At the request of Mrs. Chapone, she instantly and unaffectedly brought forth a volume of her newly-invented Mosaic flower-work; an art of her own creation; consisting of staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it into strips, so finely and delicately, that when pasted on a dark ground, in accordance to the flower it was to produce, it had the appearance of a beautiful painting; except that it rose to the sight with a still richer effect: and this art Mrs. Delany had invented at seventy-five years of age!
It was so long, she said, after its suggestion, before she brought her work into any system, that in the first year she finished only two flowers: but in the second she accomplished sixteen; and in the third, one hundred and sixty. And after that, many more. They were all from nature, the fresh gathered, or still growing plant, being placed immediately before her for imitation. Her collection consisted of whatever was most choice and rare in flowers, plants, and weeds; or, more properly speaking, field flowers; for, as Thomson ingeniously says, it is the “dull incurious” alone who stigmatise these native offsprings of Flora by the degrading title of weeds.
Her plan had been to finish one thousand, for a complete herbal; but its progress had been stopped short, by the feebleness of her sight, when she was within only twenty of her original scheme.
She had always marked the spot whence she took, or received, her model, with the date of the year on the corner of each flower, in different coloured letters; “but the last year,” she meekly said, “when I found my eyes becoming weaker and weaker, and threatening to fail me before my plan could be completed, I cut out my initials, M. D., in white, for I fancied myself nearly working in my winding sheet!”
There was something in her smile at this melancholy speech that blended so much cheerfulness with resignation, as to render it, to the Memorialist, extremely affecting.
Mrs. Chapone inquired whether her eyes had been injured by any cold?
Instantly, at the question, recalling her spirits, “No, no! “she replied; “nothing has attacked them but my reigning malady, old age!— ’Tis, however, only what we are all striving to obtain! And I, for one, have found it a very comfortable state. Yesterday, nevertheless, my peculiar infirmity was rather distressing to me. I received a note from young Mr. Montagu, written in the name of his aunt, that required an immediate answer. But how could I give it to what I could not even read? My good Astley was, by great chance, gone abroad; and my housemaid can neither write nor read; and my man happened to be in disgrace, so I could not do him such a favour [smiling] as to be obliged to him! I resolved, therefore, to try, once more, to read myself; and I hunted out my old long-laid-by magnifier. But it would not do! it was all in vain!
I then ferretted out a larger glass; and with that, I had the great satisfaction to make out the first word, — but before I could get at the second, even the first became a blank! My eyes, however, have served me so long and so well, that I should be very ungrateful to quarrel with them. I then, luckily, recollected that my cook is a scholar! So I sent for her, and we made out the billet together — which, indeed, deserved a much better answer than I, or my cook either, scholar as she is, could bestow. But my dear niece will be with me ere long, and then I shall not be quite such a bankrupt to my correspondents.”
Bankrupt, indeed, was she not, to gaiety, to good humour, or to polished love of giving pleasure to her social circle, any more than to keeping pace with her correspondents.
When Mrs. Chapone mentioned, with much regret, that a previous evening engagement must force her away at half-past seven o’clock, “Half-past seven?” Mrs. Delany repeated, with an arch smile; “O fie! fie! Mrs. Chapone! why Miss Larolles would not for the world go anywhere before eight or nine!” —
And when the Memorialist, astonished as well as diverted at such a sally from Mrs. Delany, yet desirous, from embarrassment, not to seem to have noticed it, turned to look at some of the pictures, and stopped at a charming portrait of Madame de Savigne, to remark its expressive mixture of sweetness, intelligence, and vivacity, the smile of Mrs. Delany became yet archer, as she sportively said, “Yes! — she looks very — enjouée, as Captain Aresby would say.”
This was not a speech to lessen, or meant to lessen, either surprise or amusement in the Memorialist, who, nevertheless, quietly continued her examination of the pictures; till she stopped at a portrait that struck her to have an air of spirit and genius, that induced her to inquire whom it represented.
