Читать книгу Fanny Burney and Her Friends: Select Passages from Her Diary and Other Writings - Burney Fanny - Страница 6

“Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her ease. She feared not Dr. Johnson; for fear made no part of her composition; and with Mrs. Greville, as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in full carelessness of its event; for though triumphant when victorious, she had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from envy or spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification when vanquished. But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated for Dr. Johnson, and, therefore, though not without difficulty, constrained herself to be passive.

“When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition of Mr. Greville to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood, rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsburg;^[30] and, at length, provoked by the dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human faculties, she grew tired of the music, and yet more tired of remaining, what as little suited her inclinations as her abilities, a mere cipher in the company; and, holding such a position, and all its concomitants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above her control, and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be thought of her by her fine new acquaintance, she suddenly but softly arose, and stealing on tip-toe behind Signor Piozzi, who was accompanying himself on the pianoforte to an animated aria parlante, with his back to the company, and his face to the wall, she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes, while languishingly reclining her head, as if she were not less enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the transports of harmony than himself.

“This grotesque ebullition of ungovernable gaiety was not perceived by Dr. Johnson, who faced the fire, with his back to the performer and the instrument. But the amusement which such an unlooked-for exhibition caused to the party was momentary; for Dr. Burney, shocked lest the poor Signor should observe, and be hurt by this mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something between pleasantry and severity, whispered to her, ‘Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?’

“It was now that shone the brightest attribute of Mrs. Thrale, sweetness of temper. She took this rebuke with a candour, and a sense of its justice the most amiable; she nodded her approbation of the admonition; and, returning to her chair, quietly sat down, as she afterwards said, like a pretty little miss, for the remainder of one of the most humdrum evenings that she had ever passed.

“Strange, indeed, strange and most strange, the event considered, was this opening intercourse between Mrs. Thrale and Signor Piozzi. Little could she imagine that the person she was thus called away from holding up to ridicule, would become, but a few years afterwards, the idol of her fancy, and the lord of her destiny! And little did the company present imagine, that this burlesque scene was but the first of a drama the most extraordinary of real life, of which these two persons were to be the hero and heroine; though, when the catastrophe was known, this incident, witnessed by so many, was recollected and repeated from coterie to coterie throughout London, with comments and sarcasms of endless variety.”

15. James Harris, author of ‘Hermes; or a Philosophical Inquiry into Universal Grammar,’ and several other works. Entering Parliament in 1761, he became a Lord of the Admiralty, and subsequently a Lord of the Treasury, etc. He died in 1786.

16. Author of ‘Travels in Spain.’

17. ‘Nothing is fit to be heard but Pacchierotti,’ was the general verdict, according to Walpole.

18. A celebrated Italian singer, wife of Colla, an Italian composer. She was engaged at the Pantheon to sing two songs nightly, for which she received £100.

19. A performer of great Continental reputation, whose merits were much controverted in England. ‘Is, or has the Gabrielli been, a great singer?’ asks Walpole of his Florence correspondent. ‘She has, at least, not honoured us but with a most slender low voice.’

20. Duets between Esther Burney, now married, and her husband, who was also her cousin and a Burney. Esther was the beauty of the family, and became a wife early.

21. Fanny should rather have written, Count Orloff.

22. Anthony Chamier was member of Parliament for Tamworth, and Under-Secretary of State from 1775 till his death in 1780. He was an original member of the celebrated Literary Club.

23. A name by which Mr. Brudenel, afterwards Earl of Cardigan, was known.

24. Afterwards Lord Malmesbury.

25. We need scarcely remind our readers that, in 1763, Sandwich had denounced Wilkes in the House of Lords for having composed and printed the ‘Essay on Woman,’ an indecent parody on Pope’s ‘Essay on Man.’ Society resented the attack, placing the accuser and accused on a par in point of morals. ‘The public indignation went so far, that the Beggar’s Opera being performed at Covent Garden Theatre soon after this event, the whole audience, when Macheath says, “That Jemmy Twitcher should peach, I own surprises me,” burst out into an applause of application, and the nickname of “Jemmy Twitcher” stuck by the Earl so as almost to occasion the disuse of his title.’—Walpole’s ‘Memoirs of George III.,’ vol. i., p. 313.

26. The observatory in its later form is stated to have been put up in the early years of the present century, by a Frenchman, then tenant of the house, who placed in it some mathematical instruments, which he exhibited as the identical instruments with which the great Newton made his discoveries; and we are told that this ingenious person realized a considerable sum before his imposture was exposed. See ‘The Streets of London,’ by J. T. Smith, edited by Charles Mackay, 1849, p. 76.

27. There is some account both of the inside and outside of Newton’s house in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1814. At that date, we learn among other things, the original chimney-piece in the observatory remained, though the room itself had undergone a change. The house appears to have been built about 1692.

28. William Seward, afterwards author of ‘Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons,’ and ‘Biographiana,’ a sequel to the same.

29. John Christian Bach, sometimes called Bach of Berlin, who for many years was established in England.

30. Hester Lynch Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale) claimed to be lineally descended from Adam of Saltsburg, who came over to England with the Conqueror.