Chapter 25

Mrs. Delany was alone in her drawing-room, which is entirely hung round with pictures of her own painting, and Ornaments of her own designing. She came to the door to receive us. She is still tall, though some of her height may be lost: not much, however, for she is remarkably upright. She has no remains of beauty in feature, but in countenance I never but once saw more, and that was in my sweet maternal grandmother. Benevolence, softness, piety, and gentleness are all resident in her face; and the resemblance with which she struck me to my dear grandmother, in her first appearance, grew so much stronger from all that came from her mind, which seems to contain nothing but purity and native humility, that I almost longed to embrace her; and I am sure if I had the recollection of that saint-like woman would have been so strong that I should never have refrained from crying over her.

Mrs. Chapone presented me to her, and taking my hand, she said,--

“You must pardon me if I give you an old-fashioned reception, for I know nothing new.” And she saluted me. I did not, as with Mrs. Walsingham, retreat from her.

“Can you forgive, Miss Burney,” she continued, “this great liberty I have taken with you, of asking for your company to dinner? I wished so impatiently to see one from whom I have received such extraordinary pleasure, that, as I could not be alone this morning, I could not bear to put it off to another day; and, if you had been so good to come in the evening, I might, perhaps, have had company; and I hear so ill that I cannot, as I wish to do, attend to more than one at a time; for age makes me stupid even more than I am by nature; and how grieved and mortified I must have been to know I had Miss Burney in the room, and not to hear her!”

She then mentioned her regret that we could not stay and spend the evening with her, which had been told her in our card of accepting her invitation, as we were both engaged, which, for my part, I heartily regretted.

“I am particularly sorry,” she added, “on account of the Duchess dowager of Portland, who is so good as to come to me in an evening, as she knows I am too infirm to wait upon her grace myself: and she wished so much to see Miss Burney. But she said she would come as early as possible.”

Soon after we went to dinner, which was plain, neat, well cooked, and elegantly served. When it was over, I began to speak; and now, my Chesington auditors, look to yourselves!

“Will you give me leave, ma'am, to ask if you remember any body of the name of Crisp?”

“Crisp?” cried she, “What! Mrs. Ann Crisp?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“O surely! extremely well! a charming, an excellent woman she was; we were very good friends once; I visited her at Burford, and her sister Mrs. Gast.”

Then came my turn, and I talked of the brother---but I won't write what I said. Mrs. Delany said she knew him but very little; and by no means so much as she should have liked. I reminded her of a letter he wrote her from abroad, which she immediately recollected.

This Chesingtonian talk lasted till we went upstairs, and then she shewed me the new art which she had invented. It is staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it out, so finely, and delicately, that when it is pasted on paper or vellum, it has all the appearance of being pencilled, except that, by being raised, it has still a richer and more natural look. The effect is extremely beautiful. She invented it at twenty-five! She told me she did four flowers the first year; sixteen the second; and the third, one hundred and sixty; and after that many more. They are all from nature, and consist of the most curious flowers, plants, and weeds, that are to (be found. She has been supplied with patterns from all the great gardens, and all the great florists in the kingdom. Her plan was to finish one thousand; but, alas! her eyes now fail her though she has only twenty undone of her task.

About seven o'clock, the Duchess dowager of Portland came. She is not near so old as Mrs. Delany; nor, to me, is her face by any means so pleasing; but yet there is sweetness, and dignity, and intelligence in it. Mrs. Delany received her with the same respectful ceremony as if it was her first visit, though she regularly goes to her every evening. But what she at first took as an honour and condescension, she has so much of true humility of mind, that no use can make her see in any other light. She immediately presented me to her. Her grace courtesied and smiled with the most flattering air of pleasure, and said she was particularly happy in meeting with me. We then took our places, and Mrs. Delany said,--

“Miss Burney, ma'am, is acquainted with Mr. Crisp, whom your grace knew so well; and she tells me he and his sister have been so good as to remember me, and to mention me to her.”

