The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
this he told us a story of an expectation he had of being robbed, and of the protection he found from a very large dog that he is very fond of.”
“I walk out,” he said, “in the night; I go towards the field; I behold a man—oh, ugly one! I proceed—he follow; I go on—he address me. ‘You have one dog,’ he says. ‘Yes,’ say I to him. ‘Is a fierce dog?’ he says; ‘is he fiery?’ ‘Yes,’ reply I, ‘he can bite.’ ‘I would not attack in the night,’ says he, ‘a house to have such dog in it.’ Then I conclude he was a breaker, so I turn to him——oh, very rough! not gentle—and I say, very fierce, ‘He shall destroy you, if you are ten!’”
Afterwards, speaking of the Irish giant, who is now shown in town, he said,—
“He is so large I am as a baby! I look at him—oh! I find myself so little as a child! Indeed, my indignation it rises when I see him hold up his hand so high. I am as nothing; and I find myself in the power of a man who fetches from me half a crown.”
This language, which is all spoke very pompously by him, sounds comical from himself, though I know not how it may read.
105 Sir Philip Jennings Clerke.
106 Mauritius Lowe, a natural son of Lord Southwell. He sent a large picture of the Deluge to the Royal Academy in 1783, and was so distressed at its rejection, that Johnson compassionately wrote to Sirjoshua Reynolds in his behalf, entreating that the verdict might be reconsidered. His intercession was successful, and the picture was admitted. We know nothing of Mr. Lowe’s work.
107 Afterwards Sir William P. Weller Pepys. See note 103, ante.
108 “The moment he was gone, ‘Now,’ says Dr. Johnson, ‘is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better, who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!’” (Mrs. Piozzi’s “Anecdotes of Johnson.”)
109 The celebrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, equally famous for her personal attractions and her political enthusiasm in the Whig interest. Her canvassing, and, it is said, her kisses, largely contributed to the return of Charles james Fox for Westminster in the election of 1784. She was the daughter of John, first Earl Spencer; was born 1757; married, 1774, to William, fifth Duke of Devonshire; and died, 1806. Her portrait was painted by both Reynolds and Gainsborough. Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland, was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, and was married, in 1775, to Charles Mariners, fourth Duke of Rutland. She died, 1831.
110 Susan and Sophy were younger daughters of Mrs. Thrale
111 The manager of Mr. Thrale’s brewery.
112 i.e. To Streatham: Fanny had been home in the interval.
113 Of Bath Easton: husband of the lady of the “Vase.” See note 123, ante, P. 174.
114 Captain Molesworth Phillips, who had recently married Susan Burney.
115 Gasparo Pacchierotti, a celebrated Italian singer, and a very intimate friend of the Burney family.
116 “Variety,” a comedy, was produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 25, 1782, and ran nine nights. Genest calls it a dull play, with little or no plot. The author is unknown.
117 Dr. Jonathan Shipley.
118 The husband of Fanny Burney’s sister, Susan.
119 Poor Lady Di was throughout unfortunate in her marriages. Her first husband, Lord Bolingbroke, to whom she was married in 1757, brutally used her, and drove her to seek elsewhere the affection which he failed to bestow. She was divorced from him in 1768, and married, immediately afterwards, to Topham Beauclerk, who, in his turn, ill-treated her. Mr. Beauclerk died in March, 1780. He was greatly esteemed by Johnson, but his good qualities appear to have been rather of the head than of the heart.
120 Her cousin Edward Burney, the painter. A reproduction of his portrait of Fanny forms the frontispiece to the present volume.
121 Pasquale Paoli, the famous Corsican general and patriot. He maintained the independence of his country against the Genoese for nearly ten years. In 1769, upon the submission of Corsica to France, to which the Genoese had ceded it, Paoli settled in England, where he enjoyed a pension of 1200 pounds a year from the English Government. More details respecting this delightful interview between Fanny and the General are given in the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney” (vol. ii. p. 255), from which we select the following extracts:—
“He is a very pleasing man; tall and genteel in his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite; and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; rather than as if he had left the warlike field where he had led his armies to battle.
“When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, though smilingly, and said; ‘I am very glad enough to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have wished for long enough. O charming book! I give it you my word I have read it often enough. It is my favourite studioso for apprehending the English language; which is difficult often. I pray you, Miss Evelina, write some more little volumes of the quickest.’
“I disclaimed the name, and was walking away; but he followed me with an apology. ‘I pray your pardon, Mademoiselle. My ideas got in a blunder often. It is Miss Borni what name I meant to accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina.’"
(1782–3-4-)
“CECILIA”: A PAEAN OF PRAISE: LAMENTATIONS
(“This is the last visit remembered, or, at least, narrated, of Streatham.” With these words Madame D’Arblay concludes the account given in the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” of her meeting with General Paoli. In the autumn Of 1782 Mrs. Thrale went, with her daughters and Dr. Johnson, to Brighthelmstone, where Fanny joined them. On their return to London, November 20, the Thrales settled for the winter in Argyle-street, and Fanny repaired to her father’s residence in St. Martin’s-street. She saw much of Mrs. Thrale during the winter, but in the following April that lady quitted London for Bath, where she resided until her marriage with Signor Piozzi in the summer of 1784. She maintained an affectionate correspondence with Fanny until after the marriage, but from the date of their parting in London, they saw no more of each other, except for one brief interval in May, 1784, for several years.
We must here give an account, as concise as possible, of the transaction which was so bitterly resented by the friends of Mrs. Thrale, but in which her conduct seems to us, taking all the circumstances fairly into consideration, to have been less deserving of condemnation than their uncharitableness. She had first seen Piozzi, an Italian singer, at a party at Dr. Burney’s in 1777, and her behaviour to him on that occasion had certainly afforded no premonition of her subsequent infatuation. Piozzi, who was nearly of the same age as herself, was, as Miss Seward describes him, “a handsome man, with gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession.” He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, “knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver.” However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding the proceedings dull, was seized with a desire to enliven them. “In a fit of utter recklessness, she suddenly, but softly, arose, and stealing on tiptoe behind Signor Piozzi, who was accompanying himself on the pianoforte to an animated aria parlante, with his back to the company and his face to the wall, she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes, while languishingly reclining her head; as if she were not less enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the