Part 18

Yet, with all this outward lack of allurement, her heart was kind, her temper was humane, and her friendships were zealous. But she had met with some misfortunes in early life that had embittered her existence, and kept it always wavering, in a miserable balance, between heartless apathy, and pining discontent.

MRS. ORD.

An acquaintance was now, also, begun, with one of the most valued, valuable, and lasting friends of Dr. Burney and his family, Mrs. Ord; a lady of great mental merit, strict principles, and dignified manners.

Without belonging to what was called the Blues, or _Bas Bleu_ Society, except as a receiver or a visitor, she selected parties from that set to mix with those of other, or of no denomination, that were sometimes peculiarly well assorted, and were always generally agreeable.

Mrs. Ord’s was the first coterie into which the Doctor, after his abode in St. Martin’s-Street, initiated his family; Mrs. Burney as a participator, his daughters as appendages, of what might justly be called a _conversatione_.

The good sense, serene demeanour, and cheerful politeness of the lady of the house, made the first meeting so pleasingly animating to every one present, that another and another followed, from time to time, for a long series of years. What Dr. Burney observed upon taking leave of this first little assemblage, may be quoted as applicable to every other.

“I rejoice, Madam,” he said, “to find that there are still two or three houses, even in these dissipated times, where, through judgment and taste in their selection, people may be called together, not with the aid of cards, to kill time, but with that of conversation, to give it life.”

“And I rejoice the more in the success of Mrs. Ord,” cried Mr. Pepys,[52] “because I have known many meetings utterly fail, where equal pleasure has been proposed and expected; but where, though the ingredients, also, have been equally good—the pudding has proved very bad in the eating!”

“The best ingredients,” said Dr. Burney, “however excellent they may be separately, always prove inefficient if they are not well blended; for if any one of them is a little too sour, or a little too bitter—nay, or a little too sweet, they counteract each other. But Mrs. Ord is an excellent cook, and employs all the refinements of her art in taking care not to put clashing materials into the same mess.”

HON. MR. BRUDENEL.

His Honour, Brudenel,[53] loved and sought Dr. Burney with the most faithful admiration from a very early period; and, to the latest in his power, he manifested the same partiality. Though by no means a man of talents, he made his way to the grateful and lasting regard of Dr. Burney, by constancy of personal attachment, and a fervour of devotion to the art through which the distinction of the Doctor had had its origin.

Dr. Ogle, Dean of Winchester,[54] a man of facetious pleasantry, yet of real sagacity; though mingled with eccentricities, perversities, and decidedly republican principles, became a warm admirer of the character and conversation of the Doctor; while the exemplary Mrs. Ogle and her sprightly daughters united to enliven his reception, in Berkeley-square, as an honoured instructor, and a cordial friend.

But with far more political congeniality the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, was included in this new amical committee.

In a loose manuscript of recurrence to the year 1776, stand these words upon the first Dr. Warren.

“In January of this year, an acquaintance which I had already begun with that most agreeable of men, Dr. Warren, grew into intimacy. His conversation was the most pleasant, and, nearly, the most enlightened, without pedantry or dogmatism, that I had ever known.”

Amongst the distinguished persons appertaining to this numerous list of connexions upon the opening of the St. Martin’s-street residence during the last century, one, at least, still remains to ornament, both by his writings and his conversation, the present, Dr. Gillies; whose urbanity of mind and manners, joined to his literary merits, made him, at his own pleasure, one of the most estimable and honourable contributors to the Doctor’s social circle.

MR. CUTLER.

But the most prominent in eagerness to claim the Doctor’s regard, and to fasten upon his time, with wit, humour, learning, and eccentric genius, that often made him pleasant, and always saved him from becoming insignificant; though with an officious zeal, and an obtrusive kindness that frequently caused him to be irksome, must be ranked Mr. Cutler, a gentleman of no common parts, and certainly of no common conduct; who loved Dr. Burney with an ardour the most sincere, but which he had not attraction to make reciprocal; who wrote him letters of a length interminable, yet with a frequency of repetition that would have rendered even little billets wearisome; and who, satisfied of the truth of his feelings, investigated not their worth, and never doubted their welcome.

