The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume I Part 37

_Sunday._--We had Mr. and Mrs. Davenant here. They are very lively and agreeable, and I like them more' and more. Mrs. Davenant is one of the saucy women of the ton, indeed; but she has good parts, and is gay and entertaining; and her sposo, who pa.s.sionately adores her, though five years her junior, is one of the best-tempered and most pleasant-charactered young men imaginable....

"Mrs. Davenant is very agreeable," said I to Mr. Crutchley, "I like her much. Don't you?"

"Yes, very much," said he; "she is lively and entertaining;" and then a moment after, "'Tis wonderful," he exclaimed, "that such a thing as that can captivate a man!"

"Nay," cried I, "n.o.body more, for her husband quite adores her."

"So I find," said he; "and Mrs. Thrale says men in general like her."

"They certainly do," cried I, "and all the oddity is in you who do not, not in them who do."

"May be so," answered he, "but it don't do for me, indeed."

We then came to two gates, and there I stopped short, to wait till they joined us; and Mr. Crutchley, turning about and looking at Mrs.

Davenant, as she came forward, said, rather in a muttering voice, and to himself than to me, "What a thing for an attachment! No, no, it would not do for me!--too much glare! too much flippancy! too much hoop!

too much gauze! too much slipper! too much neck! Oh, hide it! hide it! m.u.f.fle it up! m.u.f.fle it up! If it is but in a fur cloak, I am for m.u.f.fling it all up!"

A "POOR WRETCH OF A PAINTER."

I had new specimens to-day of the oddities of Mr. Crutchley, whom I do not yet quite understand, though I have seen so much of him. In the course of our walks to-day we chanced, at one time, to be somewhat before the rest of the company, and soon got into a very serious conversation; though we began it by his relating a most ludicrous incident which had happened to him last winter.

There is a certain poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr.

Lowe,[137] who is in some measure under Dr. Johnson's protection, and whom, therefore, he recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit for their pictures. Among these he made Mr. Seward very readily, and then applied to Mr. Crutchley.

"But now," said Mr. Crutchley, as he told me the circ.u.mstance, "I have not a notion of sitting for my picture,--for who wants it? I may as well give the man the money without; but no, they all said that would not do so well, and Dr. Johnson asked me to give him my picture. 'And I a.s.sure you, sir,' says he, 'I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of some very respectable people in my dining-room.' 'Ay, sir,'

says I, 'that's sufficient reason why you should not have mine, for I am sure it has no business in such society.' So then Mrs. Thrale asked me to give it to her. 'Ay sure, ma'am,' says I, 'you do me great honour; but pray, first, will you do me the favour to tell me what door you intend to put it behind?' However, after all I could say in opposition, I was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him in such a condition! a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling and wrangling, up two pair of stairs, and a closet, of which the door was open, that Seward well said was quite Pandora's box--it was the repository of all the nastiness, and stench, and filth, and food, and drink, and---oh, it was too bad to be borne! and 'Oh!' says I, 'Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for running away, but I have just recollected another engagement;' so I poked the three guineas in his hand, and told him I would come again another time, and then ran out of the house with all my might."

DR. JOHNSON IN A RAGE.

_June.--Wednesday_--We had a terrible noisy day. Mr. and Mrs. Cator came to dinner, and brought with them Miss Collison, a niece. Mrs. Nesbitt was also here, and Mr. Pepys.[138]

The long war which has been proclaimed among the wits concerning Lord Lyttelton's "Life," by Dr. Johnson, and which a whole tribe of "blues,"

with Mrs. Montagu at their head, have vowed to execrate and revenge, now broke out with all the fury of the first actual hostilities, stimulated by long concerted schemes and much spiteful information. Mr. Pepys, Dr.

Johnson well knew, was one of Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors; and, therefore, as he had some time determined to defend himself with the first of them he met, this day he fell the sacrifice to his wrath.

