Part 17

“Mr. Twining, astonished, delighted, uttered the warmest praises, with all his heart; but that fervent effusion over, dropped his voice into its lowest key, to add, with a look full of arch pleasantry, ‘Now, is not this better than being tall?’

“My poor sister, Burney, was not quite well, and had a hurt on one of her fingers. But though she could not exert herself to play a solo, she consented to take her part in the noble duet for the piano-forte of Müthel; and she was no sooner seated, than Mr. Bruce re-appeared in our horizon.

“You well know that enchanting composition, which never has been more perfectly executed.

“Mr. Twining was enraptured; Mrs. Strange listened in silent wonder and pleasure; and Mr. Bruce himself was drawn into a charmed attention. His air lost its fierceness; his features relaxed into smiles; and good humour and complacency turned pride, sternness, and displeasure, out of his phiz.

“I begin now to think I have perhaps been too criticising upon poor man-mountain; and that, when he is not in the way of provocation to his vanity, he may be an amiable, as well as an agreeable man. But I suppose his giant-form, which makes every thing around him seem diminutive, has given him a notion that he was born to lord it over the rest of mankind; which, peradventure, seems to him a mere huddle of Lilliputians, as unfit to cope with him, mentally, in discourse, as corporeally in a wrestling match.

“Mr. Twining had been invited to supper; and as it now grew very late, my mother made the invitation general; which, to our great surprise, Mr. Bruce was the first to accept. Who, then, could start any objection?

“So softened had he been by the music, that he was become all courtesy. Nobody else was listened to, or looked at; and as he scarcely ever deigns to look at any body himself, he is a primary object for peering at.

“The conversation turned upon disorders of the senses; for Mrs. Strange has a female friend who is seized with them, from time to time, as other people might be seized with an ague. She had been on a visit at the house of Mrs. Strange, the day before, where she had met Mr. Bruce. When it was perceived that a fit of the disorder was coming on, Miss Strange took her home; for which extraordinary courage Mr. Bruce greatly blamed her.

“‘How,’ said he, ‘could you be sure of your life for a single moment? Suppose she had thought proper to run a pair of scissors into your eyes? Or had taken a fancy to cutting off one of your ears?’

“Miss Strange replied, that she never feared, for she always knew how to manage her.

“Mr. Bruce then inquired what had been the first symptom she had shewn of the return of her malady?

“Mrs. Strange answered, that the beginning of her wandering that evening, had been by abruptly coming up to her, and asking her whether she could make faces?

“‘I wish,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had asked me! I believe I could have satisfied her pretty well that way!’

“‘O, she had a great desire to speak to you, sir,’ said Miss Strange, ‘she told me she had a great deal to say to you.’

“‘If,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had come up to me, without any preface, and made faces at me,—I confess I should have been rather surprised!’

“‘Troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘if we are not upon our guard, we are all of us mad when we are contradicted! for we are all of us so witty, in our own ideas, that we think every mon out of his head that does not see with our eyes. But when I tried to hold her, poor little soul, from running into the street, while we were waiting for the coach, she gave me such a violent scratch on the arm, that I piteously called out for help. See! here’s the mark.’

“‘Did she fetch blood,’ cried Mr. Bruce, in a tone of alarm; ‘if she did, you will surely go out of your own senses before a fortnight will be over! You may depend upon that! If you are bit by a wild cat, you will undoubtedly become crazy; and how much more if you are scratched by a crack-brained woman? I would advise you to go forthwith to the sea, and be well dipped. I assure you fairly I would not be in your situation.’

“I thought this so shocking, that I felt a serious impulse to expostulate with his giantship upon it myself, and _almost_ the courage; but, whether perceiving my horror, or only imagining it, I cannot tell; he deigned to turn his magnificent countenance full upon me, to display that he was laughing. And he afterwards added, that he knew there was nothing in this case that was any way dangerous; though how he obtained the knowledge he kept to himself.

“My mother then expressed her hopes that the poor lady might not, meanwhile, be removed to a private asylum; as in these repositories, the patients were said to be goaded on to become worse, every time a friend or a physician was expected to visit them; purposely to lengthen the poor sufferer’s detention.

“‘Indeed!’ cried Mr. Bruce, knitting his brows, ‘why this is very bad encouragement to going out of one’s senses!’