The Doctor had a heart too grateful and too gentle to roughly awaken such friendship from its error; he endured, therefore, its annoyance, till the intrusion upon his limited leisure became a serious persecution. He then, almost perforce, sought to render him more considerate by neglect, in wholly omitting to answer his letters.

But Mr. Cutler, though hurt and chagrined, was not quieted. Letter still followed letter, detailing at full length his own ideas upon every subject he could start; with kind assurances of his determined patient expectance of future replies.

The Doctor then was reduced to frankly offer a remonstrance upon the difference of their position with respect to time,—and its claims.

This, though done with softness and delicacy, opened all at once the eyes of this pertinacious friend to his unreflecting insufficiency; but, of course, rather with a feeling of injury, than to a sense of justice; and he withdrew abruptly from all correspondence; powerfully piqued, yet in silent, uncomplaining dismay.

To give an idea of his singular style, some few extracts, of the most uncommon sort, will be selected for the correspondence, from the vast volume of letters that will be consigned to the flames.[55]

MR. BARRY.

The most striking, however, though by no means the most reasonable converser amongst those who generally volunteered their colloquial services in St. Martin’s-street, was that eminent painter, and entertaining character, Mr. Barry; who, with a really innocent belief that he was the most modest and moderate of men, nourished the most insatiable avidity of applause; who, with a loudly laughing defiance of the ills of life, was internally and substantially sinking under their annoyance; and who, with a professed and sardonic contempt of rival prosperity or superiority, disguised, even to himself, the bitterness with which he pined at the success which he could not share, but to which he flattered himself that he was indifferent, or above; because so to be, behoved the character of his believed adoption, that of a genuine votary to philanthropy and philosophy.

His ideas and his views of his art he held, and justly, to be sublime; but his glaring execution of the most chaste designs left his practice in the lurch, even where his theory was most perfect.

He disdained to catch any hints from the works, much less from the counsel, of Sir Joshua Reynolds; from whose personal kindness and commanding abilities he had unfortunately been cut off by early disagreement; for nearly as they approached each other in their ideas, and their knowledge of their art, their process, in cultivating their several talents, had as little accord, as their method of organizing their intellectual attributes and characters. And, indeed, the inveterate dissension of Barry with Sir Joshua Reynolds, must always be in his own disfavour, though his harder fate must mingle pity with censure—little thankfully as his high spirit would have accepted such a species of mitigation. It is not, however, probable, that the fiery Mr. Barry should have received from the serene and candid Sir Joshua, the opening provocation; Sir Joshua, besides his unrivalled professional merits,[56] had a negative title to general approbation, that included many an affirmative one; “Sir Joshua Reynolds,” said Dr. Johnson,[57] “possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.”

Yet Mr. Barry had many admirable as well as uncommon qualities. His moral sentiments were liberal, nay, noble; he was full fraught, almost bursting with vigorous genius; and his eccentricities, both in manner and notions, made his company generally enlightening, and always original and entertaining.

GARRICK.

The regret that stood next, or, rather, that stood alone with Dr. Burney, to that of losing the pure air and bright view of Hampstead and Highgate, by this change to St. Martin’s-street, was missing the frequency of the visits of Mr. Garrick; to whom the Queen-Square of that day was so nearly out of town, that to arrive at it on foot had almost the refreshment of a country walk.

St. Martin’s-street, on the contrary, was situated in the populous closeness of the midst of things; and not a step could Garrick take in its vicinity, without being recognised and stared at, if not pursued and hailed, by all the common herd of his gallery admirers; those gods to whom so often he made his fond appeal; and who formed, in fact, a principal portion of his fame, and, consequently, of his happiness, by the honest tribute of their vociferous plaudits.

Nevertheless, these jovial gods, though vivifying to him from their high abode, and in a mass, at the theatre, must, in partial groups, from the exertions he could never refrain from making to keep alive with almost whatever was living, his gay popularity, be seriously fatiguing, by crowding about him in narrow streets, dirty crossings, and awkward nooks and corners, such as then abounded in that part of the town; though still his buoyant spirits, glowing and unequalled, retained their elastic pleasure in universal admiration.

