Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

make its way through the metropolis, in passing from the Monthly Review into the hands of the beautiful Mrs. Bunbury; and from her’s arriving at those of the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley; whence, triumphantly, it should be conveyed to Sir Joshua Reynolds; made known to Mr. Burke; be mounted even to the notice of Dr. Johnson, and reach Streatham;—and that there its name should first be pronounced by the great lexicographer himself; and,—by mere chance,—in the presence of Dr. Burney; seemed more like a romance, even to the Doctor himself, than anything in the book that was the cause of these coincidences.

Very soon afterwards, another singular circumstance, and one of great flutter to the spirits of the hidden author, reached her from the kind sisters. Upon the succeeding excursion of Dr. Burney to Streatham, Mrs. Thrale, most unconsciously, commissioned him to order Mr. Lowndes to send her down Evelina.

From this moment, the composure of Chesington was over for the invalid, though not so the happiness! unequalled, in a short time, that became—unequalled as it was wonderful. Dr. Burney now, from his numerous occupations, stole a few hours for a flying visit to Chesington; where his meeting with his daughter, just rescued from the grave, and still barely convalescent, at a period of such peculiar interest to his paternal, and to her filial heart, was of the tenderest description. Yet, earnestly as she coveted his sight, she felt almost afraid, and quite ashamed, to be alone with him, from her doubts how he might accept her versified dedication.

She held back, therefore, from any _tête à tête_ till he sent for her to his little gallery cabinet; or in Mr. Crisp’s words, conjuring closet. But there, when he had shut the door, with a significant smile, that told her what was coming, and gave a glow to her very forehead from anxious confusion, he gently said, ‘I have read your book, Fanny!—but you need not blush at it—it is full of merit—it is, really,—extraordinary!’

She fell upon his neck with heart-throbbing emotion; and he folded her in his arms so tenderly, that she sobbed upon his shoulder; so moved was she by his precious approbation. But she soon recovered to a gayer pleasure—a pleasure more like his own; though the length of her illness had made her almost too weak for sensations that were mixed with such excess of amazement. She had written the little book, like innumerable of its predecessors that she had burnt, simply for her private recreation. She had printed it for a frolic, to see how a production of her own would figure in that author-like form. But that was the whole of her plan. And, in truth, her unlooked for success evidently surprised her father quite as much as herself.

But what was her start, when he told her that her book was then actually running the gauntlet at Streatham; and condescended to ask her leave, if Mrs. Thrale should happen to be pleased with it, to let her into the secret!

Startled was she indeed, nay, affrighted; for concealment was still her changeless wish and unalterable purpose. But the words: ‘If Mrs. Thrale should happen to be pleased with it,’ made her ashamed to demur; and she could only reply that, upon such a stipulation, she saw no risk of confidence, for Mrs. Thrale was no partial relative. She besought him, however, not to betray her to Mr. Crisp, whom she dreaded as a critic as much as she loved as a friend.

He laughed at her fright, yet forbore agitating her apprehensive spirits by pressing, at that moment, any abrupt disclosure; and, having gained his immediate point with regard to Mrs. Thrale, he drove off eagerly and instantly to Streatham.

And his eagerness there received no check; he found not only Mrs. Thrale, but her daughter, and sundry visitors, so occupied by Evelina, that some quotation from it was apropos to whatever was said or done.

An enquiry was promptly made, whether Mrs. Cholmondeley had yet found out the author of Evelina?—‘because,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘I long to know him of all things.’

The Him produced a smile that, as soon as they were alone, elicited an explanation; and the kind civilities that ensued may easily be conceived.

Every word of them was forwarded to Chesington by the participating sisters, as so many salutary medicines, they said, for returning health and strength. And, speedily after, they were followed by a prescription of the same character, so potent, so superlative, as to take place of all other mental medicine.

This was conveyed in a packet from Susanna, containing the ensuing letter from Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Burney; written two days after she had put the first volume of Evelina into her coach, as Dr. Johnson was quitting Streatham for a day’s residence in Bolt Court.

“‘Dear Doctor Burney,

“‘Doctor Johnson returned home last night full of the praises of the book I had lent him; protesting there were passages in it that might do honour to Richardson. We talk of it for ever; and he, Doctor Johnson, feels ardent after the denouement. _He could not get rid of the Rogue!_ he said. I then lent him the second volume, which he instantly read; and he is, even now, busy with the third.

“‘You must be more a philosopher, and less a father than I wish you, not to be pleased with this letter; and the giving such pleasure yields to nothing but receiving it. Long, my dear Sir, may you live to enjoy the just praises of your children! And long may they live to deserve and delight such a parent!’”

This packet was accompanied by intelligence, that Sir Joshua Reynolds had been fed while reading the little work, from refusing to quit it at table! and that Edmund Burke had sat up a whole night to finish it!!! It was accompanied, also, by a letter from Dr. Burney, that almost dissolved the happy scribbler with touching delight, by its avowal of his increased approbation upon a second reading: “Thou hast made,” he says, “thy old father laugh and cry at thy pleasure.... I never yet heard of a novel writer’s statue;[25]—yet who knows?—above all things, then, take care of thy head, for if that should be at all turned out of its place by all this intoxicating success, what sort of figure wouldst thou cut upon a pedestal? _Prens y bien garde!_’

This playful goodness, with the wondrous news that Doctor Johnson himself had deigned to read the little book, so struck, so nearly bewildered the author, that, seized with a fit of wild spirits, and not knowing how to account for the vivacity of her emotion to Mr. Crisp, she darted out of the room in which she had read the tidings by his side, to a small lawn before the window, where she danced, lightly, blithely, gaily, around a large old mulberry tree, as impulsively and airily as she had often done in her days of adolescence: and Mr. Crisp, though he looked on with some surprise, wore a smile of the most expressive kindness, that seemed rejoicing in the sudden resumption of that buoyant spirit of springing felicity, which, in her first visits to Liberty Hall—Chesington,—had made the mulberry tree the favourite site of her juvenile vagaries.