“The rest of the conversation was wholly upon this subject; and so, as I know you hate the horrors, I must bid good night to Meeting the Second with his Abyssinian Majesty.

“The _tête à tête_ in the study had been entirely upon the two drawings; and in settling the points upon which Mr. Bruce had best expatiate in his descriptive and historical epistle.

“My father has great satisfaction in being the first to bring forth the drawings and the writings of this far-famed traveller before the public. The only bad thing was, that it kept him away from us all supper-time, to put down the communications he had received, and the hints he wished to give for more.

“Mr. Twining, too, wrapt himself up in his own observations, and would not speak—except by his eyes, which had a comic look, extremely diverting, of pretended fearful insignificance.

* * * * *

“Well, now, my dear Sir, to

MEETING THE THIRD.

“It was produced by a visit from Mrs. Strange, with a petition from his Majesty of Abyssinia for another musical evening; as he had spoken with so much rapture of the last to Mr. Nesbit, a great _amateur_, ‘that the poor honest lad,’ Mrs. Strange said, ‘could no’ sleep o’ nights from impatience to be inoculated with the same harmony, to prevent the infection Mr. Bruce carried about with him from doing him a mischief.’

“Well, the time was fixed, and the evening proved so agreeable, that we heartily and continually wished our dear Mr. Crisp amongst us. Mr. Twining, too, was gone. All one likes best go quickest.

“The first who arrived was Mr. Solly. He, also, is a great traveller, though not a renowned one; for nothing less than the Nile, and no place short of Abyssinia, will do, at present, for the taste of the public. My father had met with Mr. Solly at four several cities in Italy, and all accidentally; namely, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Since that time, Mr. Solly has been wandering to many more remote places; and at Alexandria, and at Grand Cairo, he had met with Mr. Bruce. He is a chatty, lively man; and not at all wanting in marks of his foreign excursions, _i.e._ shrugs, jerks, and gestures. John Bull, you know, my dear Mr. Crisp, when left to himself, is so torpid a sort of figure, with his arms slung so lank to his sides, that, at a little distance, one might fancy him without any such limb. While the Italians and French make such a flourishing display of its powers, that I verily believe it quickens circulation, and helps to render them so much more vivacious than philosopher Johnny.

“Yet I love Johnny best, for all that; as well as honour him the most; only I often wish he was a little more entertaining.

“Mr. Solly and my father ‘fought all their battles o’er again’ through Italy; and kept fighting them on till the arrival of Dr. Russel, a learned, and likewise a travelled physician, who seems droll and clever; but who is so very short-sighted, that even my father and I see further a-field. He loses nothing, however, through this infirmity, that trouble can supply; for he peers in every body’s face at least a minute, to discover whether or not he knows them; and, after that, he peers a minute or two more, to discover, I suppose, whether or not he likes them. Yet, without boldness. ’Tis merely a look of earnest investigation, which he bestowed, in turn, upon every one present, as they came in his way; never fastening his eyes, even for an instant, upon the ground, the fire, the wainscot, or any thing inanimate, but always upon the ‘human face divine.’

“He, also, is another travelled friend of Mr. Bruce, whom he knew at Aleppo, where Dr. Russel resided some years.[49]

“Then came Mrs. and Miss Strange, and his Abyssinian majesty, with his companion, Mr. Nesbit, who is a young Scotchman of distinction, infinitely _fade_, conceited, and coxcombical. He spoke very little, except to Mr. Bruce, and that, very politely, in a whisper. I cannot at all imagine what could provoke this African monarch to introduce such a fop here. We heartily wished him back in his own quarters; or at least at ‘the Orkneys,’ or at ‘the Lord knows where.’

“Mr. Bruce himself was in the most perfect good-humour; all civility and pleasantry; and his smiles seemed to give liberty for general ease.

“Having paid his compliments to my mother, he addressed himself to my sister Burney, inquiring courteously after her finger, which Miss Strange had told him she had hurt.

“‘Mrs. Burney’s fingers,’ cried Dr. Russel, snatching at the opportunity for a good gaze, not upon her finger, but her phiz, ‘ought to be exempt from all evil.’

“Your Hettina smiled, and assured them it was almost well.

