“I would you were off now,” cried I, “and in your phaeton in the midst of this rain!”
“Oh, sir!” cried Mr. Musgrave, “the Doctor went on with it again after you went; I had the honour to hear a great deal more.”
“Why, this is very fine indeed!” said Mrs. Thrale; “why, Dr. Johnson, — why, what is all this?”
“These young fellows,” answered he, “play me false; they take me in; they start the subject, and make me say something of that Fanny Burney, and then the rogues know that when I have once begun I shall not know when to leave off.”
“We are glad, sir,” said Mr. Crutchley, “to hear our own thoughts expressed so much better than we can express them ourselves.”
I could only turn up my eyes at him. “Just so,” said Mrs. Thrale,
“‘What oft was thought, but ne”er so well
express’d.’”
Mere, much to my satisfaction, the conversation broke up.
Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed.-Once I was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange discipline — starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half demolished by its severity, he always, in the end, rises superior both to the disease and the remedy, — which commonly is the most alarming of the two. His kindness for me, I think, if possible, still increased: he actually bores everybody so about me that the folks even complain of it. I must, however, acknowledge I feel but little pity for their fatigue.
I went to dear Dr. Johnson’s, rassegnarlo la solita servitu, but at one o’clock he was not up, and I did not like to disturb him. I am very sorry about him — exceeding sorry! When I parted from you on Monday, and found him with Dr. Lawrence, I put my nose into the old man’s wig and shouted; but got none except melancholy answers, — so melancholy, that I was forced to crack jokes for fear of crying.
“There is gout at the bottom, madam,” says Lawrence. “I wish it were at the bottom!” replied saucebox, as loud as she could bawl, and pointing to the pedestals.
“He complains of a general gravedo,” cries the Doctor; “but he speaks too good Latin for us.”
“Do you take care, at least, that it does not increase long,” quoth I. (The word gravedo, you know, makes gravedinis, and is, therefore, said to “increase long in the genitive case.”) I thought this a good, stupid, scholarlike pun, and Johnson seemed to like that Lawrence was pleased.
This morning I was with him again.
Oct. 15, 1782.
I am very sorry you could not come to Streatham at the time Mrs. Thrale hoped to see you, for when shall we be likely to meet there again? You would have been much pleased, I am sure, by meeting with General Paoli, who spent the day there, and was extremely communicative and agreeable. I had seen him in large companies, but was never made known to him before; nevertheless, he conversed with me as if well acquainted not only with myself, but my connections, — inquiring of me when I had last seen Mrs. Montagu? and calling Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he spoke of him, my friend. He is a very pleasing man, ta!l and genteel in his person, remarkably well bred, and very mild and soft in his manners. I will try to give you a little specimen of his conversation, because I know you love to hear particulars of all out-of-the-way persons. His English is blundering, but not unpretty. Speaking of his first acquaintance with Mr. Boswell,
“He came,” he said, “to my country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed, in my minte, he was an espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and I behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say! Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh, —— is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful! so gay! so pleasant! but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.”
After this he told us a story of an expectation he had had of being robbed, and of the protection he found from a very large dog that he is very fond of.
“I walk out,” he said, “in the night; I go towards the field; I behold a man —— oh, ugly one! I proceed — he follow; I go on — he address me, “You have one dog,” he says. “Yes,” say I to him. “Is a fierce dog?” he says; “is he fiery?” “Yes,” reply I, “he can bite.” “I would not attack in the night,” says he, “a house to have such dog in it.” Then I conclude he was a breaker; so I turn to him — oh, very rough! not gentle — and I say, very fierce, “He shall destroy you, if you are ten!”“
Afterwards, speaking of the Irish giant, who is now shown in town, he said,
“He is so large I am as a baby! I look at him — oh! I find myself so little as a child! Indeed, my indignation it rises when I see him hold up his hand so high. I am as nothing; and I find myself in the power of a man who fetches from me a half a crown.”
This language, which is all spoke very pompously by him, sounds comical from himself, though I know not how it may read.
Adieu, my dear and kind daddy, and believe me your ever obliged and ever affectionate, F. B.
Place: Brighthelmstone, October 26.
My journey was incidentless; but the moment I came into Brighthelmstone I was met by Mrs. Thrale, who had most eagerly been waiting for me a long while, and therefore I dismounted, and walked home with her. It would be very superfluous to tell you how she received me, for you cannot but know, from her impatient letters, what I had reason to expect of kindness and welcome.
I was too much tired to choose appearing at dinner, and therefore eat my eat upstairs, and was then decorated a little, and came forth to tea.
Mr. Harry Cotton and Mr. Swinerton were both here. Mrs. Thrale said they almost lived with her, and therefore were not to be avoided, but declared she had refused a flaming party of blues, for fear I should think, if I met them just after my journey, she was playing Mrs. Harrel.
