Chapter 45

birth,--its genealogy may dispute with kings! If my wealth, it is all for which I have time to hold out my hand! If my talents,--No! of those, gentlemen, I leave you to judge for yourselves."(369)

CAEN-WOOD.

June 22.-Mrs. Crewe took my father and myself to see the Hampstead lions. We went to Caen-wood, to see the house and pictures. Poor Lord Mansfield(370) has not been downstairs, the housekeeper told us, for the last four years; yet she asserts he is by no means superannuated, and frequently sees his very intimate friends, and seldom refuses to be consulted by any lawyers. He was particularly connected with my revered Mrs. Delany, and I felt melancholy upon entering his house to recollect how often that beloved lady had planned carrying thither Miss Port and myself, and how often we had been invited by Miss Murrays, my lord's nieces. I asked after those ladies, and left them my respects. I heard they were up-stairs with Lord Mansfield, whom they never left.

Many things in this house were interesting, because historical but I fancy the pictures, at least, not to have much other recommendation. A portrait Of Pope, by himself, I thought extremely curious. It is very much in the style of most of jervas's own paintings. They told us that, after the burning of Lord Mansfield's house in town, at the time of Lord G. Gordon's riots, thousands came to inquire, if this original portrait was preserved. Luckily it was at Caen-wood.

We spent a good deal of time in the library,--and saw first editions of almost all Queen Anne's classics; and lists of subscribers to Pope's "Iliad," and many such matters, all enlivening to some corner or other of the memory.

AN ADVENTURE WITH MRS. CREWE.

We next proceeded to the Shakspeare gallery,(371) which I had

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never seen. And here we met with an adventure that finished our morning's excursions.

There was a lady in the first room, dressed rather singularly, quite alone, and extremely handsome, who was parading about with a nosegay in her hand, which she frequently held to her nose, in a manner that was evidently calculated to attract notice. We therefore passed on to the inner room, to avoid her. Here we had but just all taken our stand opposite different pictures, when she also entered, and, coming pretty close to my father, sniffed at her flowers with a sort of extatic eagerness, and then let them fall. My father picked them up, and gravely presented them to her. She curtsied to the ground in receiving them, and presently crossed over the room, and,, brushing past Mrs. Crewe, seated herself immediately by her elbow. Mrs. Crewe, not admiring this familiarity, moved away, giving her at the same time a look of dignified distance that was almost petrifying.

It did not prove so to this lady, who presently followed her to the next picture, and, sitting as close as she could to where Mrs. Crewe stood, began singing various quick passages, without words or connexion. I saw Mrs. Crewe much alarmed, and advanced to stand by her, meaning to whisper her that we had better leave the room; and this idea was not checked by seeing that the flowers were artificial. By the looks we interchanged we soon mutually said, "This is a mad woman." We feared irritating her by a sudden flight, but gently retreated, and soon got quietly into the large room when she bounced up with a great noise, and, throwing the veil of her bonnet violently back, as if fighting it, she looked after us, pointing at Mrs. Crewe.

Seriously frightened, Mrs. Crewe seized my father's arm, and hurried up two or three steps into a small apartment. Here Mrs. Crewe, addressing herself to an elderly gentleman, asked if he could inform the people below that a mad woman was terrifying the company ; and while he was receiving her commission with the most profound respect, and with an evident air of admiring astonishment at her beauty, we heard a rustling, and, looking round, saw the same figure hastily striding after us, and in an instant at our elbows.

Mrs. Crewe turned quite pale ; it was palpable she was the object pursued, and she most civilly and meekly articulated, "I beg your pardon, ma'am," as she hastily passed her, and hurried down the steps. We were going to run for our lives,

Page 466 when Miss Townshend whispered Mrs. Crewe it was Only Mrs. Wells the actress, and said she was certainly Only performing vagaries to try effect, which she was quite famous for doing.

It would have been food for a painter to have seen Mrs. Crewe during this explanation. All her terror instantly gave way to indignation; and scarcely any pencil could equal the high vivid glow of her cheeks. To find herself made the object of game to the burlesque humour of a bold player, was an indignity she could not brook, and her mind was immediately at work how to assist herself against such unprovoked and unauthorized effrontery.