“‘O, I prayed to Apollo,’ cried Mr. Bruce, ‘for its recovery, and he has heard my prayer.’

“‘I have no doubt, sir,’ said Hetty, ‘of your influence with Apollo.’

“‘I ought to have some, Madam,’ answered he grandly, ‘for I have been a slave to him all my life!’”

“He then came to hope that I should open the concert; speaking to me with just such an encouraging sort of smile as if I had been about eleven years old; and strongly admonishing me not to delay coming forward at once, as he was prepared for no common pleasure in listening to me.

“Next he advanced to Susanna, begging her to exhibit her talent; and telling her he had had a dream, that if she refused to play, some great misfortune would befall him.

“When he had gone through this little circle of gallantry, to his own apparent satisfaction, he suffered Mr. Nesbit to seize upon him for another whispering dialogue; in which, as Mrs. Strange has since told my mother, that pretty swain lamented that he must soon run away, a certain lady of quality having taken such an unaccountable fancy to him at the opera of the preceding night, that she had appointed him to be with her this evening _tête à tête_!

“Mr. Bruce gave so little credit to this _bonne fortune_, that he laughed aloud in relating it to Mrs. Strange.

“Mr. Bruce then called upon Dr. Russel to take a violin, saying he was a very fine performer; but adding, ‘We used to disgrace his talents, I own, at Aleppo; for, having no blind fiddler at hand, we kept him playing country dances by the hour.’

“Dr. Russel mentioned some town _in those parts_, Asia or Africa, where a concert, upon occasion of a marriage, lasted three days.

“‘Three days?’ repeated Mr. Bruce; ‘why marriage is a more formidable thing there than even here!’

“Then came music, and the incomparable duet; which, as they could not forbear encoring, filled up all the rest of the evening, till the company at large departed; for there were several persons present whom I have not mentioned, being of no zest for your notice.

“Mr. Bruce, however, with the Stranges, again consented to stay supper; which, you know, with us, is nothing but a permission to sit over a table for chat, and roast potatoes, or apples.

“But now, to perfect your acquaintance with this towering Ethiopian, where do you think he will take you during supper?

“To the source, or sources, you cry, of the Nile? to Thebes? to its temple? to an arietta on the Theban Harp? or, perhaps, to banquetting on hot raw beef in Abyssinia?

“No such thing, my dear Mr. Crisp, no such thing. Travellers who mean to write their travels, are fit for nothing but to represent the gap at your whist table at Chesington, when you have only three players; for they are mere dummies.

“Mr. Bruce left all his exploits, his wanderings, his vanishings, his re-appearances, his harps so celestial, and his bullocks so terrestrial, to plant all our entertainment within a hundred yards of our own coterie; namely, at the masquerades at the Haymarket.

“Thus it was. He inquired of Mrs. Strange where he could find Mrs. Twoldham, a lady of his acquaintance; a very fine woman, but remarkably dissipated, whom he wished to see.

“‘Troth,’ Mrs. Strange answered, ‘she did not know; but if he would take a turn to a masquerade or two, he would be sure to light upon her, as she never missed one.’

“‘What,’ cried he, laughing, ‘has she not had enough yet of masquerades? Brava, Mrs. Twoldham! I honour your spirit.’

“He then laughed so cordially, that we were tempted, by such extraordinary good-humour, to beg him, almost in a body, to permit us to partake of his mirth.

