“Oh, no, Sir, we have a lady with us.” How friendly, and fatherly, sweet soul! “Well but how have you done this long while; I’m so glad to see you.”
“And we’re so proud to be acknowledged,” answered Susey. She said right, for splitt me if I’d not a hundred times rather be spoken to by Garrick in public than His majesty, G — d bless him! There was a Lilliputian dance by about a dozen children, none more than twelve I’m sure, and he asked me very much to go and join them. “Come shall you and I make one among ‘em? Come, if you will I will, I only wait for you, we should look as handsome as any of them.”
“I fancy,” rejoind I, “we should look like Patagonians among them.”
“Oh,” says he, “I should be the fattagonion.” How amazingly ready he is! Perhaps his partner would be better off than she’d be dancing in public with anybody else, as he is always so much observed, that peoples eyes allways seemd rivitted to him like so many basilisks, whenever he was on, and on that account his partner would sheer off without a look. But I don’t know, neither, whether people could avoid looking at his partner sometimes, and then it should be a perfect dancer indeed to bear looking at in the same hour with Garrick. However, be that as it may, I doubt not but he would have been tolerably Wellcome to have given them a surprise.
At the end of the second act there was a gentleman took the trouble of climbing over two boxes to ask Garrick— “What he thought of the imitation?”
“Imitation, Sir?” says Garrick. “Ay, Sir, this imitation of Shylock?”— “O, Sir, I’m no judge.” How quick, how sensible, how comical, how Garrick -worthy a way of evading giving a direct answer, when there certainly cannot be a man in the world a more competent judge than he is! But the question, in a public theatre, to be sure was rather the reverse of well judged, and on that account I didn’t pity the man for having such a cute answer made him.
He was saying that my father had promised to lend him some journals, and I said Charles was at home and would be vastly happy to wait upon him with the journals. “What, the Cherry Derry of the age, is he in town? — But I don’t know whether I can explain the matter more clearly if I come myself.” L — d, I thought I must have been fain to take one of Mr. Astley’s flying leaps into the pit for joy! But I calmd my transport a little by recollecting that two months ago my father met him, and he told him that he hadn’t tormented him a great while, and would come certainly some morning that week. I intirely depended upon it, and for four mornings was up at 7 o’clock, and at the trouble and fatigue of washing face and hands quite clean, putting on clean linnen, a tidy gown, and smug cap; and after all we were choused, for he nickd us entirely and never came at all. But, nevertheless, I could not refrain asking sister Susey, in a whisper that he could not help hearing, this simple question, “ whether Mr. Garrick had settled to come next morning?” Upon which he turned to me with one of the gruffest of his lion looks— “I will.”
“To-morrow, Sir?”
“I’ll come to-morrow,” answerd he in the same tone of voice.
The farce was “Piety in Pattens,” most wrechedly written and acted, all that I saw of it, for Susey hadn’t patience to stay, though she might have paid herself by half an hour longer of his company! He laughed as much as he could have done at the most excellent piece in the world. Indeed, to borrow one of Fanny’s expressions, it was “bad enough to be good.”
Mr. George Garrick was there, and Garrick introduced us to him with— “Here’s two of my children, two of the Burneys.” How kind he is to us all! He was very intent, either upon the petit pièce or his own cogitations, so we were obliged to sail off without saying anything, to my no small greggitation.
Next morning while I was making my father’s tea, I heard three knocks at the door (which were the sweetest music I had had my ears tickled with for many a day) upon which, after knocking down the tea cannister, dropping the tea pot lead into the water, and scalding my fingers, I tumbled up stairs and met him. “Well, why, what did you steal away for? I intended to have seen you safe, but what did you mean by it?” Before I could have given an answer of any sort, Betty, who stood by with the broom in her hand, and whose cockles were tickled by his droll attitudes and way of expressing himself, burst out a laughing! — upon which he fairly caned her up a whole flight of stairs, desiring at the same time to know what she laughed for? As soon as he was safely moord in the chaos he attacked me again. “Well, but, Piety in pattens, how came you to run away, hay? I remember the time when she was not quite so cruel, when I used to tuck her under my arm and run away with her, but now she runs from me! But Piety in pattens blushd at shaking hands with me in public! didn’t you? didn’t you? then the folks all stared, and we (I admire his saying we) looked so handsome! Ay, says they, he’s got a young egg by him that he wants to swallow up! — But then my little Piety to leave me in the lurch, wasn’t well done of you, besides,” repeated he, “I intended to have had the pleasure of seeing you safe out. — But ’twas that old gentlewoman’s doing I suppose — she thought I was too sweet upon you, didn’t she?”