The duchess instantly asked me a thousand questions about him--where he lived, how he had his health, and whether his fondness for the polite arts still continued. She said he was one of the most ingenious and agreeable men she had ever known, and regretted his having sequestered himself so much from the society of his former friends.

In the course of this conversation I found the duchess very charming, high-bred, courteous, sensible, and spirited; not merely free from pride, but free from affability--its most mortifying deputy.

After this she asked me if I had seen Mrs. Siddons, and what I thought of her. I answered that I admired her very much.

“If Miss Burney approves her,” said the duchess, “no approbation, I am sure, can do her so much credit; for no one can so perfectly judge of characters or of human nature.”

“Ah, ma'am,” cried Mrs. Delany, archly, “and does your grace remember protesting you would never read 'Cecilia?'”

“Yes,” said she, laughing, “I declared that five volumes could never be attacked; but since I began I have read it three times.”

“O terrible!” cried I, “to make them out fifteen.”

“The reason,” continued she, “I held out so long against reading them, was remembering the cry there was in favour of 'Clarissa' and 'Sir Charles Grandison,' when they came out, and those I never could read. I was teased into trying both of them; but I was disgusted with their tediousness, and could not read eleven letters, with all the effort I could make: so much about my sisters and my brothers, and all my uncles and my aunts!”

“But if your grace had gone on with 'Clarissa,'” said Mrs. Chapone, “the latter part must certainly have affected you, and charmed you.”[176]

“O, I hate any thing so dismal! Every body that did read it had melancholy faces for a week. 'Cecilia' is as pathetic as I can bear, and more sometimes; yet, in the midst of the sorrow, there is a spirit in the writing, a fire in the whole composition, that keep off that heavy depression given by Richardson. Cry, to be sure, we did. Mrs. Delany, shall you ever forget how we cried? But then we had so much laughter to make us amends, we were never left to sink under our concern.”

I am really ashamed to write on.

“For my part,” said Mrs. Chapone, “when I first read it, I did not cry at all; I was in an agitation that half killed me, that shook all nerves, and made me unable to sleep at nights, from the suspense I was in! but I could not cry, for excess of eagerness.”

“I only wish,” said the duchess, “Miss Burney could have been in some corner, amusing herself with listening to us, when Lord Weymouth, and the Bishop of Exeter, and Mr. Lightfoot, and Mrs. Delany, and I, were all discussing the point--of the name. So earnest we were, she must have been diverted with us. Nothing, the nearest our own hearts and interests, could have been debated more warmly. The bishop was quite as eager as any of us; but what cooled us a little, at last, was Mr. Lightfoot's thinking we were seriously going to quarrel; and while Mrs. Delany and I were disputing about Mrs. Delvile, he very gravely said, 'Why, ladies, this is only a matter of imagination; it is not a fact: don't be so earnest.'”

“Ah, ma'am,” said Mrs. Delany, “how hard your grace was upon Mrs. Delvile: so elegant, so sensible, so judicious, so charming a woman.”

“O, I hate her,” cried the duchess, “resisting that sweet Cecilia; coaxing her, too, all the time, with such hypocritical flattery.”

“I shall never forget,” said Mrs. Delany, “your grace's earnestness when we came to that part where Mrs. Delvile bursts a blood vessel. Down dropped the book, and just with the same energy as if your grace had heard some real and important news, You called out, 'I'm glad of it with all my heart!'”

“What disputes, too,” said Mrs. Chapone, “there are about Briggs. I was in a room some time ago where somebody said there could be no such character; and a poor little mean city man, who was there, started up and said, 'But there is though, for I've one myself!'”

“The Harrels!--O, then the Harrels!” cried Mrs. Delany.

“If you speak of the Harrels, and of the morality of the book,” cried the duchess, with a solemn sort of voice, “we shall, indeed, never give Miss Burney her due: so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive.”

