Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 17

Monday was the day for our great party; and the Doctor came home, at Mrs. Thrale’s request, to meet them. The party consisted of Mr. C—, who was formerly a timber-merchant, but having amassed a fortune of one million of pounds, he has left off business. He is a good-natured busy sort of man.

Mrs. C—, his lady, a sort of Mrs. Nobody.

Mr. N—, another rich business leaver-off.

Mrs. N—, his lady; a pretty sort of woman, who was formerly a pupil of Dr. Hawkesworth. I had a great deal of talk with her about him, and about my favourite miss Kinnaird, whom she knew very well.

Mr. George and Mr. Thomas N—, her sons-in-law.

Mr. R——, of whom I know nothing but that he married into Mr. Thrale’s family.

Lady Ladd; I ought to have begun with her. I beg her ladyship a thousand pardons—though if she knew my offence, I am sure I should not obtain one. She is own sister to Mr. Thrale. She is a tall and stout woman, has an air of mingled dignity and haughtiness, both of which wear off in conversation. She dresses very youthful and gaily, and attends to her person with no little complacency. She appears to me uncultivated in knowledge, though an adept in the manners of the world, and all that. She chooses to be much more lively than her brother; but liveliness sits as awkwardly upon her as her pink ribbons. In talking her over with Mrs. Thrale who has a very proper regard for her, but who, I am sure, cannot be blind to her faults, she gave me another proof to those I have already of the uncontrolled freedom of speech which Dr. Johnson exercised to everybody, and which everybody receives quietly from him. Lady Ladd has been very handsome, but is now, I think, quite ugly—at least she has the sort of face I like not. She was a little while ago dressed in so showy a manner as to attract the doctor’s notice, and when he had looked at her some time, he broke out aloud into this quotation:

“With patches, paint, and jewels on, Sure Phillis is not twenty-one But if at night you Phillis see, The dame at least is forty-three!”

I don’t recollect the verses exactly, but such was their purport.

“However,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Lady Ladd took it very good-naturedly, and only said, ‘I know enough of that forty-three—I don’t desire to hear any more of it.’”

Miss Moss, a pretty girl, who played and sung, to the great fatigue of Mrs. Thrale; Mr. Rose Fuller, Mr. Embry, Mr. Seward, Dr. Johnson, the three Thrales, and myself, close the party.

In the evening the company divided pretty much into parties, and almost everybody walked upon the gravel-walk before the windows. I was going to have joined some of them, when Dr. Johnson stopped me, and asked how I did.

“I was afraid, sir,” cried I “you did not intend to know me again, for you have not spoken to me before since your return from town.”

“My dear,” cried he, taking both my hands, “I was not of you, I am so near sighted, and I apprehended making some Mistake.” Then drawing me very unexpectedly towards him, he actually kissed me!

To be sure, I was a little surprised, having no idea of such facetiousness from him, However, I was glad nobody was in the room but Mrs. Thrale, who stood close to us, and Mr. Embry, who was lounging on a sofa at the furthest end of the room. Mrs. Thrale laughed heartily, and said she hoped I was contented with his amends for not knowing me sooner.

A little after she said she would go and walk with the rest, if she did not fear for my reputation in being “left with the doctor.”

“However, as Mr. Embry is yonder, I think he’ll take some care of you,” she added.

“Ay, madam,” said the doctor, “we shall do very well; but I assure you I sha’n’t part with Miss Burney!”

And he held me by both hands; and when Mrs. Thrale went, he drew me a chair himself facing the window, close to his own; and thus tête-à-tête we continued almost all the evening. I say tête-à-tête, because Mr, Embry kept at an humble distance, and offered us no interruption And though Mr. Seward soon after came in, he also seated himself at a distant corner, not presuming, he said, to break in upon us! Everybody, he added, gave way to the doctor.

Our conversation chiefly was upon the Hebrides, for he always talks to me of Scotland, out of sport; and he wished I had been of that tour—quite gravely, I assure you!

The P— family came in to tea. When they were gone Mrs. Thrale complained that she was quite worn out with that tiresome silly woman Mrs. P—, who had talked of her family and affairs till she was sick to death of hearing her.

“Madam,” said Dr. Johnson, “why do you blame the woman for the only sensible thing she could do—talking of her family and her affairs? For how should a woman who is as empty as a drum, talk upon any other subject? If you speak to her of the sun, she does not know it rises in the east;—if you speak to her of the moon, she does not know it changes at the full;—if you speak to her of the queen, she does not know she is the king’s wife.—how, then, can you blame her for talking of her family and affairs?”

¹ Fanny Burney’s step-mother.