He took off Dr. Johnson most admirably. Indeed I enjoyd it doubly from having been in his company; his seesaw, his pawing, his very look, and his voice! My cot! what an astonishing thing it is he [Garrick] has not a good ear for music! He took him off in a speech (that has stuck in his gizzard ever since some friendly person was so obliging as to repeat it to him). Indeed, I should much wonder if it did not, for it would have been a severe speech if it had been said upon who it would, much more upon Garrick, indeed I think it must have been exaggerated, or if not, that it was a very severe, ill-natured, unjust thing. “Yes, yes, Davy has some convivial pleasantries in him; but ’tis a futile Fellow.” A little while after he took him off in one of his own convivial pleasantries.”
“No Sir; I’m for the musick of the ancients, it has been corrupted so.”
He askd my father how he stood his ground at Straighthem, “Oh,” says my father, “vastly well; and I can assure you Johnson fights your battles for you.” Upon which Garrick insisted upon knowing who with? But my father declared off for that: “Well, but Burney, I’ll never forgive you, if you wont tell me.”
“Oh, I’m bound in honour not to do that,” and so he went on, all the way down stairs, and was so very earnest to know, that it required all my father’s rhetoric to avoid letting him know. “Well, Burney, mind I put you out of my books.”
“Why, what good will it do you?”
“Why, it will be letting me know my friends from my enemies.” And when he got out of the door— “Well, Burney, here ends our friendship!” Becket the bookseller came with him, and he walkd on a little before Garrick, and he was impudent enough to take him off, to his face, I was going to say, but to do him justice he did it like a gentleman, behind his back He enquired after Jemm and “the news earlanders,” [New Zealanders] and my father said that what we knew of that affair was chiefly from his Journal, for that it was a subject upon which he was very shy, and always spoke of it in a whisper, as if it was treason. “Why, what, they didn’t eat ‘em?” says Garrick. “Yes, but they did.”
“We are not sure of that,” answerd Garrick, “perhaps they potted ‘em!” And thus ended his visit, sweet soul! He had on his favourite scratch, his mob wig, as Mr. Twining calls it; — but in spight of it he looked as abominably handsome as I think I ever saw him.
Monday August 25th, 1777. St Martin’s Street.
My mother is gone to Paris — my father to Mr. Thrale’s at Stratham, — Fanny to Chessington — Susey to Howletts — Dick to Hindon — and Jemm to Otahieta — so they are pretty well dispersed methinks, and I am left at home to keep house, unless somebody should run away with me, as Mr. Crisp says.
This morning, while Fanchon and I were at breakfast, a post chaise stopd at the door, and out of it came Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Gast, his sister, — quite unexpected — but not unwelcome. He looks rather thin, every where but his legs, which have been fattend up by the gout, but, never
theless, has not the sallow, unhealthy look that he had a year ago, and upon the whole, tout ensemble looks better than I expected from the acounts I have heard of him lately. Mrs Gast I never saw before, but should be sorry if I was certain I should never see her again, as she is, as far as I can judge by so short an acquaintance, a very sensible, agreable, amiable woman.
FRAGMENT II.
[Praise of Mrs. Thrale. — Her first meeting with Piozzi.]
[If Boswell be followed, the date of this fragment is 1778, as in that year he places Dr. Johnson’s visit to Winchester in Dr. Burney’s company. If we rely upon Madame D’Arblay, it is 1777, as she tells us that this evening party happened “some few months after” that described on pages 152-158 of this volume.