Mrs. Delany did not mention the name, but only answered, “I don’t know how it is, Mrs. Chapone, but I can never, of late, look at that picture without thinking of poor Belfield.”
This was heard with a real start — though certainly not of pain! But that Mrs. Delany, at her very advanced time of life, eighty-three, should thus have personified to herself the characters of a book so recently published, mingled in its pleasure nearly as much astonishment as gratification.
Mrs. Delany — still clear-sighted to countenance, at least — seemed to read her thoughts, and, kindly taking her hand, smilingly said: “You must forgive us, Miss Burney! it is not quite a propriety, I own, to talk of these people before you; but we don’t know how to speak at all, now, without naming them, they run so in our heads!”
Early in the evening, they were joined by Mrs. Delany’s beloved and loving friend, the Duchess Dowager of Portland; a lady who, though not as exquisitely pleasing, any more than as interesting by age as Mrs. Delany, — who, born with the century, was now in her 83d year, had yet a physiognomy that, when lighted up by any discourse in which she took a part from personal feelings, was singularly expressive of sweetness, sense, and dignity; three words that exactly formed the description of her manners; which were not merely free from pride, but free, also, from its mortifying deputy, affability.
Mrs. Delany, that pattern of the old school in high politeness, was now, it is probable, in the sphere whence Mr. Burke had signalized her by that character; for her reception of the Duchess of Portland, and her conduct to that noble friend, strikingly displayed the self-possession that good taste with good breeding can bestow, even upon the most timid mind, in doing the honours of home to a superior.
She welcomed her Grace with as much respectful ceremony as if this had been a first visit; to manifest that, what in its origin, she had taken as an honour, she had so much true humility as to hold to be rather more than less so in its continuance; yet she constantly exerted a spirit, in pronouncing her opposing or concurring sentiments, in the conversation that ensued, that shewed as dignified an independence of character, as it marked a sincerity as well as happiness of friendship, in the society of her elevated guest.
The Memorialist was presented to her Grace, who came with the expectation of meeting her, in the most gentle and flattering terms by Mrs. Delany; and she was received with kindness rather than goodness. The watchful regard of the Duchess for Mrs. Delany, soon pointed out the marked partiality which that revered lady was already conceiving for her new visitor, and the Duchess, pleased to abet, as salubrious, every cheering propensity in her beloved friend, immediately disposed herself to second it with the most obliging alacrity.
Mrs. Delany, gratified by this apparent approvance, then started the subject of the recent publication, with a glow of pleasure that, though she uttered her favouring opinions with the most unaffected, the chastest simplicity, made the “eloquent blood” rush at every flattering sentence into her pale, soft, aged cheeks, as if her years had been as juvenile as her ideas, and her kindness.
Animated by the animation of her friend, the Duchess gaily increased it by her own; and the warm-hearted Mrs. Chapone still augmented its energy, by her benignant delight that she had brought such a scene to bear for her young companion: while all three sportively united in talking of the characters in the publication, as if speaking of persons and incidents of their own peculiar knowledge.
On the first pause upon a theme which, though unavoidably embarrassing, could not, in hands of such noble courtesy, tha
t knew how to make flattery subservient to elegance, and praise to delicacy, be seriously distressing; the deeply honoured, though confused object of so much condescension, seized the vacant moment for starting the name of Mr. Crisp.
Nothing could better propitiate the introduction which Dr. Burney desired for himself to the correspondent of Dean Swift, and the quondam acquaintance of his early monitor, Mr. Crisp, than bringing this latter upon the scene.
The Duchess now took the lead in the discourse, and was charmed to hear tidings of a former friend, who had been missed so long in the world as to be thought lost. She inquired minutely into his actual way of life, his health and his welfare; and whether he retained his fondness and high taste for all the polite arts.