“He complied very gaily. ‘A friend of mine,’ he cried, ‘before I went abroad, had so often been teazed to esquire her to some of these medleys, that he thought to give the poor woman a surfeit of them to free himself from her future importunity. Yet she was a very handsome woman, very handsome indeed. But just as they were going into the great room, he had got one of her visiting cards ready, and contrived, as they passed through a crowded passage, to pin to the back of her robe, Mrs. Twoldham, Wimpole Street. And not three steps had she tript forward, before some one called out: “Hah! Mrs. Twoldham! how do you do, Mrs. Twoldham?”—“Oho, Mrs. Twoldham, are you here?” cried another; “Well, Ma’am, and how do all friends in Wimpole Street do?” till the poor woman was half out of her wits, to know how so many people had discovered her. So she thought that perhaps her forehead was in sight, and she perked up her mask; but she did not less hear, “Ah! it’s you, Mrs. Twoldham, is it?” Then she supposed she had left a peep at her chin, and down again was tugged the poor mask; but still, “Mrs. Twoldham!” and, “how do you do, my dear Mrs. Twoldham?” was rung in her ears at every step; till at last, she took it into her head that some one, who, by chance, had detected her, had sent her name round the room; so she hurried off like lightning to the upper suite of apartments. But ’twas all the same. “Well, I declare, if here is not Mrs. Twoldham!” cries the first person that passed her. “So she is, I protest,” cried another; “I am very glad to see you, my dear Ma’am! what say you to giving me a little breakfast to-morrow morning? you know where, Mrs. Twoldham; at our old haunt in Wimpole Street.” But, at last, the corner of an unlucky table rubbed off the visiting card; and a waiter, who picked it up, grinned from ear to ear, and asked whether it was hers. And the poor woman fell into such a trance of passion, that my friend was afraid for his eyes; and all the more, because, do what he would, he could not refrain from laughing in her face.’

“You can scarcely conceive how heartily he laughed himself; he quite chuckled, with all the enjoyment in mischief of a holiday school boy.

“And he harped upon the subject with such facetious pleasure, that no other could be started.

“‘I once knew,’ he cried, ‘a man, his name was Robert Chambers, and a good-natured little fellow he was, who was served this very trick the first masquerade he went to in London, upon fresh coming from Scotland. A gentleman who went to it with him, wrote upon his black domino, with chalk, “this is little Bob Chambers, fresh come from Edinburgh;” and immediately some one called out, in passing him, “What Bob? little Bob Chambers? how do, my boy?” “Faith,” says Bob, to his friend, “the people of this fine London are pretty impudent! I don’t know that I know a soul in the whole town, and the first person I meet makes free to call me plain Bob?” But when he went on, and found that every creature in every room did the same, he grew quite outrageous at being treated with so little ceremony; and he stamped with his foot at one, and clenched his fist at another, and asked how they dared call him Bob? “What! a’n’t you Bob, then?” replies one; “O yes, you are! you’re Bob, my Bob, as sure as a gun! Bob Chambers! little Bob Chambers. And I hope you have left all well at Edinburgh, my Bob?” In vain he rubbed by them, and tried to get on, for they called to him quite from a distance; “Bob!—Bob! come hither, I say!—come hither, my Bobby! my Bob of all Bobs! you’re welcome from Edinburgh, my Bob!” Well, then, he said, ’twas clear the devil owed him a spite, and had told his name from top to bottom of every room. Poor Bob! he made a wry face at the very sound of a masquerade to the end of his days.’

“To have looked at Mr. Bruce in his glee at this buffoonery, you must really have been amused; though methinks I see, supposing you had been with us, the picturesque rising of your brow, and all the dignity of your Roman nose, while you would have stared at such familiar delight in an active joke, as to transport into so merry an _espiegle_, the seven-footed loftiness of the haughty and imperious tourist from the sands of Ethiopia, and the waters of Abyssinia; whom, nevertheless, I have now the honour to portray in his _robe de chambre_, i.e. in private society, to my dear Chesington Daddy.

“What says he to the portrait?”

With fresh pleasure and alacrity, Dr. Burney now went on with his work. So unlooked for a re-inforcement of his means could not have arrived more seasonably. Every discovery, or development, relative to early times, was not only of essential service to the Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients, upon which, now, he was elaborately engaged, but excited general curiosity in all lovers of antiquity.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Amongst other new friends that this new neighbourhood procured, or confirmed, to Dr. Burney, there was one of so congenial, so Samaritan, a sort, that neighbour he must have been to the Doctor from the time of their first acquaintance, had his residence been in Dorset-square, or at Botolph’s Wharf; instead of Leicester-square, and scarcely twenty yards from the Doctor’s own short street.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, this good Samaritan, was, like Dr. Burney, though well-read and deeply studious, as easy and natural in discourse as if he had been merely a man of the world; and though his own art was his passion, he was open to the warmest admiration of every other: and again, like the Doctor, he was gay though contemplative, and flew from indolence, though he courted enjoyment. There was a striking resemblance in the general amenity of their intercourse, that not only made them, at all times, and with all persons, free from any approach to envy, peevishness, or sarcasm themselves, but seemed to spread around them a suavity that dissolved those angry passions in others.