In a long tete-a-tete which I accidentally had with Mr. Pepys before the company was a.s.sembled, he told me his apprehensions of an attack, and entreated me earnestly to endeavour to prevent it; modestly avowing he was no antagonist for Dr. Johnson; and yet declaring his personal friends.h.i.+p for Lord Lyttelton made him so much hurt by the "Life," that he feared he could not discuss the matter without a quarrel, which, especially in the house of Mrs. Thrale, he wished to avoid.

It was, however, utterly impossible for me to serve him. I could have stopped Mrs. Thrale with ease, and Mr. Seward with a hint, had either of them begun the subject; but, unfortunately, in the middle of dinner, it was begun by Dr. Johnson himself, to oppose whom, especially as he spoke with great anger, would have been madness and folly.

Never before have I seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much pa.s.sion.

"Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my 'Life of Lord Lyttelton.' What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring!"

"No, sir," cried Mr. Pepys, "not at present; I must beg leave to decline the subject. I told Miss Burney before dinner that I hoped it would not be started."

I was quite frightened to hear my own name mentioned in a debate which began so seriously; but Dr. Johnson made not--to this any answer, he repeated his attack and his challenge, and a violent disputation ensued, in which this great but mortal man did, to own the truth, appear unreasonably furious and grossly severe. I never saw him so before, and I heartily hope I never shall again. He has been long provoked, and justly enough, at the sneaking complaints and murmurs of the Lytteltonians; and, therefore, his long-excited wrath, which hitherto had met no object, now burst forth with a vehemence and bitterness almost incredible.

Mr. Pepys meantime never appeared to so much advantage; he preserved his temper, uttered all that belonged merely to himself with modesty, and all that more immediately related to Lord Lyttelton with spirit. Indeed, Dr. Johnson, in the very midst of the dispute, had the candour and liberality to make him a personal compliment, by saying

"Sir, all that you say, while you are vindicating one who cannot thank you, makes me only think better of you than I ever did before. Yet still I think you do me wrong," etc., etc.

Some time after, in the heat of the argument, he called out,--

"The more my Lord Lyttelton is inquired after, the worse he will appear; Mr. Seward has just heard two stories of him, which corroborate all I have related."

He then desired Mr. Seward to repeat them. Poor Mr. Seward looked almost as frightened as myself at the very mention of his name; but he quietly and immediately told the stories, which consisted of fresh instances, from good authorities, of Lord Lyttelton's illiberal behaviour to Shenstone; and then he flung himself back in his chair, and spoke no more during the whole debate, which I am sure he was ready to vote a bore.

One happy circ.u.mstance, however, attended the quarrel, which was the presence of Mr. Cator, who would by no means be prevented talking himself, either by reverence for Dr. Johnson, or ignorance of the subject in question; on the contrary, he gave his opinion, quite uncalled upon every thing that was said by either party, and that with an importance and pomposity, yet with an emptiness and verbosity, that rendered the whole dispute, when in his hands, nothing more than ridiculous, and compelled even the disputants themselves, all inflamed as they were, to laugh. To give a specimen--one speech will do for a thousand.

"As to this here question of Lord Lyttelton, I can't speak to it to the purpose, as I have not read his 'Life,' for I have only read the 'Life of Pope;' I have got the books though, for I sent for them last week, and they came to me on Wednesday, and then I began them; but I have not yet read 'Lord Lyttelton.' 'Pope' I have begun, and that is what I am now reading. But what I have to say about Lord Lyttelton is this here: Mr. Seward says that Lord Lyttelton's steward dunned Mr. Shenstone for his rent, by which I understand he was a tenant of Lord Lyttelton's.

Well, if he was a tenant of Lord Lyttelton's, why should not he pay his rent?"

Who could contradict this?

When dinner was quite over, and we left the men to their wine, we hoped they would finish the affair; but Dr. Johnson was determined to talk it through, and make a battle of it, though Mr. Pepys tried to be off continually. When they were all summoned to tea, they entered still warm and violent. Mr. Cator had the book in his hand, and was 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.[139]

THE MISERABLE HOST AND MELANCHOLY GUEST.

_Monday, June 17._--There pa.s.sed, 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 Berks.h.i.+re; and to-day 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 pa.s.sed--but a few, by way of specimen, I will give.