Dr. Burney sent, also, a packet from Mr. Lowndes, containing ten sets of Evelina very handsomely bound: and the scribbler had the extreme satisfaction to see that Mr. Lowndes was still in the dark as to his correspondent, the address being the same as the last;—

TO MR. GRAFTON,

_Orange Coffee-House_,

and the opening of the letter still being, Sir.

When Chesington air, kindness, and freedom, had completely chased away every symptom of disease, Dr. Burney hastened thither himself; and arrived in the highest, happiest spirits. He had three objects in view, each of them filling his lively heart with gay ideas; the first was to bring back to his own roof his restored daughter: the second, was to tell a laughable tale of wonder to the most revered friend of both, for which he had previously written to demand her consent: and the third, was to carry that daughter to Streatham, and present her, by appointment, to Mrs. Thrale, and—to Dr. Johnson!

No sooner had the Doctor reached Liberty Hall, than the two faithful old friends were shut up in the _conjuring closet_ where Dr. Burney rushed at once into “the midst of things,” and disclosed the author of the little work which, for some weeks past, had occupied Chesington Hall with quotations, conjectures, and subject matter of talk.

All that belongs, or that ever can belong, in matters of small moment, to amazement, is short of what was experienced by Mr. Crisp at this recital: and his astonishment was so prodigious not to have heard of her writing at all, till he heard of it in a printed work that was running all over London, and had been read, and approved of by Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke; that, with all his powers of speech, his choice of language, and his general variety of expression, he could utter no phrase but “Wonderful!”—which burst forth at once on the discovery; accompanied each of its details; and was still the only vent to the fullness of his surprise when he had heard the whole history.

That she had consulted neither of these parents in this singular undertaking, diverted them both: well they knew that no distrust had caused the concealment, but simply an apprehension of utter insufficiency to merit their suffrages.

What a dream did all this seem to this Memorialist! The fear, however, of a reverse, checked all that might have rendered it too delusive; and she earnestly supplicated that the communication might be spread no further, lest it should precipitate a spirit of criticism, which retirement and mystery kept dormant: and which made all her wishes still unalterable for remaining unknown and unsuspected.

The popularity of this work did not render it very lucrative; ten pounds a volume, by the addition of ten pounds to the original twenty, after the third edition, being all that was ever paid, or ever offered to the author; whose unaffectedly humble idea of its worth had cast her, unconditionally, upon any terms that might be proposed.

Dr. Burney, enchanted at the new scene of life to which he was now carrying his daughter, of an introduction to Streatham, and a presentation to Dr. Johnson, took a most cordial leave of the congratulatory Mr. Crisp; who sighed, nevertheless, in the midst of his satisfaction, from a prophetic anticipation of the probable and sundering calls from his peaceful habitation, of which he thought this new scene likely to be the result. But the object of this kind solicitude, far from participating in these fears, was curbed from the full enjoyment of the honours before her, by a well-grounded apprehension that Dr. Johnson, at least, if not Mrs. Thrale, might expect a more important, and less bashful sort of personage, than she was sure would be found.

Dr. Burney, aware of her dread, because aware of her retired life and habits, and her native taste for personal obscurity, strove to laugh off her apprehensions by disallowing their justice; and was himself all gaiety and spirit.

Mrs. Thrale, who was walking in her paddock, came to the door of the carriage to receive them; and poured forth a vivacity of thanks to the Doctor for bringing his daughter, that filled that daughter with the most agreeable gratitude; and soon made her so easy and comfortable, that she forgot the formidable renown of wit and satire that were coupled with the name of Mrs. Thrale; and the whole weight of her panic, as well as the whole energy of her hopes, devolved upon the approaching interview with Dr. Johnson.

But there, on the contrary, Dr. Burney felt far greater security. Dr. Johnson, however undesignedly, nay, involuntarily, had been the cause of the new author’s invitation to Streatham, from being the first person who there had pronounced the name of Evelina; and that previously to the discovery that its unknown writer was the daughter of a man whose early enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson had merited his warm acknowledgments; and whose character and conversation had since won his esteem and friendship. Dr. Burney therefore prognosticated, that such a circumstance could not but strike the vivid imagination of Dr. Johnson as a romance of real life; and additionally interest him for the unobtrusive author of the little work, which, wholly by chance, he had so singularly helped to bring forward.

The curiosity of Dr. Johnson, however, though certainly excited, was by no means so powerful as to allure him from his chamber one moment before his customary time of descending to dinner; and the new author had three or four hours to pass in constantly augmenting trepidation: for the prospect of seeing him, which so short a time before would have sufficed for her delight, was now chequered by the consciousness that she could not, as heretofore, be in his presence only for her own gratification, without any reciprocity of notice.