“Yes,” cried Mrs. Chapone, “let us complain how we will of the torture she has given our nerves, we must all join in saying she has bettered us by every line.”

“No book,” said Mrs. Delany, “ever was so useful as this, because none other that is so good was ever so much read.”

I think I need now write no more. I could, indeed, hear no more; for this last so serious praise, from characters so respectable, so moral, and so aged, quite affected me; and though I had wished a thousand times during the discourse to run out of the room, when they gave me finally this solemn sanction to the meaning and intention of my writing, I found it not without difficulty that I could keep the tears out of my eyes; and when I told what had passed to our sweet father, his cup quite ran over.

The duchess had the good sense and judgment to feel she had drawn up her panegyric to a climax, and therefore here she stopped; so, however, did not we, for our coach was ready.

ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MR. CRISP.

FANNY BURNEY to MR. CRISP

April 12, 1783.

My dearest--dearest daddy,

I am more grieved at the long and most disappointing continuation of your illness than I know how to tell _you_; and though my last account, I thank heaven, is better, I find you still suffer so much, that my congratulations in my letter to Susan, upon what I thought your recovery, must have appeared quite crazy, if you did not know me as well as you do, and were not sure what affliction the discovery of my mistake would bring to myself. I think I never yet so much wished to be at Chesington, as at this time, that I might see how you go on, and not be kept in such painful suspense from post to post.

Why did you tell me of the Deladys, Portlands, Cambridges, etc., as if any of them came into competition with yourself? When you are better, I shall send you a most fierce and sharp remonstrance upon this subject. At present I must be content with saying, I will undoubtedly accept your most kind invitation as soon as I possibly can. Meantime, if my letters will give you any amusement, I will write oftener than ever, and supply you with all the prog I get myself.

Susan, who is my reader, must be your writer, and let me know if such tittle-tattle as I can collect serves to divert some of those many moments of languor and weariness that creep between pain and ease, and that call more for mental food than for bodily medicine. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern her; and I have no greater pleasure, when absent, than in letting you and my dear Susan be acquainted with my proceedings. I don't mean by this to exclude the rest of the dear Chesington set--far from it--but a sister and a daddy must come first.

God bless and restore you, my most dear daddy! You know not how kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child, F. B.

[Mr. Crisp's illness became so alarming, that Miss Burney hastened to Chesington, where she had been only a few days when her valued friend breathed his last. In reply to a letter, in which she had given Dr. Burney an account of Mr. Crisp's increasing sufferings, the doctor wrote:

“Ah! my dear Fanny, your last letter has broke all our hearts! your former accounts kept off despair; but this brings it back in all its horrors. I wish, if it were possible, that you would let him know how much I loved him, and how heavily I shall feel his loss when all this hurry subsides, and lets me have time to brood over my sorrows. I have always thought that, in many particulars, his equal was not to be found. His wit, learning, taste, penetration, and, when well, his conviviality, pleasantry, and kindness of heart to me and mine, will ever be thought of with the most profound and desponding regret.”

After the last mournful duties had been performed at Chesington,[177] Miss Burney returned to her father's house in St. Martin's Street; but some time elapsed ere she recovered composure sufficient to resume her journal.]

DR. JOHNSON ATTACKED BY PARALYSIS.

_Thursday, June 19._--We heard to-day that Dr. Johnson had been taken ill, in a way that gave a dreadful shock to himself, and a most anxious alarm to his friends. Mr. Seward brought the news here, and my father and I instantly went to his house. He had earnestly desired me, when we lived so much together at Streatham, to see him frequently if he should be ill. He saw my father, but he had medical people with him, and could not admit me upstairs, but he sent me down a most kind message, that he thanked me for calling, and when he was better should hope to see me often. I had the satisfaction to hear from Mrs. Williams that the physicians had pronounced him to be in no danger, and expected a speedy recovery.