An instance of this preponderating propensity greatly diverted Dr. Burney, upon the first visit of Mr. Garrick to St. Martin’s-street.

This visit was very matinal; and a new housemaid, who was washing the steps of the door, and did not know him, offered some resistance to letting him enter the house unannounced: but, grotesquely breaking through her attempted obstructions, he forcibly ascended the stairs, and rushed into the Doctor’s study; where his voice, in some mock heroics to the damsel, alone preceded him.

Here he found the Doctor immersed in papers, manuscripts, and books, though under the hands of his hair-dresser; while one of his daughters was reading a newspaper to him;[58] another was making his tea,[59] and another was arranging his books.[60]

The Doctor, beginning a laughing apology for the literary and littered state of his apartment, endeavoured to put things a little to rights, that he might present his ever welcome guest with a vacated chair. But Mr. Garrick, throwing himself plumply into one that was well-cushioned with pamphlets and memorials, called out: “Ay, do now, Doctor, be in a little confusion! whisk your matters all out of their places; and don’t know where to find a thing that you want for the rest of the day;—and that will make us all comfortable!”

The Doctor now, laughingly leaving his disorder to take care of itself, resumed his place on the stool; that the furniture of his head might go through its proper repairs.

Mr. Garrick then, assuming a solemn gravity, with a profound air of attention, fastened his eyes upon the hair-dresser; as if wonder-struck at his amazing skill in decorating the Doctor’s _tête_.

The man, highly gratified by such notice from the celebrated Garrick, briskly worked on, frizzing, curling, powdering, and pasting, according to the mode of the day, with assiduous, though flurried importance, and with marked self-complacency.

Mr. Garrick himself had on what he called his scratch wig; which was so uncommonly ill-arranged and frightful, that the whole family agreed no one else could have appeared in such a plight in the public streets, without a risk of being hooted at by the mob.

He dropt now all parley whatsoever with the Doctor, not even answering what he said; and seemed wholly absorbed in admiring watchfulness of the progress of the hair-dresser; putting on, by degrees, with a power like transformation, a little mean face of envy and sadness, such as he wore in representing Abel Drugger; which so indescribably altered his countenance, as to make his young admirers almost mingle incredulity of his individuality with their surprise and amusement; for, with his mouth hanging stupidly open, he fixed his features in so vacant an absence of all expression, that he less resembled himself than some daubed wooden block in a barber’s shop window.

The Doctor, perceiving the metamorphosis, smiled in silent observance. But the friseur, who at first had smirkingly felt flattered at seeing his operations thus curiously remarked, became utterly discountenanced by so incomprehensible a change, and so unremitting a stare; and hardly knew what he was about. The more, however, he pomatumed and powdered, and twisted the Doctor’s curls, the more palpable were the signs that Mr. Garrick manifested of

“Wonder with a foolish face of praise;”

till, little by little, a species of consternation began to mingle with the embarrassment of the hair-manufacturer. Mr. Garrick then, suddenly starting up, gawkily perked his altered physiognomy, with the look of a gaping idiot, full in the man’s face.

Scared and confounded, the perruquier now turned away his eyes, and hastily rolled up two curls, with all the speed in his power, to make his retreat. But before he was suffered to escape, Mr. Garrick, lifting his own miserable scratch from his head, and perching it high up in the air upon his finger and thumb, dolorously, in a whining voice, squeaked out, “Pray now, Sir, do you think, Sir, you could touch me up this here old bob a little bit, Sir?”

The man now, with open eyes, and a broad grin, scampered pell-mell out of the room; hardly able to shut the door, ere an uncontrollable horse-laugh proclaimed his relieved perception of Mr. Garrick’s mystification.

Mr. Garrick then, looking smilingly around him at the group, which, enlarged by his first favourite young Charles, most smilingly met his arch glances, sportively said, “And so, Doctor, you, with your tag rag and bobtail there—”

Here he pointed to some loaded shelves of shabby unbound old books and pamphlets, which he started up to recognise, in suddenly assuming the air of a smart, conceited, underling auctioneer; and rapping with his cane upon all that were most worn and defaced, he sputtered out: “A penny a-piece! a penny a-piece! a-going! a-going! a-going! a penny a-piece! each worth a pound!—not to say a hundred! a rare bargain, gemmen and ladies! a rare bargain! down with your copper!”

