The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
upon some lines of Gray, and upon Pope’s definition of wit, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, wishing Mrs. Thrale good night, very abruptly withdrew.
Dr. Johnson was certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred. What pity that he will not curb the vehemence of his love of victory and superiority.
The sum of the dispute was this. Wit being talked of, Mr. Pepys repeated,—
“True wit is Nature to advantage dress’d, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.”
“That, sir,” cried Dr. Johnson, “is a definition both false and foolish. Let wit be dressed how it will, it will equally be wit, and neither the more nor the less for any advantage dress can give it.”
Mr. P.—But, sir, may not wit be so ill expressed, and so obscure, by a bad speaker, as to be lost?
Dr. J.—The fault, then, sir, must be with the hearer. If a man cannot distinguish wit from words, he little deserves to hear it.
Mr. P.—But, sir, what Pope means—
Dr. J.—Sir, what Pope means, if he means what he says, is both false and foolish. In the first place, ‘what oft was thought,’ is all the worse for being often thought, because to be wit, it ought to be newly thought.
Mr. P.—But, sir, ’tis the expression makes it new.
Dr. J.—How can the expression make it new? It may make it clear, or may make it elegant——but how new? You are confounding words with things.
Mr. P.—But, sir, if one man says a thing very ill, may not another man say it so much better that—
Dr. J.—That other man, sir, deserves but small praise for the amendment; he is but the tailor to the first man’s thoughts.
Mr. P.—True, sir, he may be but the tailor; but then the difference is as great as between a man in a gold lace suit and a man in a blanket.
Dr. J.—Just so, sir, I thank you for that; the difference is precisely such, since it consists neither in the gold lace suit nor the blanket, but in the man by whom they are worn.
This was the summary; the various contemptuous sarcasms intermixed would fill, and very unpleasantly, a quire.
A Cunning Runaway Heiress
Oct. 30.—Lady Warren is immensely tall, and extremely beautiful; she is now but just nineteen, though she has been married two or three years. She is giddy, gay, chatty, good-humoured, and a little affected; she hazards all that occurs to her, seems to think the world at her feet, and is so young and gay and handsome that she is not much mistaken. She is, in short, an inferior Lady Honoria Pemberton;124 somewhat beneath her in parts and understanding, but strongly in that class of character. I had no conversation with her myself; but her voice is loud and deep, and all she said was for the whole room.
Marriages being talked of, “I’ll tell you,” cried she, “a story; that is, it sha’n’t be a story, but a fact. A lady of my acquaintance, who had 50,000L. fortune, ran away to Scotland with a gentleman she liked vastly; so she was a little doubtful of him, and had a mind to try him: so when they stopped to dine, and change horses, and all that, she said, ‘Now, as I have a great regard for you, I dare say you have for me—so I will tell you a secret: I have got no fortune at all, in reality, but only 5,000 pounds; for all the rest is a mere pretence: but if you like me for myself, and not for my fortune, you won’t mind that.’ So the gentleman said, ‘Oh, I don’t regard it at all, and you are the same charming angel that ever you was,’ and all those sort of things that people say to one, and then went out to see about the chaise. So he did not come back; but when dinner was ready, the lady said ‘Pray, where is he?’ ‘Lor, ma’am,’ said they, ‘why, that gentleman has been gone ever so long!’ So she came back by herself; and now she’s married to somebody else, and has her 50,000 pounds fortune all safe.”
Dr. Johnson a Bore
Saturday, November 2.—We went to Lady Shelley’s. Dr. Johnson, again, excepted in the invitation. He is almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone, and as, though he scolds the others, he is well enough satisfied himself, and having given vent to all his own occasional anger or ill-humour, he is ready to begin again, and is never aware that those who have so been “downed” by him, never can much covet so triumphant a visitor. In contests of wit, the victor is as ill off in future consequences as the vanquished in present ridicule.
Monday, November 4.—This was a grand and busy day. Mr. Swinerton has been some time arranging a meeting for all our house, with Lady De Ferrars, whom you may remember as Charlotte Ellerker, and her lord and sisters: and this morning it took place, by mutual appointment, at his lodgings, where we met to breakfast. Dr. Johnson, who already knew Lord De Ferrars, and Mrs. and Miss Thrale, and myself, arrived first and then came the Lord and Lady, and Miss Ellerker and her youngest sister, Harriet. Lord De Ferrars is very ugly, but extremely well-bred, gentle, unassuming, sensible, and pleasing. His lady is much improved since we knew her in former days, and seems good-humoured, lively, and rather agreeable. Miss Ellerker is nothing altered.
I happened to be standing by Dr. Johnson when all the ladies came in; but, as I dread him before strangers, from the staring attention he attracts both for himself and all with whom he talks, I endeavoured to change my ground. However, he kept prating a sort of comical nonsense that detained me some minutes whether I would or not; but when we were all taking places at the breakfast-table I made another effort to escape. It proved vain; he drew his chair next to mine, and went rattling on in a humorous sort of comparison he was drawing of himself to me,—not one word of which could I enjoy, or can I remember, from the hurry I was in to get out of his way. In short, I felt so awkward from being thus marked out, that I was reduced to whisper a request to Mr. Swinerton to put a chair between us, for which I presently made a space: for I have often known him stop all conversation with me, when he has ceased to have me for his next neighbour. Mr. Swinerton who is an extremely good-natured young man, and so intimate here that I make no scruple with him, instantly complied, and placed himself between us.
But no sooner was this done, than Dr. Johnson, half seriously, and very loudly, took him to task.
“‘How now, sir! what do you mean by this? Would you separate me from Miss Burney?”
Mr. Swinerton, a little startled, began some apologies, and Mrs. Thrale winked at him to give up the place; but he was willing to oblige me, though he grew more and more frightened every minute, and coloured violently as the Doctor continued his remonstrance, which he did with rather unmerciful raillery, upon his taking advantage of being in his own house to thus supplant him, and cram; but when he had borne it for about ten minutes, his face became so hot with the fear of hearing something worse, that he ran from the field, and took a chair between Lady De Ferrars and Mrs. Thrale.
I think I shall take warning by this failure, to trust only to my own expedients for avoiding his public notice in future. However it stopped here; for Lord De Ferrars came in, and took the disputed place without knowing of the contest, and all was quiet.
Miss Burney will not be Persuaded to Dance
. . . Late as it was, it was settled we should go to the ball, the last for the season being this night. My own objections about going not being strong enough to combat the ado my mentioning them would have occasioned, I joined in the party, without demur.
The ball was half over, and all the company seated to tea. Mr. Wade125 came to receive us all, as usual, and we had a table procured for us, and went