The stroke was confined to his tongue. Mrs. Williams told me a most striking and touching circumstance that attended the attack. It was at about four o'clock in the morning: he found himself with a paralytic affection; he rose, and composed in his own mind a Latin prayer to the Almighty, “that whatever were the sufferings for which he must prepare himself, it would please Him, through the grace and mediation of our blessed Saviour, to spare his intellects, and let them all fall upon his body.” When he had composed this, internally, he endeavoured to speak it aloud, but found his voice was gone.

_June 20._--I Went in the morning to Dr. Johnson, and heard a good account of him. Dr. Rose, Dr. Dunbar, and Sam Rose, the Doctor's son, dined with us. We expected the rest of our party early though the absence of Dr. Johnson, whom they were all invited to meet, took off the spirit of the evening.

_July 1._--I had the satisfaction to hear from Sir Joshua that Dr. Johnson had dined with him at the Club. I look upon him, therefore, now, as quite recovered. I called the next morning to congratulate him, and found him very gay and very good-humoured.

A PLEASANT DAY WITH THE CAMBRIDGES.

_July 15._--To-day my father, my mother, and I, went by appointment to dine and spend the day at Twickenham with the Cambridges. Soon after our arrival Mr. C. asked if we should like to walk, to which we most readily agreed.

We had not strolled far before we were followed by Mr. George. No sooner did his father perceive him, than, hastily coming up to my side, he began a separate conversation with me; and leaving his son the charge of all the rest, he made me walk off with him from them all. It was really a droll manoeuvre, but he seemed to enjoy it highly, and though he said not a word of his design, I am sure it reminded me of his own old trick to his son, when listening to a dull story, in saying to the relator,--“Tell the rest of that to George.” And if George was in as good-humour with his party as his father was with his why, all were well pleased. As soon as we had fairly got away from them, Mr. Cambridge, with the kindest smiles of satisfaction, said,--“I give you my word I never was more pleased at any thing in my life than I am now at having you here to-day.”

I told him that I had felt so glad at seeing him again, after so long an absence, that I had really half a mind to have made up to him myself, and shook hands.

“You cannot imagine,” said he, “how you flatter me!--and there is nothing, I do assure you, of which I am prouder, than seeing you have got the better of your fear of me, and feeling that I am not afraid of you.”

“Of me, sir?--but how should you be?”

“Nay, I give you my word, if I was not conscious of the greatest purity of mind, I should more fear you than any body in the world. You know everything, everybody,” he continued, “so wonderfully well!”

We then, I know not how, fell into discussing the characters of forward and flippant women; and I told him it was my fortune to be, in general, a very great favourite with them, though I felt so little gratitude for that honour, that the smallest discernment would show them it was all thrown away.

“Why, it is very difficult,” said he, “for a woman to get rid of those forward characters without making them her enemies. But with a man it is different. Now I have a very peculiar happiness, which I will tell you. I never took very much to a very amiable woman but I found she took also to me, and I have the good fortune to be in the perfect confidence of some of the first women in this kingdom; but then there are a great many women that I dislike, and think very impertinent and foolish, and, do you know, they all dislike me too!--they absolutely cannot bear me! Now, I don't know, of those two things, which is the greatest happiness.”

How characteristic this!--do you not hear him saying it?

We now renewed our conversation upon various of our acquaintances, particularly Mr. Pepys, Mr. Langton, and Mrs. Montagu. We stayed in this field, sitting and sauntering, near an hour. We then went to a stile, just by the riverside, where the prospect is very beautiful, and there we seated ourselves. Nothing could be more pleasant, though the wind was so high I was almost blown into the water.

He now traced to me great part of his life and conduct in former times, and told me a thousand excellent anecdotes of himself and his associates. He summed them all up in a way that gave me equal esteem and regard for him, in saying he found society the only thing for lasting happiness; that, if he had not met a woman he could permanently love, he must with every other advantage have been miserable--but that such was his good fortune, that “to and at this moment,” he said, “there is no sight so pleasing to me as seeing Mrs. Cambridge enter a room; and that after having been married to her for forty years. And the next most pleasing sight to me is an amiable woman.”

