, laughing, “she is writing one. What a rout is here, indeed! she is writing one upstairs all the time. Who ever knew when she began Evelina? She is working at some drama, depend upon it. “True, true, O king!” thought I.

  “Well, that will be a sly trick!” cried Mrs. Thrale; “however, you know best, I believe, about, that, as well as about every other thing.”

  Friday was a very full day. In the morning we began talking of Irene, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr. Johnson read some passages which I had been remarking as uncommonly applicable, and told us he had not ever read so much of it before since it was first printed.

  “Why, there is no making you read a play,” said Mrs. Thrale, “either of your own, or any other person. What trouble had I to make you hear Murphy’s know your own Mind! “Read rapidly, read rapidly,” you cried, and then took out your watch to see how long I was about it! Well, we won’t serve Miss Burney so, sir; when we have her comedy we will do it all justice.” . . .

  The day was passed most agreeably. In the evening we had, as usual, a literary conversation. I say we, only because Mrs. Thrale will make me take some share, by perpetually applying to me; and, indeed, there can be no better house for rubbing up the memory, as I hardly ever read, saw, or heard of any book that by some means or other has not been mentioned here.

  Mr. Lort produced several curious MSS. of the famous Bristol Chatterton; among others, his will, and divers verses written against Dr. Johnson as a placeman and pensioner; all which he read aloud, with a steady voice and unmoved countenance.

  I was astonished at him; Mrs. Thrale not much pleased; Mr. Thrale silent and attentive; and Mr. Seward was slily laughing. Dr. Johnson himself, listened profoundly and laughed openly. Indeed, I believe he wishes his abusers no other than a good dinner, like Pope.

  Just as we had got our biscuits and toast-and-water, which make the Streatham supper, and which, indeed, is all there is any chance of eating after our late and great dinners, Mr. Lort suddenly said,

  “Pray, ma”am, have you heard anything of a novel that runs about a good deal, called Evelina?”

  What a ferment did this question, before such a set, put me in! I did not know whether he spoke to me, or Mrs. Thrale; and Mrs. Thrale was in the same doubt, and as she owned, felt herself in a little palpitation for me, not knowing what might come next. Between us both, therefore, he had no answer,

  “It has been recommended to me,” continued he;, “but I have no great desire to see it, because it has such a foolish name. Yet I have heard a great deal of it, too.”

  He then repeated Evelina —— in a very languishing and ridiculous tone.

  My heart beat so quick against my stays that I almost panted with extreme agitation, from the dread either of hearing some horrible criticism, or of being betrayed; and I munched my biscuit as if I had not eaten for a fortnight.

  I believe the whole party were in some little consternation; Dr. Johnson began see-sawing; Mr. Thrale awoke; Mr. E — . I who I fear has picked up some notion of the affair from being so much in the house, grinned amazingly; and Mr. Seward, biting his nails and flinging himself back in his chair, I am sure had wickedness enough to enjoy t
he whole scene.

  Mrs. Thrale was really a little fluttered, but without looking at me, said,

  “And pray what, Mr. Lort, what have you heard of it?”

  Now, had Mrs. Thrale not been flurried, this was the last question she should have ventured to ask before me. Only suppose what I must feel when I heard it.

  “Why, they say,” answered he, “that it’s an account of a young lady’s first entrance into company, and of the scrapes she gets into; and they say there’s a great deal of character in it, but I have not cared to look in it, because the name is so foolish —— Evelina!”

  “Why foolish, sir?” cried Dr. Johnson. “Where’s the folly of it?”

  “Why, I won’t say much for the name myself,” said Mrs. Thrale, “to those who don’t know the reason of it, which I found out, but which nobody else seems to know.”

  She then explained the name from Evelyn, according to my own meaning.

  “Well,” said Dr. Johnson, “if that was the reason, it is a very good one.”

  “Why, have you had the book here?” cried Mr. Lort, staring.

  “Ay, indeed, have we,” said Mrs. Thrale; “I read it when I was last confined, and I laughed over it, and I cried over it!”

  “Oh, ho!” said Mr. Lort, “this is another thing! If you have had it here, I will certainly read it.”

  “Had it? ay,” returned she; “and Dr. Johnson, who would not look at it at first, was so caught by it when I put it in the coach with him that he has sung its praises ever since, —— and he says Richardson would have been proud to have written it.”

  Oh, ho! this is a good hearing!” cried Mr. Lort; “if Dr. Johnson can read it, I shall get it with all speed.”

  “You need not go far for it,” said Mrs. Thrale, “for it’s now upon yonder table.”

  I could sit still no longer; there was something so awkward, so uncommon, so strange in my then situation, that I wished myself a hundred miles off; and, indeed, I had almost choked myself with the biscuit, for I could not for my life swallow it; and so I got up, and, as Mr. Lort went to the table to look at Evelina, I left the room, and was forced to call for water to wash down the biscuit, which literally stuck in my throat.. . .