Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 13

(“The great Mrs. Montagu” deserves a somewhat longer notice than can be conveniently compressed within the limits of a footnote. She was as indisputably, in public estimation, the leading literary lady of the time, as Johnson was the leading man of letters. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Robinson. She was born at York in the year 1720, and married, in 1742, Edward Montagu, grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich. Her husband’s death, in 1775, left her in the possession of a handsome fortune. Mrs. Montagu’s literary celebrity was by no means dearly bought, for it rested, almost exclusively, on her “Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear,” published by Dodsley in 1769. Indeed, the only other writings which she committed to the press were three “Dialogues of the Dead,” appended to the Well-known “Dialogues” of her friend, Lord Lyttelton. The “Essay” is an elegantly written little work, superficial when regarded in the light of modern criticism, but marked by good sense and discrimination. One of the chief objects of the authoress was to defend Shakespeare against the strictures of Voltaire, and in this not very difficult task she has undoubtedly succeeded. Johnson’s opinion of the “Essay” was unfavourable. To Sir Joshua Reynolds’s remark, that it did honour to its authoress, he replied: “Yes Sir: it does her honour, but it would do nobody else honour;” and he goes on to observe that “there is not one sentence of true criticism in the book.” But if the general applause which the book had excited was out of all proportion to its merits, Johnson’s unqualified condemnation was more than equally disproportionate to its defects.

Of Mrs. Montagu’s conversational abilities Johnson entertained a higher opinion. “Sir,” he would say, “that lady exerts more mind in conversation than any person I ever met with” (Miss Reynolds’s Recollections). It was probably, indeed, to the fame of her conversation, and of the has been parties which assembled at her house, that she owed the greater part of her reputation. She was the acknowledged “Queen of the Blue Stockings” although the epithet originated with a rival giver of literary parties, Mrs. Vesey, who, replying to the apology of a gentleman who declined an invitation to one of her meetings on the plea of want of dress, exclaimed, “Pho, pho! don’t mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!” The term “Blue Stocking” (bas bleu) was thenceforward applied to the set which met at Mrs. Vesey’s, and was gradually extended to other coteries of similar character.

The charitable and beneficient disposition of Mrs. Montagu was as notorious as her intellectual superiority. It may be interesting here to observe that after her husband’s death, in 1775, she doubled the income of poor Anna Williams, the blind poetess who resided with Dr. Johnson, by settling upon her an annuity of ten pounds. The publication of Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets,” in 1781, occasioned a coolness between the doctor and Mrs. Montagu, on account of the severity with which, in that work, he had handled the character of Lord Lyttelton. In September, 1783, however, Dr. Johnson wrote to the lady to announce the death of her pensioner, Miss Williams; and shortly afterwards he informs Mrs. Thrale that he has received a reply “not only civil but tender; so I hope peace is proclaimed.” Mrs. Montagu died at her house in Portman Square, in the year 1800.

I was looking over the “Life of Cowley,” ³⁶which Dr. Johnson had himself given me to read, at the same time that he gave to Mrs. Thrale that of Waller. But he bade me put it away.

“Do,” cried he, “put away that now, and prattle with us; I can’t make this little Burney prattle, and I am sure she prattles well; but I shall teach her another lesson than to sit thus silent before I have done with her.”

“To talk,” cried I, “is the only lesson I shall be backward to learn from you, sir.”

“You shall give me,” cried he, “a discourse upon the passions: come, begin! Tell us the necessity of regulating them Watching over and curbing them! Did you ever read Norris’s “Theory of Love?”³⁷

“No, sir,” said I, laughing, yet staring a little.

Dr. J.—It is well worth your reading. He will make you see that inordinate love is the root of all evil, inordinate love of wealth brings on avarice; of wine, brings on intemperance; of power, brings on cruelty; and so on. He deduces from inordinate love all human frailty.”

Mrs. T.—To-morrow, sir, Mrs. Montagu dines here, and then you will have talk enough.

Dr. Johnson began to see-saw, with a countenance strongly expressive of inward fun, and after enjoying it some time in silence, he suddenly, and with great animation, turned to me and cried,

“Down with her, Burney!—down with her!—spare her not!—attack her, fight her, and down with her at once! You are a rising wit, and she is at the top; and when I was beginning the world, and was nothing and nobody, the joy of my life was to fire at all the established wits! and then everybody loved to halloo me on. But there is no game now; every body would be glad to see me conquered: but then, when I was new, to vanquish the great ones was all the delight of my poor little dear soul! So at her, Burney—at her, and down with her!”

Oh, how we were all amused! By the way I must tell you that Mrs. Montagu is in very great estimation here, even with Dr. Johnson himself, when others do not praise her improperly. Mrs. Thrale ranks her as the first of women in the literary way. I should have told you that Miss Gregory, daughter of the Gregory who wrote the “Letters,” or, “Legacy of Advice,” lives with Mrs. Montagu, and was invited to accompany her.³⁸

“Mark now,” said Dr. Johnson, “if I contradict her tomorrow. I am determined, let her say what she will, that I will not contradict her.”

Mrs. T.—Why, to be sure, sir, you did put her a little out Of countenance the last time she came. Yet you were neither rough, nor cruel, nor ill-natured, but still, when a lady changes colour, we imagine her feelings are not quite composed.

Dr. J.—Why, madam, I won’t answer that I shan’t contradict her again, if she provokes me as she did then; but a less provocation I will withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces already; and I begin, added he, laughing heartily, to tremble for my admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the inside of it.

(Mrs. Montagu is building a most superb house.)³⁹

Mrs. T.—Oh, I warrant you, she fears you, indeed; but that, you know, is nothing uncommon: and dearly I love to hear your disquisitions; for certainly she is the first woman for literary knowledge in England, and if in England, I hope I may say in the world.

Dr. J.—I believe you may, madam. She diffuses more knowledge in her conversation than any woman I know, or, indeed, almost any man.

Mrs. T.—I declare I know no man equal to her, take away yourself and Burke, for that art. And you who love magnificence, won’t quarrel with her, as everybody else does, for her love of finery.

Dr. J.—No, I shall not quarrel with her upon that topic.