To the Memorialist this was a topic to give a flow of spirits, that spontaneously banished the reserve and silence with strangers of which she stood generally accused: and her history of the patriarchal attachment of Mr. Crisp to Dr. Burney, and its benevolent extension to every part of his family, while it revived Mr. Crisp to the memories and regard of the Duchess and of Mrs. Delany, stimulated their wishes to know the man — Dr. Burney — who alone, of all the original connexions of Mr. Crisp, had preserved such power over his affections, as to be a welcome inmate to his almost hermetically closed retreat.
And the account of Chesington Hall, its insulated and lonely position, its dilapidated state, its nearly inaccessible roads, its quaint old pictures, and straight long garden paths; was as curious and amusing to Mrs. Chapone, who was spiritedly awake to whatever was romantic or uncommon, as the description of the chief of the domain was interesting to those who had known him when he was as eminently a man of the world, as he was now become, singularly, the recluse of a village.
Such was the basis of the intercourse that thenceforward took place between Dr. Burney and the admirable Mrs. Delany; who was not, from her feminine and elegant character, and her skill in the arts, more to the taste of Dr. Burney, than he bad the honour to be to her’s, from his varied acquirements, and his unstrained readiness to bring them forth in social meetings. While his daughter, who thus, by chance, was the happy instrument of this junction, reaped from it a delight that was soon exalted to even bosom felicity, from the indulgent partiality with which that graceful pattern of olden times met, received, and cherished the reverential attachment which she inspired; and which imperceptibly graduated into a mutual, a trusting, a sacred friendship; as soothing, from his share in its formation, to her honoured Mr. Crisp, as it was delighting to Dr. Burney from its seasonable mitigation of the loss, the disappointment, the breaking up of Streatham.
MR. CRISP.
But though this gently cheering, and highly honourable connexion, by its kindly operation, offered the first mental solace to that portentous journey to Bath, which with a blight bad opened the spring of 1783; that blight was still unhealed in the excoriation of its infliction, when a new incision of anguish, more deeply cutting still, and more permanently incurable, pierced the heart of Dr. Burney by tidings from Chesington, that Mr. Crisp was taken dangerously ill.
The ravages of the gout, which had long laid waste the health, strength, spirits, and life-enjoying nerves of this admirable man, now extended their baleful devastations to the seats of existence, the head and the breast; wavering occasionally in their work, with something of less relentless rigour, but never abating in menace of fatality.
Susanna, — now Mrs. Phillips, — was at Chesington at the time of the seizure; and to her gentle bosom, and most reluctant pen, fell the sorrowing task of announcing this quick-approaching calamity to Dr. Burney, and all his house: and in the same unison that had been their love, was now their grief. Sorrow, save at the dissolution of conjugal or filial ties, could go no deeper. The Doctor would have abandoned every call of business or interest, — for pleasure at such a period, had no call to make I in order to embrace and to attend upon his long dearest friend, if his Susanna had not dissuaded him from so mournful an exertion, by representations of the uncertainty of finding even a moment in which it might be safe to risk any agitation to the sufferer; whose pains were so torturing, that he fervently and perpetually prayed to heaven for the relief of death: — while the prayers for the dying were read to him daily by his pious sister, Mrs. Gast.
And only by the most urgent similar remonstrances, could the elder or the younger of the Doctor’s daughters be kept away; so completely as a fond father was Mr. Crisp loved by all.
But this Memorialist, to whom, for many preceding years, Mr. Crisp had rendered Chesington a second, a tender, an always open, always inviting home, was so wretched while withheld from seeking once more his sight and his benediction, that Dr. Burney could not long oppose her wishes. In some measure, indeed, he sent her as his own representative, by entrusting to her a letter full of tender attachment and poignant grief from himself; which he told her not to deliver, lest it should be oppressive or too affecting; but to keep in hand, for reading more or less of it to him herself, according to the strength, spirits, and wishes of his dying friend.
