The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Ii Part 15

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New YEAR's DAY.

Queen's Lodge, Windsor, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 1788-I began the new year, as I ended the old one, by seizing the first moment it presented to my own disposal, for flying to Mrs. Delany, and begging her annual benediction. She bestowed it with the sweetest affection, and I spent, as usual all the time with her I had to spare. . . .

In the evening, by long appointment, I was to receive Mr. Fisher and his bride.(248) Mrs. Schwellenberg, of her own accord desired me to have them in my room, and said she would herself make tea for the equerries in the eating-parlour. Mrs. Delany and Miss Port came to meet them. Mrs. Fisher seems good-natured, cheerful, and obliging, neither well nor ill in appearance, and, I fancy, not strongly marked in any way. But she adores Mr.

Fisher, and has brought him a large fortune.

The Princess Amelia was brought by Mrs. Cheveley, to fetch Mrs.

Delany to the queen. Mrs. Fisher was much delighted in seeing her royal highness, who, when in a grave humour, does 'the honours of her rank with a seriousness extremely entertaining.

She commands the company to sit down, holds out her little fat hand to be kissed, and makes a distant courtesy, with an air of complacency and encouragement that might suit any princess of five times her age.

I had much discourse, while the rest were engaged, with Mr.

Fisher, about my ever-valued, ever-regretted Mrs. Thrale. Can I call her by another name, loving that name so long, so well, for her and her sake? He gave me concern by information that she is now publishing, not only the "Letters " of Dr. Johnson, but her own. How strange!

Jan. 4.-In the morning, Mrs. Schwellenberg presented me, from the queen, with a new year's gift. It is plate, and very elegant.

The queen, I find, makes presents to her whole household every year: more or less, according to some standard of their claims which she sets up, very properly, in her own mind.

CHATTY MR. BRYANT AGAIN.

Jan. 8.-I met Mr. Bryant, who came, by appointment to give me that pleasure. He was in very high spirits, full Of anecdote and amus.e.m.e.nt. He has as much good-humoured

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chit-chat and entertaining gossiping as if he had given no time to the cla.s.sics and his studies, instead of having nearly devoted his life to them. One or two of his little anecdotes I will try to recollect.

in the year thirty-three of this century, and in his own memory, there was a cause brought before a judge, between two highwaymen, who had quarrelled about the division of their booty; and these men had the effrontery to bring their dispute to trial. "In the pet.i.tion of the plaintiff," said Mr. Bryant, "he a.s.serted that he had been extremely ill-used by the defendant: that they had carried on a very advantageous trade together, upon Black-heath, Hounslow-heath, Bagshot-heath, and other places; that their business chiefly consisted in watches, wearing apparel, and trinkets of all sorts, as well as large concerns between them in cash; that they had agreed to an equitable part.i.tion of all profits, and that this agreement had been violated. So impudent a thing, the judge said, was never before brought out in a court, and so he refused to pa.s.s sentence in favour of either of them, and dismissed them from the court."

Then he told us a great number of comic slip-slops, of the first Lord Baltimore, who made a constant misuse of one word for another: for instance, "I have been," says he, "upon a little excoriation to see a ship lanced; and there is not a finer going vessel upon the face of G.o.d's earth: you've no idiom how well it sailed."

Having given us this elegant specimen of the language of one lord, he proceeded to give us one equally forcible of the understanding of another. The late Lord Plymouth, meeting in a country town with a puppet-show, was induced to see it; and, from the high entertainment he received through Punch, he determined to buy him, and accordingly asked his price, and paid it, and carried the puppet to his country-house, that he might be diverted with him at any odd hour. Mr. Bryant protests he met the same troop Just as the purchase had been made, and went himself to the puppet-show, which was exhibited senza punch!

Next he spoke upon the Mysteries, or origin of our theatrical entertainments, and repeated the plan and conduct Of several Of these strange compositions, in particular one he remembered which was called "Noah's Ark," and in which that patriarch and his sons, just previous to the Deluge, made it all their delight to speed themselves into the ark without Mrs. Noah, Page 74

whom they wished to escape; but she surprised them just as they had embarked, and made so prodigious a racket against the door that, after a long and violent contention, she forced them to open it, and gained admission, having first content, them by being kept out till she was thoroughly wet to the skin. These most eccentric and unaccountable dramas filled up the chief of our conversation.

DR. JOHNSON's LETTERS To MRS. THRALE DISCUSSED.

Wednesday, Jan. 9.-To-day Mrs. Schwellenberg did me a real favour, and with real good nature; for she sent me the "Letters"

of my poor lost friends, Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale,(249) which she knew me to be almost pining to procure. The book belongs to the Bishop of Carlisle, who lent it to Mr. Turbulent, from whom it was again lent to the queen, and so pa.s.sed on to Mrs.

Schwellenberg. It is still unpublished.(249)

With what a sadness have I been reading!--what scenes in it revived!--what regrets renewed! These letters have not been more improperly published in the whole, than they are injudiciously displayed in their several parts. She has all--every word--and thinks that, perhaps, a justice to Dr. Johnson, which, in fact, is the greatest injury to his memory. The few she has selected of her own do her, indeed, much credit; she has discarded all that were trivial and merely local, and given only such as contain something instructive, amusing, or ingenious.

About four of the letters, however, of my ever-revered Dr.