She was introduced, meanwhile, to Mr. Thrale, whose reception of her was gentle and gentleman-like; and such as shewed his belief in the verity of her desire to have her authorship unmarked.

She saw also Miss Thrale,[26] then barely entered into adolescence, though full of sense and cultivated talents; but as shy as herself, and consequently as little likely to create alarm.

One visitor only was at the house, Mr. Seward, afterwards author of Biographiana; a singular, but very agreeable, literary, and beneficent young man.

The morning was passed in the library, and, to the Doctor and his daughter was passed deliciously: Mrs. Thrale, much amused by the presence of two persons so peculiarly situated, put forth her utmost powers of pleasing; and though that great engine to success, flattery, was not spared, she wielded it with so much skill, and directed it with so much pleasantry, that all disconcerting effects were chased aside, to make it only produce laughter and good humour; through which gay auxiliaries every trait meant, latently, for the fearful daughter, was openly and plumply addressed to the happy father.

“I wish you had been with us last night, Dr. Burney,” she said; “for thinking of what would happen to-day, we could talk of nothing in the world but a certain sweet book; and Dr. Johnson was so full of it, that he quite astonished us. He has got those incomparable Brangtons quite by heart, and he recited scene after scene of their squabbles, and selfishness, and forwardness, till he quite shook his sides with laughter. But his greatest favourite is The Holbourn Beau, as he calls Mr. Smith. Such a fine varnish, he says, of low politeness! such struggles to appear the fine gentleman! such a determination to be genteel! and, above all, such profound devotion to the ladies,—while openly declaring his distaste to matrimony!——All this Mr. Johnson pointed out with so much comicality of sport, that, at last, he got into such high spirits, that he set about personating Mr. Smith himself! We all thought we must have died no other death than that of suffocation, in seeing Dr. Johnson handing about any thing he could catch, or snatch at, and making smirking bows, saying he was _all for the ladies,—every thing that was agreeable to the ladies_, &c. &c. &c., ‘except,’ says he, ‘going to church with them! and as to that, though marriage, to be sure, is all in all to the ladies, marriage to a man—is the devil!’ And then he pursued his personifications of his Holbourn Beau, till he brought him to what Mr. Johnson calls his climax; which is his meeting with Sir Clement Willoughby at Madame Duval’s, where a blow is given at once to his self-sufficiency, by the surprise and confusion of seeing himself so distanced; and the hopeless envy with which he looks up to Sir Clement, as to a meteor such as he himself had hitherto been looked up to at Snow Hill, that give a finishing touch to his portrait. And all this comic humour of character, he says, owes its effect to contrast; for without Lord Orville, and Mr. Villars, and that melancholy and gentleman-like half-starved Scotchman, poor Macartney, the Brangtons, and the Duvals, would be less than nothing; for vulgarity, in its own unshadowed glare, is only disgusting.”

This account is abridged from a long journal letter of the Memorialist; addressed to Mr. Crisp; but she will hazard copying more at length, from the same source, the original narration of her subsequent introduction to the notice of Dr. Johnson; as it may not be incurious to the reader, to see that great man in the uncommon light of courteously, nay playfully, subduing the fears, and raising the courage, of a newly discovered, but yet unavowed young author, by unexpected sallies and pointed allusions to characters in her work; not as to beings that were the product of her imagination, but as to persons of his own acquaintance, and in real life.

“TO SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.

“_Chesington, Kingston, Surrey._

* * * * *

Well, when, at last, we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made my father and myself sit on each side of her. I said, I hoped I did not take the place of Dr. Johnson? for, to my great consternation, he did not even yet appear, and I began to apprehend he meant to abscond. ‘No,’ answered Mrs. Thrale; ‘he will sit next to you,—and that, I am sure, will give him great pleasure.’

Soon after we were all marshalled, the great man entered. I have so sincere a veneration for him, that his very sight inspires me with delight as well as reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which, as I have told you, he is subject. But all that, outwardly, is so unfortunate, is so nobly compensated by all that, within, is excelling, that I can now only, like Desdemona for Othello, ‘view his image in his mind.’

Mrs. Thrale introduced me to him with an emphasis upon my name that rather frightened me, for it seemed like a call for some compliment. But he made me a bow the most formal, almost solemn, in utter silence, and with his eyes bent downwards. I felt relieved by this distance, for I thought he had forgotten, for the present at least, both the favoured little book and the invited little scribbler; and I therefore began to answer the perpetual addresses to me of Mrs. Thrale, with rather more ease. But by the time I was thus recovered from my panic, Dr. Johnson asked my father what was the composition of some little pies on his side of the table; and, while my father was endeavouring to make it out, Mrs. Thrale said, ‘Nothing but mutton, Mr. Johnson, so I don’t ask you to eat such poor patties, because I know you despise them.’

‘No, Madam, no!’ cried Doctor Johnson, ‘I despise nothing that is good of its sort. But I am too proud now, [smiling] to eat mutton pies! Sitting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day!’

“If you had seen, my dear Mr. Crisp, how wide I felt my eyes open!—A compliment from Doctor Johnson!

‘Miss Burney,’ cried Mrs. Thrale, laughing, ‘you must take great care of your heart, if Mr. Johnson attacks it—for I assure you he is not often successless!’

‘What’s that you say, Madam?’ cried the Doctor; ‘are you making mischief between the young lady and me already?’