The elderly gentleman who, with great eagerness, had followed Mrs. Crewe, accompanied by a young man who was of his party, requested more particularly her commands ; but before Mrs. Crewe's astonishment and resentment found words, Mrs. Wells, singing, and throwing herself into extravagant attitudes, again rushed down the steps, and fixed her eyes on Mrs. Crewe. This, however, no longer served her purpose. Mrs. Crewe fixed her in return, and with a firm, composed, commanding air and look that, though it did not make this strange creature retreat, somewhat disconcerted her for a few minutes. She then presently affected a violent coughing such a one as almost shook the room; though such a forced and unnatural noise as rather resembled howling than a cold.

This over, and perceiving Mrs, Crewe still steadily keeping her ground, she had the courage to come up to us, and, with a flippant air, said to the elderly gentleman, "Pray, sir, will you tell me what it is o'clock?"

He looked vexed to be called a moment from looking at Mrs. Crewe, and, with a forbidding gravity, answered her, "About two."

"No offence, I hope, sir?" cried she, seeing him turn eagerly from her. He bowed without looking at her, and she strutted away, still, however, keeping in sight, and playing various tricks, her eyes perpetually turned towards Mrs. Crewe, who as regularly, met them, with an expression such as might have turned a softer culprit to stone.

Our cabal was again renewed, and Mrs. Crewe again told this gentleman to make known to the proprietors of the gallery that this person was a nuisance to the company, when, suddenly re-approaching as, she called out, "Sir! sir!" to the younger of our new protectors.

He coloured, and looked much alarmed, but only bowed.

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"Pray, sir," cried she, "what's o'clock?"

He looked at his watch, and answered.

"You don't take it ill, I hope, sir?" she cried.

He only bowed.

"I do no harm, sir," said she; "I never bite."

The poor young man looked aghast, and bowed lower; but Mrs. Crewe, addressing herself to the elder, said aloud, "I beg you, sir, to go to Mr. Boydell; you may name me to him--Mrs. Crewe."

Mrs. Wells at this walked away, yet still in sight. "You may tell him what has happened, sir, in all our names. You may tell him Miss Burney--"

"O no!" cried I, in a horrid fright, "I beseech I may not be named! And, indeed, ma'am, it may be better to let it all alone. It will do no good; and it may all get into the newspapers."

"And if it does," cried Mrs. Crewe, "what is it to us? We have done nothing; we have given no offence, and made no disturbance. This person has frightened us all wilfully, and Utterly without provocation; and now she can frighten us no longer, she would brave us. Let her tell her own story, and how will it harm us?"

"Still," cried I, "I must always fear being brought into any newspaper cabals. Let the fact be ever so much against her, she will think the circumstances all to her honour if a paragraph comes out beginning 'Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Wells.'"

Mrs. Crewe liked this sound as little as I should have liked it in placing my own name where I put hers. She hesitated a little what to do, and we all walked down-stairs, where instantly this bold woman followed us, paraded Up and down the long shop with a dramatic air while our group was in conference, and then, sitting down at the clerk's desk, and calling in a footman, she desired him to wait while she wrote a note.

She scribbled a few lines, and read aloud her direction, "To Mr. Topham;" and giving the note to the man, said, "Tell your master that is something to make him laugh. Bid him not send to the press till I see him."

Now as Mr. Topham is the editor of "The World," and notoriously her protector, as her having his footman acknowledged, this looked rather serious, and Mrs. Crewe began to partake of my alarm. She therefore, to my infinite satisfaction, told her new friend that she desired he would name no names, but merely mention that some ladies had been frightened. . . .

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We then got into Mrs. Crewe's carriage, and not till then would this facetious Mrs. Wells quit the shop. And she walked in sight, dodging us, and playing antics of a tragic sort of gesture, till we drove out of her power to keep up with us. What a strange creature!

AN INVITATION FROM ARTHUR YOUNG.

(Mr. Arthur Young to Fanny Burney.) Bradfield Farm, June 18, 1792. WHAT a plaguy business 'tis to take up one's pen to write to a person who is constantly moving in a vortex of pleasure, brilliancy, and wit,--whose movements and connections are, as it were, in another world! One knows not how to manage the matter with such folks, till you find by a little approximation and friction of tempers and things that they are mortal, and no more than good sort of people in the main, only garnished with something we do not possess ourselves. Now then, the consequence.

Only three pages to write, and one lost in introduction! To the matter at last.