Then, quietly re-seating himself, “And so, Doctor,” he continued, “you, and tag-rag and bobtail, there, shut yourself up in this snug little book-stall, with all your blithe elves around you, to rest your understanding?”

Outcries now of “Oh fie!” “Oh abominable!” “Rest his understanding? how shocking!” were echoed in his ears with mock indignancy from the mock-offended set, accompanied by hearty laughter from the Doctor.

Up rose Mr. Garrick, with a look of pretended perturbation, incoherently exclaiming, “You mistake—you quite misconceive—you do, indeed! pray be persuaded of it!—I only meant—I merely intended—be sure of that!—be very sure of that!—I only purposed; that is, I designed—I give you my word—’pon honour, I do!—I give you my word of that!—I only had in view—in short, and to cut the matter short, I only aimed at paying you—pray now take me right!—at paying you the very finest compliment in nature!”

“Bravo, bravo! Mr. Bayes!” cried the Doctor, clapping his hands: “nothing can be clearer!—”

Mr. Garrick had lent the Doctor several books of reference; and he now inquired the titles and number of what were at present in his possession.

“I have ten volumes,” answered the Doctor, “of Memoirs of the French Academy.”

“And what others?”

“I don’t know—do you, Fanny?”—turning to his librarian.

“What! I suppose, then,” said Mr. Garrick, with an ironical cast of the eye, “you don’t choose to know that point yourself?—Eh?—O, very well, Sir, very well!” rising, and scraping round the room with sundry grotesque bows, obsequiously low and formal; “quite well, Sir! Pray make free with me! Pray keep them, if you choose it! Pray stand upon no ceremony with me, Sir!”

Dr. Burney then hunted for the list; and when he had found it, and they had looked it over, and talked it over, Mr. Garrick exclaimed, “But when, Doctor, when shall we have out the History of Histories? Do let me know in time, that I may prepare to blow the trumpet of fame.”

He then put his cane to his mouth, and, in the voice of a raree showman, squalled out, shrilly and loudly: “This is your only true History, gemmen! Please to buy! please to buy! come and buy! ’Gad, Sir, I’ll blow it in the ear of every scurvy pretender to rivalship. So, buy! gemmen, buy! The only true History! No counterfeit, but all alive!”

Dr. Burney invited him to the parlour, to breakfast; but he said he was engaged at home, to Messrs. Twiss and Boswell; whom immediately, most gaily and ludicrously, he took off to the life.

Elated by the mirth with which he enlivened his audience, he now could not refrain from imitating, in the same manner, even Dr. Johnson: but not maliciously, though very laughably. He sincerely honoured, nay, loved Dr. Johnson; but Dr. Johnson, he said, had peculiarities of such unequalled eccentricity, that even to his most attached, nay, to his most reverential admirers, they were irresistibly provoking to mimicry.

Mr. Garrick, therefore, after this apology, casting off his little, mean, snivelling Abel Drugger appearance, began displaying, and, by some inconceivable arrangement of his habiliments, most astonishingly enlarging his person, so as to make it seem many inches above its native size; not only in breadth, but, strange yet true to tell, in height, whilst exhibiting sundry extraordinary and uncouth attitudes and gestures.

Pompously, then, assuming an authoritative port and demeanour, and giving a thundering stamp with his foot on some mark on the carpet that struck his eye—not with passion or displeasure, but merely as if from absence and singularity; he took off the voice, sonorous, impressive, and oratorical, of Dr. Johnson, in a short dialogue with himself that had passed the preceding week.

“David!—will you lend me your Petrarca?”

“Y-e-s, Sir!—”

“David! you sigh?”

“Sir—you shall have it, certainly.”