In his chronological doggrels, Dr. Burney records that he now began his intimacy with the great English Raphael; of whom he adds,

“’Twere vain throughout Europe to look for his peer Who by converse and pencil alike can endear.”

MRS. REYNOLDS.

Sir Joshua had a maiden sister, Mrs. Frances Reynolds; a woman of worth and understanding, but of a singular character; who, unfortunately for herself, made, throughout life, the great mistake of nourishing that singularity which was her bane, as if it had been her blessing.

She lived with Sir Joshua at this time, and stood high in the regard of his firm and most honoured friend, Dr. Johnson; who saw and pitied her foible, but tried to cure it in vain. It was that of living in an habitual perplexity of mind, and irresolution of conduct, which to herself was restlessly tormenting, and to all around her was teazingly wearisome.

Whatever she suggested, or planned, one day, was reversed the next; though resorted to on the third, as if merely to be again rejected on the fourth; and so on, almost endlessly; for she rang not the changes in her opinions and designs in order to bring them into harmony and practice; but waveringly to stir up new combinations and difficulties; till she found herself in the midst of such chaotic obstructions as could chime in with no given purpose; but must needs be left to ring their own peal, and to begin again just where they began at first.

This lady was a no unfrequent visitor in St. Martin’s-street; where, for her many excellent qualities, she was much esteemed.

The Miss Palmers,[50] also, two nieces of Sir Joshua, lived with him then occasionally; and one of them, afterwards, habitually; and added to the grace of his table, and of his evening circles, by the pleasingness of their manners, and the beauty of their persons.

Mrs. Frances Reynolds desired to paint Dr. Burney’s portrait, that she might place it among certain other worthies of her choice, already ornamenting her dressing-room. The Doctor had little time to spare; but had too natively the spirit of the old school, to suffer No! and a lady, to pair off together.

During his sittings, one trait of her tenacious humour occurred, that he was always amused in relating. While she was painting his hair, which was remarkably thick, she asked him, very gravely, whether he could let her have his wig some day to work at, without troubling him to sit.

“My wig?” repeated he, much surprised.

“Yes;” she answered; “have not you more than one? can’t you spare it?”

“Spare it?—Why what makes you think it a wig? It’s my own hair.”

“O then, I suppose,” said she, with a smile, “I must not call it a wig?”

“Not call it a wig?—why what for, my clear Madam, should you call it a wig?”

“Nay, Sir,” replied she, composedly, “if you do not like it, I am sure I won’t.”

And he protested, that though he offered her every proof of twisting, twitching, and twirling that she pleased, she calmly continued painting, without heeding his appeal for the hairy honours of his head; and only coolly repeating, “I suppose, then, I must not call it a wig?”

MRS. BROOKES.

Mrs. Brookes, authoress of “Lady Julia Mandeville,” &c., having become a joint proprietor of the Opera House with Mr. and Mrs. Yates, earnestly coveted the acquaintance of Dr. Burney; in which, of course, was included the benefit of his musical opinions, his skill, and his counsel.

Mrs. Brookes had much to combat in order to receive the justice due to her from the world; for nature had not been more kind in her mental, than hard in her corporeal gifts. She was short, broad, crooked, ill-featured, and ill-favoured; and she had a cast of the eye that made it seem looking every way rather than that which she meant for its direction. Nevertheless, she always ultimately obtained the consideration that she merited. She was free from pretension, and extremely good-natured. All of assumption, by which she might have claimed literary rank, from the higher and graver part of her works, was wholly set aside in conversation; where, however different in grace and appearance, she was as flowing, as cheerful, and as natural in dialogue, as her own popular and pleasing “Rosina.”[51]

MISS REID.

Miss Reid, the Rosalba of Britain, who, in crayons, had a grace and a softness of colouring rarely surpassed, was a visitor likewise at the house, whose works and whose person were almost divertingly, as was remarked by Mr. Twining, at variance with one another; for while the works were all loveliness, their author was saturnine, cold, taciturn; absent to an extreme; awkward and full of mischances in every motion; ill-accoutred, even beyond negligence, in her dress; and plain enough to produce, grotesquely, an effect that was almost picturesque.