Dr. Johnson received me too with his usual goodness, and with a salute so loud, that the two young beaus, Cotton and Swinerton, have never done laughing about it.
Mrs. Thrale spent two or three hours in my room, talking over all her affairs, and then we wished each other bon repos, and — retired. Grandissima conclusion.
Oh, but let me not forget that a fine note came from Mr. Pepys, who is here with his family, saying he was presse de vivre, and entreating to see Mrs. and Miss T., Dr. Johnson, and Cecilia, at his house the next day. I hate mightily this method of naming me from my heroines, of whose honour I think I am more jealous than of my own.
Oct. 27. —
The Pepyses came to visit me in form, but I was dressing; in the evening, however, Mrs. and Miss T. took me to them. Dr. Johnson would not go; he told me it was my day, and I should be crowned, for Mr. Pepys was wild about Cecilia.
“However,” he added, “do not hear too much of it; but when he has talked about it for an hour or so, tell him to have done. There is no other way.” A mighty easy way, this! however, ’tis what he literal!y practises for himself.
At dinner we had Dr. Delap and Mr. Selwyn, who accompanied us in the evening to a ball; as did also Dr. Johnson, to the universal amazement of all who saw him there; — but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; “for,” he said, “it cannot be worse than being alone.”
Strange that he should think so! I am sure I am not of his mind.. . .
Dr. Johnson was joined by a friend of his own, Mr. Metcalf,” and did to!erably well.
Poor Mr. Pepys had, however, real cause to bemoan my escape; for the little set was broken up by my retreat, and he joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into an argument upon some lines of Gray, and upon Pope’s definition of wit, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, and, in the midst of this discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, wishing Mrs. Thrale good-night, very abruptly withdrew.
Dr. Johnson was certainly right with respect
to the argument and to reason; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred. What pity that he will not curb the vehemence of his love of victory and superiority!
The sum of the dispute was this. Wit being talked of, Mr. Pepys repeated, ——
“True wit is Nature to advantage dress’d,
What oft was thought, but ne”er so well express’d.”
“That, sir,” cried Dr. Johnson, “is a definition both false and foolish. Let wit be dressed how it will, it will equally be wit, and neither the more nor the less for any advantage dress can give it.”.
Mr. P. — But, sir, may not wit be so ill expressed, and so obscure, by a bad speaker, as to be lost?
Dr. J. —— The fault, then, sir, must be with the hearer. If a man cannot distinguish wit from words, he little deserves to hear it.
Mr. P. — But, sir, what Pope means ——
Dr. J. — Sir, what Pope means, if he means what he says, is both false and foolish. In the first place, “what oft was thought,” is all the worse for being often thought, because to be wit, it ought to be newly thought. Mr. P. — But, sir, ’tis the expression makes it new.
Dr. J. — How can the expression make it new? It may make it clear, or may make it elegant; but how new? You are confounding words with things.
Mr. P. — But, sir, if one man says a thing very ill, may not another man say it so much better that ——
Dr. J. — That other man, sir, deserves but small praise for the amendment; he is but the tailor to the first man’s thoughts.
Mr. P. — True, sir, he may be but the tailor; but then the difference is as great as between a man in a gold lace suit and a man in a blanket.
Dr. J. — Just so, sir, I thank you for that: the difference is precisely such, since it consists neither in the gold lace suit nor the blanket, but in the man by whom they are worn.
This was the summary; the various contemptuous sarcasms intermixed would fill, and very unpleasantly, a quire.
Thursday, Oct. 31. —
A note came this morning to invite us all, except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes’s. Dr. Johnson has tortured poor Mr. Pepys so much that I fancy her ladyship omitted him in compliment to her brother-in-law.
Saturday, Nov. 2. ——
We went to Lady Shelley’s. Dr. Johnson, again, excepted in the invitation. He is almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone, and as, though he scolds the others, he is well enough satisfied himself; and, having given vent to all his own occasional anger or ill-humour he is ready to begin again, and is never aware that those who have so been “downed” by him, never can much covet so triumphant a visitor. In contests of wit, the victor is as ill off in future consequences as the vanquished in present ridicule.
Monday, Nov. 4. —
This was a grand and busy day. Mr. Swinerton has been some time arranging a meeting for all our house, with Lady De Ferrars.. . .
I happened to be standing by Dr. Johnson when all the ladies came in; but, as I dread him before strangers, from the staring attention he attracts both for himself and all with whom he talks, I endeavoured to change my ground. However, he kept prating a sort of comical nonsense that detained me some minutes whether I would or not; but when we were all taking places at the breakfast-table I made another effort to escape. It proved vain; he drew his chair next to mine, and went ratt!ing on in a humorous sort of comparison he was drawing of himself to me, — not one word of which could I enjoy, or can I remember, from the hurry I was in to get out of his way. In short, I felt so awkward from being thus marked out, that I was reduced to whisper a request to Mr. Swinerton to put a chair between us, for which I presently made a space: for I have often known him stop all conversation with me, when he has ceased to have me for his next neighbour. Mr. Swinerton, who is an extremely good-natured young man, and so intimate here that I make no scruple with him, instantly complied, and placed himself between us.
