The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
reading the “Life of Lyttelton,” that he might better, he said, understand the cause, though not a creature cared if he had never heard of it.
Mr. Pepys came up to me and said—
“Just what I had so much wished to avoid! I have been crushed in the very onset.”
I could make him no answer, for Dr. Johnson immediately called him off, and harangued and attacked him with a vehemence and continuity that quite concerned both Mrs. Thrale and myself, and that made Mr. Pepys, at last, resolutely silent, however called upon. This now grew more unpleasant than ever; till Mr. Cator, having some time studied his book, exclaimed—
“What I am now going to say, as I have not yet read the ‘Life of Lord Lyttelton’ quite through, must be considered as being only said aside, because what I am going to say—”
“I wish, sir,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “it had been all said aside; here is too much about it, indeed, and I should be very glad to hear no more of it.”
This speech, which she made with great spirit and dignity, had an admirable effect. Everybody was silenced. Mr. Cator, thus interrupted in the midst of his proposition, looked quite amazed; Mr. Pepys was much gratified by the interference; and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, said—
“Well, madam, you shall hear no more of it; yet I will defend myself in every part and in every atom!”
And from this time the subject was wholly dropped. This dear violent doctor was conscious he had been wrong, and therefore he most candidly bore the reproof. . . .
When the leave-taking time arrived, Dr. Johnson called to Mr. Pepys to shake hands, an invitation which was most coldly and forcibly accepted.108
The Miserable Host and Melancholy Guest
Monday, June 17.—There passed, some time ago, an ‘agreement’ between Mr. Crutchley and Mr. Seward, that the latter is to make a visit to the former, at his country house in Berkshire; and today the time was settled; but a more ridiculous scene never was exhibited. The host elect and the guest elect tried which should show least expectation of pleasure from the meeting, and neither of them thought it at all worth while to disguise his terror of being weary of the other. Mr. Seward seemed quite melancholy and depressed in the prospect of making, and Mr. Crutchley absolutely miserable in that of receiving, the visit. Yet nothing so ludicrous as the distress of both, since nothing less necessary than that either should have such a punishment inflicted. I cannot remember half the absurd things that passed—but a few, by way of specimen, I will give.
“How long do you intend to stay with me, Seward?” cried Mr. Crutchley; “how long do you think you can bear it?”
“O, I don’t know; I sha’n’t fix,” answered the other: “just as I find it.”
“Well, but—when shall you come? Friday or Saturday? I think you’d better not come till Saturday.”
“Why, yes, I believe on Friday.”
“On Friday! Oh, you’ll have too much of it! what shall I do with you?”
“Why, on Sunday we’ll dine at the Lyells’. Mrs. Lyell is a charming woman; one of the most elegant creatures I ever saw.”
“Wonderfully so,” cried Mr. Crutchley; “I like her extremely—an insipid idiot! She never opens her mouth but in a whisper; I never heard her speak a word in my life. But what must I do with you on Monday? will you come away?”
“Oh, no; I’ll stay and see it out.”
“Why, how long shall you stay? Why, I must come away myself on Tuesday.”
“O, I sha’n’t settle yet,” cried Mr. Seward, very dryly. “I shall put up six shirts, and then do as I find it.”
“Six shirts!” exclaimed Mr. Crutchley ‘; and then, with equal dryness, added—“Oh, I suppose you wear two a-day.”
And so on. . . .
June 26.—Mr. Crutchley said he had just brought Mr. Seward to town in his phaeton, alive. He gave a diverting account of the visit, which I fancy proved much better than either party pretended to expect, as I find Mr. Seward not only went a day sooner, but stayed two days later, than was proposed; and Mr. Crutchley, on his part, said he had invited him to repeat his visit at any time when he knew not in what other manner “to knock down a day or two. When he was at my place,” continued Mr. Crutchley, “he did himself up pretty handsomely; he ate cherries till he complained most bitterly of indigestion, and he poured down madeira and port most plentifully, but without relief. Then he desired to have some peppermint-water, and he drank three glasses; still that would not do, and he said he must have a large quantity of ginger. We had no such thing in the house. However, he had brought some, it seems, with him, and then he took that, but still to no purpose. At last, he desired some brandy, and tossed off a glass of that; and, after all, he asked for a dose of rhubarb. Then we had to send and inquire all over the house for this rhubarb, but our folks had hardly ever heard of such a thing. I advised him to take a good bumper of gin and gunpowder, for that seemed almost all he had left untried.”
Two Celebrated Duchesses Discussed
Wednesday, June 26.—Dr. Johnson, who had been in town some days, returned, and Mr. Crutchley came also, as well as my father. I did not see the two latter till summoned to dinner; and then Dr. Johnson seizing my hand, while with one of his own he gave me a no very gentle tap on the shoulder, half drolly and half reproachfully called out—
“Ah, you little baggage, you! and have you known how long I have been here, and never to come to me?”
And the truth is, in whatever sportive mood he expresses it, he really likes not I should be absent from him half a minute whenever he is here, and not in his own apartment.
Dr. Johnson, as usual, kept me in chat with him in the library after all the rest had dispersed; but when Mr. Crutchley returned again, he went upstairs, and, as I was finishing some work I had in hand, Mr. Crutchley, either from civility or a sudden turn to loquacity, forbore his books, to talk.
Among other folks, we discussed the two rival duchesses, Rutland and Devonshire.109 “The former,” he said, “must, he fancied, be very weak and silly, as he knew that she endured being admired to her face, and complimented perpetually, both upon her beauty and her dress;” and when I asked whether he was one who joined in trying her—
“Me!” cried he, “no, indeed! I never complimented any body; that is, I never said to any body a thing I did not think, unless I was openly laughing at them, and making sport for other people.”
“Oh,” cried I, “if everybody went by this rule, what a world of conversation would be curtailed! The Duchess of Devonshire, I fancy, has better parts.”
“Oh yes; and a fine, pleasant, open countenance. She came to my sister’s once, in Lincolnshire, when I was there, in order to see hare-hunting, which was then quite new to her.”
“She is very amiable, I believe,” said I, “for all her friends love and speak highly of her.”
“Oh, yes, very much so—perfectly good-humoured and unaffected. And her horse was led, and she was frightened; and we told her that was the hare, and that was the dog; and the dog pointed to the hare, and the hare ran away from the dog and then she took courage, and then she was timid;—and, upon my word, she did it all very prettily! For my part, I liked it so well, that in half an hour I took to my own horse, and rode away.”
Mr. Crutchley is Bantered about his Pride
While we were at church on Sunday morning, we heard a sermon, upon which, by means of a speech I chanced to make, we have been talking ever since. The subject was treating of humility, and declaiming against pride; in the midst of