A little while afterwards, he drank Miss Thrale’s health and mine together, in a bumper of lemonade; and then added: ‘It is a terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies to be well, without wishing them to become old women!’

‘If the pleasures of longevity were not gradual,’ said my father, ‘If we were to light upon them by a jump or a skip, we should be cruelly at a loss how to give them welcome!’

‘But some people,’ said Mr. Seward, ‘are young and old at the same time; for they wear so well, that they never look old.’

‘No, Sir, no!’ cried the Doctor; ‘that never yet was, and never will be! You might as well say they were at the same time tall and short. Though I recollect an epitaph,—I forget upon whom, to that purpose.

“‘Miss such a one—lies buried here,
So early wise, and lasting fair,
That none, unless her years you told,
Thought her a child—or thought her old.’

My father then mentioned Mr. Garrick’s epilogue to Bonduca, which Dr. Johnson called a miserable performance; and which every body agreed to be the worst that Mr. Garrick had ever written.

‘And yet,’ said Mr. Seward, ‘it has been very much admired. But it is in praise of English valour, and so, I suppose, the subject made it popular.’

‘I do not know, Sir,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘any thing about the subject, for I could not read till I came to any. I got through about half a dozen lines; but for subject, I could observe no other than perpetual dullness. I do not know what is the matter with David. I am afraid he is becoming superannuated; for his prologues and epilogues used to be incomparable.’

“Nothing is so fatiguing,” said Mrs. Thrale, “as the life of a wit. Garrick and Wilkes are the oldest men of their age that I know; for they have both worn themselves out prematurely by being eternally on the rack to entertain others.”

“David, Madam,” said the Doctor, “looks much older than he is, because his face has had double the business of any other man’s. It is never at rest! When he speaks one minute, he has quite a different countenance to that which he assumes the next. I do not believe he ever kept the same look for half an hour together in the whole course of his life. And such a perpetual play of the muscles must certainly wear a man’s face out before his time.”

While I was cordially laughing at this idea, the Doctor, who had probably observed in me some little uneasy trepidation, and now, I suppose, concluded me restored to my usual state, suddenly, though very ceremoniously, as if to begin some acquaintance with me, requested that I would help him to some broccoli. This I did; but when he took it, he put on a face of humorous discontent, and said, ‘Only _this_, Madam?—You would not have helped Mr. Macartney so parsimoniously!’

He affected to utter this in a whisper; but to see him directly address me, caught the attention of all the table, and every one smiled, though in silence; while I felt so surprised and so foolish! so pleased and so ashamed, that I hardly knew whether he meant _my_ Mr. Macartney, or spoke at random of some other. This, however, he soon put beyond all doubt, by very composedly adding, while contemptuously regarding my imputed parsimony on his plate: “Mr. Macartney, it is true, might have most claim to liberality, poor fellow!—for how, as Tom Brangton shrewdly remarks, should he ever have known what a good dinner was, if he had never come to England?”

Perceiving, I suppose—for it could not be very difficult to discern—the commotion into which this explication put me; and the stifled disposition to a contagious laugh, which was suppressed, not to add to my embarrassment; he quickly, but quietly, went on to a general discourse upon Scotland, descriptive and political; but without point or satire—though I cannot, my dear Mr. Crisp, give you one word of it: not because I have forgotten it—for there is no remembering what we have never heard; but because I could only generally gather the subject. I could not listen to it. I was so confused and perturbed between pleasure and vexation—pleasure, indeed, in the approvance of Dr. Johnson! but vexation, and great vexation to find, by the conscious smirks of all around, that I was betrayed to the whole party! while I had only consented to confiding in Mrs. Thrale; all, no doubt, from a mistaken notion that I had merely meant to feel the pulse of the public, and to avow, or to conceal myself, according to its beatings: when heaven knows—and you, my dear Mr. Crisp, know, that I had not the most distant purpose of braving publicity, under success, any more than under failure.

From Scotland, the talk fell, but I cannot tell how, upon some friend of Dr. Johnson’s, of whom I did not catch the name; so I will call him Mr. Three Stars, * * *; of whom Mr. Seward related some burlesque anecdotes, from which Mr. * * * was warmly vindicated by the Doctor.

“Better say no more, Mr. Seward,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “for Mr. * * * is one of the persons that Mr. Johnson will suffer no one to abuse but himself! Garrick is another: for if any creature but himself says a word against Garrick—Mr. Johnson will brow-beat him in a moment.”

“Why, Madam, as to David,” answered the Doctor, very calmly, ‘it is only because they do not know when to abuse and when to praise him; and I will allow no man to speak any ill of David, that he does not deserve. As to * * *,—why really I believe him to be an honest man, too, at the bottom. But, to be sure, he is rather penurious; and he is somewhat mean; and it must be owned he has some degree of brutality; and is not without a tendency to savageness, that cannot well be defended.’

We all laughed, as he could not help doing himself, at such a curious mode of taking up his friend’s justification. And he then related a trait of another friend who had belonged to some club[27] that the Doctor frequented, who, after the first or second night of his admission, desired, as he eat no supper, to be excused paying his share for the collation.

“And was he excused, Sir?” cried my father.

“Yes, Sir; and very readily. No man is angry with another for being inferior to himself. We all admitted his plea publicly—for the gratification of scorning him privately! For my own part, I was fool enough to constantly pay my share for the wine, which I never tasted. But my poor friend Sir John, it cannot well be denied, was but an unclubbable man.”