He then assured me that almost all the felicity of his life both had consisted, and did still consist, in female society. It was, indeed, he said, very rare but there was nothing like it.

“And if agreeable women,” cried I, “are rare, much more so, I think, are agreeable men; at least, among my acquaintance they are very few, indeed, that are highly agreeable.”

“Yes, and when they are so,” said he, “it is difficult for you to have their society with any intimacy or comfort; there are always so many reasons why you cannot know them.”

We continued chatting until we came to the end of the meadow, and there we stopped, and again were joined by the company.

Mr. Cambridge now proposed the water, to which I eagerly agreed.

We had an exceeding pleasant excursion. We went up the river beyond the Duke of Montagu's, and the water was smooth and delightful. Methinks I should like much to sail from the very source to the mouth of the Thames....

After dinner we again repaired to the lawn, in a general body; but--we--had scarce moved ten paces, before Mr. Cambridge again walked off with me, to a seat that had a very fine view of Petersham wood, and there we renewed our confabulation.

He now shewed me a note from Mr. Gibbon, sent to engage himself to Twickenham on the unfortunate day he got his ducking.[178] It is the most affected little piece of writing I ever saw. He shall attend him, he says, at Twickenham, and upon the water, as soon as the weather is propitious, and the Thames, that amiable creature, is ready, to receive him.

Nothing, to be sure, could be so apt as such a reception as that “amiable creature” happened to give him! Mr. Cambridge said it was “God's revenge against conceit.”

DR. JOHNSON's HEROIC FORBEARANCE.

_Tuesday, December 9_--This evening at Mrs. Vesey's, Mr. George Cambridge came, and took the chair half beside me. I told him of some new members for Dr. Johnson's club![179]

“I think,” said he, “it sounds more like some club that one reads of in the 'Spectator,' than like a real club in these times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a single night in other clubs. Does Pepys belong to it?”

“Oh no! he is quite of another party! He is head man on the side of the defenders of Lord Lyttelton. Besides, he has had enough of Dr. Johnson; for they had a grand battle upon the 'Life of Lyttelton,' at Streatham.”

“And had they really a serious quarrel? I never imagined it had amounted to that.”

“Yes, serious enough, I assure you. I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then: and dreadful, indeed, it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale!”

“But how did it begin? What did he say?”

“Oh, Dr. Johnson came to the point without much ceremony. He called out aloud, before a large company, at dinner, 'What have you to say, sir, to me or of me? Come forth, man! I hear you object to my “Life of Lord Lyttelton. What are your objections? If you have anything to say, let's hear it. Come forth, man, when I call you!'”

“What a call, indeed! Why, then, he fairly bullied him into a quarrel!”

“Yes. And I was the more sorry, because Mr. Pepys had begged of me, before they met, not to let Lord Lyttelton be mentioned. Now I had no more power to prevent it than this macaroon cake in my hand.”

“It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale, certainly, to quarrel in her house.”

“Yes; but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu, and to refrain was an act of heroic forbearance.”

“Why, I rather wonder he did not; for she was the head of the set of Lytteltonians.”

“Oh, he knows that; he calls Mr. Pepys only her prime minister.”

“And what does he call her?

“Queen,' to be sure! 'Queen of the blues.' She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her. But he had made a promise to Mrs. Thrale to have no more quarrels in her house, and so he forced himself to forbear. Indeed he was very much concerned, when it was over, for what had passed; and very candid and generous in acknowledging it. He is too noble to adhere to wrong.”

“And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?”

“Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courteseying to him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly declared--that she would never speak to him more! However, he went up to her himself, longing to begin! and very roughly said,--'Well, madam, what's become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it.'

“But how did she bear this?”

“Why she was obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened--as everybody else does--that she was as civil as ever.”