This fragment of Charlotte’s diary is written upon a leaf of paper, the upper half of which has been cut off and preserved; the rest is wanting. The paper has been cut with little care. We supply the words in brackets by conjecture. The first part shows the growing friendliness between Dr. Burney and the Thrales, which led to Mrs. Burney, and her boy Dick, visiting Streatham. Dick was then “a beautiful boy.” Like poor Miss W., he was “all lilies and roses.” Mrs. Thrale petted him. Dr. Johnson wrote to Dr. Joseph Warton in his favour, and offered to go with Dr. Burney to place him in Winchester School. The going and coming back together in a post-chaise, shook Drs. Johnson and Burney into still greater regard for each other The second part describes a visit to St. Martin’s Street of the chiefs of the Streatham set. This was arranged by Dr. Burney at the request of Mr and Mrs. Greville, and their daughter, Mrs. Crewe, that they might meet Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale. It was to have been a brilliant encounter of wits; — it was a disastrous failure. Charlotte’s view of what happened (little of it as is left) is worth having, that it may be compared with Fanny’s narrative, which is to be found in the second volume of her “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” pages 101 to 114. The evening was noteworthy as being that on which Mrs. Thrale first saw Piozzi, whose gestures she mimicked while standing behind him as he played and sang, in such a manner as to draw upon herself a well-deserved rebuke from Dr. Burney. She took it with good-humour, being indeed, as said Lord Lansdowne — who, when Lord Henry Petty, had “put up for a day,” at her house, “Brinbella,” in Wales— “good-humoured and lively, but affected.”
“Piozzi,” he added, “was a civil man, with his head full of nothing but music,” while Mrs. Thrale, as Fanny wrote, knew “not a flat from a sharp, nor a crochet from a quaver.” Mr. Abraham Hayward, as editor of the “Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi,” places “this scene at Dr. Burney’s” after the 13th of August, 1781. This is incorrect, as Mme. D’Arblay clearly states that the second visit of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale to St. Martin’s Street was “a few months” after the first; that is, after the 20th of March, 1777. Mrs. Thrale tells us herself in one page of Mr. Hayward’s volumes, that “the beginning of her acquaintance with Piozzi was at Brighton, after the’80 riots, August, or so.” On another page dated “Brighton, July 1780,” there is a more precise statement. She writes: “I have picked up Piozzi here, the great Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach Hester.” She found him at the time by no means desirous of giving lessons. He told her that he was at Brighton for his health only. Her comments were that “nothing ails him but pride,” and that the newspapers say he is earning;£1,200 a year. Mr. Thrale died in April, 1781. On the 13th of August, 1781, his widow wrote in her “ Thraliana”: “Piozzi is become a prodigious favourite with me, he is so intelligent a creature, so discerning one can’t help wishing for his good opinion, his singing surpasses everybody’s for taste, tenderness, and true elegance; his hand on the forte piano too is so soft, so sweet, so delicate, every tone goes to the heart, I think, and fills the mind with emotions one would not be without, though inconvenient enough sometimes.” On the 25th of November, 1781, she writes: “I have got my Piozzi again.” Mr. Hayward says, in a note on these words, that this “did not then imply what it would now? He wrote as an advocate, doing the best he could for his client, but he would have found it hard to prove that the words had any other meaning than they bear to-day, nor can there be any doubt that such a marriage would provoke the same comments now as then.]
[It would be] strange indeed if they didn’t idolize her, — [Mrs. Thrale] for besides her particular unremitting, delicate almost unparrellel’d attention to my father, upon every occasion she has interisted herself so much in regard to getting little Dick to Winchester School (where he went on Tuesday last) that she has seemed to think of nothing else, and has not only made him a present of a piece of fine holland to set him ûp in shirts with but has likewise furnished him with an intire set of school books, and she is so far from being conceited and pedantic in respect to her learning, that everybody that is free from envy, hatred and malice allows that her learning is the last thing that appears — nor, indeed, to do her justice, does it shew itself unless to her very intimate friends — I fancy she is about thirty tho’ she hardly looks twenty-eight, for she is blooming and pretty enough to prove that nature has not been a little partial to her in any respect Dr. Johnson was pleased — of the weather the gentlemen were so kind and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire skreen to the whole room — Dr. Johnson, made them all make off, for when nobody would have imagind he had known the gentlemen were in the room, he said that “if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the ladies too,” — this reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, altho’ given in a very comical dry way) was productive of a scene as good as a comedy, for Mr. Suard tumbled on to the sopha directly, Mr. Thrale on to a chair, Mr. Davenant sneaked off the premises seemingly in as great a fright and as much confounded as if he had done any bad action, and Mr. Gruel, being left solus was obliged to stalk off in spight of his teeth, and it was pretty evidently against the grain. During one of the duets, Piozzi, fatigued I suppose with being encircled with strangers and having nobody to converse with, regaled himself with a short nap.