How delighted was I to hear this master of languages, this awful, this dreaded lexiphanes, thus sportively and gaily coin burlesque words in social comicality!

I don’t know whether he deigned to watch me, but I caught a glance of his eye that seemed to shew pleasure in perceiving my surprise and diversion, for with increased glee of manner he proceeded.—

“This reminds me of a gentleman and lady with whom I once travelled. I suppose I must call them gentleman and lady, according to form, because they travelled in their own coach and four horses. But, at the first inn where we stopped to water the cattle, the lady called to a waiter for—a pint of ale! And, when it came, she would not taste it, till she had wrangled with the man for not bringing her fuller measure! Now—Madame Duval could not have done a grosser thing!”

A sympathetic simper now ran from mouth to mouth, save to mine, and to that of Dr. Johnson; who gravely pretended to pass off what he had said as if it were a merely accidental reminiscence of some vulgar old acquaintance of his own. And this, as undoubtedly, and most kindly, he projected, prevented any sort of answer that might have made the book a subject of general discourse. And presently afterwards, he started some other topic, which he addressed chiefly to Mr. Thrale. But if you expect me to tell you what it was, you think far more grandly of my powers of attention without, when all within is in a whirl, than I deserve!

Be it, however, what it might, the next time there was a pause, we all observed a sudden play of the muscles in the countenance of the Doctor, that shewed him to be secretly enjoying some ludicrous idea: and accordingly, a minute or two after, he pursed up his mouth, and, in an assumed pert, yet feminine accent, while he tossed up his head to express wonder, he affectedly minced out, “La, Polly!—only think! Miss has danced with a Lord!”

This was resistless to the whole set, and a general, though a gentle laugh, became now infectious; in which, I must needs own to you, I could not, with all my embarrassment, and all my shame, and all my unwillingness to demonstrate my consciousness, help being caught—so indescribably ludicrous and unexpected was a mimicry of Miss Biddy Brangton from Dr. Johnson!

The Doctor, however, with a refinement of delicacy of which I have the deepest sense, never once cast his eyes my way during these comic traits; though those of every body else in the company had scarcely for a moment any other direction.

But imagine my relief and my pleasure, in playfulness such as this from the great literary Leviathan, whom I had dreaded almost as much as I had honoured! How far was I from dreaming of such sportive condescension! He clearly wished to draw the little snail from her cell, and, when once she was out, not to frighten her back. He seems to understand my _queeralities_—as some one has called my not liking to be set up for a sign-post—with more leniency than any body else.”

* * * * *

This long article of Evelina, will be closed by copying a brief one upon the same subject, written from memory, by Dr. Burney, so late in his life as the year 1808.

_Copied from a Memorandum-book of Dr. Burney’s, written in the year 1808, at Bath._

“The literary history of my second daughter, Fanny, now Madame d’Arblay, is singular. She was wholly unnoticed in the nursery for any talents, or quickness of study: indeed, at eight years old she did not know her letters; and her brother, the tar, who in his boyhood had a natural genius for hoaxing, used to pretend to teach her to read; and gave her a book topsy-turvy, which he said she never found out! She had, however, a great deal of invention and humour in her childish sports; and used, after having seen a play in Mrs. Garrick’s box, to take the actors off, and compose speeches for their characters; for she could not read them. But in company, or before strangers, she was silent, backward, and timid, even to sheepishness: and, from her shyness, had such profound gravity and composure of features, that those of my friends who came often to my house, and entered into the different humours of the children, never called Fanny by any other name, from the time she had reached her eleventh year, than The Old Lady.

Her first work, Evelina, was written by stealth, in a closet up two pair of stairs, that was appropriated to the younger children as a play room. No one was let into the secret but my third daughter, afterwards Mrs. Phillips; though even to her it was never read till printed, from want of private opportunity. To me, nevertheless, she confidentially owned that she was going, through her brother Charles, to print a little work, but she besought me never to ask to see it. I laughed at her plan, but promised silent acquiescence; and the book had been six months published before I even heard its name; which I learnt at last without her knowledge. But great, indeed, was then my surprise, to find that it was in general reading, and commended in no common manner in the several Reviews of the times. Of this she was unacquainted herself, as she was then ill, and in the country. When I knew its title, I commissioned one of her sisters to procure it for me privately. I opened the first volume with fear and trembling; not having the least idea that, without the use of the press, or any practical knowledge of the world, she could write a book worth reading. The dedication to myself, however, brought tears into my eyes; and before I had read half the first volume I was much surprised, and, I confess, delighted; and most especially with the letters of Mr. Villars. She had always had a great affection for me; had an excellent heart, and a natural simplicity and probity about her that wanted no teaching. In her plays with her sisters, and some neighbour’s children, this straightforward morality operated to an uncommon degree in one so young. There lived next door to me, at that time, in Poland street, and in a private house, a capital hair merchant, who furnished peruques to the judges, and gentlemen of the law. The merchant’s female children and mine, used to play together in the little garden behind the house; and, unfortunately, one day, the door of the wig magazine being left open, they each of them put on one of those dignified ornaments of the head, and danced and jumped about in a thousand antics, laughing till they screamed at their own ridiculous figures. Unfortunately, in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten guineas—in those days a price enormous—fell into a tub of water, placed for the shrubs in the little garden, and lost all its gorgon buckle, and was declared by the owner to be totally spoilt. He was extremely angry, and chid very severely his own children; when my little daughter, the old lady, then ten years of age, advancing to him, as I was informed, with great gravity and composure, sedately says; “What signifies talking so much about an accident? The wig is wet, to be sure; and the wig was a good wig, to be sure; but its of no use to speak of it any more; because what’s done can’t be undone.”