“Accordingly,” Mr. Garrick continued, “the book—stupendously bound—I sent to him that very evening. But—scarcely had he taken the noble quarto in his hands, when—as Boswell tells me, he poured forth a Greek ejaculation, and a couplet or two from Horace; and then, in one of those fits of enthusiasm which always seem to require that he should spread his arms aloft in the air, his haste was so great to debarrass them for that purpose, that he suddenly pounces my poor Petrarca over his head upon the floor! Russia leather, gold border, and all! And then, standing for several minutes erect, lost in abstraction, he forgot, probably, that he had ever seen it; and left my poor dislocated Beauty to the mercy of the housemaid’s morning mop!”

Phill, the favourite little spaniel, was no more; but a young greyhound successor followed Mr. Garrick about the study, incessantly courting his notice, and licking his hands. “Ah, poor Phill!” cried he, looking at the greyhound contemptuously, “_You_ will never take his place, Slabber-chops! though you try for it hard and soft. Soft enough, poor whelp! like all your race; tenderness without ideas.”

After he had said adieu, and left the room, he hastily came back, whimsically laughing, and said, “Here’s one of your maids down stairs that I love prodigiously to speak to, because she is so cross! She was washing, and rubbing and scrubbing, and whitening and brightening your steps this morning, and would hardly let me pass. Egad, Sir, she did not know the great Roscius! But I frightened her a little, just now: ‘Child,’ says I, ‘you don’t guess whom you have the happiness to see! Do you know I am one of the first geniuses of the age? You would faint away upon the spot if you could only imagine who I am!’”

* * * * *

Another time, an appointment having been arranged by Dr. Burney for presenting his friend Mr. Twining to Mr. Garrick, the two former, in happy conference, were enjoying the society of each other, while awaiting the promised junction with Mr. Garrick, when a violent rapping at the street door, which prepared them for his welcome arrival, was followed by a demand, through the footman, whether the Doctor could receive Sir Jeremy Hillsborough; a baronet who was as peculiarly distasteful to both the gentlemen, as Mr. Garrick was the reverse.

“For heaven’s sake, no!” cried Mr. Twining; and the Doctor echoing “No! No! No!” was with eagerness sending off a hasty excuse, when the footman whispered, “Sir, he’s at my heels! he’s close to the door! he would not stop!” And, strenuously flinging open the library door himself in a slouching hat, an old-fashioned blue rocolo, over a great-coat of which the collar was turned up above his ears, and a silk handkerchief, held, as if from the tooth-ache, to his mouth, the forbidden guest entered; slowly, lowly, and solemnly bowing his head as he advanced; though, quaker-like, never touching his hat, and not uttering a word.

The Doctor, whom Sir Jeremy had never before visited, and to whom he was hardly known, save by open dissimilarity upon some literary subjects; and Mr. Twining, to whom he was only less a stranger to be yet more obnoxious, from having been at variance with his family; equally concluded, from their knowledge of his irascible character, that the visit had no other view than that of demanding satisfaction for some offence supposed to have been offered to his high self-importance. And, in the awkwardness of such a surmise, they could not but feel disconcerted, nay abashed, at having proclaimed their averseness to his sight in such unqualified terms, and immediately within his hearing.

For a minute or two, with a silence like his own, they awaited an explanation of his purpose; when, after some hesitation, ostentatiously waving one hand, while the other still held his handkerchief to his mouth, the unwelcome intruder, to their utter astonishment, came forward; and composedly seated himself in an arm-chair near the fire; filling it broadly, with an air of domineering authority.

The gentlemen now looked at each other, in some doubt whether their visitor had not found his way to them from the vicinity of Moorfields.[61]

The pause that ensued was embarrassing, and not quite free from alarm; when the intruder, after an extraordinary nod or two, of a palpably threatening nature, suddenly started up, threw off his slouched hat and old rocolo, flung his red silk handkerchief into the ashes, and displayed to view, lustrous with vivacity, the gay features, the sparkling eyes, and laughing countenance of Garrick,—the inimitable imitator, David Garrick.

Dr. Burney, delighted at this development, clapped his hands, as if the scene had been represented at a theatre: and all his family present joined rapturously in the plaudit: while Mr. Twining, with the happy surprise of a sudden exchange from expected disgust to accorded pleasure, eagerly approached the arm-chair, for a presentation which he had longed for nearly throughout his life.