Dr. Johnson was immensely smart, for him, — for he had not only a very decent tidy suit of cloathes on, but his hands, face, and linnen were clean, and he treated us with his worsted wig which Mr. Thrale made him a present of, because it scarce ever gets out of curl, and he generally diverts himself with laying down just after he has got a fresh wig on.
FRAGMENT III.
[Charlotte at Chesington.]
[This was probably written in 1778, after the publication of “Evelina,” and after Fanny’s severe illness, but before she first went to stay with the Thrales.]
Sunday, July the 4th.
Yesterday fortnight my father, the Lady, and self set off in a post sha for Chessington, about five o’clock, and arrived there time enough to get a very comfortable dish of tea. We were met at the gate by dear Fanny, who is so surprisingly recovered in her looks that I was doubly rejoiced to see her! We found in the parlour, Mrs. Ham, Moonshine, and that’s trifles. I was quite an unexpected guest, and Mrs. H. made me a low curtesey, and cried, “How d’ye do, Miss Sukey?” and Kitty Cooke didn’t know me. Presently Mr. Crisp came into the garden. He soon espied me, and I him, and notwithstanding his passionate message that he had sent me respecting the Lady, he gave me a most cordial reception, quite huged me. “How does Mrs. Barritti do? — very ugly, I perceive that!” My father and him next went to looking over the prints in Captain Cookes last voyage, which my father carried down to him, and he pointed to the ugliest squaw in the book, which he said “was very like her,” pointing to me.
* * * * *
LETTER I.
[CHARLOTTE BURNEY to Miss BURNEY, then at Bath.] Monday Morn., April 10th [1780].
I hope my dearest Fonny that you are not in dudgeon at my not writing sooner, for I wd have sent you a few pleasing words e’er now, but that for this fortnight past, I have really been so hard fag’d with stitchery in new rigging papa’s old shifets [as Mrs. Market calls em] that I really haven’t had time. We trot on much as usual here.
The Masquerade at the Pantheon was rather thinnish, owing, as they suppose, to so many people seeing Masks — but there was one person there that I fancy you’ll be a little surprised to hear of — a person that I am afraid, (for his sake) has rather a tendresse for a Lady of Quality at the other end of the Town; no other than Mr. Edward Burney — Papa gave him his Proprietor’s Ticket, and the Dress cost him nothing, but a day’s work, for he went as a Native of Otaehitie, so he cooked up a dress out of Jemm’s Otaehietie Merchandize. I contrived to go to York St that Night to tea, and saw his Dress, which was a very good one, he went privately to Sir Joshua’s and took a sketch of Omiah’s dress, — which he copied in his own pretty exactly. My Mother’s Otaehitie Cloth Domino was perdigously chinkd, but it served to wear under the other parts o’ the dress — he had an Otahietie Stick in one hand, and a pillow in the other, and with a Cosmetic of his own invention and preparation, he wash’d his Mask and his hands so as to make them the colour of Omiah’s, and he tattoo’d his fingers with blue paint, and flatten’d the Nose of the Mask, so that altogether he was so thoroughly disguised that I believe My Uncle himself wou’d not have known him — he says his dress was very much admired, particularly his mask; which he had painted so well, that one Character came up to feel of it, to be certain it was not his naytural face — he spoke broken English, except now and then that he touch’d ’em up with a speech in the Otaehitie language, that he had got by heart — he staid ‘till five next morning, and it answered to him excessively well, as indeed you may easily suppose, being the first Masquerade that he ever was at — Merlin was there as a Sick Man in his Chair as he calls it He was a very good mask Edward says, but the newsmongers are not so good natured to him, for they say that there was a sick man in his Chair who made everybody sick of him!
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 507