“Whether these stoical sentiments appeased the enraged peruquier, I know not, but the younkers were stript of their honours, and my little monkies were obliged to retreat without beat of drum, or colours flying.”

STREATHAM.

From the very day of this happy inauguration of his daughter at Streatham, the Doctor had the parental gratification of seeing her as flatteringly greeted there as himself. So vivacious, indeed, was the partiality towards her of its inhabitants, that they pressed him to make over to them all the time he could spare her from her home; and appropriated an apartment as sacredly for her use, when she could occupy it, as another, far more deservedly, though not more cordially, had, many years previously, been held sacred for Dr. Johnson.

The social kindness for both father and daughter, of Mrs. Thrale, was of the most endearing nature; trusting, confidential, affectionate. She had a sweetness of manner, and an activity of service for those she loved, that could ill be appreciated by others; for though copiously flattering in her ordinary address to strangers, because always desirous of universal suffrage, she spoke of individuals in general with sarcasm; and of the world at large with sovereign contempt.

Flighty, however, not malignant, was her sarcasm; and ludicrous more frequently than scornful, her contempt. She wished no one ill. She would have done any one good; but she could put no restraint upon wit that led to a brilliant point, or that was productive of laughing admiration: though her epigram once pronounced, she thought neither of that nor of its object any more; and was just as willing to be friends with a person whom she had held up to ridicule, as with one whom she had laboured to elevate by panegyric.

Her spirits, in fact, rather ruled than exhilarated her; and were rather her guides than her support. Not that she was a child of nature. She knew the world, and gaily boasted that she had studied mankind in what she called its most prominent school-electioneering. She was rather, therefore, from her scoff of all consequences, a child of witty irreflection.

The first name on the list of the Streatham coterie at this time, was that which, after Dr. Johnson’s, was the first, also, in the nation, Edmund Burke. But his visits now, from whatever cause, were so rare, that Dr. Burney never saw him in the Streatham constellation, save as making one amongst the worthies whom the pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds had caught from all mundane meanderings, to place there as a fixed star.

Next ranked Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, and Mr. Garrick.

Dr. Goldsmith, who had been a peculiar favourite in the set, as much, perhaps, for his absurdities as for his genius, was already gone; though still, and it may be from this double motive, continually missed and regretted: for what, in a chosen coterie, could be more amusing,—many as are the things that might be more edifying,—than gathering knowledge and original ideas in one moment, from the man who the next, by the simplicity of his egotism, expanded every mouth by the merriment of ridicule?

Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Boscowen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord Loughborough, Mr. Dunning,[28] Lord Mulgrave, Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas and Mr. Pepys[29] Major Holroyd,[30] Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Mrs. Porteus, Miss Streatfield, Miss Gregory,[31] Dr. Lort, the Bishops of London and Peterborough (Porteus and Hinchcliffe), with a long _et cætera_ of visitors less marked, filled up the brilliant catalogue of the spirited associates of Streatham.

MR. MURPHY.

But the most intimate in the house, amongst the Wits, from being the personal favourite of Mr. Thrale, was Mr. Murphy; who, for gaiety of spirits, powers of dramatic effect, stories of strong humour and resistless risibility, was nearly unequalled: and they were coupled with politeness of address, gentleness of speech, and well bred, almost courtly, demeanour.

He was a man of great erudition,[32] without one particle of pedantry; and a stranger not only to spleen and malevolence, but the happiest promoter of convivial hilarity.

With what pleasure, and what pride, does the editor copy, from an ancient diary, the following words that passed between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Murphy, relative to Dr. Burney, upon the first meeting of the editor with Mr. Murphy at Streatham!

Mrs. Thrale was lamenting the sudden disappearance of Dr. Burney, who was just gone to town _sans adieu_; declaring that he was the most complete male-coquet she knew, for he only gave just enough of his company to make more desired.

“Dr. Burney,” said Mr. Murphy, “is, indeed, a most extraordinary man. I think I do not know such another. He is at home upon all subjects; and upon all is so highly agreeable! I look upon him as a wonderful man.”

“I love Burney!” cried Dr. Johnson, emphatically: “my heart, as I told him—goes out to meet Burney!”

“He is not ungrateful, Sir,” cried the Doctor’s bairne, “for heartily indeed does he love you!”

“Does he, Madam?” said the Doctor, looking at her earnestly: “I am surprised at that!”

“And why, Sir?—Why should you have doubted it?”

“Because, Madam,” answered he, gravely, “Dr. Burney is a man for every body to love. It is but natural to love _him_!”

He paused, as if with an idea of a self-conceived contrast not gaifying; but he soon cheerfully added, “I question if there be in the world such another man, altogether, for mind, intelligence, and manners, as Dr. Burney.”

Dr. Johnson, at this time, was engaged in writing his Lives of the Poets; a work, to him, so light and easy, that it never robbed his friends of one moment of the time that he would, otherwise, have spared to their society. Lives, however, strictly speaking, they are not; he merely employed in them such materials, with respect to biography, as he had already at hand, without giving himself any trouble in researches for what might be new, or unknown; though he gladly accepted any that were offered to him, if well authenticated, The critical investigations alone he considered as his business. He himself never named them but as prefaces. No man held in nobler scorn, a promise that out-went performance.