With this fondly-sad commission, she hastened to Chesington; where she found her Susanna, and all the house, immersed in affliction: and where, in about a week, she endured the heartfelt sorrow of witnessing the departure of the first, the most invaluable, the dearest Friend of her mourning Father; and the inestimable object of her own chosen confidence, her deepest respect, and, from her earliest youth, almost filial affection.
She had the support, however, of the soul-soothing sympathy of her Susanna; and the tender consolation of having read to him, by intervals, nearly the whole of Dr. Burney’s touching Farewell! and of having seen that her presence had been grateful to him, even in the midst of his sufferings; and of inhaling the balmy kindness with which his nearly final powers of utterance had called her “the dearest thing to him on earth!”
This wound, in its acuteness to Dr. Burney, was only less lacerating than that which had bled from the stroke that had torn away from him the early and adored partner of his heart. But the submissive resignation and patient philosophy with which he bore it, will best be exemplified by the following extract from a letter, written, on this occasion, to his second daughter; whose quick feelings had — as yet! — only once been strongly called forth; and that nearly in childhood, on her maternal deprivation; who knew not, therefore, enough of their force to be guarded against their invasion: and who, in the depth of her grief, had shut herself up in mournful seclusion; for, — blind to sickly foresight! — neither the age nor the infirmities of Mr. Crisp had worked upon her as preparatory to his exit.
His age, indeed, as it was unaccompanied by the smallest diminution of his faculties, though he had reached his seventy-sixth year, offered no mitigation to grief for his death; though a general one, undoubtedly, to its shock. What we lament, is what we lose; what we lose, whether young or old, is what we miss: it may justly, therefore, perhaps, be affirmed, that youth and beauty, however more elegiacally they may be sung, are only by the Lover and the Poet mourned over with stronger regret than age and goodness.
The animadversions upon the excess of sorrow to which this extract may give rise, must not induce the Memorialist of Dr. Burney to spare herself from their infliction, by withholding what she considers it her bounden duty to produce, a document that strikingly displays his tender parental kindness, his patient wisdom, and his governed sensibility.
“To Miss BURNEY.
I have found!” to exceed that boundary in our duty or attention, without its being at the expense of others.
I have experienced the loss of one so dear to me as to throw me into the utmost affliction of despondency which can be suffered without insanity. But I had claims on my life, my reason, and my activity, which, joined to higher motives, drew me from the pit of despair, and forced me, though with great difficulty, to rouse and exert every nerve and faculty in answering them. “It has been very well said of mental wounds, that they must digest, like those of the body, before they ca
n be healed. The poultice of necessity can alone, perhaps, in some cases, bring on this digestion; but we should not impede it by caustics or corrosions. Let the wound be open a due time “but not kept bare with violence.”
“To quit all metaphor, we must, alas! try to diminish our sorrow for one calamity to enable us to support another! A general peace gives but time to refit for new war; a mental blow, or wound, is no more.
So far, however, am I from blaming your sorrow on the present occasion, that, in fact, both love and honour you for it; “and, therefore, will add no more on that melancholy subject. With respect to the other, “c. “c.
* * *
“It would be needless, it is hoped, to say that this mild and admirable exhortation effected fully its benevolent purpose. With grateful tears, and immediate compliance to his will, she hastened to his arms, received his tenderest welcome, and, quitting her chamber seclusion, again joined the family “if not with immediate cheerfulness, at least with composure: and again, upon his motion, and under his loved wing, returned to the world; if not with inward gaiety, with outward, yet true and unaffected gratitude for the kindness with which it received her back again to its circles: — but Mr. Crisp was not less gone, nor less internally lamented!
What the Doctor intimates of the proofs she would one day find of the continual occupation of his thoughts by his departed friend, alludes to an elegy to which he was then devoting every instant he could snatch from his innumerable engagements; and which, as a memorial of his friendship, was soothing to his affliction. It opens with the following lines.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 413