It seemeth that you make a journey to Norfolk. Now do ye see, if you do not give a call on the farmer, and examine his ram (an old acquaintance), his bull, his lambs, calves, and crops, he will say but one thing of you--that you are fit for a court, but not for a farm; and there is more happiness to be found among my rooks than in the midst of all the princes and princesses of Golconda. I would give an hundred pound to see you married to a farmer that never saw London, with plenty of poultry ranging in a few green fields, and flowers and shrubs disposed where they should be, around a cottage, and not around a breakfast-room in Portman-square, fading in eyes that know not to admire them. In honest truth now, let me request your company here. It will give us all infinite pleasure. You are habituated to admiration, but you shall have here what is much better--the friendship of those who loved you long before the world admired you. Come, and make old friends happy!

(346) The flight of the king and his family from Paris, on the night of June 20-21. They reached Varennes in safety the following night, but were there recognised and stopped, and the next day escorted back to Paris.-ED.

(347) The reader will find in Green's "History of the English People," a widely different view of' the character of Dunstan. But Fanny knew only the old stories, and had, moreover, written a tragedy, "Edwy and Elgiva," in which Dunstan, in accordance with those old stories, appears as the villain.-ED.

(348) Author of the "New Bath Guide."-ED.

(349) Henrietta Frances, second daughter of John, first Earl Spencer, and younger sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, married Viscount Duncannon in 1780. She died in 1821.-ED.

(350) Gibbon had good reason for his opinion of the power of Lady Elizabeth's charms. In 1787, he met her at Lausanne, a young widow of twenty-eight, and found her allurements so irresistible that he proposed marriage to her, and was rejected.-ED.

(351) Mrs. Ord was a yet more violent Tory than Fanny herself, and would believe no good of the Duchess of Devonshire, the queen of the Whigs.-ED.

(352) In the "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," Fanny writes in more detail of this her last visit to Sir Joshua. "He was still more deeply depressed; though Miss Palmer good-humouredly drew a smile from him, by gaily exclaiming, 'Do, pray, now, uncle, ask Miss Burney to write another book directly! for we have almost finished Cecilia again--and this is our sixth reading of it!'"

"The little occupation, Miss Palmer said, of which Sir joshua was then capable, was carefully dusting the paintings in his picture gallery, and placing them in different points of view.

"This passed at the conclusion Of 1791; on the February of the following year, this friend, equally amiable and eminent, was no more! (Memoirs, vol. iii. P. 144).-ED.

(353) The wife of Sir Lucas Pepys.-ED.

(354) Afterwards Lord Ellenborough: the leading counsel for Hastings.-ED.

(355) February 23, 1792.-ED.

(356) The greater part of Sir joshua's large fortune was left to his unmarried niece, Mary Palmer. Considerable legacies were left to his niece, Mrs. Gwatkin (Offy Palmer), and to his friend Edmund Burke. In addition to these legacies, his will provided for a number of small bequests, including one of a thousand pounds to his old servant, Ralph Kirkley. In the following summer Mary Palmer married the Earl of Inchiquin, afterwards Marquis of Thomond. "He is sixty-nine," Fanny writes about that time of Lord Inchiquin; "but they say he is remarkably pleasing in his manners, and soft and amiable in his disposition."-ED.

(357) He was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, near the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren.-ED.

(358) The recent proclamation by the Government against the publication and sale of seditious writings. The "new associates" were members of the societies of sympathisers with the principles of the French Revolution, which, under such titles as "Friends of the People." "Corresponding Society," etc., were now spreading all over England.-ED.

(359) The revolutionary clubs of Paris, the Jacobins' Club in particular, gradually acquired such power as enabled them to overawe the Legislative Assembly, and even, at a later date, the Convention itself. Their influence only ceased with the overthrow and death of their leader, Robespièrre, in 1794.-ED. (360) The wife and eldest daughter of Arthur Young, the well-known writer on agriculture. Mrs. Young was the sister of Dr. Burney's second Wife.-ED. (361) "Madame de Genlis's husband, the Count de Genlis, had become Marquis of Sillery by the death of his elder brother. He was a Revolutionist and member of the Girondin party: one of the twenty-two Girondins who perished by the guillotine, October 31, 1793. Madame de Genlis (or Brulard) had come to England in October, 1791, with her young pupil, Mlle. d'Orléans (Egalité), the daughter of Philippe Egalité, Duke of Orleans, whose physicians had ordered her to take the waters at Bath. They remained in England until November, 1792, when they were recalled to Paris by Egalité. Arriving there, they found themselves proscribed as emigrants, and obliged to quit Paris within eight-and-forty hours. They then took refuge in Flanders, and settled at Tournay where Pamela was married to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, subsequently one of the leaders in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. In Flanders Madame de Genlis enjoyed the protection of General Dumontiez, but when he became suspected, with too good reason, by the Convention, she was obliged again to take flight, and found safety at last with Mlle. d'Orléans, in Switzerland.