The ease and good-humour with which he fulfilled this engagement, made the present a moment peculiarly propitious for the opening acquaintance with him of the new, and by no means very hardened author; for whose terrors of public notice he had a mercy the most indulgent. He quickly saw that—whether wise or not—they were true; and soothed them without raillery or reprehension; though in this he stood nearly alone! Her fears of him, therefore, were soon softened off by his kindness; or dispelled by her admiration.

The friendship with which so early he had honoured the father, was gently and at once, with almost unparalleled partiality, extended to the daughter: and, in truth, the whole current of his intercourse with both was as unruffled by storm as it was enlightened by wisdom.

While this charming work was in its progress, when only the Thrale family and its nearly adopted guests, the two Burneys, were assembled, Dr. Johnson would frequently produce one of its proof sheets to embellish the breakfast table, which was always in the library; and was, certainly, the most sprightly and agreeable meeting of the day; for then, as no strangers were present to stimulate exertion, or provoke rivalry, argument was not urged on by the mere spirit of victory; it was instigated only by such truisms as could best bring forth that conflict of _pros_ and _cons_ which elucidates opposing opinions. Wit was not flashed with the keen sting of satire; yet it elicited not less gaiety from sparkling with an unwounding brilliancy, which brightened without inflaming, every eye, and charmed without tingling, every ear.

These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud; and the discussions to which they led were in the highest degree entertaining. Dr. Burney wistfully desired to possess one of them; but left to his daughter the risk of the petition. A hint, however, proved sufficient, and was understood not alone with compliance, but vivacity. Boswell, Dr. Johnson said, had engaged Frank Barber, his negro servant, to collect and preserve all the proof sheets; but though it had not been without the knowledge, it was without the order or the interference of their author: to the present solicitor, therefore, willingly and without scruple, he now offered an entire life; adding, with a benignant smile, “Choose your poet!”

Without scruple, also, was the acceptance; and, without hesitation, the choice was Pope. And that not merely because, next to Shakespeare himself, Pope draws human characters the most veridically, perhaps, of any poetic delineator; but for yet another reason. Dr. Johnson composed with so ready an accuracy, that he sent his copy to the press unread; reserving all his corrections for the proof sheets:[33] and, consequently, as not even Dr. Johnson could read twice without ameliorating some passages, his proof sheets were at times liberally marked with changes; and, as the Museum copy of Pope’s Translation of the Iliad, from which Dr. Johnson has given many examples, contains abundant emendations by Pope, the Memorialist secured at once, on the same page, the marginal alterations and second thoughts of that great author, and of his great biographer.

When the book was published, Dr. Johnson brought to Streatham a complete set, handsomely bound, of the Works of the Poets, as well as his own Prefaces, to present to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. And then, telling this Memorialist that to the King, and to the chiefs of Streatham alone he could offer so large a tribute, he most kindly placed before her a bound copy of his own part of the work; in the title page of which he gratified her earnest request by writing her name, and “From the Author.”

After which, at her particular solicitation, he gave her a small engraving of his portrait from the picture of Sir Joshua Reynolds. And while, some time afterwards, she was examining it at a distant table, Dr. Johnson, in passing across the room, stopt to discover by what she was occupied; which he no sooner discerned, than he began see-sawing for a moment or two in silence; and then, with a ludicrous half laugh, peeping over her shoulder, he called out: “Ah ha!—Sam Johnson!—I see thee!—and an ugly dog thou art!”

He even extended his kindness to a remembrance of Mr. Bewley, the receiver and preserver of the wisp of a Bolt Court hearth-broom, as a relic of the Author of the Rambler; which anecdote Dr. Burney had ventured to confess: and Dr. Johnson now, with his compliments, sent a set of the Prefaces to St. Martin’s-street, directed,

“_For the Broom Gentleman_:”

which Mr. Bewley received with rapturous gratitude.

Dr. Johnson wrote nothing that was so immediately popular as his Lives of the Poets. Such a subject was of universal attraction, and he treated it with a simplicity that made it of universal comprehension. In all that belonged to classical criticism, he had a facility so complete, that to speak or to write produced immediately the same clear and sagacious effect. His pen was as luminous as his tongue, and his tongue was as correct as his pen.

Yet those—and there are many—who estimate these Prefaces as the best of his works, must surely so judge them from a species of mental indolence, that prefers what is easiest of perusal to what is most illuminating: for rich as are these Prefaces in ideas and information, their subjects have so long been familiar to every English reader, that they require no stretch of intellect, or exercise of reflection, to lead him, without effort, to accompany the writer in his annotations and criticisms. The Rambler, on the contrary, embodies a course equally new of Thought and of Expression; the development of which cannot always be foreseen, even by the deepest reasoner and the keenest talents, because emanating from original genius. To make acquaintance, therefore, with the Rambler, the general peruser must pause, occasionally, to think as well as to read; and to clear away sundry mists of prejudice, or ignorance, ere he can keep pace with the sublime author, when the workings of his mind, his imagination, and his knowledge, are thrown upon mankind.

MR. CRISP.