² Dr. Burney’s daughter by his second wife.

³ “Evelina; or a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.—This novel has given us so much pleasure in the perusal, that we do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most sprightly, entertaining, and agreeable productions of this kind that has of late fallen under our notice. A great variety of natural incidents, some of the comic stamp, render the narrative extremely interesting. The characters, which are agreeably diversified, are conceived and drawn with propriety, and supported with spirit. The whole is written with great ease and command of language. From this commendation we must, however, except the character of a son of Neptune, whose manners are rather those of a rough, uneducated country squire than those of a genuine sea-captain.” Monthly Review, April, 1778.

⁴ “Evelina.—The history of a young lady exposed to very critical situations. There is much more merit, as well respecting style as character and incident, than is usually to be met with in modern novels.” London Review, Feb., 1778.

⁵ Fanny was no mistress of numbers; but the sincerity and warm affection expressed in every line of the Ode prefixed to “Evelina,” would excuse far weaker verses. We quote it in full.

“Oh, Author of my being!—far more dear

To me than light, than nourishment, or rest,

Hygeia’s blessings, Rapture’s burning tear,

Or the life-blood that mantles in my breast!

If in my heart the love of Virtue glows,

’Twas planted there by an unerring rule

From thy example the pure flame arose,

Thy life, my precept,—thy good works, my school.

Could my weak pow’rs thy num’rous virtues trace,

By filial love each fear should be repress’d;

The blush of Incapacity I’d chace,

And stand, Recorder of thy worth, confess’d

But since my niggard stars that gift refuse,

Concealment is the only boon I claim

Obscure be still the unsuccessful Muse,

Who cannot raise, but would not sink, thy fame,

Oh! of my life at once the source and joy!

If e’er thy eyes these feeble lines survey,

Let not their folly their intent destroy;

Accept the tribute-but forget the lay.”

⁶ Lady Hales was the mother of Miss Coussmaker, having been twice married, the second time to Sir Thomas Pym Hales, Bart., who died in 1773. They were intimate friends of the Burneys.

⁷ Dr. Burney had brought the work under the notice of Mrs. Thrale. Mrs. Cholmondeley was a sister of the famous actress, Peg Woffington. Her husband, the Hon. and Rev. Robert Cholmondeley, was the second son of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and nephew of Horace Walpole.

⁸ The sum originally paid for “Evelina” was twenty pounds, to which ten Pounds more were added after the third edition. “Evelina” passed through four editions within a year.

⁹ Mrs. Greville, the wife of Dr. Burney’s friend and early patron, Fulke Greville, was Fanny’s godmother, and the author of a much admired “Ode to Indifference.”

¹⁰ Her cousin, Charles Rousseau Burney–Hetty’s husband.

¹¹ A French authoress, who wrote about the middle of the eighteenth century. Her novels, according to Dunlop “A History of Fiction,” (chap. xiii.), “are distinguished by their delicacy and spirit.” Her best works ar: “Miss Jenny Salisbury,” “Le Marquis de Cressy,” “Letters of Lady Catesby,” etc.

¹² Mrs. Williams, the blind poetess, who resided in Dr. Johnson’s house. She had written to Dr. Burney, requesting the loan of a copy of “Evelina.”

¹³ William Seward “a great favourite at Streatham,” was the son of an eminent brewer, Mr. Seward, of the firm of Calvert and Seward, and was born in 1747. He was not yet a “literary lion,” but he published some volumes—“Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons”—at a later date. He died in 1799.

¹⁴ Miss Frances Reynolds—Dr. Johnson’s “Renny”—was the sister of the great Sir Joshua, and a miniature painter of some talent.

¹⁵ Her brother.

¹⁶ Bennet Lampton, of Langton in Lincolnshire, was an old and much loved friend of Dr. Johnson, and is frequently mentioned in Boswell’s “Life.” He was born about 1737, was educated at Oxford, was a good Greek scholar, and, says Boswell, “a gentleman eminent not only for worth, and learning but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation.” He succeeded Johnson, on the death of the latter, as Professor of Ancient History to the Royal Academy, and died in 1801. Boswell has printed a charming letter, written by Johnson, a few months before his death, to Langton’s little daughter Jane, then in her seventh year.

¹⁷ “My master” was a Common appellation for Mr. Thrale,—and one which he seems, in earnest, to have deserved. “I know no man,” said Johnson, “who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale, he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed.” (Boswell.)

