The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
wit, and understanding, his knowledge, writings, and humour.
I should have been very ready to have joined with him, had I not feared he meant an implied reproach to me, for not being more grateful for the praise of a man such as he described. I am sorry he was present if that is the case; but the truth is, the evening was not merely disagreeable but painful to me.
An Italian Singer’s Views of England
Saturday.—While Mr. George Cambridge was here Pacchierotti called-very grave, but very sweet. Mr. G. C. asked if he spoke English.
“O, very well,” cried I, “pray try him; he is very amiable, and I fancy you will like him.”
Pacchierotti began with complaining of the variable weather.
“I cannot,” he said, “be well such an inconsistent day.”
We laughed at the word “inconsistent,” and Mr. Cambridge said,—
“It is curious to see what new modes all languages may take in the hands of foreigners. The natives dare not try such experiments; and, therefore, we all talk pretty much alike; but a foreigner is obliged to hazard new expressions, and very often he shews us a force and power in our words, by an unusual adaptation of them, that we were not ourselves aware they would admit.”
And then, to draw Pacchierotti out, he began a dispute, of the different merits of Italy and England; defending his own country merely to make him abuse it; while Pacchierotti most eagerly took up the gauntlet on the part of Italy.
“This is a climate,” said Pacchierotti, “never in the same case for half an hour at a time; it shall be fair, and wet, and dry, and humid, forty times in a morning in the least. I am tired to be so played with, sir, by your climate.”
“We have one thing, however, Mr. Pacchierotti,” he answered, “which I hope you allow makes some amends, and that is our verdure; in Italy you cannot boast that.”
“But it seem to me, sir, to be of no utility so much evergreen is rather too much for my humble opinion.”
“And then your insects, Mr. Pacchierotti! those alone are a most dreadful drawback upon the comfort of your fine climate.”
“I must own,” said Pacchierotti, “Italy is rather disagreeable for the insects; but is it not better, sir, than an atmosphere so bad as they cannot live in it?”
“Why, as I can’t defend our atmosphere, I must shift my ground, and talk to you of our fires, which draw together society.”
“O indeed, good sir, your societies are not very invigorating! Twenty people of your gentlemen and ladies to sit about a fire, and not to pronounce one word, is very dull!”
We laughed heartily at this retort courteous.
Raptures of the “Old Wits” over “Cecilia”
(Mary Delany was the daughter of Bernard Granville, younger brother of George Granville, Baron Lansdowne, the poet and friend of Wycherley and Pope. She was born on the 14th Of May, 1700. Her uncle, Lord Lansdowne, was a better friend to the Muses than to his young niece, for he forced poor Mary Granville, at the age of seventeen, to marry one Alexander Pendarves, a coarse, hard drinking Cornish squire, of more than three times her age. Pendarves died some six years later, and his widow married, in 1743, Dr. Patrick Delany, the friend of Swift. With Delany she lived happily for fifteen years, and after his death in 1768, Mrs. Delany devoted most of her time to her bosom friend, the dowager Duchess of Portland (see note 161, ante.), at whose seat at Bulstrode she usually spent the summer, while during the winter she resided at her own house in St. James’s-place, where she was constantly visited by the Duchess. On the death of the Duchess in July, 1785, King George bestowed upon Mrs. Delany, whose means were not such as to make an addition to them a matter of indifference, a furnished house at Windsor and a pension Of 300 pounds a year. These she enjoyed for less than three years, dying on the 15th of April, 1788.
The strong attachment which grew up between her and Fanny renders Mrs. Delany a very interesting figure in the “Diary.” Nor was Fanny’s enthusiasm for her aged friend misdirected. Speaking of Mrs. Delany, Edmund Burke said: “She was a perfect pattern of a perfect fine lady: a real fine lady of other days. Her manners were faultless; her deportment was of marked elegance; her speech was all sweetness; and her air and address were all dignity. I have always looked up to Mrs. Delany, as the model of an accomplished gentlewoman of former times.”143
Sunday, January 19—And now for Mrs. Delany. I spent one hour with Mrs. Thrale, and then called for Mrs. Chapone,144 and we proceeded together to St. James’s-place.
Mrs. Delany was alone in her drawing-room, which is entirely hung round with pictures of her own painting, and Ornaments of her own designing. She came to the door to receive us. She is still tall, though some of her height may be lost: not much, however, for she is remarkably upright. She has no remains of beauty in feature, but in countenance I never but once saw more, and that was in my sweet maternal grandmother. Benevolence, softness, piety, and gentleness are all resident in her face; and the resemblance with which she struck me to my dear grandmother, in her first appearance, grew so much stronger from all that came from her mind, which seems to contain nothing but purity and native humility, that I almost longed to embrace her; and I am sure if I had the recollection of that saint-like woman would have been so strong that I should never have refrained from crying over her.
Mrs. Chapone presented me to her, and taking my hand, she said,—
“You must pardon me if I give you an old-fashioned reception, for I know nothing new.” And she saluted me. I did not, as with Mrs. Walsingham, retreat from her.
“Can you forgive, Miss Burney,” she continued, “this great liberty I have taken with you, of asking for your company to dinner? I wished so impatiently to see one from whom I have received such extraordinary pleasure, that, as I could not be alone this morning, I could not bear to put it off to another day; and, if you had been so good to come in the evening, I might, perhaps, have had company; and I hear so ill that I cannot, as I wish to do, attend to more than one at a time; for age makes me stupid even more than I am by nature; and how grieved and mortified I must have been to know I had Miss Burney in the room, and not to hear her!”
She then mentioned her regret that we could not stay and spend the evening with her, which had been told her in our card of accepting her invitation, as we were both engaged, which, for my part, I heartily regretted.
“I am particularly sorry,” she added, “on account of the Duchess dowager of Portland, who is so good as to come to me in an evening, as she knows I am too infirm to wait upon her grace myself: and she wished so much to see Miss Burney. But she said she would come as early as possible.”
Soon after we went to dinner, which was plain, neat, well cooked, and elegantly served. When it was over, I began to speak; and now, my Chesington auditors, look to yourselves!
“Will you give me leave, ma’am, to ask if you remember any body of the name of Crisp?”
“Crisp?” cried she, “What! Mrs. Ann Crisp?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“O surely! extremely well! a charming, an excellent woman she was; we were very good friends once; I visited her at Burford, and her sister Mrs. Gast.”
Then came my turn, and I talked of the brother——but I won’t write what I said. Mrs. Delany said she knew him but very little; and by no means so much as she should have liked. I reminded her of a letter he wrote her from abroad, which she immediately recollected.
This Chesingtonian talk lasted till we went upstairs, and then she shewed me the new art which she had invented. It is staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it out, so finely, and delicately, that when it is pasted on paper or vellum, it has all the appearance of being pencilled, except that,