The warm and venerating attachment of Dr. Burney to Mr. Crisp, which occasional discourse and allusions had frequently brought forward, impressed the whole Thrale family with a high opinion of the character and endowments of that excelling man. And when they found, also, that Mr. Crisp had as animated a votary in so much younger a person as their new guest; and that this enthusiasm was general throughout the Doctor’s house, they earnestly desired to view and to know a man of such eminent attraction; and gave to Dr. Burney a commission to bring on the acquaintance.

It was given, however, in vain. Mr. Crisp had no longer either health or spirit of enterprize for so formidable, however flattering, a new connexion; and inexorably resisted every overture for a meeting.

But Mrs. Thrale, all alive for whatever was piquant and promising, grew so bewitched by the delight with which her new young ally, to whom she became daily more attached and more attaching, dilated on the rare perfections of _Daddy Crisp_; and the native and innocent pleasures of Liberty Hall, Chesington, that she started the plan of a little excursion for taking the premises by surprise. And Dr. Burney, certain that two such singularly accomplished persons could not meet but to their mutual gratification; sanctioned the scheme; Mr. Thrale desired to form his own judgment of so uncommon a Recluse; and the Doctor’s pupil felt a juvenile curiosity to make one in the group.

The party took place; but its pleasure was nearly marred by the failure of the chief spring which would have put into motion, and set to harmony, the various persons who composed its drama.

Dr. Burney, from multiplicity of avocations, was forced, when the day arrived, to relinquish his share in the little invasion; which cast a damp upon the gaiety of the project, both to the besieged and the besiegers. Yet Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Thrale met with mutual sentiments of high esteem, though the genius of their talents was dissimilar; Mrs. Thrale delighted in bursting forth with sudden flashes of wit, which, carelessly, she left to their own consequences; while Mr. Crisp, though awake to her talents, and sensible of their rarity and their splendour, thought with Dr. Fordyce, that in woman the retiring graces are the most attractive.[34]

Nevertheless, in understanding, acuteness, and parts, there was so much in common between them, that sincere admiration grew out of the interview; though with too little native congeniality to mellow into confidence, or ripen into intimacy.

Praise, too, that dangerous herald of expectation, is often a friend more perilous than any enemy; and both had involuntarily looked for a something indefinable which neither of them found; yet both had too much justness of comprehension to conclude that such a something did not exist, because no opportunity for its development had offered in the course of a few hours.

What most, in this visit, surprised Mrs. Thrale with pleasure, was the elegance of Mr. Crisp in language and manners; because that, from the Hermit of Chesington, she had not expected.

And what most to Mr. Crisp caused a similar pleasure, was the courteous readiness, and unassuming good-humour, with which Mrs. Thrale received the inartificial civilities of Kitty Cooke, and the old-fashioned but cordial hospitality of Mrs. Hamilton; for these, from a celebrated wit, moving in the sphere of high life, he also in his turn had not expected.

The Thrales, however, were all much entertained by the place itself, which they prowled over with gay curiosity. Not a nook or corner; nor a dark passage “leading to nothing;” nor a hanging tapestry of prim demoiselles, and grim cavaliers; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to the ceiling; nor japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of different dimensions; nor an oaken corner cupboard, carved with heads, thrown in every direction, save such as might let them fall on men’s shoulders; nor a window stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a lofty slip of a room; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some quaint unfrequented apartment; nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in diamonds, squares, and round nobs, surmounting another of blue and white tiles, representing, _vis à vis_, a dog and a cat, as symbols of married life and harmony—missed their scrutinizing eyes.

They even visited the attics, where they were much diverted by the shapes as well as by the quantity of rooms, which, being of all sorts of forms that could increase their count, were far too heterogeneous of outline to enable the minutest mathematician to give them any technical denomination.

They peeped, also, through little window casements, of which the panes of glass were hardly so wide as their clumsy frames, to survey long ridges of lead that entwined the motley spiral roofs of the multitude of separate cells, rather than chambers, that composed the top of the mansion; and afforded from it a view, sixteen miles in circumference, of the adjacent country.

* * * * *

Mr. Crisp judged it fitting to return the received civility of a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, whatever might be the inconvenience to his health; or whatever his disinclination to such an exertion. From habitual politeness he was of the old school in the forms of good breeding; though perfectly equal to even the present march of intellect in the new one, if to the present day he had lived,—and had deemed it a march of improvement. He was the last man not to be aware that nothing stands still. All nature in its living mass, all art in its concentrated aggregate, advances or retrogrades.

He took the earliest day that one of his few gout intervals put at his own disposal, to make his appearance at Streatham; having first written a most earnest injunction to Dr. Burney to give him there the meeting. The Memorialist was then at Chesington, and had the happiness to accompany Mr. Crisp; by whom she was to be left at her new third home.

Dr. Johnson, in compliment to his friend Dr. Burney, and by no means incurious himself to see the hermit of Chesington, immediately descended to meet Mr. Crisp; and to aid Mrs. Thrale, who gave him a vivacious reception, to do the honours of Streatham.

The meeting, nevertheless, to the great chagrin of Dr. Burney, produced neither interest nor pleasure: for Dr. Johnson, though courteous in demeanour and looks, with evident solicitude to shew respect to Mr. Crisp, was grave and silent; and whenever Dr. Johnson did not make the charm of conversation, he only marred it by his presence; from the general fear he incited, that if he spoke not, he might listen; and that if he listened—he might reprove.