Johnson are truly worthy his exalted powers: one is upon death, in considering its approach as we are surrounded, or not by mourners; another, upon the sudden and premature loss of poor Mrs. Thrale's darling and only son.(250)

Our name once occurs: how I started at its sight It is to mention the party that planned the first visit to our house: Miss Owen, Mr. Seward, Mrs. and Miss Thrale, and Dr. Johnson. How well shall we ever, my Susan, remember that morning!

I have had so many attacks upon her subject, that at last I fairly begged quarter,--and frankly owned to Mrs. Schwellenberg that I could not endure to speak any more upon the matter, endeavouring, at the same time, to explain to her my

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long and intimate connection with the family. Yet nothing I could say put a stop to "How can you defend her in this?--how can you justify her in that?"" etc. Alas! that I cannot defend her is precisely the reason I can so ill bear to speak of her. How differently and how sweetly has the queen conducted herself -upon this occasion! Eager to see the "Letters," she began reading them with the utmost avidity : a natural curiosity arose to be informed of several names and several particulars, which she knew I could satisfy; yet, when she perceived how tender a string she touched, she soon suppressed her inquiries, or only made them with so much gentleness towards the parties mentioned, that I could not be distressed in my answers; and even In a short time I found her questions made so favourable a disposition, that I began secretly to rejoice in them, as the means by which I reaped opportunity of clearing several points that had been darkened by calumny, and of softening others that had been viewed wholly through false lights.

Jan. 10.-When we were summoned to the tea-room I met Miss de Luc coming out. I asked if she did not stay tea? "O How can I,"

cried she, in a voice of distress, "when already, as there is company here without me, Mrs. Schwellenberg has asked me what I came for?" I was quite shocked for her, and could only shrug in dismay and let her pa.s.s. When there is no one else she is courted to stay!

Mr. and Mrs. Fisher came soon after; and the Princesses Augusta and Amelia fetched away Mrs. Delany.

Soon after Colonel Wellbred came, ushering in Mr. Fairly and his young son, who is at Eton school. I had seen Mr. F. but once since his great and heavy loss, though now near half a year had elapsed. So great a personal alteration in a few months I have seldom seen: thin, haggard, worn with care, grief, and watching-- his hair turned grey--white, rather, and some of his front teeth vanished. He seemed to have suffered, through his feelings, the depredations suffered by Others through age and time. His demeanour, upon this trying occasion, filled me with as much admiration as his countenance did with compa.s.sion : calm, composed, and gentle, he seemed bent on appearing not only resigned, but cheerful. I might even have supposed him verging on being happy, had not the havoc of grief on his face, and the tone of deep melancholy in his voice, a.s.sured me his Solitude was all sacred to his sorrows.

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Mr. Fisher was very sad himself, grieving at the death of Dr.

Harley, Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Hereford. He began, however, talking to me of these "Letters," and, with him, I could speak of them, and of their publisher, without reserve: but the moment they were named Mrs. Schwellenberg uttered such hard and harsh things, that I could not keep my seat and the less, because, knowing my strong friendship there in former days, I was sure it was meant I should be hurt, I attempted not to speak, well aware all defence is irritation, where an attack is made from ill-nature, not justice.

The gentle Mr. Fisher, sorry for the cause and the effect of this a.s.sault, tried vainly to turn it aside: what began with censure soon proceeded to invective; and at last, being really sick from crowding recollections of past scenes, where the person now thus vilified had been dear and precious to my very heart, I was forced, abruptly, to walk out of the room.

It was indifferent to me whether or not my retreat was noticed.

I have never sought to disguise the warm friendship that once subsisted between Mrs. Thrale and myself, for I always hoped that, where it was known, reproach might be spared to a name I can never hear without a secret pang, even when simply mentioned.

Oh, then, how severe a one is added, when its sound is accompanied by the hardest aspersions!

I returned when I could, and the subject was over.

When all were gone Mrs. Schwellenberg said, "I have told it Mr.

Fisher that he drove you out from the room, and he says he won't not do it no more."

She told me next--that in the second volume I also was mentioned.

Where she may have heard this I cannot gather, but it has given me a sickness at heart inexpressible. It is not that I expect severity: for at the time of that correspondence--at all times, indeed, previous to the marriage with Piozzi, if Mrs. Thrale loved not F. B., where shall we find faith in words, or give credit to actions? But her present resentment, however unjustly incurred, of my constant disapprobation of her conduct, may prompt some note, or other mark, to point out her change of sentiments--but let me try to avoid such painful expectations; at least, not to dwell upon them.

O, little does she know how tenderly at this moment I could run again into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable. And it was sincere then, I am satisfied: pride, resentment of disapprobation, and consciousness of unjustifiable proceedings --- these have now

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changed her: but if we met, and she saw and believed my faithful regard, how would she again feel all her own return!

Well, what a dream am I making!

Jan. 11.-Upon this ever-interesting subject, I had to-day a very sweet scene with the queen. While Mrs. Schwellenberg and myself were both in our usual attendance at noon, her majesty inquired of Mrs. Schwellenberg if she had yet read any of the "Letters"?

"No," she answered, "I have them not to read."

I then said she had been so obliging as to lend them to me, to whom they were undoubtedly of far greater personal value.

"That is true," said the queen; "for I think there is but little in them that can be of much consequence or value to the public at large."

"Your majesty, you will hurt Miss Burney if you speak about that; poor Miss Burney will be quite hurt by that."