But no sooner was this done, than Dr. Johnson, half seriously, and very loudly, took him to task.
“How now, sir! what do you mean by this? Would you separate me from Miss Burney?”
Mr. Swinerton, a little startled, began some apologies, and Mrs. Thrale winked at him to give up the place; but he was willing to oblige me, though he grew more and more frightened every minute, and coloured violently as the Doctor continued his remonstrance, which he did with rather unmerciful raillery, upon his taking advantage of being in his own house to thus supplant him, and crow; but when he had borne it for about ten minutes, his face became so hot with the fear of hearing something worse, that he ran from the field, and took a chair between Lady De Ferrars and Mrs. Thrale.
I think I shall take warning by this failure, to trust only to my own expedients for avoiding his public notice in future. However it stopped here; for Lord De Ferrars came in, and took the disputed place without knowing of the contest, and all was quiet.
All that passed afterwards was too general and too common to be recollected.. . .
“Ay,” cried Dr. Johnson, “some people want to make out some credit to me from the little rogue’s book. I was told by a gentleman this morning, that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own. “It is all her own,” said I, “for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before it was printed.”“
This gentleman I have good reason to believe is Mr. Metcalf. . . . He is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks. I have seen him but once or twice myself; and as he is dry, and I am shy, very little has passed between us. . . .
While we were debating this matter, a gentleman suddenly said to me,— “Did you walk far this morning, Miss Burney?” And, looking at him, I saw Mr. Metcalf, whose graciousness rather surprised me, for he only made to Mrs. Thrale a cold and distant bow, and it seems he declares, aloud and around, his aversion to literary ladies. That he can endure, and even seek me, is, I presume, only from the general perverseness of mankind, because he sees I have always turned from him; not, however, from disliking him, for he is a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man; but merely from a dryness on his own side that has excited retaliation.
“Yes,” I answered, “we walked a good way.”
“Dr. Johnson,” said he, “told me in the morning you were no walker; but I informed him that I had had the pleasure of seeing you upon the Newmarket Hill.”
“Oh, he does not know,” cried I, “whether I am a walker or not — he does not see me walk, because he never walks himself.” “He has asked me,” said he, “to go with him to Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if he pleased; but why, I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a cathedral?”
“I believe,” quoth I, “his blindness is as much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times.”
“Why, he has assured me he cannot see the colour of any man’s eyes, and does not know what eyes any of his acquaintances have.”
“I am sure, however,” cried I, “he can see the colour of a lady’s top-knot, for he very often finds fault with it.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yes, indeed; and I was much astonished at it at first when I knew him, for I had concluded that the utmost of his sight would only reach to tell him whether he saw a cap or a wig.”
Here he was called away by some gentleman.
Thursday . —
Mr. Metcalf called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalf is now the only person out of this house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody. “Tis very strange and very melanch
oly that he will not a little more accommodate his manners and language to those of other people. He likes Mr. Metcalf, however, and so do I, for he is very clever and entertaining when he pleases. Capt. Phillips will remember that was not the case when we saw him at Sir Joshua’s. He has, however, all the de quoi.
Poor Dr. Delap confessed to us that the reason he now came so seldom, though he formerly almost lived with us when at this place, was his being too unwell to cope with Dr. Johnson. And the other day Mr. Selwyn having refused an invitation from Mr. Hamilton to meet the Doctor, because he preferred being here upon a day when he was out, suddenly rose at the time he was expected to return, and said he must run away, “for fear the Doctor should call him to account.”
We spent this evening at Lady De Ferrars, where Dr. Johnson accompanied us, for the first time he has been invited of our parties since my arrival.
Monday and Tuesday . —
I have no time, except to tell you a comical tale which Mrs. Thrale ran to acquaint me with. She had been calling upon Mr. Scrase, an old and dear friend, who is confined with the gout; and while she was inquiring about him of his nurse and housekeeper, the woman said,
“Ah, madam, how happy are you to have Minerva in the house with you!”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “you mean my dear Miss Burney, that wrote Cecilia. So you have read it; and what part did you like?”
“Oh, madam, I liked it all better than anything I ever saw in my life; but most of all I liked that good old gentleman, Mr. Albany, that goes about telling people their duty, without so much as thinking of their fine clothes.”
When Mrs. Thrale told us this at dinner, Dr. Johnson said,
“I am all of the old housekeeper’s mind; Mr. Albany I have always stood up for; he is one of my first favourites. Very fine indeed are the things he says.”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 687