Part 19
Mr. Garrick then, with many hearty reciprocations of laughter, expounded the motive to the feat which he had enacted.
He had awaked, he said, that morning, under the formidable impression of an introduction to a profound Greek scholar, that was almost awful; and that had set him to pondering upon the egregious loss of time and pleasurability that hung upon all formalities in making new acquaintances; and he then set his wits to work at devising means for skipping at once, by some sleight of hand, into abrupt cordiality. And none occurred that seemed so promising of spontaneous success, as presenting himself under the aspect of a person whom he knew to be so desperately unpleasant to the scholiast, that, at the very sound of his name, he would inwardly ejaculate,
“Take any form but that!”
Here, in a moment, Mr. Garrick was in the centre of the apartment, in the attitude of Hamlet at sight of the ghost.
This burlesque frolic over, which gave a playful vent that seemed almost necessary to the superabundant animal spirits of Mr. Garrick, who, as Dr. Johnson has said of Shakespeare, “was always struggling for an occasion to be comic,” he cast away farce and mimicry; and became, for the rest of the visit, a judicious, intelligent, and well informed, though ever lively and entertaining converser and man of letters: and Mr. Twining had not been more amused by his buffoonery, than he grew charmed by his rationality.
In the course of the conversation, the intended Encyclopedia of Dr. Goldsmith being mentioned, and the Doctor’s death warmly regretted, a description of the character as well as works of that charming author was brought forward; and Mr. Garrick named, what no one else in his presence could have hinted at, the poem of Retaliation.
Mr. Garrick had too much knowledge of mankind to treat with lightness so forcible an attack upon the stability of his friendships, however it might be softened off by the praise of his talents.[62] But he had brought it, he said, upon himself, by an unlucky lampoon, to which he had irresistibly been led by the absurd blunders, and the inconceivable inferiority between the discourse and the pen of this singular man; who, one evening at the club, had been so outrageously laughable, that Mr. Garrick had been betrayed into asserting, that no man could possibly draw the character of Oliver Goldsmith, till poor Oliver was under ground; for what any one would say after an hour’s reading him, would indubitably be reversed, after an hour’s chat. “And then,” Mr. Garrick continued, “one risible folly bringing on another, I voted him to be dead at that time, that I might give his real character in his epitaph. And this,” he added, “produced this distich.”
“Attend, passer by, for here lies old Noll; Who wrote like an angel—but talked like poor Poll!”
Goldsmith, immeasurably piqued, vowed he would retaliate; but, never ready with his tongue in public, though always ready with his pen in private, he hurried off in a pet; and, some time after, produced that best, if not only, satirical poem, that he ever wrote, “Retaliation.”
This was Dr. Goldsmith’s final work, and did not come out till after his death. And it was still unfinished; the last line, which was upon Sir Joshua Reynolds, being left half written;
“By flattery unspoil’d—”[63]
To a very general regret, Dr. Johnson had not yet been named. Probably, he was meant to form the climax of the piece.
His character, drawn by a man of such acute discrimination, who had prospered from his friendship, yet smarted from his wit; who feared, dreaded, and envied; yet honoured, admired, and loved him; would doubtless have been sketched with as fine a pencil of splendid praise, and pointed satire, as has marked the characteristic distiches upon Mr. Burke and Mr. Garrick.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: The year of Dr. Burney’s decease.]
[Footnote 2: Afterwards Mrs. Phillips.]
[Footnote 3: Afterwards Dame d’Atour to the celebrated sister of Frederick the Great.]
[Footnote 4: Upon its revival; not upon its first coming-out.]
[Footnote 5: Even to Thomson, young Burney had appeared but as a delegate from that nominal society.]
[Footnote 6: His late Majesty, George the Fourth, when Prince of Wales.]
[Footnote 7: Now the mansion of the Marquis of Londonderry.]
[Footnote 8: Troilus and Cressida.]
[Footnote 9: The bride’s sisters, the Misses Macartney, were privately present at this clandestine ceremony.]
[Footnote 10: The rich citizens, at present, generally migrate to the west; leaving their eastern dwelling, with its current business-control, to their partners or dependents.]
[Footnote 11: This resistless filial tribute to such extraordinary _independent_ and _individual_ merit, must now be offenceless; as the family of its honoured object has for very many years, in its every Male branch, been, in this world, utterly extinct.—And, for another world,—of what avail were disguise?]
[Footnote 12: The word _almost_ must here stand to acknowledge the several exceptions that may be offered to this paragraph; but which, nevertheless, seem to make, not annul, a general rule.]
[Footnote 13: Miss Young’s were the kind arms that first welcomed to this nether sphere the writer of these memoirs.]
[Footnote 14: The whole of this finest gallery of pictures that, then, had been formed in England, was sold, during some pecuniary difficulties, by its owner, George, Earl of Orford, for £40,000, to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.]
[Footnote 15: This name alludes to that which young Burney had acquired from imitating Garrick in Abel Drugger, during the theatricals at Wilbury House.]