Pamela was the adopted daughter of Madame de Genlis; some said her actual daughter by the Duke of Orleans; but this is at least doubtful. "Circe," or "Henrietta Circe," as Fanny afterwards calls her, was Madame de Genlis's niece, Henriette de Sercey (!), who subsequently married a rich merchant of Hamburg.-ED. VOL. 11.

(362) "Is it possible? Am I so happy? Do I see my dear Miss Burney?"

(363) Earl Macartney was sent as ambassador to China in 1793, for the purpose of concluding a commercial treaty with that power. He was unsuccessful, however, and, after spending some months in China, the embassy returned to England.-ED.

(364) "Miss French, a lively niece of Mr. Burke's." (.Memoirs of Dr. Burney, vol. iii, p. 157.)-ED.

(365) Burke was, of course, mistaken. When Wycherley died, at seventy-five (December, 1715), Mary Granville (afterwards Mrs. Delany) was in her sixteenth year. Wycherley, it is true, married a young wife on his deathbed, but it is certain that this was not Mary Granville; indeed, if Pope's account, given in Spence's "Anecdotes," may be trusted, it was a woman of very different character.-ED.

(366) Alexander Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, was born in or near Edinburgh in 1733. He attained distinction at the bar, and entered Parliament early in the reign of George III. As a politician he was equally notorious for his skill in debate and his want of public principle. Previously a member of the opposition, he ratted to the Government in 1771, and was rewarded by Lord North with the Solicitor-Generalship. He defended Lord Clive in 1773. When Thurlow became Lord Chancellor (in 1778), Wedderburn succeeded him in the office of Attorney-General. In 1786 he was made Chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and called to the House of Peers by the title of Baron Loughborough. After this we find him acting as a follower of Charles Fox, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Lords. He supported Fox's views on the Regency question in 1788-9, but when the split in the Whig party on the subject of the French Revolution took place, Loughborough, like Burke, gave his support to the government. In January, 1793, he obtained the long coveted post of Lord Chancellor. He died January 1, 1805. A story goes that when the news of Loughborough's death was brought to George III., "his majesty was graciously pleased to exclaim, 'Then he has not left a greater knave behind him in my dominions.'" (Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," vol. vi., p. 334.)-ED.

(367) Thomas Erskine (born 1750, died 1823), "If less eminent in the law, was a far more respectable politician than Loughborough, although his parliamentary career was by no means so brilliant. He was a consistent Whig, with the courage of his convictions. He lost his post of Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales through his defence of Thomas Paine, author of the famous "Rights of Man," in December, 1792. Fired by the example of the French Revolutionists, the friends of liberty in England were, about this time, everywhere forming themselves into political associations, for the purpose of promoting Parliamentary reform, and generally "spreading the principles of freedom." By the government these societies were regarded as seditious. Erskine was a member of one or more of these associations, and one of his most brilliant triumphs at the bar was connected with the prosecution by government (October, 1794), of Hardy Thelwall and Horne Tooke for high treason, as members of one of these supposed seditious societies. The prisoners were defended by Erskine and acquitted. Erskine became Lord Chancellor in 1806 after the death of Pitt.-ED.

(368) On his own admission Erskine was a member of the Society of Friends of the People about the end of 1792-ED.

(369) With all his talents Erskine was always noted for his inordinate vanity.-ED.

(370) The famous Lord Chief justice. He died in 1793, aged eighty-eight years.-ED.

(371) Alderman Boydell's celebrated "Shakspeare Gallery" in Pall Mall, contained paintings illustrative of Shakspeare by Reynolds, Romney, Fuseli, and many others of the most distinguished painters of the day. The entire collection, comprising one hundred and seventy works, was sold by auction by Christie, in May, 1805.-ED.

(372) For Arthur Young, see postea, vol. iii., p. 17. Bradfield Farm, his home was in Suffolk, in the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds.-ED.