¹⁸ Suspirius the Screech Owl. See “Rambler” for Oct. 9, 1750. (This is unjust to Goldsmith. The general idea of the character of Croaker, no doubt, closely resembles that of Suspirius, and was probably borrowed from Johnson; but the details which make the part so diverting are entirely of Goldsmith’s invention, as anyone may see by comparing “The Good-natured Man” with “The Rambler.”)

¹⁹ Mrs. Thrale tells a good story of Johnson’s irrational antipathy to the Scotch. A Scotch gentleman in London, “at his return from the Hebrides, asked him, with a firm tone of voice, ‘what he thought of his country?’ ‘That it is a very vile country, to be sure, sir,’ returned for answer Dr. Johnson. ‘Well sir!’ replies the other, somewhat mortified, ‘God made it!’ ‘Certainly he did,’ answers Mr. Johnson, again, ‘but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and—comparisons are odious.” Mr. S.—“but God made hell!”—(Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson)

²⁰ Fanny’s step-mother.

²¹ Boswell prints these lines as follows:

“When first I drew my vital breath, A little minikin I came upon earth And then I came from a dark abode, Into this gay and gaudy world,”

²² Malone gives some further particulars about Bet Flint in a note to Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.” She was tried, and acquitted, at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, the prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, being unable to prove “that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counterpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, etc.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready-furnished room in Meard’s-court, Dean-street, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, only five shillings a week.”

²³ Margaret Caroline Rudd was in great notoriety about the year 1776, from the fame of her powers of fascination, which, it was said, had brought a man to the gallows. This man, her lover, was hanged in January, 1776, for forgery, and the fascinating Margaret appeared as evidence against him. Boswell visited her in that year, and to a lady who expressed her disapprobation of such proceedings, Johnson said: “Nay, madam, Boswell is right: I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have got a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers.”

²⁴ Kitty Fisher—more correctly, Fischer, her father being a German—an even more famous courtesan, who enjoyed the distinction of having been twice painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds

²⁵ The blind poetess, and inmate of Dr. Johnson’s house.

²⁶ Michael Lort, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently Greek Professor. He was born in 1725, and died in 1799.

²⁷ “I wished the man a dinner and sat still.”—Pope.

²⁸ The Miss Palmers were the nieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mary, the elder, married, in 1792, the Earl of Inchiquin, afterwards created Marquis of Thomond; the younger, Theophila (“Offy”), married Robert Lovell Gwatkin, Esq. One of Sir Joshua’s most charming pictures (“Simplicity”) was painted, in 1788, from Offy’s little daughter. Lady Ladd was the sister of Mr. Thrale.

²⁹ Miss Thrale.

³⁰ Edmund Burke, our “greatest man since Milton,” as Macaulay called him.

³¹ At Sir Joshua’s town house, in Leicester Square. The house is now occupied by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the auctioneers.

³² “de Mullin” is Mrs. Desmoulins, the daughter of Johnson’s godfather, Dr. Swinfen, a physician in Lichfield. Left in extreme indigence by the deaths of her father and husband, she found for many years an asylum in the house of Dr. Johnson, whom she survived.

³³ Macbean was sometime Johnson’s amanuensis. His “Dictionary of Ancient Geography” was published in 1773, with a Preface by Johnson.

³⁴ Robert Levett—not Levat, as Fanny writes it—was a Lichfield man, “an obscure practiser in physick amongst the lower people,” and an old acquaintance of Dr. Johnson’s, in whose house he was supported for many years, until his death, at a very advanced age, in 1782, “So ended the long life of a very useful and very blameless man,” Johnson wrote, in communicating the intelligence to Dr. Lawrence.

³⁵ Boswell tells us nothing of Poll, except that she was a Miss Carmichael. Domestic dissensions seem to have been the rule with this happy family, but Johnson’s long-suffering was inexhaustible, On one occasion he writes Mrs. Thrale, “Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, who does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them.”

³⁶ The lives of Cowley and Waller, from Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets.” They were not published till 1781, but were already in print.

³⁷ “The Theory and Regulation of Love: A Moral Essay.” By the Rev. John Norris, Oxford, 1688.

³⁸ Miss Gregory was the daughter of a Scotch physician. She married the Rev. Archibald Alison, and was the mother of Sir Archibald Alison, the historian.

³⁹ The house in which she died, in Portman Square.

⁴⁰ No doubt Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet, a French author, who published numerous works, historical and political, both before and after this date.

⁴¹ In the original edition: perhaps “vexation” was the word intended.

⁴² Sir John Ladd, Mr. Thrale’s sister’s son, a young profligate who subsequently married, not Miss Burney, but a woman of the town! Dr. Johnson’s satirical verses on his coming of age are printed near the end of Boswell’s “Life.”