[Footnote 16: It is written with a flow of tender but harassed sensations, so natural, so unstrained, that it seems to have been penned merely because felt; though clearly to have been incited by acute disappointment to heart-dear expectations.
I ask no kind return in love; No melting power to please; Far from the heart such gifts remove That sighs for peace and ease! Nor peace nor ease the heart can know That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy and woe— But, turning—trembles too!]
[Footnote 17: And subsequently, through this partial regard, the writer of these memoirs had the honour of being a god-daughter of Mrs. Greville.]
[Footnote 18: Afterwards Mrs. Charles Burney, of Bath.]
[Footnote 19: See correspondence.]
[Footnote 20: The letters of Dr. Johnson were made over to Mr. Boswell by Dr. Burney, and have already been published; but the modesty which withheld his own, will not, it is hoped, be thought here to be violated by printing them in his memoirs; as they not only shew his early and generous enthusiasm for genius, but carry with them a striking proof of the genuine urbanity with which Dr. Johnson was open to every act of kindness that was offered to him unaffectedly, even from persons the most obscure and unknown.]
[Footnote 21: The eldest daughter.]
[Footnote 22: Charlotte.]
[Footnote 23: Afterwards Rear-Admiral James Burney.]
[Footnote 24: Afterwards the celebrated Greek scholar.]
[Footnote 25: In his letters.]
[Footnote 26: Dryden.]
[Footnote 27: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 28: And such it appeared to this memorialist when it was exhibited at the Louvre in 1812.]
[Footnote 29: The first Earl of Chatham.]
[Footnote 30: See correspondence.]
[Footnote 31: Edward, brother to his Majesty George III.]
[Footnote 32: Afterwards Mrs. Rishton.]
[Footnote 33: Now Rector of Lynn Regis.]
[Footnote 34: No truth can be more simply exact than that which is conveyed in four lines of the stanzas which she addressed to him in the secret dedication of her first work, Evelina, viz.
If in my heart the love of virtue glows ’Twas kindled there by an unerring rule; From thy _example_ the pure flame arose, Thy _life_ my precept; thy _good works_ my school.]
[Footnote 35: His son, George Colman the younger, still happily lives and flourishes.]
[Footnote 36: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 37: Forty-three years after the date of this publication, the Countess Dowager of Pembroke acquainted this memorialist, that she had never known by whom this Essay was dedicated, nor by whom it was written.]
[Footnote 38: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 39: This Editor.]
[Footnote 40: Daughter of Lord Mulgrave.]
[Footnote 41: More known by the title of the Hon. Polar Captain. Afterwards Lord Mulgrave.]
[Footnote 42: Mr. Seward, author of Biographiana, was wont to say, that those three initial letters stood for a Fellow Remarkably Stupid.]
[Footnote 43: There seems here to be some word, or words, omitted.—ED.]
[Footnote 44: Mrs. Doctor Burney accompanied the Doctor in this visit to Mr. and Mrs. Bewley.]
[Footnote 45: Afterwards George IV.]
[Footnote 46: Now rector of Abinger, mentioned several times in Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson.]
[Footnote 47: These little narrations, selected and transcribed from a large packet of letters, written by the Editor, at a very early period of life, to Mr. Crisp, were by him bequeathed to his sister, Mrs. Gast; at whose death they became the property of Mrs. Frodsham, their nearest of kin; who, unsolicited, most generously and delicately restored the whole collection to its writer. She is gone hence before this little tribute of gratitude could be offered to her; but she has left two amiable daughters, who will not read it with indifference.]
[Footnote 48: This familiar, but affectionate, appellation, had been given by Dr. Burney, during his own youth, to Mr. Crisp; and was now, by prescription, adopted by the whole of the Doctor’s family.]
[Footnote 49: Dr. Russel, after this meeting, procured for Dr. Burney some curious information from Aleppo, of the modern state of music in Arabia.]
[Footnote 50: The eldest was afterwards Marchioness of Thomond; the second is now Mrs. Gwatken.]
[Footnote 51: An afterpiece of Mrs. Brookes’s composition.]
[Footnote 52: Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys.]
[Footnote 53: Afterwards Earl of Cardigan.]
[Footnote 54: Father of the second Mrs. Sheridan.]
[Footnote 55: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 56: His brilliant successor in deserved renown, Sir Thomas Lawrence, was then scarcely in being.]
[Footnote 57: To this Editor.]
[Footnote 58: Susanna.]
[Footnote 59: Charlotte.]
[Footnote 60: Frances.]
[Footnote 61: Where then stood the Bethlem Hospital.]
[Footnote 62:
“He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he would he could whistle them back.”]
[Footnote 63: This last circumstance was communicated to the Editor by Sir Joshua himself.]
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, BOUVERIE STREET.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors. 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 3. Page 144 last paragraph. Confusing set of dashes. Left as close to original as decipherable. 4. Table of Contents created by the Transcriber.