"I think, Miss Burney," said the doctor, "you and I seem to stand in the same predicament. What shall we do for the poor man? suppose we burn a play apiece?"
"Depend upon it," said Mrs. Thrale, "he has heard, in town, that you are both to bring one out this season, and perhaps one of his own may be deferred on that account."
On the announcement of the carriage, we went into the next room for our cloaks, where Mrs. Thrale and Mr. c.u.mberland were in deep conversation.
"Oh, here"s Miss Burney!" said Mrs. Thrale aloud. Mr c.u.mberland turned round, but withdrew his eyes instantly; and I, determined not to interrupt them, made Miss Thrale walk away with me. In about ten minutes she left him and we all came home.
As soon as we were in the carriage,
"It has been," said Mrs. Thrale, warmly, "all I could do not to affront Mr. c.u.mberland to-night!"
"Oh, I hope not," cried I, "I would not have you for the world!"
"Why, I have refrained; but with great difficulty."
And then she told me the conversation she had just had with him. As soon as I made off, he said, with a spiteful tone of voice,
"Oh, that young lady is an author, I hear!"
"Yes," answered Mrs. Thrale, "author of "Evelina.""
"Humph,--I am told it has some humour!"
"Ay, indeed! Johnson says nothing like it has appeared for years!"
"So," cried he, biting his lips, and waving uneasily in his chair, "so, so!"
"Yes," continued she, "and Sir Joshua Reynolds told Mr. Thrale he would give fifty pounds to know the author!"
"So, so--oh, vastly well!" cried he, putting his hand on his forehead.
"Nay," added she, "Burke himself sat up all night to finish it!"
This seemed quite too much for him; he put both his hands to his face, and waving backwards and forwards, said,
"Oh, vastly well!--this will do for anything!" with a tone as much as to say, Pray, no more!
Then Mrs. Thrale bid him good night, longing, she said, to call Miss Thrale first, and say, "So you won"t speak to my daughter?--why, she is no author."
AN AMUSING CHARACTER: HIS VIEWS ON MANY SUBJECTS.
_October 20._--I must now have the honour to present to you a new acquaintance, who this day dined here.
Mr. B----y,[111] an Irish gentleman, late a commissary in Germany. He is between sixty and seventy, but means to pa.s.s for about thirty; gallant, complaisant, obsequious, and humble to the fair s.e.x, for whom he has an awful reverence; but when not immediately addressing them, swaggering, bl.u.s.tering, puffing, and domineering. These are his two apparent characters; but the real man is worthy, moral, religious, though conceited and parading.
He is as fond of quotations as my poor Lady Smatter,[112] and, like her, knows little beyond a song, and always blunders about the author of that. His whole conversation consists in little French phrases, picked up during his residence abroad, and in anecdotes and story-telling, which are sure to be retold daily and daily in the same words.
Speaking of the ball in the evening, to which we were all going, "Ah, madam!" said he to Mrs. Thrale, "there was a time when--fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol [rising, and dancing and Singing], fol-de-rol!--I could dance with the best of them; but now a man, forty and upwards, as my Lord Ligonier used to say--but--fol-de-rol!--there was a time!"
"Ay, so there was, Mr. B----y," said Mrs. Thrale, "and I think you and I together made a very venerable appearance!"
"Ah! madam, I remember once, at Bath, I was called out to dance with one of the finest young ladies I ever saw. I was just preparing to do my best, when a gentleman of my acquaintance was so cruel as to whisper me--"B----y! the eyes of all Europe are upon you!" for that was the phrase of the times. "B----y!" says he, "the eyes of all Europe are upon you!"--I vow, ma"am, enough to make a man tremble!-fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol! [dancing]--the eyes of all Europe are upon you!--I declare, ma"am, enough to put a man out of countenance."
I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. B----y half convulses me; yet I cannot make you laugh by writing his speeches, because it is the manner which accompanies them, that, more than the matter, renders them so peculiarly ridiculous. His extreme pomposity, the solemn stiffness of his person, the conceited twinkling of his little old eyes, and the quaint importance of his delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old c.o.xcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be betrayed into clapping him for acting so well. As it is, I am sure no character in any comedy I ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly.
He dines and spends the evening here constantly, to my great satisfaction.
At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a seat next her, he regularly says,
"But where are les charmantes?" meaning Miss T. and me. "I can do nothing till they are accommodated!"
And, whenever he drinks a gla.s.s of wine, he never fails to touch either Mrs. Thrale"s, or my gla.s.s, with "est-il permis?"
But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a most sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks honoured beyond measure by his notice, nay, he does not even look at anybody without evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of his benign condescension, than of any pretension on their part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their existence. But you will think me mad about this man.
_Nov. 3_--Last Monday we went again to the ball. Mr. B----y, who was there, and seated himself next to Lady Pembroke, at the top of the room, looked most sublimely happy! He continues still to afford me the highest diversion.
As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks upon with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other day, when painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier.
"Did you ever," said Mrs. Thrale, "see his Nativity?"
"No, madam,--but I know his pictures very well; I knew him many years ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there; and then he knew how to take a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma"am, "tis scandalous--scandalous indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for scratching out a head!"
"Sir," cried Dr. Delap, "you must not run down Sir Joshua Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney"s friend."
"Sir," answered he, "I don"t want to run the man down; I like him well enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that sort I ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would not (looking at the poor doctor with an enraged contempt) he would not do your head under seventy guineas!"
"Well," said Mrs. Thrale, "he had one portrait at the last exhibition, that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I had never done admiring it."
"What stuff is this, ma"am!" cried Mr. B----y, "how can two or three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?"
"Sir," said Mr. Selwyn[113] (always willing to draw him out), "you know not how much he is improved since you knew him in Minorca; he is now the finest painter, perhaps, in the world."
"Pho, pho, sir," cried he, "how can you talk so? you, Mr. Selwin, who have seen so many capital pictures abroad?"
"Come, come, sir," said the ever odd Dr. Delap, "you must not go on so undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is a friend of Miss Burney"s."
"Sir," said Mr. B----y, "I tell you again I have no objection to the man; I have dined in his company two or three times; a very decent man he is, fit to keep company with gentlemen; but, ma"am, what are all your modern dabblers put together to one ancient? nothing!--a set of--not a Rubens among them! I vow, ma"am, not a Rubens among them!"....
To go on with the subject I left off with last--my favourite subject you will think it---Mr. B----y. I must inform you that his commendation was more astonishing to me than anybody"s could be, as I had really taken it for granted he had hardly noticed my existence. But he has also spoken very well of Dr. Delap--that is to say, in a very condescending manner.
"That Mr. Delap," said he, "seems a good sort of man; I wish all the cloth were like him; but, lackaday! "tis no such thing; the clergy in general are but odd dogs."
Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular speech about them.
"I never," he says, "go to a tragedy,--it"s too affecting; tragedy enough in real life: tragedies are only fit for fair females; for my part, I cannot bear to see Oth.e.l.lo tearing about in that violent manner--and fair little Desdemona, ma"am, "tis too affecting! to see your kings and your princes tearing their pretty locks,--oh, there"s no standing it! "A straw-crown"d monarch,"--what is that, Mrs. Thrale?
"A straw-crown"d monarch in mock majesty."